Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 134: Second Italo-Ethiopian War - I

At precisely 05:00, the Mareb River ceased to be a border.

It became a front.

From the high ridges on the Eritrean side, Italian artillery units unleashed their opening barrage.

Gun crews shouted over the shrieking shells, manning 149mm howitzers, their barrels glowing after the third salvo.

The coordinated thunder from the 19th Artillery Regiment shook the rock beneath them.

"Fire Mission. Code Nero," a battery captain barked.

"Elevation nine-two-zero. Confirm target Adwa sector, trench cluster Bravo."

A hundred heavy guns answered.

Explosions ripped into the black hillsides, carving gouges into the dry scrub and collapsing half-dug foxholes filled with Ethiopian conscripts.

Saturation fire was the goal not to rout a force, but to remove the terrain itself.

By 06:00, pontoon bridges previously assembled under canvas tarp were dropped into place over the Mareb.

Bersaglieri stormed across first, tight in formation.

Behind them came the colonial Askaris in khaki tunics, followed by the grumbling tread of Fiat 3000 light tanks.

"Keep your intervals! Mind the right slope!" an Italian officer shouted.

From his mobile observation post, General Emilio De Bono watched the crossing through field glasses.

At 06:30, the air roared.

Three squadrons of Caproni Ca.101 bombers appeared from the northeast.

Behind them, Fiat CR.20 biplanes provided escort.

Painted in the tricolor livery of Fascist Italy, the bombers flew low, within sight of villagers still waking.

Their payloads fragmentation shells and incendiaries rained down on Adwa, Axum, and surrounding settlements.

Axum’s market square vanished under a direct hit.

Crates, livestock, and bodies flew like broken clay.

Ancient stelae cracked under concussive shock.

At Adwa, the first bell rang just as the bombs landed.

A quarter of the town burned before the hour was out.

Back at the Ethiopian forward trench line, Ras Seyoum Mengesha slammed down a cracked field glass.

"Report!"

"Direct hit on Enticho! Tanks advancing west of Adigrat."

He glanced around at his aides, some bleeding, others already organizing a retreat.

"Order the 2nd and 3rd mountain brigades to fall back. Leave the valley. Take high ground. They want open space we deny them."

"But Ras," a young lieutenant protested, "we have no artillery, no radio. No air cover."

Seyoum grabbed a shovel from the ground and rammed it into the earth.

"Then we dig. And we bleed them here."

By 07:15, scattered Ethiopian fire opened up from ridgelines above the advancing Italian forces.

Most wielded World War I-era rifles Gras models, Lee-Enfields, a few Carcanos scavenged from earlier battles.

The sound of gunfire was sharp.

Some Italian soldiers fell.

"Suppressing fire ridge right!" cried a sergeant from the 4th Alpini Division.

Italian mortars began their answer, 81mm shells arcing overhead in clean, brutal lines.

One shell collapsed a lookout post housed in an abandoned church.

Stone crumbled over holy icons and rifle stocks.

At 08:30, flame-thrower teams moved forward.

Dressed in fire-retardant leather and rubber aprons, they cleared what was left of the forward trenches flames spearing through dugouts like lances.

In one instance, a wounded Ethiopian fighter stumbled from a hole, engulfed in fire, but still raised his rifle and fired a shot before collapsing.

At 09:00, De Bono received a coded telegram:

"Secure Adwa perimeter by 1300. Axum nonessential. Armor to flank axial trail."

He nodded, then turned to his staff.

"Push south. Hold the Mareb. Secure the hills. Let the empire breathe."

Meanwhile, Ethiopian cavalry from Enticho attempted one of the last traditional charges of the war.

Perhaps 150 horsemen nobles and peasants both descended in full gallop.

Some wore helmets passed down from ancestors.

They carried curved shotels and rifles wrapped in prayer cloth.

Their shouts rang across the valley, but the Italian lines held steady.

"Machine guns front arc!" barked an Italian commander.

Vickers and Breda heavy machine guns tore through the cavalry line within seconds.

Horses tumbled mid-stride.

Bodies rolled in the dust.

Ten riders made it to the front line.

Three managed to stab before they were shot.

By noon, the Italians declared full control of the Mareb crossings.

Engineers from the 7th Logistics Company began laying down metal sheeting and extending makeshift roads south from Adigrat.

Bulldozers carved narrow passageways into goat trails, expanding them enough for fuel trucks and artillery haulers.

"Secure the ridge five kilometers south," ordered a battalion leader. "I want our tanks sleeping on Ethiopian soil."

One platoon stumbled into a machine gun nest near Adwa’s old fort manned by two teenagers and an amputee veteran.

They fought for twenty minutes, delaying an entire armored column.

It took grenades and a flamethrower to end them.

At 15:00, the first ridgeline south of Adwa was under Italian control.

Resistance had scattered.

Sniper fire still popped from distant boulders, but the organized lines had broken.

Axum burned in the rear, smoke rising in columns visible from thirty kilometers.

"Villages cleared. No survivors reported in three sectors," came a radio report.

"Evacuate the wounded," De Bono said. "But move the lines forward. This isn’t finished."

Near Enticho, a farmer named Gebre and his sons waited on a hillside with muskets and a crate of dynamite.

When a fuel truck passed at dusk, they lit the fuse and rolled the explosives down the slope.

The blast lit the road in orange fire.

The family disappeared into the hills before nightfall, carrying a wounded boy between them.

They would be remembered in whispered stories.

No one found them again.

By 18:00, the gunfire ceased.

De Bono arrived at a forward post, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Casualties?"

"Under sixty, General. Ethiopian losses estimated over one thousand. At least."

De Bono stared toward the horizon.

"Radio Rome. Operation Oresteia has begun. The New Empire walks."

In a ruined trench miles south, Ras Seyoum stood silent as fires flickered in the distance.

Around him, battered militia leaned against rocks, tending wounds, muttering prayers.

He did not speak.

In a dry riverbed, a wounded Ethiopian captain raised a ragged flag into the mud with one good arm.

A scout beside him asked, "Do we run?"

The captain gritted his teeth and answered, "No. We make them run tomorrow."

The war had begun.

And it is only Day one.