Chapter 391: Chapter 68: Have Your Own Path
Samuel, according to his meticulously crafted plan, executed a surgical operation on the Abyssinian Empire, intending to leverage the divided state of the Empire to pry away approximately sixty to seventy thousand square kilometers of land from its southeastern territories.
This region comprised about one-quarter of present-day Ethiopia’s fertile farmland, which had yet to be developed.
"General! This is a telegram from the homeland."
The communications officer delivered the telegram, sent from the homeland, from Egypt by ship to Desse and handed it to Samuel.
Samuel read the telegram with a frown on his face throughout.
Noticing Samuel’s expression, Rubatino Company’s boss, Sapetto, inquired, "Your Excellency the General! What orders has the government issued?"
Samuel shook his head and said, "Nothing really, but some people back home believe my current actions are too hesitant and not aggressive enough against a native country like the Abyssinian Empire."
Sapetto found it hard to maintain his composure and said, "Don’t they know how much military funding they’ve withheld? We’ve spent two to three months just ensuring the troops’ food supply with limited funds, and now they accuse us of being hesitant!"
Samuel: "It’s not a big deal; I anticipated that some people at home would become restless, especially after we captured Desse City."
Although only after capturing Desse did Samuel truly secure a foothold in the Abyssinian Empire, the vast lands from Asab Port to Desse, including the territories north of the East African Rift Valley (with the south belonging to Dedradawa military town in East Africa), had already been incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy. These lands were mostly desert with some grassland, but they spanned over fifty thousand square kilometers.
Currently, the Kingdom of Italy spans just over two hundred thousand square kilometers, and merely the numbers for Samuel’s occupied territories are enough to excite the majority, despite many areas being uninhabitable.
Sapetto: "It seems they’ve forgotten the lessons from the Italo-Austrian War. They hastily commenced battle without understanding the movements of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, only to be met head-on by their elite troops. Abyssinia is not an entity that ruptures with a single strike as they perceive."
Over the past few months, tagging along with Samuel, Sapetto broadened his horizons, witnessing the formidable task of combatting warriors armed with Arabian doctrine. The more backward the region inhabited by Arabs, the more difficult they were to deal with. Fortunately, General Samuel was a strategist par excellence, adeptly handling each situation, and every decision could foresee the natives’ movements, smashing their plots one by one. Guerilla attacks and ambushes stood no chance against Samuel; instead, they ended up losing soldiers. By day, Samuel’s forces would mobilize to encircle and eliminate villages, even committing exterminations. Samuel cared little for distinguishing between resistance fighters and innocent villagers; he recognized that the guerillas’ lifeblood was in these villages embedded in the desert.
Although the Abyssinian Empire was predominantly Eastern Orthodox, its longstanding capacity to fight Arabs meant it was not to be underestimated, with even the peak-time Ottoman Empire struggling with the divided Abyssinian Empire.
Samuel: "There’s nothing to be done. What I have gathered is that the kingdom might dispatch troops from the north to attack the Abyssinian Empire; they’ve initiated negotiations with Egypt, backed by the British, to borrow a passage through the northern part of Eritrea (Latin, Red Sea, as Italians call this region, meaning the Red Sea coastal land) for an attack on the Abyssinian Empire."
Sapetto burst into laughter: "They intend to launch a direct invasion of Tigray!"
Despite himself being amused, Samuel joined in laughter, joshing, "Perhaps they don’t even know what Tigray is."
Tigray, situated in the Abyssinian core, has long been the most economically developed and militarily robust territory of the Abyssinian Empire, where the capital Aksum is located. In former times, when John IV was the northern fortress commander, he was responsible for northern defense, frequently clashing with Egyptian forces.
Therefore, Tigray concentrated significant numbers of the Abyssinian Empire’s population and army, which was why Samuel opted to stake in the south, avoiding the more affluent north.
