'Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service' [‎17r] (33/156)

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Minister on military matters had disappeared. From then on I assisted in the
Legation Chancery, when I was not busy helping with the cyphering traffic which was
unrelenting. In the evenings, some of us would make our way into the town to meet the
friends we had made amongst the journalists - Evelyn Waugh, J. H. Steer, Patrick
Balfour, the American newsreelman of Paramount Pictures, etc.
My own time in Addis Ababa was coming to an end. Initially, my appointment with the
Legation had been for only three months, and this was subsequently extended to six.
The Government of India now informed the F.O. that, as the object of my detachment-
had now been achieved, they would like me to return to India to resume my training
as a Political Officer. To this the Minister had no option but to agree,and so,
after a series of farewell parties, I boarded the train for Djibouti in early
December. A few days later I embarked on the same small Red Sea coastal steamer in
which I had arrived in June, to return to Aden. Here I stayed with my erstwhile
chief, Sir Bernard Reilly, until the outward bound P & 0 mail boat arrived to take
me back to Bombay and India. I had been out of the country for nearly fourteen months.
On my way to Campbellpur in the Attock District in the north of the Punjab, where I
was to do my administrative training, I was invited by the Foreign Secretary in the
F & P Department to spend a day or two as his guest in New Delhi. I found him and
many other senior officials anxious to learn about my experiences. At Army H.Q.
senior military officers wanted to know about the welfare of the Legation Escort and
about its role if, as we had predicted, the defeat of the Ethiopian Armies was
followed by a breakdown of law and order.
In fact this was just what eventually did happen. After I left Addis Ababa, the
Italians had made drastic changes in the persons of their commanders in the field.
Marshall Badoglio took over the direction of the northern front and General Graziani
(who had a reputation for great ruthlessness) assumed command in the south. The
campaign was now prosecuted with great vigour and air bombing was intensified, in
some cases with mustard gas. The undisciplined and poorly armed Ethiopian troops
gave ground nearly everywhere. As they advanced the Italians re-built the roads,
especially in the northern mountain ranges, so as to get their armour and motorised
artillery through. The sanctions, which the Governments of the League of Nations
had imposed against Italy proved ineffectual, and the Italians found means of circum
venting the ban on the acquisition of oil. The so-called Hoare-Laval pact for
halting hostilities had proved abortive. Finally, in March, the Ethiopian armies
under the command of their Emperor were brought to battle at Dessie and totally
defeated. Haile Selassie returned hurriedly to the capital and then, despite the
undertaking he had given Sir Sidney Barton some months earlier that he would never
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abandon his country, he and his family and entourage took the train the Djibouti,
where they arrived unmolested by the Italian air force, and where a British Cruiser
was waiting to take them into exile. Just as we had anticipated, the Italians