The Opponents

Amedeo of Savoy-Aosta (1898-1942)
Son of Emanuele Filiberto and Helena of France, Duke Amedeo of Aosta had taken part to the First World War with the rank of captain. In 1922, he moved to Congo under an assumed name, and there he lived for one year, working as a laborer. He then joined a caravan and travelled as far as Nairobi, later returning to Italy and into the Army. From 1925 to 1931, he served in Libya. Where after taking the command of Sahara troops, he actively participated in the operations to take back the deserted inland which had fallen in the hands of the local rebels, the Senussi. In 1937, he entered the Air Force and in 1937, he was appointed Viceroy of the newly conquered Ethiopia, and later, Governor of the entire Italian Eastern Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana AOI). His action stood out for the intense commitment lavished in the administration of the colony and of the indigenous Army, and for the realization of large public, railroad, hospital and road works. He also was an outstanding military commander and a magnificent leader. Although opposed to the anti-British war, he acted with loyal determination, showing great military competence and well balanced daring.

Aware of the impossibility to receive significant aid from the homeland, he split the vast territory of the empire into five sectors, giving each local commander the order to defend to the bitter end, but also the necessary operational and decision-making independence. This way he managed to attract to that front, after all a secondary one, sound mechanized and aerial British forces that otherwise could have threatened Greece or Tripoli itself.

His country rewarded him with the highest military decoration, the Golden Medal. His foes paid him full military honors, the Italian settlers owed him the escape from the revenge of the Ethiopian resistance. In fact, to avoid any bloodshed, whenever Italian troops had to abandon cities or settlements, the Duke took care to inform British commands so that they could take over the vacant emplacements. Forced to leave Addis Ababa, he retreated onto the Amba Alagi plateau, where he capitulated on 21 May. He died in 1942 while in British captivity.

Lord Archibald Percival Wavell (1883-1950)
Viscount of Winchester and Cyrenaica, British Marshal, supreme head in the Middle East in 1939, he launched against Italians in Libya the offensive of the 1940-41 winter, seizing Tobruk and Benghazi. Together with O'Connor, Wavel was the main author of the Italian route in Egypt and Cyrenaica. That victory against Marshal Graziani earned him 150,000 prisoners and the assignment to conduct in full freedom, the operations in Italian East Africa, and later in Syria, Greece, at Crete. In 1941, he was appointed Commander in Chief of British and Commonwealth forces in India. From there, he and the Soviets faced the events occurring in Iran in August of that year. After the Japanese aggression, he was appointed inter-Allied commander in the Pacific. In 1942, he confronted the Japanese in Burma, and in early 1943, promoted Marshal, he became Viceroy of the Indies, maintaining the charge until 1947.

The great victories of this "old fashioned" soldier were achieved thanks to his experience in colonial wars and on deserted terrains acquired during his youth. As a matter of fact, he had taken part in the Boer War (1899-1902) and in the First World War in Palestine and Sinai. From 1919 to 1939, he served with the British Forces in the Middle East. Aware of the impossibility of maintaining huge masses of men on bare and unwelcome tropical terrains, Wavell consciously fielded forces "inferior" only in numbers, but actually very mobile and well armed. This way, by freeing up troops from otherwise insuperable catering problems, he acquired a clear manuever and fire superiority on motionless and burdened opponents, facing and defeating them in small groups. Worth mentioning among his main collaborators during the campaign in the Italian East Africa are Gen. Platt, who led the offensive against Erithrea in the Agordat and Keren battles, and Gen. Alan Gordon Cunningham (not to be confused with his more famous brother Andrew Brown Cunningham, Admiral and Commander of the Alexandria Fleet), that was in charge of the offensive, also victorious, against Somalia.

The Italian Colonies

In a speech dated 1887, Italian Prime Minister Crispi stated, regarding Somalia:

"We do not want adventures, nor conquest wars that in fact we openly condemn. Our ambition is that Italy appears and expands where her children spontaneously go".

Thus, in the declarations of politicians as well as in the beliefs of the public opinion, Italian colonialism did not have a military and imperialistic nature like the French and British one, but privileged national, popular and even humanitarian aspects, as a "safety valve" for exceeding manpower and acquisition of materials that the homeland desperately needed. This was, however, a rather idyllic view, faked to silence the opposition of the Church while in fact the colonies that Italy had been carving in the East Africa, and from 1936, would include Ethiopia, a notable military importance. Chance had favoured Italian enterprises (that otherwise would have met stiff opposition from the United Kingdom, as actually happened in 1935), in the mid 1880's, and right in Eastern Africa, in which developed the anti-Egyptian and anti-English uprising of the Mahdi, that enormously worried the colonial authorities of the Empire. The farsighted British diplomacy, believing that Italians, with their colonies, might make for a valid ally southwards of Sudan against the common danger of Dervisci, did not oppose Mussolini's expansionary designs.

