I Didn’t Do It For You: How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation. Michela Wrong
next month was spent in a frantic whirr of activity as the British stockpiled ammunition, fuel, rations and water. Martiniâs old Italian railway was extended, every available wagon, truck and mule and camel press-ganged into service as the British set up a supply chain that stretched from Port Sudan, via Kassala, all the way to Happy Valley. The troops would not attempt another push, Platt decided, until he had enough supplies to last two divisions for 14 days of sustained assault.
While the stockpiling continued, soldiers up on Cameron Ridge gritted their teeth and hung on to their precious bluff of captured land. They had never experienced conditions like this before. Italian fire was killing or wounding between 25 and 30 men on the ridge every day. Adopting a technique that would later become a way of life for the Eritrean guerrilla movement, the British forces learnt it was wisest to move at night, covering the ground in scampering crawls. Wounded soldiers would lie stifling their groans during daylight, waiting for the darkness that made evacuation possible. It took 12 men to carry one man down the mountain. There was no way of safely burying the dead, so bodies lay where they had fallen or were pushed into nearby ravines, where they blew up in the heat, attracting dark clouds of flies. Rotten odours seem to travel further in dry heat, there was no avoiding the smell. Digging latrines was out of the question, so the stench of human excrement was soon added to the sweet stink of rotting flesh. The men smoked hard to drown out the nauseous odour and when the tobacco ran out, they smoked tea leaves. At night they could hear jackals tearing at the corpses of their former friends, a sound to turn the stomach. In daytime, another local species made its unwelcome appearance. âThereâd be a scrambling around and a rush of stones. Everyone would get in a state of tension and think this was the start of an attack, only to see the coloured behind of a baboon passing on the skyline,â said Kerr.10
Keeping the Cameron Highlanders up on the ridge supplied with water presented Platt with a major operational challenge in itself. A train of mules had been brought in from Cyprus, but even these surefooted animals regularly lost their footing, their bodies bouncing down the slopes. In any case, there were never enough mules for the task, so the troops were enrolled as pack animals, carrying water and bullets to those on the front line.
But the Italians were also suffering. Normally, attacking forces sustain the lionâs share of injuries. At Keren, however, the hard rock surface was responsible for hundreds of deaths by indirect fire, as each landing shell sent shards of shattered stone flying in all directions. âMy troops are exhausted both physically and morally,â General Nicola Carnimeo, who repeatedly demanded reinforcements, warned Frusci. âWe have had very heavy casualties and the length of the perimeter is such that the defence will necessarily be thin on the ground. If the British concentrate a sufficiently strong force, they may well smash a gap in the ring.â11 Italian forces had also been thinned by desertions. The RAF had been dropping leaflets over enemy lines announcing that Emperor Haile Selassie was returning to his rightful throne in Ethiopia and calling upon the ascaris to rise up against their Italian masters. Whether the propaganda had any effect or the British bombardment was simply too ghastly to endure, hundreds of Eritrean and Ethiopian recruits were defecting.
In mid-March, Platt decided he was ready and summoned his officers. âDo not let anybody think this is going to be a walkover,â he told them. âIt is not. It is going to be a bloody battle, a bloody battle against both enemy and ground. It will be won by the side which lasts longest. I know you will last longer than they do. And I promise you I will last longer than my opposite number.â12 As far as Platt was concerned, this represented the last throw of the dice, for he had run out of alternative schemes. âWhat will you do if it doesnât come off?â General Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East, asked him in the days leading up to the attack. âIâm damned if I know, sir,â he replied. March the 15th was designated as the day of the assault, a week earlier than Platt would have liked, but headquarters were pushing. Platt quickly regretted his scheduling: the day dawned oppressively muggy. âI could not have chosen a worse date. Some of the efforts of the troops that day were defeated almost as much by the heat and heat exhaustion as by hostile opposition.â
As 96 British big guns opened fire and the Italians responded with a barrage of machine-gun fire and a hail of mortars, the 4th Indian Division launched a multi-pronged assault on Hogâs Back, Brigâs Peak and Sanchil, while the 5th Indian Division followed up with an attack on Fort Dologorodoc. This was the rationale behind the long weeks of stockpiling. Over the next 12 days, British artillery worked its way through a stockpile of 110,000 shells, representing, Platt later calculated, the equivalent of 1,000 lorry-loads of ammunition. Firing continually, the British were inflicting a highly effective form of psychological torture: sleep deprivation. âWeâd be given a list of pre-arranged targets and we would go through them in chronological order through the night, keeping them on their toes,â recalled Winchester.13 In that rocky terrain the shock waves bounced from cliff to cliff, numbing the brain and shattering the senses. Cochrane experienced the intolerable effect of this constant bombardment from the other side after being taken prisoner by the Italians. âBy the second night,â he recorded in his memoirs, âI would have given anything to get off the hill.â14
The West Yorkshires finally broke through on March 16, seizing first the Pimple, then the Pinnacle and finally Fort Dologorodoc. For the first time, the British could venture close enough to inspect the pile of rocks blocking Dongolaas Gorge. It proved to be nothing like as solid as feared â sappers estimated they could clear it in two days. Suddenly Keren no longer seemed quite so impregnable. âKeren is ours!â declared one British commander.
He was a trifle premature. Realizing that Dologorodoc represented a fatal breach, Carnimeo tried repeatedly to recapture the fort, sending wave upon wave of Savoia Grenadiers and native troops unsuccessfully against the position. As bodies piled up at the fort perimeter, Italian morale began to waver. It nearly buckled entirely when the popular Lorenzini, said by the ascaris to be immortal, was killed reconnoitring the ground for a seventh counterattack. Italian units were now down to two-thirds of their original strength. But British nerves were also starting to go. On the crests, young men who knew they were about to die penned farewell letters to their parents. Casualties were running so high that drivers, orderlies and mess sergeants were being mustered to form new companies thrown into the fray. âThere was a nasty moment when one or two people got so-called shell shock and we had to take a very firm line,â remembered Kerr. âIt started spreading, demoralization is very infectious. There are moments when you simply have to say âGo back where you came from and donât come running down here.â At heart we all wanted to turn away. It was only pride or shame or a sense of responsibility that kept you going.â15
In the early hours of March 25, the British played their final card. Two brigades attacked on either side of Dongolaas Gorge, one unit working its way silently along what proved to be a poorly-barricaded railway tunnel high on the ridge, the other moving up from Fort Dologorodoc. By the morning of March 27, a last desperate Italian counterattack had been repulsed and sappers had cleared the pass. The guns fell silent as white flags shot up from Italian soldiers on the peaks. With his units in tatters, Frusci had ordered a withdrawal, congratulating his soldiers for their heroism in a florid declaration. âOur many dead, who include one general and five senior officers, remain in Keren as armed guards and a warning to the enemy. We have left Keren only temporarily,â he promised, unconvincingly. âWe will soon return there and the sacred flag of our country will once again flutter in the light of our future glory.â16
If Platt had fulfilled his pledge to last longer than his opposite number, it had only been by a hairâs breadth. The British had come within a whisper of calling off the assault. The general later confessed that in the last three days of the battle, his reserves had shrunk