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 May 1936. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion (Amharic: ጣልያን ወረራ, romanized: Ṭalyan warära), and in Italy as the Ethiopian War (Italian: Guerra d'Etiopia). The war is regarded as the largest colonial campaign in history.
On 3 October 1935, two hundred thousand soldiers of the Regio Esercito (Royal Army) commanded by Marshal Emilio De Bono attacked from Italian Eritrea without prior declaration of war. At the same time a smaller force under General Rodolfo Graziani attacked from Italian Somalia. On 6 October, Adwa was conquered, a symbolic place for the Italian army as it was the site of their defeat at the Battle of Adwa during the First Italo-Ethiopian War. On 15 October, Italian troops seized the town of Aksum, and its famous obelisk was torn from its site and sent to Rome to be placed symbolically in front of the building of the Ministry of Colonies. Exasperated by De Bono's slow and cautious progress, Benito Mussolini replaced him with General Pietro Badoglio on 14 November.
Ethiopian forces launched a counterattack in December 1935 that achieved some gains and temporarily halted the Italian advance. Frustrated, Mussolini authorized the use of mustard gas, with the Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force) dropping 330 tons over the next four months, violating the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The Italians resumed the offensive in early February, decisively defeating the Ethiopian armies at Amba Aradam, Tembien, and Shire. On 31 March 1936, the Italians won a decisive victory at the Battle of Maychew, which nullified any possible organized Ethiopian resistance. Emperor Haile Selassie was forced to flee into exile on 2 May, and Badoglio's forces arrived in the capital Addis Ababa on 5 May. Mussolini then announced the annexation of Ethiopia on 9 May and the colony of Italian East Africa was formed. Hostilities did not cease with the end of conventional war operations and Ethiopian resistance to Italian rule continued until the country was liberated in 1941.
Overall, the war in Ethiopia was a major military success for the fascist regime in Italy, achieved relatively quickly and with considerable propaganda value. However, it also placed a significant strain on an already seriously unbalanced budget, weakening Italy's long-term economic position. The Italian aggression against Ethiopia had significant diplomatic consequences, leading to the end of the Stresa Front and Italy's rapprochement with Nazi Germany. Simultaneously, the inability of the League of Nations to prevent the invasion discredited it internationally on the eve of the Second World War.
Italian troops used mustard gas in aerial bombardments (in violation of the Geneva Protocol and Geneva Conventions) against combatants and civilians in an attempt to suppress Ethiopian resistance. Deliberate Italian attacks against ambulances and hospitals of the Red Cross were reported. By all estimates, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian civilians died as a result of the Italian invasion, which have been described by some historians as constituting genocide. Crimes by Ethiopian troops included the use of dumdum bullets (in violation of the Hague Conventions), the killing of civilian workmen (including during the Gondrand massacre) and the mutilation of captured Eritrean Ascari and Italians (often with castration).
Background
State of East Africa
The Kingdom of Italy began its attempts to establish colonies in the Horn of Africa in the 1880s. The first phase of the colonial expansion concluded with the disastrous First Italo-Ethiopian War and the defeat of the Italian forces in the Battle of Adwa on 1 March 1896, inflicted by the Ethiopian Army of Negus Menelik II. In the following years, Italy abandoned its expansionist plans in the area and limited itself to administering the small possessions that it retained in the area: the colony of Italian Eritrea and the protectorate (later colony) of Italian Somaliland. For the next few decades, Italian-Ethiopian economic and diplomatic relations remained relatively stable.
On 14 December 1925, Italy's fascist government signed a secret pact with Britain aimed at reinforcing Italian dominance in the region. London recognised that the area was of Italian interest and agreed to the Italian request to build a railway connecting Somalia and Eritrea. Although the signatories had wished to maintain the secrecy of the agreement, the plan soon leaked and caused indignation by the French and Ethiopian governments. The latter denounced it as a betrayal of a fellow member country of the League of Nations.
As fascist rule in Italy became increasingly dictatorial, its colonial governors in the Horn of Africa began pushing outward the margins of their imperial foothold. The governor of Italian Eritrea, Jacopo Gasparini, focused on attempting to win over the leaders of the Tigrinya people against Ethiopia. The governor of Italian Somaliland, Cesare Maria de Vecchi, began a policy of repression that led to the absorption of the fertile Jubaland and the annexation of various Somali protectorates during the Campaign of the Sultanates.
