Evening star., 1941-11-28
By GEORGE WELLER.

1ofefRn correspondent OF Inc star ana
Chicago Daily News.
BRITISH ADVANCE FORCE
HEADQUARTERS BEFORE CON-
OAR, Northwest Ethiopia, via Mai
robi, Nov. 28-Why has it taken the
= British forces in the wild country
north of Lake Tana nearly as many
months to isolate and undertake the
suppression of Italys last remaining
troops as it has taken them to sweep
over all the rest of Eastern Africa?
Such is the unspoken question
which has hung buzZing like both
ersome bushf1y over the glories OF
the Ethiopian victory.
1t was at first predicted that Con-
dar would fall in days, but the time
heightened into weeks and months
1t was stated that starvation would
compel the forces commanded by
Gen. Guglielmo Nasi, bespectacled,
62-year old italian commander Of
the besieged forces, to yield
before Maj. Gen. Cyril c. FowkeS,
brisk. vigorous British command
er in chief, who. as brigadier
in the Kings African Rifles already
has bright successes at Adds Abara
and Gimma (Jimma) behind him.
The popular image has the Ital-
fans high on a castellated hill de-
Tending themselves against vastly
superior forces and unable to take
retaliatory action. Seen against the
panorama of rapid italian collapse
elsewhere, Gondar's continued fall
ure to fall seems to reflect on the
enterprise of its besiegers. Even
forign correspondents, British,
American and South African, have
left the forces in this canyon ridden,
avesomely savage country to them
selves and their thanklesS task. Your
correspondent is actually the only
newspaperman of any nationality
with them at present, the others
being apparently driven away not
only by the studied lack of emphasis
on Gondar in Allied communiques,
but by the slow, rudimentary meth
ods of press communication of mill
tary news which have characterized
the entire Ethiopian campaign.
The italians themselves, who
might be expected to treat Gondar
like another AlcaZar (scene of siege
in Spains civil war;. have escheWed
the subject, little desiring to salt
the wounds of shrinking empire.
Thus Gondar has been forgotten and
one of the interesting conflicts of
the war ignored.
Fascists Fight Here.
Actually, the struggle here is as
different from the rest of the Ethio-
plan campaign as the latter from
the battle of the western desert in
Libya. The first difference from
italian withdrawal elsewhere is that
here the Fascists are fighting. With
all lost except honor, they seem de-
termined to rescue that. Gen. Nasi
Is the general chiefly responsible for
the Italians taking British Somali-
land in August, 1910, and never has
received credit for it. AS Governor
of Ethiopia, earlier, he had been
ordered to use the general harsh
policy adopted after the 1887 at
tempt to murder Marshal Rodolfo
Graziani in Adds Ababa and the
subsequent massacre of Ethiopians
by the Italians, but refused to do
SO and successfully introduced ap-
peasement. Thus his native troops
are more loyal to him than to the
average Italian general.
Seconded ably by Col. Adriano
Torelli and until recently by Col.
Augusta Ugolini. captured in the
fighting at Kulkaber Hill, Gen. Nasi
has been able to instill the Italians
with something resembling willing
ress to die for this cause, admittedly
forlorn from the start.
Only yesterday, on the tower like,
pointed Vetnicinque Hill, your cor
respondent saw where a lone Ital-
ian machine gunner, cut off from
his comrades, continued holding his
post until wiped out by artillery fire.
Hand to Hand Fighting.
Hand-to-hand fighting has oc-
occurred over almost every foot OF
the green mountain pastures, corn
fields, wheatfelds, yellow and gray,
as the lines slowly close in on the
white spatter of buildings in Gondar.
The slow bump of artillery fire
shakes the hills and puffs of smoke
jump in the air as ring after ring
of hillside forts is penetrated. Yet,
when bayonet charges uphill in face
of machine-gun fire are attempted
the Italians fail to flee, as else
where, but for the first time stand
their ground to meet the charge of
the Uganda, Tanganyika, Nysaland
and Kenya riflemen.
Against the Ethiopian patriots led
by British officers and against de-
tachments of Halle SelasSie's own
army, they frequently fight as though
victory were possible. AS a result,
death tolls are high and if Gen.
Nasi were to continue to. resist-it
is conceivable he may-the vultures
which tirelessly circle above the
hills may have more work than the
prison camps already waiting.
Gen. Nasis stubbornness has
changed it from a war of move
ment to a war of position and has
made 1t a harder nut to crack for
British troops through the extreme
difficulty of physical conditions
Gondar lies in a bowl between hills
forming maze of green pillboXes
90 miles wide. They connect Lake
Tana with the plateau to the north,
which itself splits into a tremendous
canyon forming the letter v, with
its wings running northeast and
northwest and a tremendous chasm
between.
On the far western side of the
position, toward the south by the
lake front, is Gondar's little Lido,
called Gorgora. About 600 Italians
are holding out there, surrounded
!