By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-
We saw last week how the the Italian Fascist army began to advance on Addis Ababa in the early Spring of 1936. Now read on:
Badoglio and Graziani’s Manifestly Incorrect Picture of the War
In considering official Italian accounts of the war it should be
noted that the fascist use of gas is fully substantiated, and was known
indeed at the time throughout the world. Any mention of gas was,
however, strictly excluded from the Italian press, which was highly
censored. The use of gas is likewise entirely concealed in all the
subsequent writings of Badoglio, Graziani and all other Italian
officers, which therefore give a manifestly incorrect picture of the
war. No mention was likewise made of the deliberate fascist bombing of
international Red Cross units. The Italian Ministry of Defence, even
more remarkably, refused, for almost sixty years, to admit that gas had
been used in Ethiopia, until forced to do so in 1995, largely through
the persistant efforts of an Italian professor Angelo Del Boca.
The Battle of May Chaw
Meanwhile, towards the end of March 1936, the Emperor, whose army had
not yet been engaged in the battle, decided on a final counter-attack,
aimed at driving the invaders back from May Chaw in southern Tegray.
This move ran counter to his general advice to the chiefs that they
should avoid a direct engagement with the enemy, and instead organise
guerrilla resistance. The attack was delayed for over a week, until 31
March, which gave the Italians time to entrench themselves. The
Emperor’s men, and his bodyguard in particular, attacked with great
determination, but were unable to breech the Italian defences, the more
so as they were soon subjected to heavy bombing and extensive mustard
gas attacks from the air.
The Ethiopian army, after thirteen hours’ fighting, was obliged to
abandon its offensive, after which it was attacked by the Rayya and
Azebo people, whom the Italians had encouraged to rebel. The Emperor’s
soldiers, forced to retreat, made their way southwards towards the
Ashangi plain, where they were once more subjected to heavy bombing.
Cesco Tomasseli, an Italian observer, wrote: “Wave after wave of bombers
with full loads hammered their main objective, the Ethiopian columns
making for the east shore… the bombs exploded among the dense mass of
fugitives”. Mustard gas was also extensively used. “Of all the massacres
of the terrible and pitiless war”, the Emperor later recalled, “this
was the worst. Men, women, pack animals were blown to pieces or fatally
burned by mustard gas. The dying, the wounded, screamed with agony.
Those who escaped the bombs, fell victim to the deadly rain. The gas
finished off the carnage the bombs had begun. We could do nothing to
protect ourselves against it”. After the defeat at May Chaw the
Ethiopian northern army disintegrated.
Lalibala
The Emperor, a broken man, made his way back to his capital, halting only for a brief stay to pray at Lalibala.
The Fascist Occupation of Addis Ababa
After his victory at May Chaw, Badoglio continued his southward
advance towards Addis Ababa. This, in the absence of good roads, took
him a little over a month, and led to his occupation of the Ethiopian
capital on 5 May 1936.
Graziani
Although the war was decided on Ethiopia’s northern front,
considerable fighting also took place to the south and south-east of the
country. The invading forces there were, however, far less numerous
than those in the north. They were commanded by one of fascist Italy’s
most ruthless colonial generals: Rodolfo Graziani, who had earlier
served in Italian North Africa, where he had earned the nickname, `hyena
of Libya’. He was opposed in the south by two of the Emperor’s
sons-in-law, Ras Dasta Damtaw and Dajazmach Bayana Mared, and in the
southeast by the governor of Harar, Dajazmach Nasibu Za-Emanu’el. Unlike
the traditional Rases in command of the northern front, they were all
three members of Ethiopia’s younger generation.
Grazmach, posthumously Dajazmach, Afawarq
Graziani, lacking anything like the men and material available to
Badogio, played, to his disgust, a subordinate role in the campaign.
Some of the fiercest fighting was played at Qorahe, referred to by the
Italians Gorahai, a strategic Ethiopian post in southern Ogaden. One of
the most heroic acts on the Ethiopian side was played by Grazmach
(posthumously Dajazmach) Afawarq Walda Samayat, who personally operated
one of the Ethiopian army’s few anti-aircraft guns. Faced by repeated
enemy bombing, he was seriously wounded, but, determined to maintain the
morale of his men, refused to abandon his antiaircraft gun. He died of a
gangrenous leg, which could almost certainly have been cured had he
agreed to leave his post for hospital treatment.
