THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
167 
THE ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION. 
BY LIEUTENANT E. E. CHAPMAN, B.H.A. 
The important position the Abyssinian expedition must hold in the future 
history of mountain warfare will, I trust, render a slight sketch of this 
military enterprise acceptable to the Regiment. 
While, to us as artillerymen, it has afforded opportunities of witnessing 
the facility with which heavy mortars and field guns can be carried over 
800 miles of mountainous country and of putting to practical test, a new 
description of mountain gun, it has added much to our experience, in 
connexion with all the different branches of the service, and should have 
gained for us, by contact with obstacles of no ordinary character, a con¬ 
fidence and practice in the conduct of hill campaigns which may hereafter 
prove of great service. 
Though no opposition was met with on the march to Magdala, beyond 
the formidable barriers with which nature seemed inclined to bar our 
passage, the movement of a body of troops, large enough to ensure success, 
to a distance of 400 miles from our base of operations, and the happy 
termination of so difficult an undertaking, are successes which seldom fall 
to the lot of a commander. 
A small force landed at Zulla early in October, as pioneers to the expe¬ 
dition. Expecting to find water, they had 
brought but a small supply with them, and no 
means existed for bringing this from the 
ships, so that an early move was made to the 
foot of the Koomaylo Pass, 14 miles distant. 
They were here separated by 50 miles from the 
Abyssinian Highlands, and it was by slow 
degrees only that the bed of the mountain torrent through which their 
road lay, could be made practicable; whilst this was being done, the cavalry 
took up a position on the bed of the Haddas river ten miles distant* 
supplies being conveyed from the shipping to both points by mule carriage. 
Erom the first, difficulty was experienced in the lack of direct telegraphic 
communication with Aden and Suez; more troops were forwarded from 
Bombay before the preparations for their reception were completed, whilst 
the stores most urgently required were not those that first found shipment 
either at Bombay or Suez. Mules arriving without saddles, in the keeping 
of a ruffianly band of muleteers, hurriedly collected in Egypt and elsewhere, 
were either lost or stolen, or died from the want of ordinary care in watering 
and feeding. African glanders, the disease most to be dreaded, set in, and 
under such circumstances could ill be coped with. 
j} 
r-in-j. 
One Company Native Artillery, 
One 12-pr. howitzer, 
One old-fashioned bronze 4§ 
gun, 
Two 4§-in. mortars. 
10th Regiment Bo. N.I. 
3rd Regiment Bo. Light Cav3\ 
Bombay Sappers. 
One Company Marine Battalion. 
