Abyssinia BOOKS OF THE DAIC
By LAWRENCE ATHILL
Tun Abyssinian War already seems ancient history to most of us, and yet it is- only twelve months, almost to a day, since the first contingent of the British Red Cross Society crossed the frontier and started on its little known campaign of mercy. It had the support of many in this country, so many that their subscriptions totalled more than 160,000, and to these Mr. Macfie's Ethiopian Diary will tell a story of most absorbing interest. Nor to them only, for this short and supremely modest little book records a very brave adventure and at times surpasses in excitement anything written about Abyssinia by professional exploiters of sensa- tion. The story of the bombing of the Red Cross camp on the Ashangi plain is full of unconscious heroism. When the first bombs fell, Dr. Macfie was anaesthetising a patient and his leader, John Melly, had just made the first incision for an abdominal operation. The second bomb fell within a few feet of the tent. "I remained hesitating," writes Dr. Macfie, "wondering what I should do. I was far from clear in my own mind about it. My patient was rather deeply under the anaesthetic, and I wanted to be sure he was all right. I drew the blanket up over him, and turned his head on one side." Simple words, but surely ones which make the heart beat a little more quickly as one pictures that open plain, the little defenceless gauze-screened tent, the swooping plane, and shattering detonations. "I wanted to be sure that my patient was all right."
Few people know what these men went through; pushing their lorries through mud at an altitude where any effort leaves one gasping ; uncertain of supplies, with brigands around them and a ubiquitous foe droning menace in the air through all the daylight hours. And at night, operations lasting sometimes almost into the early hours. Through the story, which is in the main a personal one, the figure of the C.O., that beloved laughing Cavalier, comes and goes until at last we leave him at peace beneath the aromatic eucalyptus trees, unconquered in a conquered land. Truly, as every line of Dr. Macfie's story breathes, "a man greatly beloved."
Dr. Maefie embarked on his adventure because, as he says, he was deeply Shocked by the Italian ultimatum. I doubt if Mr. Steer would admit to being shocked by anything, and it was in search of professional adventure that he took service in Abyssinia under the aegis of The Times. Yet the quality of the exceedingly fine piece of semi-historical, semi-personal narrative which he presents in Caesar in Abyssinia is derived from the obvious fact that he not only observed shrewdly and recorded his observations with a skilled and vivid pen but also felt deeply.. A vein of rather bitter flippancy outcrops occasionally throughout his book, but one feels that it is a reaction of youth to a keen resent- ment against injustice and an out-of-joint world. He gives by far the . best history of the campaign which has yet appeared and the inclusion of a chapter by Colonel Konovaloff, describing the_ Emperor's last battles and retreat to Addis Ababa, supplies for the first time details, from the Abyssinian side, of the decisive and most heartrending episode of the war. Mr. Steer seems to have travelled more than most of his colleagues and certainly to have got nearer to a com- prehension of the Ethiopian mentality than any of them, An Ethiopian Diary. By J. W. S. Maefie. (University Press of Liverpool. 5s.)—Caesar in Abyssinia. By G. L. Steer. (Hodder and Stoughton. 12s. 6d.)—Crazy Campaign. By Mortimer Durand. (Routledge. 12s. ad. )-----The- First of the League Wars. By Major-Con. J. F. U. Fuller., (Eyre.
and SpOttiswoode. 10s. .6d.) • _ -
possibly because he had taken the trouble to learn some- thing of the language of the country. To the Abyssinian there were two forms of fighting, the traditional- grouping of masses round the great feudal chiefs, and " shiftanet," Which; being translated, is brigandage. The guerilla warfare, which the Emperor never tired of preaching, was " shiftanet," a cut-and-rtm game on the friraintain side had no Pidy for the " tilliq sau," the great man. It was, I think, Kassa, the first cavalry leader of the Emperor's army,. who complained that he was too old and too tired to turn " shifta." No doubt behind his reluctance was the knowledge that his men, once released from traditional forms and control, would. soon escape his power of direction. We have in our own military history a parallel in the horror expressed by the Duke of Cambridge when Lord Wolseley first started exer- cising the cavalry at Aldershot in night manoeuvrzs. "Good God ! " said the Duke, "discipline will go to the dogs." We see from Mr. Steer's story how, when the Abyssinian armies were forced by the threat of air-attack to scatter and move only by night, their discipline—for the' 'fighting :man of Abyssinia has a discipline peculiar to hinisedid go to the dogs. Through the history of the book there runs the lighter thread of Mr. Steer's own adventures, one of which, his marriage almost on the field of battle, must be unique in the annals of war-correspondence'ship. Interest in Abys- sinian things may have flagged, but I do not think that anyone, even the most war-weary, who takes up Caesar in Abyssinia, will experience a dull moment until he has read it to the last syllable.
• In some respects Mr. Mortimer Durand's Crag, Campaign is complementary to Caesar-in' Abyssinia, for it tells- the story of the earlier part of the war from the Italian standpoint. Mr. Durand was not in Abyssinia for so long as Mr. Steer, nor did he succeed in getting into such close touch with events and personalities. However, he tells his story well and gives a graphic picture of life behind the Italian front. I suppose the black and white sex question is an important one and merits attention, but I cannot help feeling that the reader might well have been spared some of the more intimate and nauseating details to which he is treated.
For a most illuminating review of the Italian Ariny in the field and a very penetrating analysis of its components, all who are interested not only in the recent war but in the future ones which he promises them—unles's the Leagna Of Nations be scrapped—should turn to General Fuller and The First of the League Wars. General Fuller's reputation is so well established that it is perhaps superfluous to say that his book is both brainy and combative. It should not really be discussed under the heading of "Abyssinia," for .the bulk of it deals with far wider issues; no leis than the origin and character of war. Most people in this country have come to look on war as a disease and a diagnosis of it is liable to be skimmed quickly in hopes that kt the end a cure will be prescribed. But here General Fidler disappoints. Our troubles, he says, can be put down to the sex hormones of 1919. War is inherent in human nature. tipt it can he transformed from an expression of brutality to one of spirituality. One gathers that Fascism does this trick, and one hopes that. Doctor Macfie, on the Ashangi Plain, recognised the voice of spirituality when he heard the bombs bursting. "The Threefold State must expand," _ writes General Fuller in his 'conclusion, " gilt of the. lampless.. caves of. unimagined .being! emerges that Pokier which today is but a voice among the The Gentia4s wind is apparent; but his voice obsoure.
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