Revolt in the Desert

The House of Commons was informed last week by Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Richard Austen Butler that Great Britain formally recognized the Government of Emperor Haile Selassie as "the lawful Government of Ethiopia" and an ally of Britain, thus canceling the recognition given to Italian sovereignty in 1938. Though the little brown Emperor was in England and his followers were scattered through the mountains and gulches of faraway Italian East Africa, this solemn decision was less farcical than it seemed. It amounted to formal adoption of the same kind of plan with which Britain beat Turkey in the last war: another Revolt in the Desert. News of Selassie's warriors afield was scant last week, nor was it known what Briton would play among them the role that the late T. E. Lawrence so ably played among Turkey's Arabs, that of stirrer-upper, conniver, adroit leader in guerrilla warfare on the flank of the Italian Army and its communications.

In Britain's Kenya colony there are supposed to be 200,000 Ethiopians raring to go under Fituvari Birru. Selassie's onetime Secretary of War. Italians last week launched the Southern Theatre's heaviest land attack to date at Moyale, a fortress on Kenya's north border. For several days they poured artillery fire into the place, beleaguering a garrison of the King's African Rifles, who anxiously awaited reinforcements. After five days, the garrison withdrew, covered by an R. A. F. bombing attack. This capture of Moyale appeared to presage an Italian drive to carve into Britain's large East African holdings.

Another Italian drive was taking shape on the Sudanese border at Kassala and Gallabat. Here the Italian objective would be to penetrate northward into Egypt, in conjunction with a drive east from Libya by fierce Marshal Graziani. Along the Libyan border, where a barbed-wire barricade runs 120 miles into the desert from the sea, Britain thus far retained the initiative. Mechanized British forces (light tanks, armored cars) captured and reduced several forts and cut the water pipeline from Bardia down to Fort Capuzzo.

While the bombers of both sides continued to raid the enemy's bases, large-scale warfare in the Southern Theatre appeared to wait upon the outcome of the tussle for naval supremacy in the Mediterranean. The one place Italy has to fight--and to prove its right to spoils if the Nazis win--is on the Southern Front, from Gibraltar to Aden and Kenya. To fight successfully in East Africa, indeed to retain her possessions there, Italy must take the Suez Canal, and to do that she must knock out or drive away the British squadron based at Alexandria. Her air attacks and hopeful claims last week were all toward this end. Meantime Britain set herself to hold all lines and overthrow Italy-in-Africa by boring from within.

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