years of age. 'I think the answer must be yes, we must use every
weapon available to us.' Badoglio nodded. The thinking agreed with
his own, and the next morning he ordered the canisters of mustard gas
shipped from the warehouses of
Massawa, where De Bono had been content to let them lie, and despatched
them to every airfield where flights of the Regia Aeronautica were
based. Thousands upon thousands of the wild tribesmen of Ethiopia
would come to know the corrosive dew when later they endured
bombardment by artillery and aerial attack with a stoicism greater than
most European troops were able to muster yet they could never come to
terms with this terrible substance that turned the open pastures of
their mountain fastness to fields of terror. Barefoot, as most of them
were, they were pathetically vulnerable to the silent insidious weapon
that flayed the skin from their bodies, and then stripped the living
flesh from the bone.
This single decision was one of many made that day by the new
commander, and signalled the change from De Bono's humbling, but not
unkindly civilizing invasion, to the new concept of total war war with
only one objective.
MUSSOlini had wanted a hawk, and he had chosen well.
The hawk stood in the centre of the lofty second-storey headquarters
office at Asmara, He was too consumed with furious impatience to sit at
the wide desk, and when he paced the tiled floor,
his heels cracked on the ceramic like drum beats. The elasticity of
his stride was that of a man far younger than sixty-five.
He carried his head low on boxer's shoulders, thrusting his chin
forward a heavy chin below a big shapeless round nose, a short-cropped
grey mustache and a wide hard mouth.
His eyes were deep sunken into dark cavities, like those of a corpse,
but their glitter was alive and aware as he worked swiftly through the
lists of his divisional and regimental commanders,
assessing each by one criterion only, 'Is he a fighting man?' Too
often the answer was 'no,', or at the least uncertain, so it was with a
fierce pleasure that he recognized one who was without question a
hard-fighting man on whom he could rely.
'Yes,' he nodded vehemently. 'He is the only field commander who has
displayed any initiative, who has made any attempt to come to grips
with the enemy.' He paused to lift his reading glasses to his eyes and
glance again at the reports he held in his other hand. 'He has fought
one decisive action, inflicting almost thirty thousand casualties
without loss himself. That in itself is an achievement that seems to
have gone without suitable recognition. The man should have had a
decoration, the order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus at the least.
Good men must be singled out and rewarded. Look at this this is
typical!
When he was aware that the enemy had armoured resources, he was soldier
enough to lure that armour into a baited trap, to lead it skilfully and
with cool courage on to his entrenched artillery. It was a bold and
resourceful stroke for an infantry commander to make and it deserved to
