Word: mariotti
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1935-1935
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...last week General Oreste Mariotti squinted from mule-back along the dry bed of the Ende River, a strip of boulders and gravel between mountainous shrub covered hills, blew his whistle and halted his column...
...campaign. To protect the flank of Italy's main army of the north with its spearhead at Makale, they had gone where no white men had ever gone before, skirting the blazing Danakil Desert, then up over the bitter cold highlands facing the Derdega Mountains. One thing General Mariotti knew: Degiac Kassa Sebat was ahead of him with an indefinite number of well-armed Ethiopians and he would attack as soon as the Italian column got near enough. The gorge seemed a likely place, for a ridge ran straight across it about 200 yards ahead...
Degiac Kassa and General Mariotti thought alike. Before the General was able to unlimber his camel guns, volley upon volley of rifle fire echoed from the cliffs. Skirmish lines went out, runners raced for munitions, support. Colonel Belli, the General's second-in-command, ran forward to help the mountain battery, got bullets in a hand and knee...
...deep gorge rang with battle. Three other Italian officers were wounded but fought on while the Ethiopians stubbornly resisted the Italian advance. At nightfall, with the battle line 7,000 feet up in the mountains, the Ethiopian line suddenly broke. Through field glasses General Mariotti could see the Ethiopians scrambling like goats still higher up the mountain, disappearing to the south. At dawn the Askaris rallied for a grandiloquent charge with bayonets and curved swords. That afternoon Azbi was captured...