Bush Battles

Italy's object in the far-flung bush battles of the war in East Africa is to bite off pieces of France's colonies in the north, gain control of Egypt and the Suez, and bite into Great Britain's holdings in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, British Somaliland, Kenya Colony.

Last week the strength of Italian forces massed under Marshal Rodolfo Graziani in Libya for a drive eastward at Alexandria were estimated at two divisions (30,000 men). British authorities prepared the public for a "strategic retreat" of their forces from El Sollum, near the Libyan border, to the stronger and better-watered fortress of Mersa Matruh, where Cleopatra used to bathe. Meantime British aircraft, mobile artillery and mechanized patrols sorely harassed the Italians' preparations and out posts in Libya. This week Rome claimed ten British planes downed while bombing an Italian column in eastern Libya. R. A. F. counter-score: three Italian planes, one British plane missing.

Italy's plan to join her eastern and north central holdings in Africa at Britain's expense rests secondarily on her efforts to enlarge the borders of her most recently acquired and indigestible piece of African pie: Ethiopia. Viceroy there and Governor General of Italian East Africa is the ablest member of the Royal Family, Prince Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta, first cousin of King Vittorio Emanuele. Into his 42 years this dynamic Duke has packed a great deal of colonial service and fighting in Tripoli, the Sahara, Ethiopia, incognito in the Belgian Congo. Lean and tall, he is a veteran of artillery, camel cavalry, a general of the Italian Air Fleet. Against the strong but supply-vulnerable Italian forces in the Duke's domain, Britain planned not a campaign of forcible dislodgment but one of attrition from without and harassment from within. Britain's recognition of ex-Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as an ally was the signal for all good Ethiopians to come to the aid of a wrecking party, some elements of which were made clearer last week by a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor lately returned from the mountainous tableland whose capital, is Addis Ababa (see map).

Haile Selassie's field general outside his; captive country, charged with rousing and arming Ethiopian exiles in Kenya, the Sudan and the border hills, is Ras Birru, a, fierce, black-wooled little general who fought the Italians under Haile Selassie's late War Minister Ras Mulugheta and refused to surrender even when urged by Haile Selassie's turncoat son-in-law, Ras, Gugsa, who still governs the Tigrai region in the north.

Another element in the native Ethiopian. revolt against Italy was to have been the Mohammedans, who comprise one-fifth of all Ethiopians. Stronghold of the black. Moslems is Harar, near French and British. Somaliland. A son of the late Islamic Leader Lij Yasu, who took refuge from the Italians in Djibouti, was to have led this; uprising, but France's surrender damped! the project. Last fortnight an armistice, commission ended Djibouti's state of siege,, opened to Italy its terminal of the strategic: railroad to Addis Ababa. But even without above-ground leadership, the Islamic followers of the late Lij Yasu can cause plenty of trouble, and somewhere in the northeast hills is Haile Selassie's ablest oldtime; general of all: Abebe Arragia, who learned! soldiering at France's strict Academy of; St. Cyr, who speaks Italian as well as French, prefers European clothes and weapons, but knows also bitter, native-style fighting.

After the Italian conquest, Abebe Arragia thought rebellion was useless, persuaded the two sons of his old friend, Ras Kassa, to stop agitating and perform the: ceremony of submission. When the Italians executed Ras Kassa's sons, Abebe Arragia was furious. He slipped out of Addis Ababa disguised as a Coptic priest. Gathering a few thousand rebel warriors who can move through the mountains like shadows, he preyed on Italian supply trains, and isolated outposts so savagely that the Italians put a price of 100,000 talers ($50,000) on his head, sent an expedition, of 6,000 men with 24 cannon to track him. down. Once they surrounded him in the Auasc River valley about 70 miles from. Addis Ababa, but he slithered away by-night. A good guess is that Abebe Arragia has been of no small help to Britain's Royal Camel Corps (now mechanized) ia raids over the Somaliland border toward Italy's supply lines through Giggiga, Harar, Dire Dawa.

Despite the rainy season and heavy British air raids on their bases, the Italians attacked at four places along their 2,000-mile fiunt from the Red Sea to the Indiaa Ocean. On July 5, with artillery, bombing; planes, tanks and 3,000 Askari troops they assailed and took Kassala. Railhead for the line to Port Sudan, Kassala is the eastern gateway (Khartoum the western) for the Sudan's rich cotton plantations. It commands the valley of the Atbara River, a Nile tributary down which an army would move to strike at Egypt and Suez from the south. Last week the Italians struck deeper into the Sudan from Kassala, bombing a station near Khartoum, and British equipment assembled for a counterattack.

Same day they took Kassala, the Italians moved in force on Gallabat, a Sudanese post important for its nearness to Gondar and the roads around Lake Tana to Addis Ababa. Last fortnight they also took Kurmuk, another border post, south of where the Blue Nile flows out of Ethiopia.

Italy's biggest territorial bite so far has chewed off the northeast corner of Kenya Colony, extending towardDolo on thejuba River. This part of the world is level and dry, good only for sheep and camel pasture, but it could probably be irrigated to grow cotton. Deeper down in Kenya, besides all manner of big game and some of the world's finest scenery, are large areas producing valuable crops of coffee, maize, sisal. After driving a British garrison (King's African Rifles) out of their red mud huts in Moyale in June, the Italians last week pushed on down toward the Nyire River. Last week the light British force was still retiring, delaying the Italian drive through waterless country by bombing attacks from bases at Buna and Wajir. North of Lake Rudolf a British force took the offensive, crossed the border and captured an Italian outpost.

Meantime, a strong South African Brigade Force, complete with its own mechanized infantry, artillery, air force, ambulances, engineers, signal corps and cavalry, reached Kenya from Capetown. Volunteers, enrolled to fight "anywhere in Africa."they were welcomed quietly but warmly at Nairobi by Governor Sir Henry Monck-Mason Moore, whose bailiwick of 225,000 square miles contains only 20,894 Europeans. On their railroad cars the South Africans chalked: "Look out, Musso, the

Springboks-are here!" Italy sneered that this contingent had little support in the Union of South Africa, where a peace party, mostly of Boer farmers led by onetime Prime Minister James Barry Munnik Hertzog, continued despite the rape of The Netherlands to heckle the war effort of Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts.

Britain's alertness to defend all its African possessions was further evidenced lately when the R. N. cruiser Dragon and a destroyer visited the Cameroons, former German colony on Africa's west coast mandated to France. Last week the French Cabinet at Vichy pondered this visit and similar British interest shown at Dakar, Senegal, and at France's east-coast island colony, Madagascar. No matter how the Battle of Britain goes, far-flung Africa is likely to see splashes of the war all around its pie-shaped perimeter.

*Named after a leaping gazelle, the Springboks are a famed South African rugby team, many of whose members joined the S.A.B.F. Other volunteers: Boxer Ben Foord, Cricketer Bruce Mitchell.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.