Massowah; Sept. 25, ----
If I recollect rightly, it is just a month and a day since I sent you my
last letter. During this brief time I have gone through experiences which
must have afforded you in old Europe many a surprise, and which--if I am
not mistaken in the views of my new countrymen--will, in their immediate
consequences, be of decisive importance to the whole of the habitable
globe. It is the freedom of the world, I believe, that has been won on the
battle-fields of the Red Sea and the Galla country; a victory has been
gained, not merely over the unhappy John of Abyssinia, but also over many
another tyranny which has held nations in bondage in your so-called
civilised world. But why should I spend time in surmises about questions
which the immediate future must bring to a decision? My present letter
shall serve the purpose of assuring you of my safety and health, as well as
of describing the Freeland-Abyssinian campaign, in which I took part from
the beginning to the end.
On the 25th of August, two days after the outbreak of the war, the Eden
Vale central executive received the Negus's ultimatum, in which he declared
that he bore no ill-will against Freeland, but he had taken up arms only in
order to protect himself and Freeland against a European invasion, which,
as he had learnt, would be forced upon Freeland. As we had not shown
courage enough to keep the foe away from our frontiers, the duty of
self-preservation compelled him to demand from us the surrender of several
important strategical points. If we acceded to this request, he would
otherwise respect our liberties and rights, and would even overlook the
damage done to his vessels at Ungama. But, if we refused, he would make a
hostile invasion into our territory; and as, by the overthrow of the coast
fortresses, he had guarded against our receiving any speedy assistance from
Europe, the result could not be doubtful. He was already in motion with an
army of occupation numbering 300,000 men, and expected within a week to
have crossed our northern frontier. It was for us to decide whether we
would receive him as a friend or as a foe. The answer to the Negus ran
thus: He was mistaken in his supposition that Freeland thought of receiving
foreign troops. Freeland was as little disposed to admit into its territory
either English, French, or Italian, as to admit him for military purposes.
We could, nevertheless, live at peace with him only on condition that he
determined to maintain peace with the above-mentioned European Powers, and
to make full compensation for the injury he had done to them. We did not
wish to conceal from him that Freeland intended to enter into a friendly
alliance with these European States, and would then hold itself bound to
regard the enemies of its friends as its own enemies. He was warned against
mistaking the conspicuously pacific character of Freeland for cowardice or
weakness. A week would be given him to relinquish his threatening attitude
and to furnish guarantees of peace and compensation. If within a week
overtures of peace were not made, Freeland would attack him wherever he was
found.
Of course, no one doubted the issue of this interchange of messages; and
the preparations for the war were carried on with all speed.
Scarcely had the telegraph and the journals carried the first news of the
Abyssinian attack through Freeland, before announcements and questions
reached the central executive from all quarters, proving that the
population of the whole country not merely had come to the conclusion that
a war was imminent, but that, without any instruction from above, there had
set themselves automatically in motion all those factors of resistance
which could have been supplied by a military organisation perpetually on a
war-footing. Freeland mobilised itself; and the event proved that this
self-determined activity of millions of intelligent minds accustomed to act
in common afforded very much better results than would have been obtained
under an official system of mobilisation, however wisely planned and
prepared for. From all the corps of thousands of the whole country there
came in the course of the first few days inquiries whether the central
executive thought the co-operation of the inquirers desirable. The corps of
thousands of the first class, belonging to the twelve northern and
north-eastern districts, comprising the Baringo country and Lykipia,
announced at once that on the next day they should be fully assembled--with
the exception of any who might be travelling--since they assumed that the
prosecution of the war with Abyssinia would be specially their business. It
was the general opinion in Freeland that from 40,000 to 50,000 men would be
sufficient to defeat the Abyssinians; and as the northern districts
possessed eighty-five of the corps of thousands that had gained laurels in
the district exercises, no one doubted that the work of the war would fall
upon these alone. Many a young man in the other parts of the country felt
in his breast the stirrings of a noble ambition; but there was nowhere
manifested a desire to withdraw more labour from the country than was
necessary, or to interfere with the rational plan of mobilisation by
pushing corps into the foreground from a distance. While the other corps
thus voluntarily held back, those of the northern districts threw
themselves, as a matter of course, into the campaign. But those thousands
which during recent years had been victors at the great Aberdare games
expressed the wish--so many of them as did not belong to the mobilised
districts--to participate in the mobilisation; and all who had been victors
in the individual contests at the last year's district and national games
begged, as a favour, to be incorporated among the mobilised thousands. Both
requests were granted; and the additional material thus supplied amounted
to four corps of thousands and 960 individuals. Altogether about 90,000 men
prepared themselves--about twice as many as the general opinion held to be
requisite. But the men themselves, of their own initiative, decided, on the
next day, that merely the unmarried men of the last four years, between the
ages of twenty-two and twenty-six, should take the field. The force was
thereby reduced to 48,000, including 9,500 cavalry and 180 guns, to which
last were afterwards added eighty pieces from the Upper Naivasha district.
