Jibuti numbered 272, with a tonnage of 643,000. About 90% of its trade is the transit of goods to and from Abyssinia, the railway from Jibuti to Addis Abbaba being owned by a French company. In 1913, before the railway had reached Addis Abbaba, the value of the tran- sit trade was 1,636,000. In 1918, with the railway completed, the imports destined for Abyssinia were valued at 1,433,000 and the exports from Abyssinia at 2,622,000. There is also a trade in sup- plying passing ships with coal, previously imported. Textiles, food- stuffs and coal are the chief imports; the exports are the characteris- tic produce of Abyssinia coffee, live stock, hides and skins, ivory, rubber, beeswax, etc.
The colony is administered by a governor assisted by a council composed equally of official and non-official members. The budget for 1919 was balanced at 2,370,000 francs. Relations between the Somali and Danakil and the French proved satisfactory, the tribes being very lightly administered. A small military force was main- tained for the security of Jibuti and the railway. The colony was on jgood relations with its Italian, British and Abyssinian neighbours, save for differences with the Abyssinian customs officials, whose valuation of dutiable goods passing inwards was often arbitrary. Some anxiety was caused in 1917-8 by the presence of Lij Yasu, the deposed Emperor of Abyssinia, in the Danakil country, and by his threats to the railway. His effort to raise the tribes against the French failed.
See the Cote Franqaise des Somalis (annual reports by the French Colonial Ministry), and L'Afrique Franfaise (monthly).
ITALIAN SOMALILAND. The efforts of Italy in Somaliland during 1910-21 were concentrated upon the southern part of their protectorate. By a royal decree of July 1910 this southern region, Benadir and its hinterland, was constituted a Crown colony, administered by a civil governor resident at Mukdishu (Ilal. Mogadiscio), and divided into four " commissariats." This region included the fertile valleys of the lower Juba and Webi Shebeli and the good grazing land on the plateau between those rivers. Dura was the main crop, but cotton and rice plan- tations were formed along the Juba and aid given to Italian colonization companies. The result was not great; the Somalis preferred a nomadic life, while the agricultural classes, negroes or semi-negroes, were few in number. This paucity of labour was the most serious problem confronting the administration.
By the occupation of strategic posts and the building of roads the Italians secured the safety of Benadir, and with this security a considerable trade developed with Abyssinia, chiefly via Lugh, on the Juba. But the absence of any harbours all the ports are open roadsteads proved a great drawback, and to remedy this difficulty Italy had obtained facilities at the harbour of Kismayu, in British East Africa (Kenya), some little distance south of the mouth of the Juba. That river formed the Anglo-Italian frontier. On Dec. 24 1915 an agreement was reached for the appointment of a permanent mixed commission to deal with customs, transit, conservancy, navigation, irrigation and other purposes in the Juba region. Italian desires in respect to the Juba were, how- ever, of a wider character. It was believed that with complete control of the lower Juba spoken of as a second Nile the economic future of the colony would be assured, and in the treaty with the Allies which preceded her entry into the World War Italy secured inter alia a promise of the rectification of her Somaliland frontier. Formal negotiations to that end were entered upon in 1919, when Great Britain agreed to the cession of Kismayu and of a strip of land which would give Italy both banks of the Juba.
The northern part of Italian Somaliland remained under the rule of Somali chiefs, of whom the most important was the Sultan of the Mijertins, whose territory included the coast facing the Gulf of Aden. The Mijertins, who number approximately 100,- ooo, possess large numbers of camels, sheep and cattle, and their country, as also Obbia and the Nogal territory, abounds in plants which furnish gum-arabic, myrrh, frankincense, etc. The Mijertins were near neighbours of Mahommed bin Abdullah, the " Mad Mullah," who between 1905 and 1909 was settled in the lower Nogal region. The hostility of the Mijertins finally drove out the Mullah, who established himself at Tale, in the southeast cor-ner of British Somaliland. The continued and unwelcome attentions of the Mijertins induced the Mullah in 1919 to remove farther into the British protectorate, while in 1920 the Mijertin Sultan, Osman Mahmoud, assembled his warriors to prevent the Mullah's reentry into Italian territory.
