(2 of 3)
Japanese Threat. It is easy to understand why France and Britain should not feel too unhappy at the idea of Italian control of Abyssinia. Their neighboring colonies have suffered severely from raids by Abyssinian tribesmen. Italy would probably stop that. Nineteenth Century Britain was content to discipline Abyssinia in hard-fought border skirmishes. Since then she has acquired peaceably what she wants most in the country: control of Lake Tsana, source of the Blue Nile and life blood of the thriving Sudan cotton fields. Djibouti in French Somaliland is the port of entry for all Abyssinia, and France already controls the only railroad in the country, that between Djibouti and Addis Ababa. There is little reason for her to waste men and money in the country. But France and Britain have one most distinct reason for wishing some white nation to control Abyssinia. For four years Japan has been quietly penetrating the country. Japanese farmers are growing Abyssinian cotton with increasing success, they have grabbed her textile market from under Britain's nose, they are becoming more and more free of dependence on British raw cotton for Japan's mills. Further, Japanese immigrants marry Abyssinians, treat them as equals. Practical colonial administrators call the Japanese penetration of Abyssinia a most serious threat to white supremacy throughout Africa.
5,000 Dead. Knowing only a little of Abyssinia, its blazing heat and freezing nights, its mosquito-infested swamps, fierce tribesmen, arid plains and almost impregnable mountains, what benefits then does Italy expect to get from its subjugation? Italian Finance Minister Count Paolo Thaon di Revel announced last week that the Italian expedition to Abyssinia had already cost the Fascist Government $50,000,000, and Italian troops have not yet crossed the frontier. Fascist bigwigs divide the Abyssinian advantages of the campaign into two groups, sentimental and practical.
Sentimental. 1) All the Fascist ranting and countermarching of the past 13 years have not wiped from Italian minds the memory of two disgraces: the bloody defeat of their army in 1896 by barbarous Abyssinian tribesmen, and Italy's ignominious rout by Austrians and Germans at Caporetto in 1917. Since then Benito Mussolini has built up a war machine that on paper holds its own with the best in Europe. Abyssinia in 1935 will be a chance to test its worth. To make that test more impressive it would be a purely Fascist war. The commander in the field is none other than one of the original Quadrumvirs of the Fascist March on Rome, bearded, long-nosed General Emilio de Bono. Now aged 68, he is faced with problems of supply and transportation to faze any war college in Europe.
2) Ardently does Italy need more colonies, feels bitterly that she was diddled out of her due share of the loot by the Treaty of Versailles. Abyssinia is a nut that other imperialistic countries have tried often to crack. Should Italy succeed, it would be a great feather in the Fascist cap.
Practical. 1) Italy's two East African colonies, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, are unconnected except by the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. As early as 1906, France and Britain gave her permission to build a railroad through Abyssinia to connect the two. Only a military expedition will make it possible.