Benito Mussolini. The wording had been even more peremptory than
usual. 'The King of Italy wishes, and I, Benito Mussolini,
Minister of the armed forces, order that-' Suddenly he struck himself a
blow on his medal-bedecked chest which startled Captain Crespi, his
aide-decamp.
'They do not understand,' cried De Bono bitterly. 'It is all very
beautiful to sit in Rome and urge haste. To cry 'Strike!' But they do
not see the picture as we do, who stand here looking across the Mareb
River at the swarming multitudes of the enemy.' The Captain came to
the
General's side and he also stared out of the window. The building that
housed the expeditionary army headquarters in Asmara was double
storied
and the General's office on the top floor commanded a sweeping view to
the foot of the mountains. The Captain observed wryly that the
swarming multitudes were not readily apparent. The land was a vast
emptiness slumbering in the brilliant sunlight. Air reconnaissance in
depth had descried no concentrations of Ethiopian troops, and reliable
intelligence reported that the Emperor Baile Selassie had ordered that
none of his rudimentary military units approach the border as close as
fifty kilometres, to avoid giving the Italians an excuse to march.
'They do not understand that I must consolidate my position here in
Eritrea. That I must have a firm base and supply train,' cried De
Bono pitifully. For over a year he had been consolidating his position
and assembling his supplies.
The crude little harbour of Massawa, which once had lazily served the
needs of an occasional tramp steamer or one of the little Japanese
salt-traders, had been reconstructed completely. Magnificent stone
piers ran out into the sea, great wharves bustled with steam cranes,
and busy locomotives shuttled the incredible array of warlike stores
that poured ashore by the thousands of tons a day for month after
month. The Suez Canal remained open to the transports of the Italian
adventure, and a constant stream of them poured southwards, unaffected
by the embargo that the League of Nations had declared on the
importation of military materials into Eastern Africa.
Up to the present time, over three million tons of stores had been
landed, and this did not include the five thousand vehicles of war
troop transports, armoured cars, tanks and aircraft that had come
ashore. To distribute this vast assembly of vehicles and stores, a
road system had been constructed fanning into the interior, a system so
magnificent as to recall that of the Caesars of ancient Rome.
General De Bono smote his chest again, startling his aide. 'They urge
me to untimely endeavour. They do not seem to realize that my '
force is insufficient.' The force which the General lamented was the
greatest and most powerful army ever assembled on the African
continent. He commanded three hundred and sixty thousand men, armed
with the most sophisticated tools of destruction the world had yet
devised from the Caproni CA.133 three-engined monoplane which could
carry two tons of high explosive and poison gas a range of nine hundred
miles, to the most modern armoured cars and heavily armoured CV.3 tanks