The Strategic Importance of the Italian East Africa

Fifty years later, once the political situation and the relationship between Italy and Great Britain had changed, the exceptional importance of the Italian colonies as a war theatre could no longer be hidden. In 1940, the AOI was a very serious menace to the connecting courses and even to the military and economical unity of the British Empire itself, as Italians were in the position to cut the neuralgic longitudinal axis between Cairo and Capetown. If the Italians had managed to conquer Khartoum, they would also have laid concrete bases for a territorial link with Libya, thus encircling Egypt and the Suez Canal zone. With the bases of Assab and Massawa, the Air Force and the Navy could seriously threaten British courses between the Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Suez Canal. Had these courses been totally interrupted, the war trend would have been heavily changed, as the English would have and not only the insipience of statesmen and Staff officers, as often is said, turned the situation upside down. The AOI was completely isolated as it was surrounded by British-held territories and could not be supplied through the Canal, occupied by the powerful Royal Navy. Italian actions could have been really dangerous only on two conditions: the completion of the self-sufficiency programs and the end of the war within a short period. Neither of the two occurred and the AOI fell into British hands 17 months after the war's beginning.

The Six Acts of the Defeat

The operations in the AOI can be divided into three phases:

1. July 1940: Italy conquers the Kassala junction in the British Sudan, together with some other resorts on the border.
2. August 1940: Italian conquest of the British Somaliland and of the Berber capital city (defended by 11,000 men) thanks to an expeditionary force composed by 4,800 Italians and 30,000 colonial troops.
3. September-December 1940: standstill of the Italian offensive for lack of supplies, due to the excessive extension of the catering lines.
4. January 1941: preparation for the imminent British counterattack
5. British attack against Eritrea and Somalia.
6. British attack against Ethiopia and fall of the Italian East Africa.

During the whole ill-fated African campaign, Italian troops fought resolutely and with extraordinary bravery, often giving rise to their foes' admiration. At the beginning of the hostilities the Italian forces were composed of 91,000 Italian nationals (of which 7,000 were officers) belonging to the Army, Air Force and Revenue Guards. The colonial soldiers, the famous Ascari, numbered around 200,000. However, this huge mass of men were scattered on different and wide operation zones, from which was impossible to intervene if a sector was in trouble due to the lack of vehicles and links between the various units.

Italian troop were equipped with: 3,300 machine guns; 64 M tanks; 39 L tanks; 126 armored cars and trucks; 813 guns of different calibers but all WWI dated; 325 planes of which only 244 combat ready.

In comparison to Italian forces, the British ones were outnumbered, but better armed and more mobile as they were mechanized; not a negligible detail if you consider that the operational theater was six times wider than the Italian territory. British equipment was far better and was supported by an Air Force which at that time was not very modern, but at least had enough fuel and ammo to fly and fight!

This is, unfortunately, an Italian cliché that would repeat itself throughout every theater.

The Ascari

There was no colonial power that did not form local units with military and police duties. This habit was also adopted by Italy that, under some points of view excelled for the quality and quantity of such troops, numbering around 200/300,000 (Ascari, Carabinieri and irregular bands) at the outbreak of hostilities. The Ascari were the most widespread kind of troops. Organized in regular units, with assured income, disciplinary certainty, and small social privileges, they did their best when well commanded and organized. Their loyalty depended on the affection to the chief (usually an Italian officer) rather than to the Army. A bit like all "primitive" soldiers, the Ascari produced more on attack, expressing instinctive courage and speed, but were not tenacious when defending, especially under shelling or air raids.

At least until when the Empire clearly appeared to be doomed, the Ascari did their duty anyway. Later, stirred up by British propaganda, by the local resistance, by hunger and worry for their families far away, sometimes fallen into British hands, they started deserting or asking for discharge in larger and larger numbers. Just a few switched sides or went as far as drawing their weapons at their commanders. Some other widespread troops were the so-called "irregular bands", a few hundred mounted soldiers, usually untrustworthy and fickle, who were used to taking along their families and goods (camels, cattle), thus thwarting the speed offered by their horses. However, even among these, some were faithful beyond any expectation. Some, led by "indomitable" Italian officers, kept fighting long after the fall of the Italian Eastern Africa.