Each thousand had its own officers. Some of them were married, but it was
resolved that, notwithstanding this, they should be retained. The election
of superior officers took place on the 23rd of August, after the four extra
corps had arrived at the place in North Lykipia appointed for this purpose.
The chief command was not given to one of the officers present, but to a
young engineer named Arago, living at Ripon as head of the Victoria Nyanza
Building Association. Arago of course accepted the position, but asked to
have one of the head officials of the traffic department of the central
executive as head of the general staff. Hastening from Ungama direct to
North Lykipia, I applied to that official with the request that he would
place me on the general staff--a request to which, as I was able to prove
my possession of the requisite knowledge, and in consideration of my recent
renunciation of my Italian birthright, he was doubly willing to accede.
David arrived at the same time as myself, bringing me the tenderest
greetings and the cordial consent of my bride to the step I was taking,
declaring at the same time that he should not jog from my side while the
campaign lasted.
All the thousands were abundantly furnished with weapons and ammunition;
and there was no lack of well-trained saddle-horses.
The commissariat was entrusted to the Food-providing Associations of Eden
Vale and Dana City. The technical service--pioneering,
bridge-construction, field-telegraphy, &c.--was undertaken by two
associations from Central and Eastern Baringo; and the transport service
was taken in hand by the department of the central executive in charge of
such matters. Within the Freeland frontiers, the perfection of the network
of communication made the transport and maintenance of so small an army a
matter of no difficulty whatever. But as the Freelanders did not intend to
wait for the Abyssinians, but meant to carry the war into the Galla country
and to Habesh, 5,000 elephants, 8,000 camels, 20,000 horses, and 15,000
buffalo oxen were taken with the army as beasts of burden. Tents,
field-kitchens, conserves, &c., had to be got ready; in short, provision
had to be made that the army should want nothing even in the most
inhospitable regions outside of Freeland.
All these preparations were completed by the 29th of August. Two days
previously Arago had sent 4,000 horsemen with twenty-eight guns over the
Konso pass into the neighbouring Wakwafi country, with instructions to
spread themselves out in the form of a fan, to discover the whereabouts of
the Abyssinians, whose approach we expected in that quarter. To be prepared
for all contingencies, he sent smaller expeditionary corps of 1,200 and 900
men, with eight and four guns respectively, to watch the Endika and Silali
mountain-ranges, which lay to the north-east and the north-west of his line
of operations. Further, at the Konso pass he left a reserve of 6,000 men
and twenty guns; and on the 30th of August he crossed the Galla frontier
with 36,000 men and 200 guns. In order to make long marches and yet to
spare the men, each man's kit was reduced as much as possible. It
consisted, besides the weapons--repeating-rifle, repeating-pistol, and
short sword, to be used also as bayonet--of eighty cartridges, a
field-flask, and a small knapsack capable of holding only _one_ meal. All
the other luggage was carried by led horses, which followed close behind
the marching columns, and of which there were twenty-five to every hundred
men. This very mobile train, accessible to the men at all times, carried
waterproof tents, complete suits and shoes for change of clothing,
mackintoshes, conserves and drink for several days, and a reserve of 200
cartridges per man. In this way our young men were furnished with every
necessary without being themselves overburdened, and they were consequently
able to do twenty-five miles a day without injury.
The central executive had sent with the army a fully authorised
commissioner, whose duty it was to carry out any wish of the leaders of the
army, so far as the doing so was the business of the executive; to conduct
negotiations for peace should the Negus be disposed to come to terms; and,
finally, to provide for the security and comfort of the foreign military
plenipotentiaries and newspaper correspondents who should join the
campaign. Some of the latter accompanied us on horseback, while others were
accommodated upon elephants; most of them followed the headquarters, and
were thus kept _au courant_ of all that took place.
On the third day's march--the 2nd of September--our mounted advance-guard
announced that they had come upon the enemy. As Arago, before he engaged in
a decisive battle, wished to test practically whether he and we were not
making a fatal mistake in imagining ourselves superior to the enemy, he
gave the vanguard orders to make a forced reconnaisance--that is, having
done what he could to induce the foe to make a full disclosure of his
strength, to withdraw as soon as he was sure of the course the enemy was
taking.
