Word: harare
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...Harar fell the same day as Cheren to a British column advancing from Somaliland in the south. Italian resistance in Marda Pass before Harar was surprisingly light, and the British met almost no resistance at Harar itself. This column's mission-breaking the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad-was accomplished at week's end when the British announced they had occupied Dire Dawa, the nearest station to Harar on the railway, and that the Italians had withdrawn westward toward the capital. Main reason given by the Italians for this withdrawal was again British air activity. All week long...
...second Day of Prayer was Sunday, March 23, 1941, when Adolf Hitler's Balkan advance seemed to have the implacable flow of volcanic lava. Four days later came the upset in Yugoslavia. The same week came the British capture of Cheren and Harar, the Italian naval defeat in the Mediterranean. Twice Britain's prayers had been answered...
Early last week the South African and British column pushing up from Italian Somaliland approached Giggiga, 50 miles east of Harar. Its supply lines were then about 600 miles long, and were potentially threatened from the east by Italians garrisoning British Somaliland, which the Italians occupied last summer. The threat was removed at the strategic moment by a British naval force which appeared off Berbera, British Somaliland's capital and main port, one midnight, and landed men and machines in two places near the town. By 9:30 a.m. they had taken it. They pushed inland at once...
...soon as that column got word that British Somaliland was British again, it captured Giggiga, a nondescript one-square town of tin-and straw-roofed houses. From there the troops pushed on for Harar. Soon they reached trouble. Between Giggiga and Harar lies some grim hill country. There the motor road turns and digs through narrow denies, and the hills, with their boulders and scrub, afford plenty of cover for defenders. It is the sort of country where a handful ought to be able to hold off an army...
...question was how many Italians were prepared to defend Harar, and how hard. It was likely that most of the Italians who had been in British Somaliland had fallen back into this area. The Italians would probably put up a stanch fight here because here-and at Cheren in Eritrea-were the last chances for strong stand: before Addis Ababa. If the British could crack the old town of Harar, they could cut the rail line, just north of Harar, from Addis Ababa...