Love in the Land of Barefoot Soldiers

by Frances Vieta

  The American Seventh-Day Adventist Hospital was hit in rapid succession by five high explosive bombs. One bomb went directly through the hospital building, tearing off the roof of the surgery, destroying two wards and the instrument room. Then, as it had started, seventeen minutes later it was over.

  “Ceseli, Ceseli . . .,” Yifru hollered, looking inside the building. His eyes were burning from the smoke. He looked around to see whole clusters of Ethiopian tukuls burning. He spotted her crawling out of the wrecked building.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she said, wiping the tears from her smarting eyes. “I’m not crying. It’s just the smoke.”

  Yifru looked at her. Her hair was singed at the back and dark spots of soot covered her face and hands. “Ceseli, I think it’s time you went home.”

  “No. It isn’t. Don’t change your mind the first time something goes wrong.”

  Yifru, not answering, studied her determined expression. Then he noticed the small boy who came up to her and put his hand into hers.

  Kneeling she smiled at the child. “Don’t be afraid.”

  The little boy began a tentative smile that soon widened to reveal his irregularly shaped teeth. He was tiny, Yifru noticed, but seemed to have considerable courage for his eight or nine years. He stayed with her holding her hand reassuringly.

  Yifru looked at her. “You’ve made a friend for life,” he said, turning to the child. “What’s your name?”

  “Habtu,” the boy answered shyly.

  “Where do you live?”

  “In that cave,” the boy said, pointing toward the far ridge.

  “You see, I’m in good hands,” Ceseli smiled at Yifru. “What does Habtu mean?”

  Yifru paused for a moment. “It’s the kind of feeling you get when you have your first child.”

  Ceseli frowned trying to capture the feeling. “He comes here every day. One day, he even brought one of his sheep to show me and I think he wants to take me home to meet his mother. We’ll see. We’re pretty busy right here for now.”

  After the planes withdrew, the emperor abandoned his overheated gun to return inside and draft a letter of protest to the League against the bombing of civilians. Then, donning a cloak and selecting a stick, he walked through the town visiting the wounded. Yifru, walking with him, counted fifty-three people dead and about two hundred injured. These were not the cheap fragmentation bombs of other Italian air raids. Two unexploded two hundred pounders were taken to the emperor’s garden where Haile Sellassie and his twelve-year-old son, Ras Makonnen, posed for photographers.

  There were many war correspondents at Dessie camped in the grounds of the American Advent Hospital. Each one of them would have his story, if the same story. One was evacuated to Addis by plane along with a Red Cross nurse who had broken her leg jumping into a ditch to avoid the bombs. Their dispatches about the bombing of a hospital and civilians raised outrage in the capitals of the world.

  As soon as the surgical unit could be set up in the last remaining tent, the doctors began the heart-rending job of amputation. Ceseli’s heart pounded recklessly as one by one, the mutilated limbs were hacked away from their bodies with no anesthesia. These were the first amputations she had ever assisted with. The last one was a girl not more than four. It was her only chance to live, Ceseli knew, but still she felt sickened.

  When it was over, she walked out to the edge of the compound and looked beyond the town. She felt ill and wondered if she would vomit. She was used to blood by now, and the frequent smell of gangrene, the endless moaning of the living and sunken faces of coming death. But this little girl brought her pain beyond belief. Tears started to roll uncontrollably down her cheek. She made no effort to stem them. She sensed, rather than saw, Yifru standing not far away in case she needed protecting. After she recovered she turned to walk back. She knew he would not be there.

  CHAPTER 40

  ON DECEMBER 16, TEN days after the first bombing of Dessie, the emperor received a copy of the secret proposal to end the war. It was prepared by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, and the Prime Minister of France, Pierre Laval and christened the Hoare-Laval Pact.

  The next morning, the emperor summoned to a press conference the European and American journalists who were camped out in the compound of the hospital. Some already knew of the Hoare-Laval proposal and a few had even read its terms.

