Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia | |||||||
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Part of the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of the Second World War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
Tens of thousands | 7,000 (including supporters) |
The Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia was a conflict fought from the summer of 1941 to the autumn of 1943 by remnants of Italian troops in Ethiopia and Somalia, in a short-lived attempt to re-establish Italian East Africa. The guerrilla campaign was fought following the Italian defeat in the East African campaign of World War II, while the war was still raging in Northern Africa and Europe.
By the time Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, entered Addis Ababa triumphantly in May 1941, the military defeat of Mussolini's forces in Ethiopia by the combined armies of Ethiopian partisans and Allied troops (mostly from the British Empire) was assured. When General Guglielmo Nasi surrendered with military honors the last troops of the Italian colonial army in East Africa at Gondar in November 1941, many of his personnel decided to start a guerrilla war in the mountains and deserts of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. Nearly 7,000 Italian soldiers (according to the historian Alberto Rosselli) [1] participated in the guerrilla campaign in the hope that the German-Italian army of Rommel would win in Egypt (making the Mediterranean an Italian Mare Nostrum ) and recapture the recently liberated territories. A portion of the Imperial War Museum website on the Italian defeat in East Africa notes that 'several thousand [Italian soldiers] escaped to wage a guerrilla war until September 1943, when Italy surrendered to the Allies.' [2]
There were originally two main Italian guerrilla organizations: the Fronte di Resistenza (Front of Resistance) and the Figli d'Italia (Sons of Italy). [3] The Fronte di Resistenza was a military organization led by Colonel Lucchetti and centered in the main cities of the former Italian East Africa. Its main activities were military sabotage and collection of information about Allied troops to be sent to Italy in multiple ways. The Figli d'Italia organization was formed in September 1941 by Blackshirts of the "Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale" (a fascist organization of volunteer soldiers). They engaged in guerrilla war against Allied troops and harassed Italian civilians and colonial soldiers (askaris) that had been dubbed "traitors" for co-operating with the Allied and Ethiopian forces.
Other groups were the "Tigray" fighters of Lieutenant Amedeo Guillet in Eritrea and the guerrilla group of Major Gobbi based at Dessie. [4] From the beginning of 1942 there was a guerrilla group in Eritrea, under the command of Captain Aloisi, which was dedicated to helping Italians to escape from the British prisoner of war camps of Asmara and Decameré. In the first months of 1942 (because of the August 1940 Italian invasion of British Somaliland), there were also Italian guerrillas in British Somaliland. [5]
While essentially on their own, the guerrillas occasionally received support and encouragement from mainland Italy. On 9 May 1942, the Regia Aeronautica staged a long-range twenty-eight-hour Savoia-Marchetti SM.75 flight over Asmara, dropping propaganda leaflets telling Italian colonists that Rome had not forgotten them and would return. [6] On May 23, 1943, two SM.75s made another long-range flight to attack the American airfield at Gura. One craft encountered fuel difficulties and instead bombed Port Sudan; both aircraft successfully hit their targets and returned to Rhodes, accomplishing a significant propaganda victory. [7]
There were several Eritreans and Somalis (and even a few Ethiopians) who provided aid to the Italian guerrillas. But their numbers dwindled after the Axis defeat at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942. [8]
These guerrilla units (called Bande in Italian) operated in a very extended area, from northern Eritrea to southern Somalia. Their armament was made up mainly of old "91" rifles, Beretta pistols, Fiat and Schwarzlose machine-guns, hand grenades, dynamite and even some small 65 mm cannons. But they always lacked large amounts of ammunition. [9]
From January 1942, many of these "Bande" started to operate under the coordinated orders of General Muratori (commander of the fascist "Milizia"). He was able to encourage a revolt against the Allied forces by the Azebo Oromo tribe in northern Ethiopia, who had a history of rebellion. The revolt was put down by Allied forces operating alongside the Ethiopian army only at the beginning of 1943. [10]
In spring 1942, even Haile Selassie I (who stated in his autobiography that "the Italians have always been the bane of the Ethiopian people") [11] started to open diplomatic channels of communication with the Italian insurgents, allegedly because he was impressed by the victory of Rommel in Tobruk, Libya. [12] Major Lucchetti declared (after the guerrilla war) that the Emperor, if the Axis had reached Ethiopia, was ready to accept an Italian protectorate with these conditions:
In the summer of 1942, the most successful units were those led by Colonel Calderari in Somalia, Colonel Di Marco in the Ogaden, Colonel Ruglio amongst the Danakil and "Blackshirt centurion" De Varda in Ethiopia. Their ambushes forced[ neutrality is disputed ] the Allies under William Platt with the British Military Mission to Ethiopia to dispatch troops with airplanes and tanks, from Kenya and Sudan to the guerrilla-ridden territories of the former Italian East Africa. [14] That summer, the Allied authorities decided to intern the majority of the Italian population of coastal Somalia, in order to avoid them possibly coming into contact with Japanese submarines. [15] In October 1942, the Italian guerrillas started to lose steam because of the Italian-German defeat at the Battle of El Alamein and the capture of Major Lucchetti (the head of the Fronte di Resistenza organization).
The guerrilla war continued until summer 1943, when the remaining Italian soldiers started to destroy their armaments and in some cases, escaped to Italy, like Lieutenant Amedeo Guillet, [16] who reached Taranto on September 3, 1943. He requested from the Italian War Ministry an "aircraft loaded with equipment to be used for guerrilla attacks in Eritrea", [17] but the Italian armistice a few days later ended his plan.