The Defense of Eritrea

The British High Command had already decided to attack Ethiopia in November 1940, immediately after that, Graziani's advance into Egypt had been stopped and crushed by Wavell's troops at Sidi El Barrani. The success gave rise in Churchill's mind to the hope to move some units from the Northern theatre to Sudan, and from there, unroot the defenses of Eritrea, reaching Massawa in a few days. The attack was to be launched against the southern and Eastern part of the Italian defenses in the Eastern Africa, departing from four directions:

• North-South, in parallel with the coast, from Karora towards Keren
• West-East, conduced from Kassala towards Agordat by the 4th Anglo-Indian Division
• Once more West-East, towards Gondar, by the 1st Anglo-Sudanese division
• Lastly, more South, from the neighborhood of Metemma towards Gondar. [...] All the original plan was turned upside down, and had negative repercussions on the British forces in North Africa, that were depleted in the most critical moment of the Italian-German counteroffensive in Cyrenaica, determined by the arrival of Rommel’s Afrika Korps.

Things went differently from what Churchill and Wavell had hoped. The quick breakout of the Italian front made by the 4th Anglo-Indian Division led by Gen. Beresford-Pierce seemed to have brought havoc among the Italian troops and cleared the road to Asmara and Massawa. But the unexpected resistance encountered at Keren, which lasted 56 days, obliged the British to move from Egypt, Aden and Eastern Mediterranean to Ethiopia a big part of their forces. All the original plan was turned upside down, and the British forces in North Africa were depleted in the most critical moment of the Italian- German counteroffensive in Cyrenaica, determined by the arrival of Rommel's Afrika Korps.

Agordat

Agordat is a vital junction of Eritrea: here pass the roads to Keren, Asmara, and the sea. The strategic importance of this town is confirmed by the two important battles which took place here in that dry and inaccessible zone in 1890 and 1893. The Italians had established a 22-kilometer-long defence line held by units of Gen. Beccari's 4th Division and led by Colonel Lorenzini. The offensive launched by the British on 26th January, supported by huge numbers of aircraft and by the extremely efficient Gazelle Force (a special corps formed by 5,000 men, tanks, armoured cars and artillery) broke into the Italian lines between Laquatat and Cochen.

The sacrifice of two Italian armoured battalions composed by M and L tanks was useless against the much more powerful Matilda and Cruiser tanks, against which even the rounds fired by our 77/28 guns bounced off. On Jan. 31st the Italians withdrew in order, scattering to escape air attacks and carrying the fight on. Losses were heavy: 1,260 Italian nationals and 14,000 colonials, 96 guns, 24 tanks and 20 aircraft. But the enemy had not achieved an easy victory, since they had to collect all available units from Port Sudan to substitute the fatigued ones. Fortunately for Italians, the men of the Gazelle Force had a eight-hour-long stop to clear a bridge from mines, whereas they could easily bypass it. This delay allowed the defenders of Keren to withdraw in the natural "fortresses" present in the territory, and to detonate part of the hillside to obstruct the entrance of the Dongolaas ravine just as the first British tanks were coming in. A minimum delay - just a few hours - that however cost the soldiers of both sides two months of epic struggle and suffering. A British survivor of the battle said:

"Who fought on other fronts knows that nothing, nothing was worse than Keren!"

The Keren Upland

At Keren, the small capital of the Senait, located on the uplands with terraces sloping towards Sudan, there were no fortified emplacements or defensive buildings, but only Italians determined not to give in. The built up area was located inside an amphitheatre of mountains, interrupted at South-West by the Dongolaas ravine through which run the road and the Agordat-Asmara railway, and at North by the Anseba ravine, with the track bound to Cubub.

Keren

The Dongolaas ravine was the most important strategic point and also the easiest to defend: at South-West there is the Dologorodoc mountain and at North- West the Sanchil mountain, linked to the natural rampart at Monte Forcuto by a saddle called Height 1616. All these places saw ferocious battles. Therefore a great emplacement, as the attackers should have gone through these passes. But until the Agordat battle, not even the mountain hinterland was guarded, and only under the danger of breakdown, troops were gathered for the defence of Keren. Moreover the garrison couldn't even build bunkers or trenches, as the soil was totally rocky. The first unit to be ordered to leave was the 11th Savoy Grenadiers Regiment, with two Grenadier battalions (1st and 2nd) 3rd Bersaglieri Battalion and one Mortar company. Leaving from Addis Ababa, where it had garrison duties, they arrived in Keren on 1st February, after a voyage continuously harassed by the R.A.F. The 2nd Battalion went to guard the Dongolaas ravine, while the Bersaglieri blocked the track to Cubub. At the same date were present at Keren:

