Word: aduwa
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After its capture Aduwa showed little evidence of fighting, none of bombing. The muddy streets were swept clean, festooned with flags and triumphal arches of branches. Just outside the town General de Bono changed from his automobile to the back of a skittish little Arab charger, rode through the streets and to the parade ground beyond the town. There he reviewed 11,000 of his men, dedicated the monument whose erection was the first move of the invading Italians...
Only 17 miles from Aduwa lies the holy city of Aksum, whose capture was the next step in the Italian advance. For days Italian forces had this mecca of the Coptic Christians practically surrounded. Scouting planes made hourly flights over it, could see no trace of Ethiopian troops. Still no attack was made, for in the centre of small Aksum stands a little crenelated stone church, holiest in the empire. There Ethiopia's earliest kings are buried. In it was supposed to lie the true Ark of the Covenant. Before such a Christian shrine Italy dared risk no accident...
...outposts and possible enemy ambuscades. The smallest tanks, ''fleas" to the troops, were scarcely shoulder-high. Last week "fleas" scrabbled through gullies, over boulders and along trails that would have stalled a goat. But always ahead of them was chunky, wily Ras Seyoum, onetime Governor of Aduwa, commander of the Ethiopian forces in the North...
...Seyoum's snipers, hiding in thorn bushes and behind the mud walls of shepherds' huts, that had held up the Italian advance on Aduwa 24 hours. Early last week he had assembled a great army to defend Makale, more than 100 miles to the South, and was preparing for a fight. At week's end, scouting planes found Ras Seyoum's followers streaming still farther back into the mountains, always keeping at least two days ahead of the Italians...
...Ruler of the eastern part of Tigre Province, he is a direct descendant of that King John of Ethiopia still venerated as a saint by the Coptic Church. His great-uncle, John IV, was a sworn enemy of fierce-whiskered old Emperor Menelik who later defeated the Italians at Aduwa. Ras Gugsa's father kept up the family feud against Menelik and his grandnephew, Ethiopia's present Emperor, was on the best of terms with the Italian administration in Eritrea. When he died three years ago it was in the arms of an Italian doctor. With his last...