At dawn on the 3rd of September we came into collision (I was one of the
advanced body at my own request) with the Abyssinian vanguard at Ardeb in
the valley of the Jubba. The enemy, not much more in number than ourselves,
was completely routed at the first onset, all their guns--thirty-six
pieces--taken, as well as 1,800 prisoners, whilst we lost only five men.
The whole affair lasted scarcely forty minutes. While our lines were
forming, the Abyssinian artillery opened upon us a perfectly ineffectual
fire at three miles and three-quarters. Our artillery kept silent until the
enemy was within a mile and a-half, when a few volleys from us silenced the
latter, dismounted two of their guns, and compelled the rest to withdraw.
Our artillery next directed its attention to the madly charging cavalry of
the enemy, which it scattered by a few well-aimed shells, so that our
squadron had nothing left to do but to follow the disordered fugitives and
to ride down the enemy's infantry, thrown into hopeless confusion by their
own fleeing cavalry. The affair closed with the pursuit of the
panic-stricken foe and the bringing in of the prisoners. The enemy's loss
in killed and wounded, though much greater than ours, was comparatively
small.
Thus ended the prologue of the sanguinary drama. Our horse had scarcely got
together again, and the prisoners, with the captured guns, sent to the
headquarters, when dense and still denser masses of the enemy showed
themselves in the distance. This was the whole of the Abyssinian left wing,
numbering 65,000, with 120 guns. Twenty of our guns were stationed on a
small height that commanded the marching route of the enemy, and opened
fire about seven in the morning. The masses of the enemy's infantry were at
once seen to turn aside, while ninety of the Abyssinian guns were placed
opposite our artillery. The battle of cannons which now began lasted an
hour without doing much harm to our artillery, for at so great a
distance--three miles--the aim of the Abyssinian gunners was very bad,
whilst our shells silenced by degrees thirty-four of the enemy's pieces.
Twice the Abyssinians attempted to get nearer to our position, but were on
both occasions driven back in a few minutes, so deadly was our fire at a
shorter distance. As this did not answer, the enemy tried to storm our
position. His masses of infantry and cavalry had deployed along the whole
of our thin front, and shortly after eight o'clock the whole of the vastly
superior force was in movement against us.
What next took place I should not have thought possible, notwithstanding
what I had seen of the skill in the manipulation of their weapons possessed
by the Freeland youth. Even the easily gained victory over the enemy's
vanguard had not raised my expectations high enough. I confess that I
regarded it as unjustifiable indiscretion, and as a proof of his total
misunderstanding of the task which had been committed to him by the
commander-in-chief, that Colonel Ruppert, the leader of our little band,
should accept battle, and that not in the form of a covered retreat, but as
a regular engagement which, if lost, must inevitably issue in the
annihilation of his 4,000 men. For he had deployed his cavalry--who had all
dismounted, and fired with their splendid carbines--in a thin line of over
three miles, extending a little beyond the lines of the enemy, and with
very weak reserves behind him. Thus he awaited the Abyssinians, as if they
had been advancing as _tirailleurs_ and not in compact columns. And I knew
these storming columns well; at Ardeb and before Obok they had overthrown
equal numbers of England's Indian veterans, France's Breton grenadiers, and
Italy's _bersaglieri_; their weapons were equal to those of Freeland, their
military discipline I was obliged to consider as superior to that of my
present companions in arms. How could our thin line withstand the onset of
fifteen times as many veteran warriors? I was firmly convinced that in
another quarter of an hour they must be broken in pieces like a cord
stretched in front of a locomotive; and then any child might see that after
a few minutes' carnage all would be over. In spirit I took leave of distant
loved ones--of my father--and I remembered you too, Louis, in that hour
which I thought I had good reason to consider my last.
And, what was most astonishing to me, the Freelanders themselves all seemed
to share my feelings. There was in their demeanour none of that wild lust
for battle which one would have expected to see in those who--quite
unnecessarily--engaged in the proportion of one against fifteen. A
profound, sad earnestness, nay, repugnance and horror, could be read in the
generally so clear and bright eyes of these Freeland youths and men. It was
as if they, like myself, were all looking in the face of death. The
officers also, even the colonel in command, evidently participated in these
gloomy forebodings: then why, in heaven's name, did they offer battle? If
they anticipated overthrow, why did they not withdraw in time? But what
injustice had I done to these men! how completely had I mistaken the cause
and the object of their anxiety! Incredible as it may sound, my comrades in
arms were anxious not for their own safety, but on account of their
enemies; they shuddered at the thought of the slaughter that awaited not
themselves, but their foes. The idea that they, free men, could be
vanquished by wretched slaves was as remote from their minds as the idea
that the hare can be dangerous to him is from the mind of the sportsman.
