Word: somalilands
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...land that was once Ethiopia and is now part of Italian East Africa, Italy up to last week had launched two drives into British colonies-one southward into Kenya, the other westward into the Sudan. Neither had got very far last week when Italy launched a third-into British Somaliland...
...country (see map) is about the size of Missouri. Its capital, Berbera, is on the coast but has no port facilities. It has a municipal water system but no railway, no bank, no hotel. A coast road connects it through the secondary "port" of Zeila with Djibouti in French Somaliland which fell into Italy's hands in June...
...British Somaliland looks and feels like a cross between the Montana badlands and Death Valley. Except in the mountains near the coast, which rise as high as 6,500 ft. in a wall behind Berbera, it rains only 2½ inches per year. In July and August a hot, dry monsoon blows from the blazing Ethiopian hinterland. Nothing grows in British Somaliland except thorn trees, dense dry "bush" and tough desert fodder to keep alive the nomadic natives' herds of sheep, goats, camels, ostriches...
...threaten Britain's hold on the southern entrance to the Red Sea and the route to the Orient, a hold otherwise confined to the port of Aden across the Gulf and the island of Perim in the strait called Bab el Mandeb ("gate to the mandate"). To defend Somaliland, Britain had the Camel Corps, originally formed by British Marine officers to hunt Mohammed bin Abdullah, the "Mad Mullah" who for 20 years (1900-20) carried on a religious revolt until R. A. F. bombing planes drove him into Ethiopia. Chief gain for Italy in driving Britain from Somaliland would...
...appeared that Britain had only the Somaliland Camel Corps on guard in Somaliland last week. It is composed of one camel company, one pony company, one mechanized company with armored cars, manned by dark-skinned Somali Arabs and officered by Britons. Total with reserves: about 560 men. Beside these stood another 560 native mounted police with rifles, machine guns, British officers. Their leader was Lieut. Colonel Arthur Reginald Chater, oldtime desert fighter. Governor and Commander in Chief of the protectorate is Vincent Goncalves Glenday, 49, an Oxonian sportsman careerist in Britain's colonial service...