After Afawarq’s death, Qorahe soon fell, on 7 November – the day
before De Bono’s occupation of Maqale. Italian forces then proceeded to
capture Negelli, and later several posts in Ogaden. Graziani failed,
however, to reach Harar until after Badoglio’s capture of Addis Ababa.
The Emperor’s Departure for Europe
The Emperor, who had returned to Addis Ababa on 30 April 1936, left
the city almost immediately afterwards, on 2 May, to escape the invader,
as well as to lay the cause of Ethiopia before the world. He was
accompanied by his family and several of his closest associates.
Haile Sellassie’s departure, which shocked many of his subjects, was
followed by a break-down of public order in the capital, and extensive
looting. This is believed to have been started by several patriotic
individuals, who sought to deny Addis Ababa to the invader, as the
Russians had burnt Moscow prior to the advent of Napoleon’s army in
1812. Much of the destruction resulted, however, from mob violence,
directed mainly against the business quarter by the destitute section of
the population. The Italians, on reaching the capital, on 5 May
therefore found Addis Ababa a city of ruins, with many foreigners
seeking refuge in their legations.
Mussolini’s Proclamation of the Fascist Empire
Four days later Mussolini proclaimed the successful end of the war,
and triumphantly declared: “Ethiopia is Italian”. Ethiopians continuing
to resist were thereafter regarded as rebels, and, as such, were liable
to immediate execution, without trial, even after surrender. Those so
killed included two of the Emperor’s sons-in-law, Ras Dasta Damtaw and
Dajazmach Bayana Mared, and three of Ras Kasa’s sons, Abarra, Asfa
Wassan and Wand Bawassan.
The Emperor and his party had meanwhile travelled by train to Jibuti.
He sailed thence, under British protection, to Haifa, and drove to
Jerusalem, to pray in the Ethiopian church there. He then took ship,
through the Mediterranean, to England, where he was to be given asylum
in Bath, in the west of the country, for almost five years.
The Emperor’s Speech at Geneva
On 30 1936 June he made his way to Geneva to address the League of
Nations. In his speech, one of the highlights of his career, he
outlined, in coniderable detail, the `crimes’ committed by the invaders
against his people, and asked the delegates the forceful question, “What
answer am I to take back to my people?” His quiet dignity, which
contrasted with the boisterous behaviour of a group of of Italian
journalists who had to be removed from the hall, made a deep impact on
international opinion. The League’s answer was, however, to vote, on 4
July, for the ending of sanctions.
International Reactions
From the outset, Italy’s unprovoked aggression, the dilatory action,
or non-action, of the League of Nations, and the fascist use of
poison-gas had made a deep impact on international opinion. Societies
dedicated to the support of Ethiopia were founded in Britain, the United
States, Holland, and a number of other democratic countries. Two
pro-Ethiopian newspapers were established: New Times and Ethiopia News,
edited by the former Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, in Britain; and the
Voice of Ethiopia, by an Ethiopian medical doctor, Melaku Bayen, in the
United States.
The invasion had a no less significant impact in Africa, and among
people of African descent throughout the world. Not untypical was the
reaction of Kwame Nkrumah, the former Ghana leader, who was then a
student. He relates in his biography that he was in London, on the way
to the United States, when he saw the newspaper poster, `MUSSOLINI
INVADES ABYSSINIA’. He was immediately seized by a violent emotion. `At
that moment’, he writes, `it was almost as if the whole of London had
declared war on me personally. For the next few minutes I could do
nothing but glare at each impassive face, wondering if these people
could realise the wickedness of colonialism, and praying that the day
might come when I could play my part in bringing about the downfall of
such a system. My nationalism surged to the fore; I was ready to go
through hell itself, if need be, in order to achieve my object’.
Opposition to the invasion was also voiced by many Italian
anti-fascists, among them Carlo Rosselli, an exile in France, who edited
the emigr newspaper Giustizia e Liberta, He was later assassinated in
Paris, on Mussolini’s personal orders.
Recognition and Non-Recognition
Despite widespread popular opposition Italy’s “conquest” of Ethiopia
was recognised by most of the world, most notably by Britain in April
1938. Eden, who had opposed Prime Minister Chamberlain’s policy of
conciliation with Mussolini, had resigned two months earlier, the second
British Minister to leave office as a result of the Italo-Ethiopian
war. A few countries meanwhile refused to recognise the “conquest”. They
were the United States, the Soviet Union, Mexico, New Zealand, and
Haiti.
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
No comments:
Post a Comment