But they saw themselves compelled to shoot down in cold blood thousands of
unfortunate fellow-creatures; and this excited in them, who held man to be
the most sacred and the highest of all things, an unspeakable repugnance.
Had this been told me _before_ the battle, I should not have understood it,
and should have held it to be braggadocio; now, after what I have
shudderingly passed through, I find it intelligible. For I must confess
that a column advancing against the Freeland lines, and torn to pieces by
their fire, is a sight which freezes the blood of even men accustomed to
murder _en masse_, as I am. I have several times seen the destroying angel
of the battlefield at work, and could therefore consider myself steeled
against its horrors: but here....
I will not describe my fooling, but what occurred. When the Abyssinians
were a little less than a mile from us, Ruppert's adjutants galloped along
our front for the last time and bade our men to fire: 'But not a shot after
they begin to waver!' Then among us there was a stillness as of death,
whilst from the other side the noise of the drums and the wild music grew
louder and louder, interrupted from time to time by the piercing war-cries
of the Abyssinians. When the enemy was within half a mile our men
discharged a single volley: the front line of the enemy collapsed as if
smitten by a blast of pestilence; their ranks wavered and had to be formed
anew. No second shot was as yet fired by the Freelanders; but when the
Abyssinians again pressed forward with wild cries, and now at a more rapid
pace, there thundered a second volley; and as the death-seeking brown
warriors this time stormed forward over their shattered front rank, a third
volley met them. This was enough for the enemy for the present; they turned
in wild confusion, and did not stop in their flight until they thought
themselves out of our range. Our fire had ceased as soon as the enemy
turned, and it was high time it did. Not that our position would have been
at all endangered by a further advance of the enemy: the Abyssinians had
advanced little more than a hundred yards, and were still, therefore,
between six and seven hundred, yards away, and it was most improbable that
one of them could have reached our front. But it was this very distance,
and the consequent absence of the special excitement of close combat, that
made the horror of the slaughter too great for human nerves to have borne
it much longer. Within a few minutes nearly a thousand Abyssinians had been
killed or wounded; and many of the Freeland officers afterwards declared to
me that they were seized with faintness at the sight of the breaking ranks
and of the foes in the agonies of death. I can perfectly understand this,
for even I felt ill.
The Freeland medical men and ambulance corps were already at work carrying
the wounded foes from the field, when the Abyssinian artillery recommenced
the battle, and their infantry at the same time opened a tremendous fire.
But as the infantry now kept themselves prudently at the respectable
distance of a mile and a quarter, their fire was at first quite harmless
and therefore was not answered by our men. But when a ball or two had
strayed into our ranks, Colonel Ruppert gave orders that every tenth man
should step far enough out of the ranks to be visible to the enemy and
discharge a volley. This hint was understood; the enemy's infantry-fire
ceased at once, as the Abyssinians learnt from the effects of this small
volley that the Freeland riflemen could make themselves so unpleasant, even
at such a great distance, that it would not be advisable to provoke them to
answer an ineffective fire. The stubborn fellows, who evidently could not
bear the thought of being driven from the field by such a handful of men,
formed themselves afresh into storming columns, this time with a narrower
front and greater depth. But these columns met with no better fate than
their predecessors, the only difference being that they had to meet a more
rapid fire. After a few minutes they were compelled to retire with a loss
of eight hundred men, and could not be made to move forward again. In order
to get possession of the Abyssinian wounded, who were much better cared for
under Freeland treatment than under that of their own people, Ruppert sent
out an advance-party before whom the enemy hastily retreated, so that we
remained masters of the field. Our losses amounted to eight dead and
forty-seven wounded; the Abyssinians had 360 killed, 1,480 wounded, and
left thirty-nine guns behind. Our first care was to place the
wounded--friend and foe alike--in the ambulance-waggons, of which there was
a large number, all furnished with every possible convenience, and to send
them towards Freeland. Then the captured guns and other weapons were hidden
and the dead buried.
Just as the last duty was performed, and we had begun our retreat to
headquarters, strong columns of Abyssinians appeared in the west, whilst at
the same time the left wing of the enemy, which had retreated towards the
north, again came into sight. Ruppert did not, however, allow himself to be
diverted from his purpose. Masses of the enemy's cavalry made a vigorous
attempt to follow us, but were quickly repulsed by our artillery, and we
accomplished our retreat to headquarters without further molestation.
