Word: somalilands
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...little Berbera, capital of British Somaliland, last week went down in the annals of World War II on the same list as Andalsnes, Namsos, Narvik and Dunkirk. Another "strategic withdrawal" was performed there by the British after only two weeks of fighting against Italy's mechanized invasion. To Italy went 344,700 new subjects in 68,000 square miles of new territory which, while far from rich or productive, rounded out her total hold on Africa's northeast shoulder, rid her of a rear threat to further operations against the British in Egypt, Suez, Palestine, the Sudan...
...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...
Against them moved Prince Amadeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta, a lank, leathery, 42-year-old veteran of Italy's colonial service. Under his command were some 21,000 Savoy Grenadiers, seven legions of askaris* and a reserve of some 70,000 semi-trained labor troops. For the Somaliland venture he had ample aircraft, tanks, armored trucks and mobile light artillery for three mobile columns, totaling perhaps 10,000 men, which he set into motion last week. One column moved across the torrid, sandy coastal plain from Djibouti to Zeila. The other two, crossing the border by the road...
...princes; 3) reiteration of the promise of a new constitution after the war. Since the "representative Indians" would be viceregal stooges hand-picked by Lord Linlithgow, and since the War Advisory Council would have no power over the Imperial General Staff, India gained virtually nothing. With Italians driving into Somaliland, and the enemy threatening Aden and therefore Britain's Near Eastern oil lines, India's aid was last week more vital than ever...