Word: mountains
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...sound of those bombs reached Italian troops already on the march. In the darkness, long before the bombers had left their Asmara base, white-bearded old General de Bono, commander-in-chief, had gone with his chief-of-staff, General Melchiade Gabba, and other staff officers to a cleared mountain top from which they could have an unobstructed view of the frontier river, the Mareb, and the rude camel tracks leading up to the mountains and Aduwa...
...hundred miles and three-quarters of an hour after the takeoff they were through the black mountain peaks; below them lay Aduwa, scene of Italy's most galling defeat 39 years before, junction of the caravan routes of northern Ethiopia; Aduwa, to capture which Benito Mussolini had sent 280,000 men 2,500 miles at a cost of $160,000,000. Sprawled over three hills Aduwa was a collection of low-walled huts, some thatched, some roofed with corrugated iron, that housed some 3,000 souls. Count Ciano squinted down through his bomb sights and pulled the trigger...
Over the river, the Italians formed three columns. The left one swung east to Adigrat in an effort to encircle Aduwa from the left. To General de Bono, peering at maps, puffing cigarets on his cool mountain top, came the word: Adigrat had been captured almost without opposition. Italians sweeping into the town found it deserted of everything but old men, women and children, all of them painfully undernourished. The country had been swept bare of food for the warriors now hiding in the mountains. On to Aduwa...
What happened was that the Ethiopians were beginning to fight. Shrewdly they had waited until the Italian advance was slowed and tangled in the narrow mountain passes. Heavy trucks were tearing impassable ruts in the new roads almost as quickly as they were built. Artillery could not unlimber or deploy. Tanks were jammed between boulders. Then from behind thorn bushes and through the mud walls of shepherd huts came the raking fire of Ethiopian snipers. Each one of these Ethiopian hornet's nests had to be wiped out-by infantrymen alone. For the time being the machine...
...second army bore straight in, parallel to the French Somaliland frontier, in an effort to cut Ethiopia's only railroad at Dire Dawa (see map, p. 18). Fighting as hard, suffering as much as the publicized troops to the north, they had captured the mountain of Mussa Ali last week and were slowly driving through desert country toward the railroad. Well aware was the Conquering Lion of Judah of the importance of this force. At Jigjiga, 65 miles from Dire Dawa, he had assembled the best equipped, best trained of his fighters, was preparing to make what many people...