• The XI brigade and the III group of colonial cavalry squadrons
• The IV colonial cavalry group, in defence of the airfield
• The CIV motorized artillery group with 77/28 guns
• The V Brigade and the V artillery group of the 1st colonial division, in which responsibility of the stronghold waa placed under Commander Gen. Carnimeo
• One Engineer company
• The surviving personnel of the 4th colonial Div. withdrawn from Agordat
• The small emplacements outside the stronghold, generally formed by an officer, some NCOs and a colonial band

Against these forces, hastily collected and sent to guard the various point of the stronghold, would be launched the assault of the 4th Anglo-Indian Div. which had won at Agordat, formed by two Indian brigades (V and VII), a Scottish battalion (Black Watch), some motorized units and the Gazelle Force. Reinforcements from the 5th Division, the Sudan defence force and other Sudanese battalions would later be added thus reaching a total of 51,000 men.

The Battle

Victory and attrition of the defenders (2nd-14th February)
The first phase of the Keren battle is characterized by the stubborn and brilliant Italian resistance on the Dongolaas ravine, and on the surrounding peaks and valleys. Already on Feb. 2nd, enemy armored units tried to penetrate the ravine but were stopped by obstructions created by the Italians, who had set off a mine in order to block the passage. The next day, the enemy attempted to conquer the peaks all around the ravine to free it with more ease. The Cameron Highlanders moved in to attack and wrung Height 1616 from a Company of the 2nd Granatieri (Grenadier) battalion. The counterattack that was meant to retake the Sanchil peak and massif could not be carried out because it was anticipated by the advance of the Punjab and Rajputana regiments, which members are renowned for being tough and brave soldiers. The attackers had almost conquered the last emplacements held by the decimated Savoy Grenadiers, when the arrival of two companies of the III Bersaglieri and of the XCVII Colonial battalion, who just arrived in Keren, pushed them back into the ravines. The struggle that took place in that terrible day among precipices and stingy acacias that tore flesh and clothes from the men, was actually a bloody close quarter combat and an immense slaughter that showed the unshakable will of the Italians not to yield. On February 10th, it was clear that the Anglo-Indians were preparing a new and massive infantry assault, followed by a motorized one, far more dangerous as the exhausted 4th Division had been joined by the reinforcements of the 5th.

The command of the Keren stronghold concentrated all the available men around Dongolaas, including the newly arrived Alpini Work Amba battalion and on 12th February at dawn, when the tremendous British offensive started, everything was ready to push it back. The battle raged for two days and saw the dreaded Indian battalion of the Maharatta and the ferocious Sikhs joining the fray, but in the afternoon of the 14th, the Italians could see the tanks, that had waited for the infantry breakthrough, withdrawing westwards. The Italian flag kept flying on the bloodstained heights of Keren: Grenadiers, Alpini, Blackshirts and Ascari had obtained, with a high tribute of blood, a marvellous victory.

Operative standstill and adjustment of the front
From 15th February to 4th March, excluding the action on the Cubub emplacement (North of Ambesa), the South-west front became stabilized due to the exhaustion of both sides. The Italians received more reinforcements from Gondar and Addis Ababa (10th Regiment Savoy Grenadiers) but the personnel of the many battalions of Keren were often down to 150-200 men each, more or less like a company. Even though that month there was no infantry slaughter, the guns didn't keep silent, because Keren was subjected to an intense artillery fire and attacks from the R.A.F. that, after destroying the small "Air force" of the stronghold, became the absolute dominator of the sky. As an official British report states, only between 15th and 22nd March, the British artillery fired the astonishing number of 110,000 rounds against the Italian defenders.

The tragic epilogue (15th-27th March)
The last offensive strike of the British was accurately planned and arranged to assault Keren on two directions:

• From North, with troops coming from Karora and re-enforced by the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion (the same that would see action at Dien Bien Phu thirteen years later)
• From South-West, with the 4th and 5th Indian division

The 4th Div. was to take the Sanchil and Monte Forcuto, that the British had to abandon due to the tenacious Italian counterattack on the 12th February; the 5th was to force through the Dongolaas ravine, while the troops coming from Karora were to engage on their front part of the Italian forces. The attack was preceded, as custom of all the "rich" armies that have no problems with ammo or catering, by an intense shelling and bombing.

The Italian emplacements on the Samanna, Dologorodoc, Amba, Forcuto, Sanchil and Dongolaas mountains literally disappeared under an immense cloud of smoke and dust; meanwhile, in front of them, massed the first British assault waves: the 2nd Highland Light Infantry, the IX and XXIX Indian Brigade.