  The emperor, dressed in his khaki commander-in-chief uniform, was on the porch waiting for them with a prepared statement:

  “We desire to state, with all the solemnity and firmness that the situation demands today, that our willingness to facilitate any pacific solution of this conflict has not changed, but that the act by us of accepting even in principle the Hoare-Laval proposal, would be not only a cowardice toward our people, but also a betrayal of the League of Nations and of all the states that have shown that they could have confidence up to now in the system of collective security.”

  “Is that all you have to say, Your Majesty?” Granger Walker of The New York Times asked.

  “At this time, yes. We are sending a reply to our ambassador in Geneva.”

  The emperor returned to his office and requested that Yifru draft a text to be given to the Ethiopian ambassador at the League.

  “The government and people of Ethiopia do not ask any people in the world to come to Africa and shed their blood in defense of Ethiopia. The blood of Ethiopians will suffice for that.”

  Yifru paused looking out the windows at the towering mountains and thought about the statesmen in Geneva. He could not help wondering how futile was this attempt to try to persuade them that Ethiopia should not be thrown to the wolves. He started again.

  “Is the victim of the aggression to be invited by the League to submit to the aggressor and, in the interests of world peace, to abandon the defense of its independence and integrity against its powerful enemy on the grounds that the latter’s resolve to exterminate its victim is unshakable?

  “Is the victim to be placed under the implicit threat of abandonment by the League and to be deprived of all hope of succor?

  “This matter, which is the main problem for future international relations among peoples, whatever their appearance, their race, or their power may be, ought it not, first of all, to come up before the League, and be examined openly with full freedom and before the eyes of the whole world?”

  As Yifru was finishing the communiqué, Ceseli came up beside him. He handed her the letter and she read it carefully. “He’s not going to give in, is he?”

  “No. He will send this to Geneva and protest the bombing of innocent civilians. He cannot surrender our country, which has remained free for over three thousand years, unless the League of Nations compels us to accept such a judgment.”

  “Which it can’t?”

  “Which it won’t! The British and French seem to think they’re doing us a favor. They think these are the best terms we could expect. I don’t believe that. The best we could have gotten was the embargo on raw materials and the munitions loan the emperor asked for. I would like to know what Mussolini has said of this proposal. I don’t suppose we will.”

  While the emperor was sending his protest to the League of Nations, Mussolini was in Rome toying with the Hoare-Laval appeasement proposal that he had received the week before. In the meantime, he had chosen to make no public mention of it. That was not because he was totally indifferent. The plan did have certain advantages. Foremost of which the fact that the League would probably not apply an oil embargo while the Hoare-Laval was under discussion. That alone would buy him time.

  Early that morning, Il Duce was driven in his huge black FIAT Balilla through the area along the coast to the South of Rome known as the Pontine Marshes. He was on his way to attend the dedication of Pontinia, the latest of the towns reclaimed by draining the malaria infested swamps. The reclamation of these Pontine Marshes, begun in 1931, was one of the accomplishments for which Mussolini could not
be criticized. His plans had provided homes and land for more than fifty thousand people.

  Mussolini was going to Pontinia because it would provide the opportunity for an important speech he wanted to make. Without preamble he began:

  “The Italian people are capable of resisting a very long siege, especially when it is certain in the clearness and tranquility of their conscience that right is on their side, while wrong is on the side of Europe, which in the present circumstances is dishonoring itself. The war we have begun on African soil is a war of civilization and liberation. It is the war of the poor, disinherited, proletarian Italian people. Against us are arrayed the forces of reaction, of selfishness, and hypocrisy. We have embraced a hard struggle against this front. We shall continue this struggle to the end. It will take time, but once a struggle is begun, it is not time that counts, but victory.”

  He waited while the cheering continued, then waved his hand to silence his audience. He needed to hurry back to Rome for an important and scenographic ritual.