We now knew from experience that the assumed superiority of Freeland troops
over opponents of any kind was a fact. The Abyssinians had fought as
bravely against us as they had formerly fought against European troops.
Their equipment, discipline, and training, upon which despotism had brought
all its resources to bear for many years, left, according to European
ideas, nothing to be desired; and these dark-skinned soldiers had
repeatedly shown themselves to be a match for equal numbers of European
troops. But we had repulsed a number fifteen times as many as ourselves,
without allowing the issue to be for a moment uncertain. That the fight
lasted as long as it did, and did not much sooner end in the complete
overthrow of the Abyssinians, was due to the fact that the leader of the
advance-guard adhered to his orders, to compel the enemy to disclose his
whole force. Had our commander at once thrown himself with full force upon
the enemy, given him no time to deploy his troops, and energetically made
use of his advantage, the 65,000 men of the enemy's left wing would have
been scattered long before the centre could have come into action. Not that
Colonel Ruppert was wrong in waiting and confining himself rather to
defensive action. Even he had to learn, by the issue of the conflict, that
the presumed superiority of the Freelanders was an absolute fact; and the
more doubtful the ultimate victory of our cause appeared, the more
decisively was it the duty of a conscientious leader to avoid spilling the
blood of our Freeland youth merely to perform a deed of ostentatious
heroism. He, like the rest of us, naturally concluded that this first
lesson would abundantly suffice to show the Negus the folly of continuing
the struggle.
We had not, however, taken into account the obtuseness of a barbaric
despot. When the commissioner of the executive, who accompanied the
expedition, sent next day a flag of truce into the Abyssinian headquarters,
announcing to John that Freeland was still prepared to treat with him for
the restoration of the captured fortresses and ships, and for the
arrangement of peace guarantees, the Negus received the ambassadors
haughtily, and asked them if they were come offering terms of submission.
Because our advanced guard had retired, he treated the affair of the day
before as an Abyssinian victory. He said the officers of the five repulsed
brigades were cowards; we should see how _he_ himself would fight. In
short, the blinded man would not hear of yielding. He evidently hoped for a
complete change of fortune from a not badly planned strategic flunking
manoeuvre which he had been meanwhile carrying out, and which had only one
defect--it did not sufficiently take into account the character of his
opponents. In short, more fighting had to be done.
On the 5th of September the two armies stood face to face. The Negus, with
265,000 men and 680 guns, had entrenched himself in a very favourable
position, and seemed indisposed to take the offensive. Our commander also
felt little inclined to storm the enemy's camp, a course which would have
involved an unnecessary sacrifice. To lie here, on the Jubba river, in an
inhospitable district in which his army must soon run short of provisions,
could not possibly be the intention of the enemy. He merely wished to keep
us here a little while until he could by stratagem outflank us. Arago,
having guarded against that, determined to wait; but in the meantime, in
order to tire the enemy of waiting, he caused our cavalry to intercept the
enemy's provisioning line. Our men lacked for nothing: the commissariat was
managed admirably. Among the Abyssinians, on the contrary, Duke Humphrey
was the host. Nevertheless the enemy kept quiet for three days in his
evidently untenable position, and the field-telegraph first informed us of
the motive of his doing so.
The Negus had sent out 45,000 men, who, making a wide circuit eastwards
beyond our outposts, were to cross the Endika range of hills, and to effect
an entrance into Freeland behind us, and in that way compel us to retreat.
Even if his plot had succeeded it would have helped him but little, for the
men left behind in the northern districts of Freeland would have very
quickly overcome these 45,000 men. But a few days of Abyssinian activity
might have been inconvenient for the prosperous fields and cities of North
Baringo and Lykipia; and it was therefore well that the passes of the
Endika range were guarded by 1,200 Freeland soldiers and eight guns. The
Abyssinians came upon these on the 7th of September, and through the whole
day vainly attempted to force a passage. Next morning they found themselves
shut in on their rear by our reserves, who had been left at the Konso pass,
and who had hastened to the scene of action by forced marches. After a
brief and desperate resistance the Abyssinians were compelled to lay down
their arms.
This news reached us about, noon on the 8th of September. This Job's
message must have reached the Negus about the same time, for towards two
o'clock we saw the enemy leaving the camp and preparing to give battle.
