The siege of Saïo or battle of Saïo took place during the East African Campaign of World War II. Belgo-Congolese troops, British Commonwealth forces and local resistance fighters besieged the fort at the market town of Saïo in south-western Ethiopia in 1941. The siege lasted for several months, culminating in an Allied attack on the Italian garrison thereby forcing it to surrender.
In the first months of 1941, British and Belgian colonial forces attacked Italian East Africa from the colony of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By the end of March, they had seized the town of Gambela and begun containing retreating Italian forces, which were massing on a plateau in the mountain town of Saïo (presently Dembidolo) under the command of General Carlo De Simone and later General Pietro Gazzera. The British forces withdrew the following month (to start an offensive in Western Ethiopia) and the Belgians advanced down the road to Saïo. The Italians repelled them and they were forced to hold their positions along a nearby brook. Almost no fighting took place in May as heavy rain bogged down the Belgians and turned their supply line from Sudan into mud, creating a food shortage. In early June, reinforcements arrived via river and the Belgians besieged the Italian supply depot at Mogi. Aggressive patrols, combined with the actions of the Ethiopian resistance and raids from the South African Air Force put increased pressure upon the Italian garrison.
At the end of the month General Auguste Gilliaert took charge of the Belgian force. He was instructed by the British to attack when an opportunity presented itself. On 3 July, he assaulted the base of Saïo Mountain and in the afternoon Gazzera sued for peace. On 6 July, the Belgians formally accepted the surrender of Gazzera, eight of his generals and over 6,000 Italian soldiers.
Background
Africa Orientale Italiana
On 9 May 1936, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaimed the colony of Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI, Italian East Africa), formed from Ethiopia (after the Italian victory in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, fought 3 October 1935 – May 1936) and the existing Italian possessions of Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. On 10 June 1940, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France, which made Italian military forces in Libya a threat to Egypt and those in Italian East Africa a danger to the British and French colonies in East Africa. Italian belligerence also closed the Mediterranean to Allied merchant ships and endangered British supply routes along the coast of East Africa, the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Egypt, the Suez Canal, French Somaliland and British Somaliland were also vulnerable to an attack from Italian East Africa but the rearmament plans of the Comando Supremo (Italian General Staff) were not due to mature until 1942; in 1940 the Italian armed forces were not ready for military operations against a comparable power.
Prelude
Regio Esercito
Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, was appointed Viceroy and Governor-General of Italian East Africa in November 1937, with a headquarters in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. On 1 June 1940, as the commander in chief of the Comando Forze Armate dell'Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East African Armed Forces Command) and Generale d'Armata Aerea (General of the Air Force), Aosta had about 290,476 locally recruited and Italian-born army, naval and air force personnel, available. By 1 August, mobilisation in Italian East Africa had increased that number to 371,053 troops. On 10 June, the Regio Esercito (Italian Royal Army) was organised in four commands, with the military forces in Ethiopia led by General Pietro Gazzera.
Aosta had the 40th Infantry Division Cacciatori d'Africa and the 65th Infantry Division Granatieri di Savoia from Italy, a battalion of Alpini (elite mountain troops), a Bersaglieri battalion of motorised infantry, several Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MSVN Camicie Nere [Blackshirt]) battalions and an assortment of smaller units; about 70 per cent of the Italian troops were locally recruited Askari. The regular Eritrean battalions and the Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali (RCTC Royal Corps of Somali Colonial Troops) were among the best Italian units in Italian East Africa and included Eritrean cavalry Penne di Falco (Falcon Feathers).
British plans
In August 1939, Field Marshall Archibald Wavell, C-in-C Middle East ordered a plan covertly to encourage a rebellion in the western Ethiopian province of Gojjam, which the Italians had never been able entirely to repress after the end of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in May 1936. In September, Colonel Daniel Sandford arrived to run the project but until the Italian declaration of war, the conspiracy was held back by the British policy of appeasement, intended to avoid a simultaneous war with Germany and Italy. Mission 101 was formed to co-ordinate the activities of the Arbegnoch (Amharic for Patriots). In June 1940, Haile Selassie arrived in Egypt and in July, went to Sudan to meet General William Platt and discuss plans to re-capture Ethiopia, despite Platt's reservations. In July, the British recognised Selassie as emperor of Ethiopia and in August, Mission 101 entered Gojjam province to reconnoitre. Sandford requested that supply routes to the area north of Lake Tana be established before the rains ended and that Selassie should return in October as a catalyst for the uprising. Gaining control of Gojjam required the Italian garrisons to be isolated along the main road from Bahrdar Giorgis south of Lake Tana, to Dangila, Debra Markos and Addis Ababa, to prevent them concentrating against the Arbegnoch. Italian reinforcements arrived in October and patrolled more frequently, just as dissension between local potentates were being reconciled by Sandford's diplomacy.
The Frontier Battalion of the Sudan Defence Force (SDF), set up in May 1940, was joined at Khartoum by the 2nd Ethiopian and 4th Eritrean battalions, raised from émigré volunteers in Kenya. Operational Centres consisting of an officer, five NCOs and several picked Ethiopians were formed and trained in guerrilla warfare, to provide leadership cadres and £1 million was set aside to finance their operations. Major Orde Wingate was sent to Khartoum with an assistant to join the headquarters of the SDF. On 20 November, Wingate was flown to Sakhala to meet Sandford; the British Royal Air Force (RAF) managed to bomb Dangila, drop propaganda leaflets and supply Mission 101, which raised Ethiopian morale, having suffered much from Italian air power since the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Mission 101 managed to persuade the Arbegnoch north of Lake Tana to spring several ambushes on the Metemma–Gondar road and the Italian garrison at Wolkait was withdrawn in February 1941.
