On the following two pages TIME presents a map of the strategic geography of northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia. Between the two lies the Red Sea, no mean body of water. It is approximately 1,500 miles long, roughly half as long as the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans. But with its width (up to 250 miles) it is the size of 50 Mississippis.
This immemorial gateway from the Orient to the Mediterranean has an inner and an outer gate. The inner gate is Port Said, which is the focus of British strategy throughout the region. The outer gate is the island of Perim at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden. In World War I the British found their enemies, the Turks, in Asia and drove eastward and northward from the Canal into Arabia, Palestine and Syria. In World War II, when Italy declared war in June, the British found their enemies on the other side of the gate and faced about to fight westward and southward.
Last time, with their naval bases at Alexandria and on the island of Cyprus, they commanded the eastern Mediterranean, keeping open their short trade route to the Orient. This time that route is cut farther west, by Italy in midMediterranean, and the British Fleet protecting the Canal found another function: to threaten Italy in the Mediterranean, raid her supply lines and cut off completely the Italian forces in East Africa (which now includes what once was Ethiopia).
But these very Italian forces in East Africa threatened to cut off the British who had cut them off. Except for the dangerous route the full length of the Mediterranean, the main supply line of the British forces at Port Said runs the length of the Red Sea after passing Perim at the head of the Gulf of Aden.
The strait there is too wide to be blocked and the barren island of Perim, whence pirates once took toll, although in British hands, does not control it so much as the nearby ports. Along the Red Sea's African Coast the Italians held Assab, Massaua and got Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden when France surrendered. The nearest British base was Aden across the Gulf.
With each side holding one of the entrances to the Red Sea, the two adversaries were like men each of whom has a tight grasp on the other's windpipe. The question was largely which one could first choke the other and break his grip before he himself was strangled.
The Italian grip at the southern entrance of the Red Sea was weaker because the Italian squadron in East Africa was only strong for commerce raiding, not to meet any major British squadron in battle. But the British had to break the Italian grip in order to feel comfortable, and this would involve a campaign against the Italian ports in that area and against Ethiopia.
The last time the world went mad the turning point in the Near East was the revolt of the Arabs. Thomas Edward Lawrence, a magnificent introvert from Wales, organized the Arabs for the revolt which broke Turkey's power and set up Great Britain's and France's control over what are now Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Trans-Jordan, Oman, Aden and the Hadramaut. That Britain planned a similar campaign appeared in July when she made Emperor Haile Selassie, the ex-Lion of Judah, her formal ally in order to have his aid in raising revolt among his African people.