The remaining greatest threat to Samuel was the Shawa Kingdom on the southern shore of Tana Lake (the largest lake on the Ethiopian Plateau) within the Abyssinian territory, but the Shawa Kingdom and the north mutually restrained each other, fearing the north seizing the opportunity to move south, therefore choosing passive defense.
Historically, the Shawa Kingdom used to be an ally of the Kingdom of Italy. Menelik II could unify the nation smoothly, significantly due to Italian assistance, and yet eventually, Menelik II dealt Italy a crushing defeat, leaving Italy disgraced in Europe.
However, in this realm, the Shawa Kingdom has no such chance. Italy is here to seize land, their objectives clear, making any support for their enemy impossible.
Currently, the stance of the Shawa Kingdom, or rather Menelik II, towards Italian invaders was one of non-provocation. Of course, if Italy could lock horns with John IV’s northern troops, it would be all the better, allowing them to step in afterward, unify the entire Abyssinian Empire, and expel the Italians, restore the glory of the Empire.
But encountering Samuel thwarted Menelik II’s plan. Samuel wasn’t foolish enough to confront John IV; from the Italo-Austrian War, he learned not to underestimate any adversary. Even when dealing with an opponent, an approach from easy to hard was advisable. Thus, a commonality in his victories can be found, that is, every Austro-Hungarian military failure began with the Hungarian troops.
The most accessible area within the entire Abyssinian Empire was the southeastern region, where powers were mixed without strong warlords, implying the absence of factions capable of uniting the local Abyssinians, allowing him to sever connections with the north completely and leaving the area leaderless.
Samuel said to Sapetto: "Regardless of whomever the kingdom sends next to the Abyssinian Empire for a share, we have no obligation to heed them. As the kingdom chooses to open a new front in the north, it has nothing to do with us, and any non-homeland orders we can ignore."
Samuel harbored resentment, too aware of the nature of those noble bureaucrats. Now seeing themselves achieving slight success, they fancied themselves reinvigorated.
Samuel further speculated: "The new commander of the royal troops must be someone well-connected, the type to enforce with mere authority. We should best avoid them, use any feasible excuse to shirk involvement, for given our manpower against the heavily defended northern Abyssinian Empire, crossing over is indeed difficult and gives the kingdom no ground to say we’re not trying hard."
Sapetto entirely concurred, for now, he couldn’t agree more with Samuel, because Samuel was perpetually "right."
One couldn’t say Samuel was outwardly compliant but inwardly opposing; it’s merely that he’d suffered significantly during the Italo-Austrian War, often duped by his superiors and peers, with promises of reinforcements that never arrived, leaving him in the lurch, while peers would often remain unmoved, seeing no need to render aid.
After several such experiences, Samuel understood a vital principle: never blindly trust superiors or peers, no matter how enticing the prospect, always find a reason to opt out.
The side effect was that during wartime, Samuel was anything but congenial with colleagues, neither favored by higher-ups but also avoiding being led into pitfalls by incompetent allies.
This approach preserved the strength of Samuel’s troops, allowing occasional counterattacks against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Once the war ended, Italy searched throughout the army, finding only Samuel as an undefeated general, pushing noble officers to grudgingly brand Samuel as the new military star; Samuel could only attribute his status to the inadequacy of his peers for the flattering comparison.
Therefore, as the kingdom embarked on a new battleground, Samuel decided not to involve himself, and indeed was mentally preparing to levy taxes within his jurisdiction and recruit Italian immigrants to strengthen his forces.
Given his experience, Samuel predicted non-cooperation would invite sabotage from peers. Despite their ineptitude, they had influential fathers and were a unified group.
Consequently, the already withheld military funds might disappear entirely. He’d faced such a predicament in Italy, but fortunately, he could supplement his personnel locally and relied wholly on donations from neighboring Hungarian allies for supplies.
In the unfamiliar lands of the Abyssinian Empire, self-reliance was essential. From the day Samuel rose, he could assert without hesitation that his success was solely through his effort.