WARS OF THE NINETIES. 10
misled the Italian general into the idea that
the forces in front of him had been seriously diminished. He thought a favourable moment had come for action, and he marched to the attack of Adowa.
The Italian arm)- was about 25,000 strong; 9,000 of these were European troops, the rest native levies under Italian leaders. There were
70 cannon,mostly small mountain-guns. Bara- tieri had divided his army into four brigades ; that of General Albertone marched on the left, General Arimondi wasin the centre,and General de Bormida on the right. General Ellena fol- lowed with the reserve.
immediatelybesieged it with an arm}' of which
the 20,000 who had crushed Toselli proved to be only the advanced guard. Before Barat'eri was ready to advance to its relief Makalla had fallen, though its garrison made a desperate defence and beat off repeated attacks of the Abyssinians. The two victories enormously in- creased the prestige of Menelek. But theItalian Government nevertheless still took an optimist
view of the situation. It was pointed out that so far the Abyssinians had only encountered small detachments ; that they would soon be attacked by a considerable force of regular troops ;and that there was no need of hurrying on the advance ofBaratieri's army,
for every day's delay told in his favour. On the one hand he was receiving continual reinforcements, on the other it would be difficult for Menelek to keep together for a pro- longed period the enor- mous force he had as- sembled in his camp at Adowa. A hundred thou- sand men wantalot of food, and the vast crowd of half- savage warriorswould soon have to choose between starvation and at least a partial dispersal.
But the Italian staff, ill- informed throughout, did
The ground was cut up
withdeepravines androcky ridges, whichmade it diffi-
cultforthecolumns to keep in touch or co-operatewith each other. There werenc maps of the ground avail- able, andonly a veryfew of
the officers had ever been over it. To add to the dangers of the advance the scouting was very badly done. The brigades were
widely separated when,on the morning of Sunday, .March ist, Albertone's column on the left was attacked by what proved to be the main body of Menelek's army. The Negus had concentrated not learn till the cam paign was over thatMene
3ENERAL BARATIERI about 140,000 warriors in front of or near Adowa, lek, with the help of his foreign advisers, had provided a roughly organised commissariat department,and had formed large magazines of provisions near Adowa. Menelek was conduct- ing his campaign onmodern lines,and succeeded inkeeping his army together long after the date
whenBaratieri hoped that he wouldeither have to retreat for want of supplies, or risk all in an attack on the Italian lines. There was, never- theless, after some weeks a serious dearth of supplies in the Abyssinian camp;but then a report reached Baratieri, towards the end of February, that Menelek and Queen Taitu had left Adowa, and were on their way to Axum.
the holy city of Abyssinia, to be solemnly crowned. It was added that many of the chiefs
with their followers had gone with the king. There wasnot a word of truth in the report;it
and while smallerbodies of these kept the other columns in play, tens of thousands closed in upon the 6,000 native troops commanded by Albertone. He was caught in a narrow space between two ridges, where he could not bring his artillery into action, or even deploy the whole of his brigade in line. The Abyssinians came on in dense masses, firing their rifles as they advanced, their round shields slung from their left shoulders. Their attack wassupported by a small batteryofHotchkiss quick-firing guns,
the first time such a weaponhad been brought into action on a battlefield. The fire of the Italians undoubtedly inflicted serious loss on the
attacking force, but over the bodies of the killed and wounded thousands more pressed on ;the brigade was outflanked, allbut surrounded,and tried to retire on the centre. Its retirement