  For this important occasion, Mussolini chose an entirely black military uniform to set off his Fascist black shirt. It was already dark and cold on the evening of December 18 as Il Duce looked out at the huge square filled with women. GOLD FOR THE FATHERLAND was to be a propitious ceremony: a truly massive exchange of gold wedding rings for iron ones, each with the inscription Gold for the Fatherland.

  The focal point this evening was the Altar of the Fatherland, the audacious white marble wedding cake monument at the side of Piazza Venezia built in memory of the unification of Italy and its first king, Vittorio Emanuele II. A huge flame rose from a giant crucible on the steps of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. The flame was meant to suggest that the gold began melting as soon as it fell into the crucible.

  Now, as Mussolini watched, Queen Elena, tall and erect, began the procession and with great dignity dropping into the crucible not only her own, but also the King’s ring. Then came Mussolini’s own wife, Rachel, and the wives of other officials.

  After the more celebrated wives had made their sacrifices, the ordinary women of Rome, at least two hundred fifty thousand, took part in the ritual in a seemingly endless procession walking up the steps of the monument to the flaming crucible. Like these women, were millions of other women with as much solemnity in every other Italian city or town.

  Mussolini never disclosed how much gold he collected in the “Gold for the Fatherland” ceremonies, but whatever its monetary value, it was surpassed by the psychological benefit of winning over the Italian women who were now completely on his side.

  CHAPTER 41

  THERE WERE MANY WAR correspondents in Dessie camped out in the grounds of the Advent Hospital. Ceseli did not know them well, but she did know some of them on a first name basis. Harold Anderson was with the Herald Tribune, Granger Walker with The New York Times, Scott Ludlow, the Associated Press; David Park Jennings, The Times of London; and Jacques La Housette, the French Agence Havas.

  It seemed only logical to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, as there would be no bombing that night. Ceseli was happy that there were two other nurses. One was from Sweden, the other from Great Britain. It made her feel less alone.

  “You’re coming, aren’t you?” Walker asked, putting his head into the small room where they kept hospital supplies.

  “Of course I am,” she answered. “Who got us the chicken?”

  “I think it was a gift from the emperor. It is certainly cooked like an Ethiopian chicken,” he laughed. “I guess we’re all getting used to wot.”

  “That’s for sure.” She smiled.

  She liked Walker with his keen sense of humor, ruddy complexion, red hair and freckles. He’s probably in his early forties, she thought, but looked like a plump cherub.

  After dinner she decided to detour to her room by way of Yifru’s office and she found him there, as she was sure she would. I really have to wonder if this man ever sleeps, she thought, and if so, where.

  “Yifru. I have an idea.”

  “I’m sure you do,” he smiled indulgently, “but the answer is no.”

  “You haven’t even heard it.”

  “Ceseli, unless you consider me more of a moron than you let on—”

  “I do not consider you a moron,” she interrupted.

  “Good. That testifies to your good judgment,” he smiled. “Okay. You are not going to celebrate Timkat in Axum. I will send you back to Addis, but I will not risk your life, or that of any of my men, to go to Axum. Not even your mule. I hope that gets my point across.”

  “But . . .”

  “There are no buts. Against my better judgment, I agreed to have you come with the hospital unit. We are very grateful for all your work. You’ve been more help than I could have imagined.” He paused. “And I’ll make you a promise. If we win this war, I will have you taken into the Holy of Holies to see the Ark for yourself.”

  “Really?”

  “I promise, and I’m a good promiser.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That I keep my promises.”

  “It’s a quaint way of putting it,” she smiled, “but I get the meaning, and I accept.”

  “Good,” he smiled again, concealing his mirth.

  “You are very generous to me, Yifru. Thank you.”

  “I knew you were celebrating your Christmas and there is reason to celebrate. Sir Hoare has been forced to retire. The English people were appalled at his proposal. It seems they generally hate Mussolini. Hoare has been replaced by Sir Anthony Eden. Eden has not only been an excellent diplomat at the League, but a good friend to Ethiopia.”