At 8 am of 15th March, the general offensive began. At first it didn't go absolutely well for the attackers. The British infantry was pushed back everywhere by thick throws of hand grenades, while the British tanks that tried to force the Dongolaas road were stopped by the fire of Italian batteries and mortars, and by predisposed incendiary devices.

At North too, astride the Anseba pass, the II and VI Italian brigade brilliantly repulsed an outflanking attempt performed by the Foreign Legion.

The next day, though, the British, having a great superiority in equipment, started to make the first progress in the tricky Dologorodoc sector. The Command sent all available reinforcements, including Carabinieri and two newly arrived colonial battalions, but the arrival of the small Italian units, decimated by the R.A.F., even before they arrived to the fire line, was useless against the joint attack of two divisions. The presence of the Regia Aeronautica at Keren was practically symbolic, with three SM.79 bombers and a SM.81, while the British had dozens of fighters and light bombers. For a whole week Italian counterattacks on the Sanchil and the Dologodoroc were pushed back almost exclusively from the air, capable to demoralize even the Ascari, otherwise able to fight bravely. The attack planned by the British was being deployed in full power: the operations on the Northern front were at a standstill, but the main sector, the South-Eastern one, keystone of the whole offensive, strafing and bombing actions were frantically intense. At Keren, there was no sudden breakdown under strafing and bombing. More exactly, the defences of Keren ceased to exist for depletion and general bleeding of the garrison: reserves kept on immolating themselves in obstinate counterattacks; entire battalions were buried on the very positions they defended; until there were no more battalions, no more reserves, no more men, because all the garrison had been annihilated in the battle.

On March 26th, British engineers reopened the Dongolaas ravine to their tanks exactly when the last suicide attack of Ascari and blackshirts was taking place. On the 27th, the stronghold ceased to exist.

After Keren

On March 31st fell the last defensive line of Teclasan; on April 8th Massawa also surrendered, uselessly defended by a few hundreds Navy men who had scuttled the ships that could not set sail, a handful of Revenue Guards and about one thousand survivors of Keren.

Eritrea was lost. Out of the 40,000 men who had heroically fought at Keren for 56 days, 8,000 died, 21,000 wounded, some hundreds were taken prisoners. Resistance and guerrilla, however, would last for some months (in some cases till 1943). The Viceroy, Amedeo d'Aosta (member of the Savoy family), would surrender on 19th May with battle honours, after an epic resistance on the Amba Alagi.

The colonial war would end with the conquest of Gondar on 28th November.

The "Devil Commander"

Amedeo Guillet, Captain of the Cavalleggeri del Monferrato (Monferrato Cavalry) was the leader of a mounted Amhara warriors band. He was a fearless officer, romantic hero, and brave guerrilla fighter. At Agordat, he masterfully conducted the withdrawal of his unit along the railroad. At Keren he succeeded once more in saving his men and bringing them to Teclasan, where he destroyed three British tanks and five trucks with a desperate charge. Although wounded, he managed to take shelter in the mountains, where he led a guerrilla warfare lasting well beyond the fall of Eritrea and Ethiopia. The commander of the Gazelle Force, that had to cope with his phantom group, described him as "courageous, highly independent, resistant, resourceful…".

At the end of Oct. 1941 the "Devil Commander" as he is called by friends and foes, frees his group from the oath, that in 16 months of war had caused 826 dead, 600 wounded and no deserters. Guillet however, doesn't give himself up to the British. At Massawa, he disguises himself as water carrier, taking the name of Ahmed Abdallah Al Redai. He sails across the Red Sea in a small boat and gets to neutral Yemen, where he is imprisoned by the emir that suspects him to be a British agent provocateur. After discovering his identity as a Italian officer, the emir orders him to be brought back to Massawa, where Guillet, in the summer of 1943 boards, incognito, a Red Cross ship repatriating Italian civilians, swapped with British POWs. Disembarked at Taranto, he immediately goes to the War Ministry to plead for an aircraft loaded with equipment to be used for guerrilla attacks. Instead, he's caught by the Armistice. So, Guillet reaches Southern Italy, where he puts himself on the King's service and of the recreated Italian Army. He will end the war on the Allied side.

In 1954, he is appointed Italian Ambassador to Yemen, where he met the emir who had helped him eleven years before, Amedeo Guillet eventually moves to Ireland, where he makes friends with Victor Dan Segre, the Secret Service officer who had unsuccessfully chased him at the time of his "personal war" against the English occupiers.

See also: Amedeo Guillet