“Suddenly everyone stiffened. One of the two doors in the pavilion opened. Palace servants, bare-footed and their shammas drawn over the sword-arm, ran out to clear the porch. The Emperor followed.
He was dressed in khaki as a general. His aspect froze my blood. Vigour had left the face, and as he walked forward he did not seem to know where he was putting his feet. His body was crumpled up, his shoulders drooped: the orders on his tunic concealed a hollow, not a chest.
I did not know it then, but later I learned that the chiefs whom he had ordered out, some of whose troops had cheered the very order, refused to go.
They pleaded inability to assemble their soldiers.
They appeared behind the Emperor now, completely satisfied wih their excuses. Gatatchu had even donned a new pair of grey trousers, with a military stripe down the side, immaculately creased. He smelt of fresh scent.
They did not realise, as the Emperor realised, that their reluctance had destroyed the last chance of organised military resistance in Ethiopia. They still believed themselves to be great leaders of men (…)
Gates of the courtyard opened… Nine hundred men followed, armed with new Mausers, marching well, carrying gas masks. As they passed the saluting base they eyes-righted the Emperor.
He did not respond, scarcely raised his hand. He recognised no one. His eyes focussed neither on objects nor on space. After the shock of the final disobedience, the parade which he was now forced to attend meant nothing, and he bitterly paid it no attention.
He went back into the pavilion. Buxton drew near with his box of Bibles, but he could not speak to he Emperor: none of us could speak to him, not even the young adviser Spencer. (…)
I stood between the doors and looked in. The Emperor lay back in the corder of a deep sofa, utterly exhausted, his high black hair showing like a halo over a face without feeling. The Empress sat erect at the other end, with her finger raised. Occasionally the white net on her head shook as she emphasised a point. When he said wearily that he would fight on, she insisted that he should fly. The sixteen-year-old boy stood by for orders, but they never came: he marched his soldiers of a day back to their homes, to the latest bugles of Ethiopia.
For hours the Empress lectured the Emperor. (…)
It must have been then that the Emperor at last decided to go. Reason, the appeal to the League, allied itself to the instinct of flight…”
(Taken from “Ceasar in Abyssinia”, G.L. Steer, 1936)
