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Adowa-The plan was simple. The Italian army would advance like a hand, with the three parallel brigades of Dabormida, Albertone and Arimondi for fingers, with Ellena's brigade for wrist and support. The advance started at 9 p. m. Feb. 29, 1896. By 2:30 a. m. it was hopelessly confused. The Albertone brigade lost its way and in a narrow gorge cut across that of General Arimondi. Troops were tied up for hours. The support could not advance. Trusting in a faulty map General Albertone went too far ahead, engaged the Ethiopians alone. By the time the Italian advance was straightened out three separate battles were going on at once without coordination or contact. By 11 a. m. March i the Italians were in full rout, their dead piled high around their guns. Bugle calls for retreat were drowned amid savage cries of "EbalgumeI Ebalgume!" Behind the fanatic black warriors came their women brandishing long knives to mutilate the wounded. Killed were two of the five Generals, 4,600 Italian officers and soldiers. Two thousand were wounded, 2,000 taken prisoner. General Baratieri was court-martialed, finally acquitted. Premier Crispi resigned. The peace treaty returned a fine slice of Eritrea to Ethiopia, and the whole business cost Italy some $90,000,000 and a dirty splotch on her military escutcheon.
One of the buglers who sounded the Adowa retreat that was never heard was found in London last week in the person of Francis Pozzoli, then a young corporal, now a prosperous wholesale grocer.
"It would do me good to have another smack at the creeping devils," said he. "The worst of it came during the retreat. Tired and thirsty, we were overtaken by mounted tribesmen who rode among us, cutting down thousands. I escaped by crawling under a heap of dead bodies. Hardly a wounded man on the battlefield escaped mutilation."
Softly, Taitou, Leader of the Ethiopian women on that bloody March 1, 1896, was the Empress Taitou, fourth wife of Menelik II. A more polite version of her predecessor's part in the battle of Adowa was given last fortnight by plump Empress Menen, only wife of Power-of-Trinity, as she nibbled pink iced cake and drank jasmine tea at Addis Ababa.
"The Italians laughed at Taitou at first," said the Empress Menen, "but later they feared her more than any man. It was she who held up to our warriors the thought of what they were defending. . . . After the Adowa victory, Taitou rode between the lines of the conquered Italians, dispensing gifts, food and money. They learned to look for her visits and softly called her 'Taitou.' "