Arago rightly judged that, in order to avoid useless bloodshed, the
Abyssinians must this time be prevented from storming our lines in masses,
and must be completely routed as quickly as possible and deprived of any
power of offering further resistance. He therefore sent our artillery to
the front, repelled an attack from the enemy's centre by a couple of sharp
volleys from our mounted rifles, and at the same time moved 14,000 men on
the left flank of the enemy. Thence he opened fire about half-past three,
and, simultaneously making a vigorous attack on the front, he so completely
broke up the Abyssinian order of battle that the columns which a little
while before had been so well ordered were in a very short time crushed
into a chaotic mass, which our lines of rifles swept before them as the
beaters drive the game before the sportsmen. After the panic had once
seized the enemy there was but little firing. It was fortunate that the
Negus had posted on his left wing the troops that had learnt our mode of
fighting at Ardeb. These poor fellows remembered, after they had received a
murderous volley from our column advancing on their flank, that the
Freelanders stop firing as soon as the enemy gives way. Hence they could
not be made to stand again; and the cry of terror, 'Don't shoot, or you are
dead men!' with which they threw themselves upon their own centre--which in
the meantime had been attacked--was not calculated to stimulate the latter
to resistance. By five o'clock all was over; the centre and the left wing
of the Abyssinians were fleeing in wild confusion, the right wing, 54,000
men strong, was thrown, with the loss of all the artillery, into the
entrenchment they had just left, and there laid down their weapons as soon
as our guns began to play against the improvised earthworks. The other
prisoners taken on the field and during the pursuit, which lasted until
nightfall, amounted to 72,000; so that including the 41,000 unwounded men
who had fallen into our hands in the Endika passes, we now had 167,000
prisoners. The second battle cost the enemy 760 killed and 2,870 wounded;
our own losses in this last encounter were 22 killed and 105 wounded.
Assuming that the Negus succeeded in collecting the scattered remnants of
his army, he would still have nearly 130,000 men at his disposal, and it
was possible that he might still persist in the campaign. To prevent this,
the pursuit was carried on with all possible energy. All the cavalry and a
part of the artillery kept at the heels of the enemy; the rest of the army,
after the wounded and prisoners were provided for and the dead were buried,
followed rapidly the next morning. The retreating Abyssinians made no
further serious resistance, but allowed themselves to be easily taken
prisoners. In this way, during a five days' chase through the Galla
country, 65,000 more men fell into our hands. John had lost nearly all his
artillery in the engagement on the Jubba; during the pursuit he lost
twenty-six more guns, and then had only seventeen left. With these, and
about 60,000 utterly demoralised and for the most part disarmed men, the
Negus succeeded on the 13th of September in reaching the southern frontier
of his country, which he had recently left with such high hopes. Among the
hill-districts of Shoa he attempted to stop our pursuit. In spite of the
formidable natural advantages afforded him by his strong position, it would
not have been difficult to drive him out by a vigorous attack in the front.
But here again Arago shrank from causing unnecessary bloodshed, aid by
means of a skilful flank manoeuvre he induced the Negus, on the next day,
voluntarily to leave his position. Thence the pursuit continued without
intermission through the provinces of Shoa, Anchara, and Tigre, to the
coast. If the Negus had hoped to attract fresh troops on the way, or to
inflame the national fanaticism of his subjects against us, he was
disappointed. The utterly demoralised panic-stricken fragments of his army
which he carried with him were a _Mene, Tekel_, which caused his own people
to vanish wherever he came as if the ground had swallowed them up, to
reappear after he had gone and to receive us (his pursuers) with
palm-branches and barley, the Abyssinian emblems of peace. This led the
hunted man, when he had reached the frontier of Tigre, to leave the rest of
his army to their fate, and to throw himself, with a small guard of
horsemen, into his newly acquired coast possessions. Arrived there, with
masterly rapidity he concentrated all his available troops in the coast
fortresses, which he hoped, with the help of the fleet, to be able to
defend long enough to give time for a possible diversion in his favour
among the hill-tribes at our rear. This was the state of things when, on
the 18th of September, our advance-guard appeared before the walls of
Massowah. The Negus did not then know how short a time his fancied security
would last.
The fleet which the Negus had taken from the European Powers at this time
still contained thirteen men-of-war and nineteen gunboats and
despatch-boats; at the attack on Ungama, three ironclad frigates and four
smaller vessels had been either totally lost or so seriously damaged that
the Abyssinians, who had no means of repairing them, could make no further
use of them. A few days after the first unsuccessful attempt the
Abyssinians reappeared in greater force before Ungama, whose well-known
extensive wharves now for the first time seemed attractive to them; but at
the first greeting from our giant guns they wisely vanished, and did not
allow themselves to be sighted again.