One of the last Italian soldiers to surrender to the Allied forces was Corrado Turchetti, who wrote in his memoirs that some soldiers continued to ambush Allied troops until October 1943. The last Italian officer known to have fought the guerrilla war was Colonel Nino Tramonti in Eritrea. [18]
Of the many Italians who performed guerrilla actions between December 1941 and September 1943, two are worthy of note:
Italian East Africa was an Italian colony in the Horn of Africa. It was formed in 1936 after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War through the merger of Italian Somaliland, Italian Eritrea, and the newly occupied Ethiopian Empire.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion, and in Italy as the Ethiopian War. It is seen as an example of the expansionist policy that characterized the Axis powers and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations before the outbreak of the Second World War.
The East African campaign was fought in East Africa during the Second World War by Allies of World War II, mainly from the British Empire, against Italy and its colony of Italian East Africa, between June 1940 and November 1941. The British Middle East Command with troops from the United Kingdom, South Africa, British India, Uganda Protectorate, Kenya, Somaliland, West Africa, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Sudan and Nyasaland participated in the campaign. These were joined by the Allied Force Publique of Belgian Congo, Imperial Ethiopian Arbegnoch and a small unit of Free French Forces.
Baron Amedeo Guillet was an officer of the Italian Army and an Italian Diplomat. Dying at the age of 101, he was one of the last men to have commanded cavalry in war. He was nicknamed Devil Commander and was famous during the Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia in 1941, 1942 and 1943 because of his courage.
The Italian order of battle for the Second Italo-Ethiopian War on 8 October 1935. The Ethiopian order of battle is listed separately.
The military history of Ethiopia dates back to the foundation of early Ethiopian Kingdoms in 980 BC. Ethiopia has been involved in many of the major conflicts in the horn of Africa, and was one of the few native African nations which remained independent during the Scramble for Africa, managing to create a modern army. 19th and 20th century Ethiopian Military history is characterized by conflicts with the Dervish State, Mahdist Sudan, Egypt, and Italy, and later by a civil war.
Rosa Dainelli was an Italian doctor from Cuveglio who was working in Ethiopia during World War II, when Allied forces liberated all of East Africa from Italian occupation in the Horn of Africa and returned it to the Ethiopian Empire. She subsequently participated in the Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia against the Allies before returning to Italy.
Francesco de Martini was an Italian officer of the Military Information Service in Eritrea, when the Allies invaded Italian East Africa during World War II. He enlisted as a private in the Royal Italian Army in 1923, and left active service as brigadier general and the most decorated soldier of the Royal Italian Army during World War II.
Imperialism, colonialism and irredentism played an important role in the foreign policy of Fascist Italy. Among the regime's goals were the acquisition of territory considered historically Italian in France and Yugoslavia, the expansion of Italy's sphere of influence into the Balkans and the acquisition of more colonies in Africa. The pacification of Libya (1923–32), the invasion of Ethiopia (1935–36), the invasion of Albania (1939), the invasion of France (1940), the invasion of Greece (1940–41) and the invasion of Yugoslavia (1941) were all undertaken in part to add to Italy's national space. According to historian Patrick Bernhard, Fascist Italian imperialism under Benito Mussolini, particularly in Africa, served as a model for the much more famous expansionism of Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe.
RAF Castel Benito was an airport of Tripoli created by the Italians in Italian Libya. Originally, it was a small military airport named Castel Benito, but it was enlarged in the late 1930s and was later used by the British RAF after 1943. It was called RAF Castel Benito by the Allies.
The Italian colonists in Albania were Italians who, between the two World Wars, moved to Albania to colonize the Balkan country for the Kingdom of Italy.
The Royal Corps Of Eritrean Colonial Troops were indigenous soldiers from Eritrea, who were enrolled as askaris in the Royal Corps of Colonial Troops of the Royal Italian Army during the period 1889–1941.
Bands was an Italian military term for irregular forces, composed of natives, with Italian officers and NCOs in command. These units were employed by the Italian Army as auxiliaries to the regular national and colonial military forces. They were also known to the British colonial forces as "armed Bands".
Castel Benito was an airport of Tripoli created by the Italians in Italian Libya in the early 1930s. It was called RAF Castel Benito by the Allies after 1943.
The Italian Military Information Service was the military intelligence organization for the Royal Army of the Kingdom of Italy from 1925 until 1946, and of the Italian Republic until 1949. The SIM was Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's equivalent to the German Abwehr. In the early years of the war, the SIM scored important intelligence successes. Rommel’s successful military operations in North Africa in 1942 were substantially facilitated by the SIM through the securing of the U.S. Black Code used by Colonel Bonner Fellers to communicate plans for British military operations to his Headquarters in Washington.
Italian Eritrea was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy in the territory of present-day Eritrea. The first Italian establishment in the area was the purchase of Assab by the Rubattino Shipping Company in 1869, which came under government control in 1882. Occupation of Massawa in 1885 and the subsequent expansion of territory would gradually engulf the region and in 1889 the Ethiopian Empire recognized the Italian possession in the Treaty of Wuchale. In 1890 the Colony of Eritrea was officially founded.
Eritrea Governorate was one of the six governorates of Italian East Africa. Its capital was Asmara. It was formed from the previously separate colony of Italian Eritrea, which was enlarged with parts of the conquered Ethiopian Empire following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
Ethiopia–Italy relations are the current and historical relations between Ethiopia and Italy.
Italians of Ethiopia are Ethiopian-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Ethiopia starting in the 19th century during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Ethiopia.
Italian Ethiopia, also known as the Italian Empire of Ethiopia, was the territory of the Ethiopian Empire, which Italy occupied for approximately five years. Italian Ethiopia was not an administrative entity, but the formal name of the former territory of the Ethiopian Empire, which now constituted the Governorates of Amhara, Harar, Galla-Sidamo, and Scioa after the establishment of Italian East Africa.