Belgian plans
At the conclusion of the Battle of Belgium in May 1940, the only proper force under Belgian command was the Force Publique ("Public Force" i.e. the colonial army) of the Belgian Congo in Central Africa. It thus made up the bulk of the Free Belgian Forces. Consisting of 15,000 native ranks and Belgian officers, it was well equipped, well disciplined and dispersed throughout the colony. Through the year, the Force Publique's defence obligations were considered too important for it to be spared for any offensive operations. The Allies were uncertain of German intentions toward Portuguese Angola, the Congo's neighbour to the south, and the extent of Vichy French influence in French Equatorial Africa to the north. Belgian members of the Force Publique grew impatient with the colonial administration's perceived inaction and the garrison of Stanleyville mutinied in protest. Governor-General Pierre Ryckmans was forced to send a senior member of his staff to calm them down and explain the importance of the Congo's economic contribution to the war.
Meanwhile, Ryckmans and Lieutenant General Paul Ermens discussed the possibility of sending an expedition to Italian East Africa with the South African and British military missions in Léopoldville. There were two problems with such an undertaking: Italian territory was thousands of kilometres away and Belgium was not at war with Italy. The Belgian government in exile was wary of declaring war on a country whose royal family had dynastic links with its own, though this attitude changed after it became known that Italian aircraft based in occupied Belgium were attacking Britain and when an Italian submarine sank a Belgian cargo ship. A declaration of war was eventually delivered on 23 November 1940. Two days later, Ryckmans proclaimed that a state of war existed between Italy and the Congo.
Free French Forces consolidated their control over Equatorial Africa at the Battle of Gabon and more German involvement in the Balkan Campaign (begun by Italy in 1939) made the possibility of intervention in Portugal remote. The staff of the Force Publique and the Belgian government then resolved to assemble an expedition to fight in Italian East Africa. Plans were coordinated with the British and in February 1941, after an extended period of preparation, the first group of 8,000 troops and porters set out from the Congo for Ethiopia. Starting in Stanley Pool, they rode a dozen 10 long tons (10 t) barges and a tugboat up the Congo River to Aketi. The expeditionary force took the Vicicongo line (a narrow-gauge railway) from Aketi to Mungbere and drove by lorry to Juba in Sudan where they took to the White Nile. After five days' travel, the first Belgo-Congolese battalion reached Malakal and marched to the border town of Kurmuk before entering Ethiopia.
East African Campaign
Following the declaration of war against France and Britain by Italy on 10 June 1940, the East African Campaign began as military forces of the British Empire engaged the Italian East African Armed Forces Command (Comando Forze Armate dell'Africa Orientale) in Italian East Africa. After a series of actions in 1940, British colonial forces from Anglo-Egyptian Sudan invaded the territory and eventually a salient formed around the Baro River. In March 1941, the Italian forces began to withdraw from the salient under increasing pressure. On 8 March the first battalion of the Belgo-Congolese expeditionary force marched from Kurmuk towards the Italian-held town of Asosa.
The expeditionary force attacked three days later in conjunction with troops of the King's African Rifles (KAR), forcing the garrison to retreat to Gidami. Next, the Belgians and Congolese began attacking the town of Gambela directly from the west while two companies of the 2/6 KAR under Captain J. W. E. Mackenzie were sent to outflank it and cut off its link with the Italian headquarters at Saïo under the command of General Carlo De Simone. The Belgians were concerned that the Italians might attempt an offensive over the weakly defended Sudanese border; by taking Gambela they could force Gazzera's forces in western Ethiopia into a defensive position. On 22 March, the KAR companies attacked but withdrew to the south when a planned Belgian assault failed to materialise. The Italians were nevertheless surprised by the flanking manoeuvre and retreated to Saïo.
Siege
On 25 March, the Belgo-Congolese battalion and the two companies of the 2/6 KAR occupied Gambela. Exhausted by their journey from the Congo and suffering from dysentery and a lack of artillery, the 1,000 Belgians and Congolese could undertake no further offensive action. Instead they made moves to contain the Italian forces around Saïo from the west, while British troops under General Alan Cunningham conducted operations in Somalia and eastern Ethiopia. The Arbegnoch also threatened the Italian positions. In April, Italian forces burned the elephant grass along the Saïo Plateau to ensure an unobstructed field of fire. That same month the troops of the 2/6th KAR were withdrawn to the Dabus River to link up with the rest of their unit to contain the Italian garrison in Mendi.
Actions at Bortai Brook
The Italians mined the 40 mi (64 km)-long Saïo–Gambela road that led to the Saïo Plateau 4,000 ft (1,200 m) above the surrounding area. The Belgians began slowly advancing but encountered Italians at the Bortai Brook, which ran perpendicular to the road. The Belgians were strengthened by the arrival of a Stokes mortar company and another battalion. Numbering at 1,600 soldiers and 600 non-combatant porters, they lacked the strength to seize the plateau. With the Italians receiving reinforcements of troops retreating from the east, the Belgians decided to keep the initiative to disguise their small numbers.
Three days of cold weather and rain preceded the offensive. On 15 April, Lieutenant Colonel Edmond van der Meersch led an attack on the brook. A Belgian lieutenant scouting in no man's land was ambushed and killed. A Belgian sergeant caught three Italian officers at gunpoint but lowered his revolver when they claimed to be English, thinking the KAR might have dispatched a liaison party to the area. He was then shot by snipers concealed in the bush. A battle ensued in which four Congolese soldiers were killed. Three Italians and an estimated 40 Eritrean Ascari were killed, with approximately 70 Ascari wounded.