On the other hand, they now watched all the more carefully the two
entrances into the Red Sea--from Bab-el-Mandeb in the south, and from Suez
in the north. They did not immediately expect any stronger naval power to
come from the Indian Ocean, as, besides the two ironclads and the two
despatch-boats which lay damaged at Ungama, there were no English, French,
or Italian warships of importance for thousands of miles in those seas; and
it would take months to get together a new fleet and send it round by the
Cape of Good Hope. Moreover, the Abyssinian agents in Europe reported that
the allies were preparing an expedition for the canal route, and not for
the Cape route. The fact that the French were collecting materials at
Toulon was not decisive evidence, as that Mediterranean port was as
convenient for the one route as for the other. That the Italians
concentrated their ships at Venice instead of at Genoa, which would be much
more convenient for an Atlantic expedition, spoke somewhat more plainly;
but that the English had chosen Malta as their rendezvous made the
destination of the fleet clear to everybody. But the Abyssinians could not
understand how the allies expected to pass the Suez Canal, which the
Abyssinian guns were able so completely to command that any vessel entering
the canal could be sunk ten times before it could fire a broadside.
Besides, the Abyssinians cruising at the mouth of the canal had made it
impassable by a sunken vessel laden with stones. To remove this obstacle
under the fire of 184 heavy guns--the number possessed by the Abyssinian
fleet--was an undertaking at which John grimly smiled when he thought of
it. And as he now needed his ironclads as least as much at Massowah as at
Suez and Bab-el-Mandeb, he had the larger part of them brought to him in
order to keep the Freeland besieging army in check, while merely four
ironclad frigates, two gunboats, and one despatch-boat remained at Suez,
and one ironclad frigate, three gunboats, and two despatch-boats at
Bab-el-Mandeb.
The ships ordered to Massowah reached that port on the 18th and 19th of
September; but our newly constructed Freeland fleet had already started
from Ungama on the 16th.
Immediately after receiving news of the capture of the coast fortresses and
the ships of the allies, the central executive had determined upon the
construction of this fleet, and the work was not delayed an hour. There was
no time to construct an armoured fleet; but they did not think they needed
one. What the executive decided upon was the construction of fast wooden
vessels with guns of such a range that their shots would destroy the
ironclads without allowing the shots of the latter to reach our vessels.
The government relied not merely upon the greater speed of the vessels and
the longer range of the guns, but chiefly upon the superiority of our
gunners. It was calculated that if our vessels could come within a certain
distance of the enemy, our guns would destroy the strongest ship of the
enemy before our vessels could be hit. The Freeland shipbuilding and other
industries were fully capable, if the work were undertaken with adequate
energy and under skilful organisation, of constructing and equipping a
sufficient number of wooden vessels of from 2,000 to 3,500 tons in the
course of a few weeks. As early as the 23rd of August the keels of
thirty-six such vessels were laid at Ungama; there was sufficient timber in
stock, and the machine-works of Ungama also had in stock enough
ship-engines of between 2,000 and 3,000 horse-power to furnish the new
vessels, the larger of which were to be supplied with four such engines.
The best and largest guns were collected from all the Freeland
exercise-grounds; twenty-four new ones, which threw all former ones into
the shade, were made in the steel-works at Dana City. The work was carried
out with such energy that within twenty-two days the final touch had been
given to the last of the thirty-six floating batteries. These constructions
were not perfect in elegance; but in mechanical completeness they were
faultless. They were flat-decked, so as to present as little surface as
possible to the enemy's balls, and were divided into water-tight
compartments to prevent their being sunk by shells striking them under the
water-line. Each vessel had at least two engines working in complete
independence of each other, so that it could not easily be deprived of its
power of locomotion. Only the powder-magazines were armour-plated, but the
plates used were of the strongest kind. The guns, which moved freely on the
deck, weighed from 100 to 250 tons, and were distributed, to some vessels
one, to others two, and to others three; altogether thirty-six vessels
possessed seventy-eight guns. The maximum speed ranged for the different
vessels from twenty-three to twenty-seven knots per hour.