Walwal Incident
The Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1928 stated that the border between Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia was 21 leagues parallel to the Benadir coast (approximately 118.3 kilometres [73.5 miles]). In 1930, Italy built a fort at the Walwal oasis (also Welwel, Italian: Ual-Ual) in the Ogaden and garrisoned it with Somali dubats (irregular frontier troops commanded by Italian officers). The fort at Walwal was well beyond the 21-league limit and inside Ethiopian territory. On 23 November 1934, an Anglo–Ethiopian boundary commission studying grazing grounds to find a definitive border between British Somaliland and Ethiopia arrived at Walwal.
The party contained Ethiopian and British technicians and an escort of around 600 Ethiopian soldiers. Both sides knew that the Italians had installed a military post at Walwal and were not surprised to see an Italian flag at the wells. The Ethiopian government had notified the Italian authorities in Italian Somaliland that the commission was active in the Ogaden and requested the Italians to co-operate. When the British commissioner Lieutenant-Colonel Esmond Clifford, asked the Italians for permission to camp nearby, the Italian commander, Captain Roberto Cimmaruta, rebuffed the request.
Fitawrari Shiferra, the commander of the Ethiopian escort, took no notice of the 150 Italian and Somali troops and made camp. To avoid being caught in an Italian–Ethiopian incident, Clifford withdrew the British contingent to Ado, about 20 mi (32 km) to the north-east, and Italian aircraft began to fly over Walwal. The Ethiopian commissioners retired with the British, but the escort remained. For ten days both sides exchanged menaces, sometimes no more than 2 m apart. Reinforcements increased the Ethiopian contingent to about 1,500 men and the Italians to about 500, and on 5 December 1934, shots were fired. The Italians were supported by an armoured car and bomber aircraft. The bombs missed, but machine gunfire from the car caused about 110 Ethiopian casualties. 30 to 50 Italians and Somalis were killed. The incident led to the Abyssinia Crisis at the League of Nations. On 4 September 1935, the League of Nations exonerated both parties for the incident.
Abyssinian crisis
Britain and France, preferring Italy as an ally against Germany, did not take strong steps to discourage an Italian military buildup on the borders of Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. Because of the German question, Mussolini needed to deter Hitler from annexing Austria while much of the Italian Army was being deployed to the Horn of Africa, which led him to draw closer to France to provide the necessary deterrent. King Victor Emmanuel III shared the traditional Italian respect for British sea power and insisted to Mussolini that Italy must not antagonise Britain before he assented to the war. In that regard, British diplomacy in the first half of 1935 greatly assisted Mussolini's efforts to win Victor Emmanuel's support for the invasion.
On 7 January 1935, a Franco-Italian Agreement was made that gave Italy essentially a free hand in Africa in return for Italian co-operation in Europe. French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval told Mussolini that he wanted a Franco-Italian alliance against Nazi Germany and that Italy had a "free hand" in Ethiopia. In April, Italy was further emboldened by participation in the Stresa Front, an agreement to curb further German violations of the Treaty of Versailles. The first draft of the communique at Stresa Summit spoke of upholding stability all over the world, but British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, insisted for the final draft to declare that Britain, France and Italy were committed to upholding stability "in Europe", which Mussolini took for British acceptance of an invasion of Ethiopia.
In June, non-interference was further assured by a political rift, which had developed between the United Kingdom and France, because of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. As 300,000 Italian soldiers were transferred to Eritrea and Italian Somaliland over the spring and the summer of 1935, the world's media was abuzz with speculation that Italy would soon be invading Ethiopia. In June 1935, Anthony Eden arrived in Rome with the message that Britain opposed an invasion and had a compromise plan for Italy to be given a corridor in Ethiopia to link the two Italian colonies in the Horn of Africa, which Mussolini rejected outright. As the Italians had broken the British naval codes, Mussolini knew of the problems in the British Mediterranean Fleet, which led him to believe that the British opposition to the invasion, which had come as an unwelcome surprise to him, was not serious and that Britain would never go to war over Ethiopia.
The prospect that an Italian invasion of Ethiopia would cause a crisis in Anglo-Italian relations was seen as an opportunity in Berlin. Although Adolf Hitler did not want to see Emperor Haile Selassie win, Germany provided some weapons to Ethiopia out of fear of quick victory for Italy. The German perspective was that if Italy was bogged down in a long war in Ethiopia, that would probably lead to Britain pushing the League of Nations to impose sanctions on Italy, which the French would almost certainly not veto out of fear of destroying relations with Britain; that would cause a crisis in Anglo-Italian relations and allow Germany to offer its "good services" to Italy. In that way, Hitler hoped to win Mussolini as an ally and to destroy the Stresa Front. Selassie was reportedly grateful for the German support. After receiving a personal letter from Hitler in December 1934, he began referring to Nazi Germany as Ethiopia's only "sincere friend".