  “He didn’t do too well on the Zeila port deal!”

  “Nobody could have succeeded. He tried to find a peaceful solution. We are grateful to him for that.”

  “Well, I’m glad Hoare was kicked out. Serves him right. Good Night, and thank you for your promise. Let’s see if you are a good promiser.”

  “I am. Don’t worry. I am.” He smiled to himself as she left.

  CHAPTER 42

  “WELL GENTLEMEN, ARE YOU satisfied?” Badoglio asked as he smacked his fly swat against his boot. “You are watching a drama that will unfold in several acts. This is the prologue.”

  The war correspondents assigned to the Italian army listened while General Pietro Badoglio explained how he was going to liquidate the major obstacle blocking the way to Addis Ababa. Bruno Zeri knew that even Badoglio could not remove the nine thousand foot flattop mountain fortress of Amba Aradam twenty miles south of Makalle. He concluded that Badoglio was speaking of the army of the Minister of War, Ras Mulugeta, and his fifty thousand men dug into the peaks, caves, crevices and foothills on its heights.

  Mulugeta had been told that he must occupy a powerful position and simply by sticking to it, keep the Italians in Makalle. He chose Amba Aradam. The great ras was known for his cunning and this was no exception. He sent search parties up the Amba to make sure there was plentiful water and they found five springs. Then slipping through the Italian outposts every night, in groups of fifty to one hundred, he sent his soldiers up the mountain.

  Many of the correspondents had just arrived in Ethiopia and had been banished to Asmara since December. In that time, Badoglio had reinforced his positions, doubled the strength of his artillery and completed a network of roads to establish his supply lines and communications. Furthermore, under Mussolini’s direct orders, the Royal Italian Air Force systematically tormented the Ethiopians, including civilians, with bombs and mustard gas on both the northern and southern fronts.

  As the journalists listened with their notebooks in hand, Badoglio told them that numerically the two armies were about equal. Zeri knew he was lying. He also knew that in comparison to the Italian firepower and the Royal Air Force’s one hundred seventy planes, the Ethiopians had almost nothing. Furthermore, when the planes were not on bombing missions they were used for reconnaissance. The aerial photographs of Amba Aradam showed that while Mulugeta co
uld defend the mountain’s impenetrable northern wall and its virtually impregnable east and west faces, his defenses could be penetrated behind from the Antalo Plain.

  “Put away your notebooks,” the General ordered. “Until further notice, no one will be allowed to send anything to his newspaper. Each man will be expected to maintain military discipline. I consider you soldiers.”

  That night, Zeri indulged in some soul searching. Most of the other journalists were sent to chronicle the campaign in exalted terms and after the war would write books glorifying the achievements of the Italian army. After weeks of self-analysis and long hours of introspection, he had decided that Ceseli Larson was right. You did need to take sides. The truth needed to be told. He now had a mission. So, although he followed Badoglio’s orders not to write dispatches for the paper, he nevertheless, in his own De Farge style, composed his secret music.

  Soon after, Badoglio lifted his orders and on the eve of the fortieth anniversary of the Italian defeat at Adowa in 1896, all the journalists were expected to write a patriotic dispatch. Zeri knew that if he refused, he would be sent home and never complete his own mission. He spread out his notes, lit his cigar, and began to write.

  Special to Corriere della Sera by Bruno Zeri

  29 February 1936, Tembien, Ethiopia-On the eve of the 40th Anniversary of the Battle of Adowa, a decisive victory today avenged the death of our proud martyrs.

  As the ponderous roll of the great Negarait war drum started at dawn, wave after wave of Ethiopians in a seemingly uncoordinated mass left the cover of the woods on the slopes of Debra Ansa flinging themselves onto the Italian lines. With their white toga-like shammas floating on the wind, from eight in the morning until four this afternoon, armed for the most part only with swords and clubs, they tried to break through or get around the forward lines held by the mighty Alpines and Blackshirts.