Italian relations with Abyssinia were satisfactory. Following the Italo-Abyssinian convention of 1908 the frontier was delimita- ted in ipu, tribal boundaries rather than physical features determining the line chosen. In the north, where the frontier reaches the southern limits of British Somaliland, the Italo- Abyssinian frontier was fixed at 48 E., instead of 47 E., as provided in the 1908 agreement. This gave to Abyssinia the small portion of Ogaden tribal lands which had been in the Italian protectorate, including Galadi.
The external trade, valued at 174,000 in 1908-9, had risen to 326,000 in 1912-3, and was 800,000 in 1918. Throughout this period imports greatly exceeded exports, the exports in 1918 for example being valued at 243,000 only. Imports are chiefly cotton goods from Italy and food-stuffs. Skins form, in value, 75% of the exports. The expenses of administration exceed revenue; the Italian grant in aid (119,000 in 1910-1) was 186,000 in 1920-1, when the budget was balanced at 440,000. Of the expenditure one-fifth was for the military force, some 3,000 strong, sent from Eritrea, the men being Abyssinians.
A 1920 estimate put the total pop. as high as 650,000. Muk- dishu had 14,000 inhabitants. Besides a few hundred Europeans there are at the coast towns settlements of Arab and Indian traders. Mukdishu was, in 1915, connected with Massawa by a high-power wireless station. Surveys for railways had been made, but no construction had begun up to 1921. There were in that year some 1,500 m. of road in southern Somaliland.
See G. de Martino (sometime governor of the colony), La Somalia Nostra (1913), and Italian Somaliland, a British Foreign Office handbook, with bibliography (1920). (F. R. C.)
SOMERSET, ISABELLA CAROLINE [LADY HENRY SOMERSET)
(1851-1921), English philanthropist, was born in London Aug. 3 1851, the eldest daughter and co-heiress of the 3rd and last Earl Somers. She married in 1873 Lord Henry Somerset, son of the 8th Duke of Beaufort, at one time comptroller of Queen Victoria's household, from whom she later separated. She
became well known as a temperance reformer and interested
herself deeply in the reclamation of inebriate women, with this
end in view founding the Duxhurst Farm Colony, near Reigate,
the first settlement of the kind in England. In connexion with
it she established a home for destitute children and a " chil-
dren's village " for saving infant life. Lady Henry Somerset
was for many years president of the National British Women's
Temperance Association, and made a reputation as an able
speaker. In 1894 she founded the Woman's Signal in the inter-
ests of women's work, becoming its editor, and she was also the
author of various children's books and many pamphlets and arti-
cles on social work. She died in London March 12 1921.
SOMME, BATTLES OF THE. Under this heading it is proposed to deal with the principal battles which took place in Picardy and southern Artois during the World War. The geographical limits in which these battles took place may be roughly defined as the Scarpe on the N., the Oise on the S.,the line Cambrai-La Fere on the E., and the line Amiens-Creil on the W.
The strategic geography of this region is governed by the course of the Somme between St. Quentin and Amiens; in the upper part of this course it runs S.-N., in the lower E.-W., and in that general course it continues to the sea. Thus from Peronne, the point at which the river bends through the right angle, to Abbeville, a water barrier divides opposed armies that face N.-S., and separates each into well-defined tactical theatres if they are operating towards the E. and the W. The upper (or strictly the middle) Somme (Peronne-Ham) prolonged to the Oise by the Crozat Canal, on the other hand separates the E.-W. adversaries and either protects or hampers those operating in N.-S. direction. Thus the operations which took place in the region, profoundly influenced by the alignment of the Somme and its tributaries, are in spite of their dissimilarity, properly designated " battles of the Somme."
In the first phase of the war, this region was traversed by the German I. Army, and a number of local combats took place between it and the forces that Joffre gathered, little by little, to form his VI. Army and outflank the Germans in their wheel.
