By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-
We saw last week how the League of Nations, faced by Mussolini’s
invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, branded fascist Italy as the aggressor,
but imposed only ineffective sanctions. Now read on:
The Hoare-Laval Proposals
The British and French foreign ministries, which also had no desire
to see the imposition of an oil sanction, strove meanwhile to devise a
compromise peace which would render it unnecessary to impose one.
Proposals were duly formulated, after which Hoare went to Paris, on 7
December, to finalise them. Their terms were then submitted to both Rome
and Addis Ababa. They were also leaked to the French press, and thus
almost immediately became known to the entire world.
The Hoare-Laval plan, which from the geographical point of view was
strikingly reminiscent of the Tripartite Convention of 1906, proposed
that Ethiopia should cede to Italy more or less all the areas then
occupied by the Italians, i.e. Tegray and Ogaden, and that Italy should
be given “economic rights” over most of southern Ethiopia, except the
very far west, which had earlier been considered a British sphere of
influence. Ethiopia in return was to be offered an outlet to the sea at
Asab, and a corridor through the Afar desert leading thereto, i.e. the
very same arrangement which Ethiopia had found unsatisfactory when
proposed by Italy seven years earlier, in 1928.
These proposals, which the Emperor described as “a prize offering to
the aggressors”, led to a storm of indignation, in Britain and to a
lesser extent throughout the world. Hoare was obliged to resign, and was
replaced by Anthony Eden. In the general excitement public opinion,
however, largely forgot about the question of an oil sanction. The
British and French governments were thus able to continue their
opposition thereto almost without debate. The policy of the new Foreign
Secretary, it soon transpired, differed little from that of his
predecessor. He thus claimed in the House of Commons, on 24 February
1936, that the limited sanctions then in force would “ultimately have an
important influence”, and that there was therefore no need to extend
them to oil, which, he declared, was merely “a sanction like any other”.
This inane remark carried the day, even though it was regarded with
incredulity in some opposition quarters. The British liberal newspaper,
the Manchester Guardian, for example commented, “The half-naked
Abyssinian meeting a “mechanised” enemy could tell him otherwise”.
“If Great Britain had Closed the Suez Canal”
The British and French Governments remained also unwilling to
contemplate closing the Suez Canal, which would almost certainly have
brought the invasion to a halt. This was later recognised by the
American President, Franklin Roosevelt, who observed, “if Great Britain
had closed the Suez Canal, Italy would have been balked in respect to
Abyssinia”.
Failure to impose the oil sanction, or to close the canal, resulted
in the last analysis from the fact that the British and French
Governments saw no interest in halting Mussolini’s invasion. They were
reluctant to see the Duce humiliated, and threatened by rebellion, let
alone provoked into a hostile show of force, and driven into a closer
military alliance with his ideological partner Hitler. Hugh Wilson, the
American representative in Geneva, recalls, “Time and again, I was told
that sanctions applied to Italy must be such as not to drive that nation
to desperation, not to push it to a point where it would assault the
States applying the pressure”.
Initial Resistance
The Ethiopian army, though faced by a much more powerful foe in full
command of the air, succeeded at the end of 1935 in launching a major
counter-offensive, aimed at isolating the Italian position at Maqale.
This operation was carried out by forces under three separate commands:
On the western flank, Gojjam and Bagemder soldiers commanded by Ras Emru
Hayla Sellase. In the centre, Ras Kasa, the overall commander of the
northern front, with his three sons, Asfa Wassan, Abarra, and
Wandwassan, and Ras Seyum Mangasha, with their men, composed
respectively of Amharas and Tegrays. On the eastern wing, the soldiers
of Ras Mulugeta Yeggazu, a veteran of the Adwa war and nominal Minister
of War. These four main commanders, like their Italian opposite numbers
at Adwa forty years earlier, had relatively little contact between each
other. This, however, was not entirely a disadvantage, for the invaders
broke the Ethiopian code, and were therefore informed as to Ethiopian
radio and telegraph messages.
A “Black Period” for Fascist Arms
The Ethiopian Christmas Offensive, as it was sometimes called, drove
the enemy back from the Takkaze River, out of much of the territory De
Bono had captured. This enabled Ras Emru, the most successful of the
three principal Rases, to defeat a force of Italian colonial troops at
the pass of Dambagwina, and advance at several points as far as the
Eritrean frontier. Some Italian observers described this as a “black
period” for fascist arms. The invaders, however, threw all their forces
into the struggle, and made extensive use of artillery, tanks, bombing,
and, on Emru’s front, mustard gas. The Ethiopian advance was halted, and
decisively defeated, between 20 and 24 January 1936.
The Italian victory in the above fighting, which came to be called
the First Battle of Tamben, opened the way for a powerful new fascist
offensive. This was at first directed against Ras Mulugeta and the
imperial troops, who were stationed on the natural fortress of Amba
Aradam, south of Maqal. The Italians employed 170 aeroplanes and 280
cannon, and at one point dropped no less than forty tons of bombs in
five hours, besides a vast quantity of mustard gas. Massed artillery
fire, reminiscent of that of World War I, was also used. Ethiopian
casualties were considerable, and included the aged Ras himself.
The Italians then turned their assault on Kasa and Seyum, whose
forces were vastly inferior in numbers, let alone fire-power. The
defenders inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy, but were fairly
easily crushed, between 27 and 29 February, in the Second Battle of
Tamben. The eastern and central Ethiopian fronts had thus both been
broken, and the two Rases, to escape Italian encirclement, were obliged
to withdraw precipitously, with what was left of their army, to join the
Emperor at Qoram, in southern Tegray.
One of the effects of this retreat was that Ras Emru’s army, though
still undefeated, was obliged to undertake a strategic withdrawal,
across the Takkaze River, to avoid encirclement. This operation was
rendered the more difficult by the fact that Dajazmach Ayalaw Berru, the
ruler of Samen, and some of the Gojjam troops, had been in secret
contact with the enemy, and were uninterested in continuing the
struggle. Emru’s retreat, known as the Battle of Shere, took place at
the end of February and first days of March, and involved some of the
fiercest fighting of the war. The invaders dropped as much as eighty
tons of bombs on Emru’s army, set the surrounding countryside on fire
with incendiary devices, and made extensive use of mustard gas. The Ras
later recalled that his men held firm against bombs, and put enemy tanks
out of order with their bare hands, but could do nothing against gas:
they could not “kill” such rain.
Bombing of the Red Cross
The Royal Italian Air Force was meanwhile also engaged in the
systematic bombing of British, Swedish, Egyptian and other international
Red Cross hospitals and ambulances in Ethiopia. Attacks were so severe
that virtually all foreign personnel were driven from the field. Dr John
Melly, head of the British Red Cross unit, wrote, on 13April, “This
isn’t a war – it isn’t even a slaughter – its the torture of tens of
thousands of defenceless men, women, and children, with bombs and poison
gas. They’re using gas incessantly, and we’ve treated hundreds of
cases, including infants in arms”.
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
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