1896] Italian Defeat in Abyssinia 217 



long convinced myself that it makes itself the precursor and instrument 

 of Europe's penetrations and conquests against the wild races of man- 

 kind. 



" yth March. — Back at Sheykh Obeyd. Great things have happened 

 since we were away. First and foremost the Italians have been 

 smashed in Abyssinia, thoroughly and I hope finally. They have most 

 richly deserved it. The whole history of their doings on the Red Sea 

 has been a disgrace even to this graceless nineteenth cen'tury. They 

 went there at our bidding in 1884, a job of Lord Northbrook's when 

 we were in straits with the Mahdi and thought they might help us. We 

 gave them Massowa, which did not belong to us, but 'to Egypt, Egypt, 

 of which we said we were acting as guardians and trustees. At first 

 they occupied the island only, then little by little they encroached upon 

 the mainland on the plea of wanting a hill s'tation, then they made 

 leonine treaties with the king and encroached more and more, and then 

 they put forward pretensions for a protectorate. Next they made a 

 dash at Kassala and captured i't from the Soudanese. This turned their 

 vanitous heads, and nothing would serve them but they must make war 

 again with Menelik, wanting to grab the whole country. Menelik pre- 

 tended to yield, for the Abyssinians are cunning, but let loose an army 

 of Chouans upon them. The Italians were defeased and shut up in a 

 fortress. The fortress was invested and at last capitulated on good 

 terms granted them by Menelik, who, though victorious, asked for 

 peace. His magnanimity, however, was put down at once in Italy to 

 cowardice, the ' heroic ' Ptalian defenders of the fortress were treated 

 as if they had been conquerors, and pretensions were put forward of 

 annexing the whole of Abyssinia. Menelik, however, calmly went on, 

 all sections of the Abyssinians joining him, and proposed as an alterna- 

 tive condition of peace, that the Italians should return to their original 

 quarters at Massowa ; and war was renewed. The Kalians then sent 

 50,000 men from Italy, but their General would not wait for the sup- 

 ports, fearing to be superseded, and with 15,000 men gave battle, and 

 has now been entirely destroyed. The Italians have lost 60 cannons 

 and 10,000 men, all most probably killed, and are being swept into "the 

 sea. This is a righteous ending to their iniquities. It is enough to 

 make one repent of ever having wasted sympathy on liberty, to see 

 these Italians, hardly released from their Austrian bondage, counting 

 it a glory for their mushroom kingdom of Italy to attack and enslave the 

 oldest free people and kingdom in the world — for the Abyssinian mon- 

 archy dates from before the time of King Solomon — and there was 

 not a voice in Europe to cry shame ! All the English papers applauded. 

 ' The wiping out of the little kingdom of Abyssinia won't make much 

 difference,' they said, ' on the Stock Exchange.' But for once Provi- 

 dence has answered ' No.' Crispi, 'the Italian minister, formerly a 