Armies
Ethiopian forces
On the eve of hostilities, the Ethiopians had mobilized an army of 350,000–760,000 men equipped with repeating rifles of various models and calibers, though mostly modern, with approximately 150 rounds of ammunition per soldier. As war appeared inevitable, Haile Selassie began to accelerate the rearmament and "spend every last cent to defend the integrity of Ethiopia", making available his entire personal fortune. From January to July 1935, Ethiopia was able to import large numbers of weapons from Europe, before the embargo decreed by the League of Nations came into force, approximately 16,000 rifles, 600 light machine guns and half a million bullets were imported into the country. The arms embargo imposed on the belligerents by France and Britain disproportionately affected Ethiopia, which lacked the manufacturing industry to produce its own weapons. Only Germany, which hoped to keep Italy busy in Africa for as long as possible in order to ease its pressure on Austria, continued to secretly supply Ethiopia with arms and ammunition. The Germans sent three aeroplanes, 10,000 Mauser rifles, 10 million rounds of ammunition, 36 20 mm Oerlikon cannons and 30 Rheinmetall-Borsig 37 mm anti-aircraft guns to the Ethiopians.
The Ethiopian army had about 800 light Colt and Hotchkiss machine-guns and 250 heavy Vickers and Hotchkiss machine guns, about 100 .303-inch Vickers guns on AA mounts, 48 20 mm Oerlikon S anti-aircraft guns and some recently purchased Canon de 75 CA modèle 1917 Schneider 75 mm field guns. The Ethiopian army had some 300 trucks, seven Ford A-based armoured cars and four World War I–era Fiat 3000 tanks.
The best Ethiopian units were the emperor's "Kebur Zabagna" (Imperial Guard), which were well-trained and better equipped than the other Ethiopian troops. The Imperial Guard wore a distinctive greenish-khaki uniform inspired by the Belgian Army, which stood out from the white cotton cloak (shamma), which was worn by most Ethiopian fighters. The skills of the Rases, the Ethiopian generals, were reported to rate from relatively good to incompetent. Haile Selassie ordered the use of guerrilla tactics, but for cultural reasons this would be impracticable. Most of his commanders considered guerrilla warfare to be dishonorable, so they instead preferred to engage the Italians in frontal battles.
The serviceable portion of the Ethiopian Air Force included three obsolete Potez 25 biplanes. A few transport aircraft had been acquired between 1934 and 1935 for ambulance work, but the Air Force had 13 aircraft and four pilots at the outbreak of the war. Airspeed in England had a surplus Viceroy racing plane, and its director, Neville Shute, was delighted with a good offer for the "white elephant" in August 1935. The agent said that it was to fly cinema films around Europe. When the client wanted bomb racks to carry the (flammable) films, Shute agreed to fit lugs under the wings to which they could attach "anything they liked". He was told that the plane was to be used to bomb the Italian oil storage tanks at Massawa, and when the Criminal Investigation Department enquired about the alien (ex-German) pilot practices in it Shute got the impression that the Foreign Office did not object. However, fuel, bombs and bomb racks from Finland could not reach Ethiopia in time, and the paid-for Viceroy stayed at its works. The emperor of Ethiopia had £16,000 to spend on modern aircraft to resist the Italians and planned to spend £5000 on the Viceroy and the rest on three Gloster Gladiator fighters.
There were 50 foreigners who joined the Ethiopian forces, including the African American pilot John Robinson, French pilots like Pierre Corriger and André Maillet, a former Ottoman general named Wehib Pasha, an official Swedish military mission under Captain Viking Tamm, the White Russian Feodor Konovalov and the Czechoslovak writer Adolf Parlesak. Several Austrian Nazis, a team of Belgian fascists, and the Cuban mercenary Alejandro del Valle also fought for Haile Selassie. Many of the individuals were military advisers, pilots, doctors or supporters of the Ethiopian cause; 50 mercenaries fought in the Ethiopian army and another 50 people were active in the Ethiopian Red Cross or nonmilitary activities.