THE FRONT: Between Rounds

INTERNATIONAL

The Declaration

Not yet declared up to this week by either Italy or Ethiopia was their War in Africa.

THE FRONT

Between Rounds

The armies of both Italy and Ethiopia rested on their arms last week, sparring warily.

In the North, the 110,000 Italians under General Emilio de Bono did no fighting but worked like demons to consolidate their position. This is an engineers' war, and the sappers' greatest feat last week was completing emergency landing fields at Adigrat and Aduwa and finishing the motor road from Aduwa back to Italy's main base at Asmara. No sooner was the road finished than white-whiskered old General de Bono drove over it to Aduwa, covering in three hours the distance that had taken his men three days to capture.

After its capture Aduwa showed little evidence of fighting, none of bombing. The muddy streets were swept clean, festooned with flags and triumphal arches of branches. Just outside the town General de Bono changed from his automobile to the back of a skittish little Arab charger, rode through the streets and to the parade ground beyond the town. There he reviewed 11,000 of his men, dedicated the monument whose erection was the first move of the invading Italians.

Only 17 miles from Aduwa lies the holy city of Aksum, whose capture was the next step in the Italian advance. For days Italian forces had this mecca of the Coptic Christians practically surrounded. Scouting planes made hourly flights over it, could see no trace of Ethiopian troops. Still no attack was made, for in the centre of small Aksum stands a little crenelated stone church, holiest in the empire. There Ethiopia's earliest kings are buried. In it was supposed to lie the true Ark of the Covenant. Before such a Christian shrine Italy dared risk no accident that could be used to breed atrocity stories throughout the Christian world. Day after the official annexation of Aduwa, holy Aksum surrendered without a shot being fired.

Seyoum's Retreat. Meanwhile with splitting headaches and aching limbs members of the Italian tank corps were scouring the mountain sides and valleys searching for outposts and possible enemy ambuscades. The smallest tanks, ''fleas" to the troops, were scarcely shoulder-high. Last week "fleas" scrabbled through gullies, over boulders and along trails that would have stalled a goat. But always ahead of them was chunky, wily Ras Seyoum, onetime Governor of Aduwa, commander of the Ethiopian forces in the North.

It was Seyoum's snipers, hiding in thorn bushes and behind the mud walls of shepherds' huts, that had held up the Italian advance on Aduwa 24 hours. Early last week he had assembled a great army to defend Makale, more than 100 miles to the South, and was preparing for a fight. At week's end, scouting planes found Ras Seyoum's followers streaming still farther back into the mountains, always keeping at least two days ahead of the Italians.