Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-08-24
Italy's Heavy Task.

that Mussolini is making his prepara-
tons for war in Ethiopia out CT all pro-
portion to the task of subjugating that
supposedly small and weak country. He
is pouring troops over to Eritrea, the
italian possession on the northern Dor
der of Halle Selassie's land, by the
hundred thousands, and is equipping
and shipping war planes by the score
and tanks in unknown numbers. While
the full measure of these forces and
appliances and munitions is not known,
they doubtless are on a great scale and
are costing an immense sum of money.
The question has arisen whether they
are not disproportionate to the require
mentS of such an enterprise.
Those who have travelled in Ethiopia,
however, have been testifying in inter-
views, radio talks and published articles
to the very serious difficulties ahead of
Italy in this adventure. The territory
of Ethiopia is not as small as might be
imagined by those who have merely
looked at the map of Africa, on which
it appears as only tiny patch. When
an outline Of it is superimposed upon
a map of the United States it stretches
from approximately the Atlantic Coast
at the boundary between Virginia and
North Carolina beyond the boundary be-
tween Missouri and Kansas and from
the middle of Mississippi to the middle
of Wisconsin, including in the area all
of the States of Tennessee, Kentucky,
Indiana, Illinois and Missouri and half
each of Georgia, Alabama. Mississippi,
Iowa and Wisconsin, more than half
of South Carolina and Arkansas and
portions of Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio,
Michigan, Kansas and Oklahoma.
But the size of the land is not its
only factor of difficulty for an invader.
The terrain is combination of tropical
jungle plain and high, jagged mountain
masses. There are few roads, and those
are bad. There is only one railroad,
which is rated as one of the poorest
in the world. There are no great GEN.
tiers of population, Adds Ababa, the
capital, having only about $4,000 in
habitants, with very few large Struc-
lures Harar, in the east, has approx
mately the same number. There are
no physical detectives for attack and
Warfare in such a land is certain to
tax the resources of any nation severely.
In the lower lands tropical diseases await
the invader to which the natives are
largely immune.
1t is true that the Ethiopians are
wretchedly equipped in arms and ammu-
milton. especially the latter. They have
virtually none of the modern imple-
ments of war, but their land is their
best defense, their disease infested
plains and their mountain masses, rising
in the north to $4,000 feet, offering a
natural barrier against an invader. And
they know their land intimately, while
the invaders must learn it at very heavy
cost. They are truculent people, fierce
and fanatic. They are courageous
people, and highly skilled in the warfare
of the jungle, in which they have been
engaged in their own tribal conflicts
for many generations.
1t is presumably with knowledge of
these onditionS-without which the
proposed adventure would be foolhardy
in the eXtreme-that Mussolini is making
his preparations for war on so large
scale and at so heavy a cost. The
outcome of such war is not to be
judged upon the basis of diSproportion
in terms of men and munitions.