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From Adowa Captain Cameron forwarded Theodore's letter to our Queen by native messengers, and proceeded to the province of Bogos, where he deemed his presence necessary. Captain Cameron thought it therefore advisable, in order to avoid future difficulties with the Egyptian Government, to leave Samuel behind with the Servants he did not require.
But instead of a Rossbach, Italy has had an Adowa; instead of justice, a corrupt official class and an army of judges who make justice a mockery, anarchism in her towns, a superstitious peasantry, an aristocracy dead to the future and to the memory of the past.
A long series of errors were committed, relieved at times by the heroism and devotion of the army fighting against huge odds in an inhospitable and unknown land, culminating in the disaster of Adowa in 1896. What wrought the greatest injury to Italian prestige was not so much the defeat in itself as the fact that it was allowed to remain unavenged.
On the 1st of March, 1896, the battle of Adowa was fought, and Italy at the hands of Abyssinia sustained a crushing defeat. Two results followed which affected other nations. First, a great blow had been struck at European prestige in North Africa. It seemed probable that the Abyssinian success would encourage the Dervishes to attack the Italians at Kassala.
Fairfax had carefully trained a gun crew to handle a Colt machine-gun that McMillan was bringing as a present to Ras Makonnen, the victor of the field of Adowa, and debated with his mates the question of risking an attack.
The severe defeat at Adowa in 1896, the disgrace of Baratieri, the destruction of his army, and the fall of the Crispi Cabinet rudely dispelled the African ambitions of Italy. Kassala became an encumbrance. Nor was that all.
Madame Variani stout, clever, middle-aged, and disinterested had a position of her own in Rome. She was the correspondent of a leading French paper; she had many English friends; and she and the Marchesa Fazzoleni, at the Ambassador's right hand, had just been doing wonders for the relief of the Italian sick and wounded after the miserable campaign of Adowa. 'Oh!
If an explosion comes, as come it must unless France modifies her attitude; if, some dark day, thirty or forty French battalions are caught in a simoom of Arab fury blowing out of the desert and are annihilated in a new Adowa; the regretful verdict of many versed in Eastern affairs can only be: "French policy has deserved it."
The third partner had been weakened. The balance might be restored if Great Britain would make some open sign of sympathy. Moreover, the expectations of the Egyptian military authorities were soon fulfilled. The Dervishes threatened Kassala as soon as the news of Adowa reached them, and indeed there were signs of increased activity in Omdurman itself.
Lieutenant P , their commander, is a brave fellow; but he is brave because he is educated. The uneducated Italian, unlike the uneducated Frenchman, has little stomach for fighting, and it is easy to understand in the light of our present experiences why the Austrians so long dominated Northern Italy, and why unlucky Baratieri and his men were seized with panic and overwhelmed at Adowa.
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