As we had promised the Western Powers that we would open the Suez Canal to
the European transport-ships, we had to proceed at once to carry this task
into execution. On the evening of the 19th of September our vessels sighted
the Abyssinian squadron cruising in the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. These,
mistaking us for passenger-steamers, at once gave chase, and were not a
little astonished to find that the harmless looking crafts did not alter
their course. It was not until the enemy had got within a little more than
nine miles and had had a taste of a few of our heaviest shot, that they
recognised their error and beat a hasty retreat. The greater part of our
fleet kept on its way into the Red Sea; only six of our largest and fastest
vessels pursued the fleeing Abyssinians, sunk two of their ships by a
well-directed fire, which, on account of the distance, the enemy could not
effectively return, and drove the others ashore. Our sloops picked as many
of the men as they could reach out of the water, and the vessels then
proceeded on their way to Suez. The affair with the Bab-el-Mandeb squadron
lasted only about two hours and a-half.
The greater part of our fleet steamed unperceived past Massowah in the
night of the 19th-20th; the other six were, however, in the early dawn,
seen and pursued by a hostile cruiser. As it was not our intention to make
a halt at Massowah or prematurely to warn the Abyssinian ships lying there
by giving a lesson to a cruiser as we passed, our vessels did not answer
the enemy's shots--though several of the latter struck us--but endeavoured
to get out of reach as quickly as possible. They succeeded in doing this
without suffering any serious damage. As we learnt afterwards, our vessels
were mistaken at Massowah also for mail-ships which were heedlessly running
into the hands of the cruisers guarding the canal. All that the Negus did
was to set his vessels industriously cruising off Massowah for several
nights in order to prevent the six supposed mail-steamers from escaping if
they should turn back from Suez.
On the afternoon of the 22nd our fleet appeared off Suez, attacked the
enemy's ships forthwith, and, after a short engagement, sank three of them.
The others, including three ironclad frigates, ran ashore, and the crews
were taken by the Egyptian troops. Our admiral provisionally handed over to
the Egyptians the Abyssinian sailors and marines who had been rescued from
drowning, and told off three of our vessels to assist the Egyptian and
English canal officials in raising the sunken stone-ship. These officials
told us that the allied fleet had reached Damietta the day before. If the
last obstacle to the navigation of the canal could be removed so soon, the
first ships of the allies could enter the Red Sea on the 24th, and the
expedition might be expected at Massowah by the end of the month. In order
to open Massowah by that time, our fleet at once returned southwards, and
on the 24th of September appeared off the Negus's last place of refuge.
The Freeland array had, in the meantime, remained inactive outside of
Massowah, knowing that the co-operation of our vessels would enable us to
take the place without difficulty. When those vessels appeared in the
offing, several small Abyssinian war-ships steered towards them. A few
shots from ours put the enemy's vessels to flight, and the Negus at last
understood the situation. However, he still hoped to demolish our wooden
ships, until the terrible execution effected by the first charges from our
enormous guns taught him and his admirals better. Continually withdrawing
out of range of the heavy ironclads as they steamed towards our vessels,
the destructive long-ranged guns of the latter poured forth their shot and
sank two of the frigates, before even _one_ of the enemy's balls had struck
a Freeland vessel. The enemy then turned and fled, but our vessels, keeping
at the same advantageous distance, pressed hard after them, and, before the
hostile fleet had reached the harbour, sank a third ironclad. Even in the
harbour the enemy found as little security as in the open sea; the dreadful
armour-crushing guns sent in shot after shot; a fourth ship sank, and then
a fifth. At the same time our gigantic guns battered at the harbour
bastions with tremendous effect, and we expected every moment to see the
white flag as a token of surrender. Instead of that, the Negus, finding
that he could not hold the fortress, and expecting no mercy from us,
suddenly made a desperate sortie, in the hope of fighting his way through
our lines to the hills. He succeeded in passing only our first line of
outposts; before he had reached the first Freeland line several volleys had
brought his party to a standstill and had given him his death. The
Abyssinians threw their arms away, and the war was ended.
To-morrow David and I return in the fastest of the Freeland vessels to
Ungama, where Bertha awaits us. The fortnight my father bargained for has
passed more than twice--I shall meet, not my betrothed, but my wife, on the
Freeland seashore.
* * * * *
Here end the Freeland letters of our new countryman, Carlo Falieri, to his
friend the architect Luigi Cavalotti. The two friends have exchanged
residences; Cavalotti has migrated to Freeland, Falieri on the contrary,
after spending a few delightful weeks on a paradisiacal island on Lake
Victoria Nyanza, has been withdrawn from us for a time. He obeyed a call
from his native land to assist in the carrying out of those reforms which
had to be undertaken there, as elsewhere throughout the world, in
consequence of the events described in his letters, and of other events
which followed those. His wife accompanies him on his mission, in the
furtherance of which our central government has placed the resources of
Freeland at his disposal. But this carries us into the subject of the
following book.
_BOOK IV_