The Grand Alliance (18 page)

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5

Conquest of the Italian Empire

Origin and Growth of the Italian Empire in Africa

—
The Disaster ofAdowa,
1896
— The Italian
Descent on Tripoli in
1911
— Mussolini’s Ambitions — Remarkable Development of the Italian
Colonies — Imposing Fortifications and Military
Power
—
“The Chance of Five Thousand Years”

— Wavell’s New Plan — Operations to Clear the
Sudan
—
The Hard Core of Keren
—
Wingate
Raises Rebellion — The Emperor Returns to
Abyssinia — Unused Forces in Kenya
—
Smuts
Points to Kismayu
—
Cunningham Calls a Halt
—

We Press for Action
—
Kismayu Taken
—
A
Lightning Campaign in Italian Somaliland
—
All
British Somaliland Regained — Attack on French
Somaliland and Blockade of Jibuti — President
Roosevelt’s Concern for the Italian Civil Population in Abyssinia — The Struggle for Keren
—

Tribute to the Indian Troops
—
The Italian Navy
Eliminated from the Red Sea — Pursuit of the
Italians
—
The Emperor Re
-
enters his Capital —

Surrender ofthe Duke of Aosta
—
The End in
Abyssinia.

W
HEN MUSSOLINI DECLARED WAR on Great Britain at the moment of the fall of France in 1940, the Italian Empire in North and East Africa presented a majestic appearance.

The kingdom of Italy had been a late-comer among the nation states of nineteenth-century Europe. Weak in The Grand Alliance

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industrial strength, and thus in military power, but thrust forward by her expanding population, she entered the race for Africa under a serious handicap. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Italian eyes had turned increasingly to African expansion. Sixteen years later Massawa was occupied and the Colony of Eritrea was formally established as Italian sovereign territory. The colony of Italian Somaliland, with its access to the Indian Ocean, also slowly grew. In between these two early settlements lay the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. Upon this wild land Signor Crispi marched with the imperialist movement of the nineties, and hoped thereby to gain for Italy the prestige of a major Power in European affairs. The frightful disaster at Adowa in 1896, when the Italian army invading Abyssinia was annihilated, caused his fall and a halt to Italian adventures in Africa.

This tragic episode bit deep into Italian memories. When the Balkan States attacked Turkey in 1911, in the advent of the First World War, the Italian Government shocked and alarmed the sedate world of those days by leaping across to Tripoli and beginning its conquest. The need of France and Great Britain to gain Italy against the darkening German menace and the Turkish defeat in the Balkan fighting enabled a tenuous Italian foothold to be established on the North African coast. The fact that Italy was on the winning side in the first great struggle ratified her acquisition of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, which reviving Roman memories, was presently re-christened Libya. The rebellion of the Senussi remained a continuing challenge to the industrious occupation and colonisation of Arab deserts by the teeming population of Italy.

Such was the position when Mussolini came to power on the flowing Fascist tide against Bolshevism. The years which followed saw the planned expansion of Italy as an The Grand Alliance

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African colonial Power. The North African territories were subjugated under the stern military rule of General Graziani.

Rebellions were ruthlessly quelled; the settlers multiplied; the desert was reclaimed; forts and aerodromes were built; roads and railways spread along the Mediterranean shore.

Behind all this heavy but by no means ineffective expenditure of Italian resources lurked the national desire to avenge the defeat and shame of Adowa. My first volume has described the manner in which Mussolini’s resolve and audacity overcame the timid, halfhearted resistance of Britain through the League of Nations and reduced to failure the authority of “fifty nations led by one.” We have also seen how all this conflict and the conquest of Abyssinia played its part in the advent of the Second World War.

In June, 1940, when the British Empire seemed to Fascist eyes reeling to ruin, and France was almost prostrate, the Italian Empire in Africa spread far and wide. Libya, Eritrea, Abyssinia, Somaliland, nourished by Italian taxation, comprised a vast region in which nearly a quarter of a million Italian colonists toiled, and began to thrive, under the protection of more than four hundred thousand Italian and native troops. All the ports on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean were fortified. The British Intelligence readily accepted the Italian statements of their scale of armament, and classed them as naval bases of a high order. If the British Empire fell, as then seemed to Mussolini certain, Egypt, British Somaliland, and British East Africa, added to the existing possessions of Italy, would form indeed an immense area of the earth’s surface under Italian sovereignty, the like of which had not been seen since the days of the Caesars. Here was what the ill-starred Ciano had called “the chance of five thousand years.” It was this gleaming vision which was now to be abruptly extinguished.

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Up till December, 1940, our attitude towards the Italians throughout the east of Africa had been purely defensive.

General Wavell held a conference in Cairo on December 2

at which he laid down a new policy. He did not yet contemplate any deep penetration by Regular troops into Abyssinia, but the Italians, who had occupied Kassala and Galabat in the Sudan on July 4, 1940, were to be ejected.

When these minor offensives were completed, Wavell originally intended to with draw the majority of the troops for operations in the Middle East, leaving to the patriot movement, fostered and nourished by British officers, arms, and money, the task of making the Italian position within Abyssinia impossible, and eventually of reconquering the country.

The operations to clear the Sudan began in January under General Platt. The opening phase met with easy success.

Platt had the 5th British-Indian Division, which was reinforced in January by the 4th British-Indian Division, brought over from the Western Desert, where it had played its part in the victorious battles of December. The force was supported by six air squadrons. Two Italian divisions evacuated Kassala on January 19 under the threat of attack and after a bombardment from the air. Soon after they also withdrew from Galabat, and quitted the Sudan. Our pursuit from Kassala was carried on without serious check until it came up to the very strong mountain position at Keren. At this point the enemy’s two metropolitan divisions were firmly installed and holding tenaciously. Several attacks in early February could make no progress, and Platt decided that to force such a position he must accept the administrative delays involved in staging a fully prepared assault.

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Meanwhile the work of raising rebellion in Abyssinia progressed. A small force under Brigadier Sanford of one Sudanese battalion and a number of selected British officers and N.C.O.’s, of whom Colonel Wingate was afterwards to gain high distinction, formed the core of the rising. As their successes grew they received help from increasing numbers of patriots. The Emperor re-entered his kingdom on January 20, and a large part of the western district of Gojjam was steadily cleared of the enemy.

Readers of the previous volume will be aware of my discontent with the large numbers of troops which had so long stood motionless in Kenya. Smuts had visited Kenya in November, 1940, and urged that we should assume the offensive, aiming at the Italian port of Kismayu.

He had telegraphed to me as follows:
5 Nov. 40

In Kenya I visited most of the fronts and studied
plans with General Cunningham and his staff. There
too the morale is good and the general position
favourable, but there too prolonged inactivity in and by
the desert will present danger to us. Best objective to
go for in the near future is Kismayu, which is serious
present threat to Mombasa, our essential base. Once
Kismayu is captured and well held the bulk of our
forces could be moved from that forbidding desert area
towards the north so as to threaten Addis Ababa. For
the Kismayu move Cunningham requires larger force
than at first contemplated, and I shall send another
infantry brigade from the Union as soon as sea
transport is available. Additional Bren [guns] are badly
wanted, and further transport for water and supply
purposes will be provided. With serious internal unrest
in Abyssinia and an attack both from the south and
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north, the Italians may crack in the summer, and
considerable forces may thus be released for the more
important theatre farther north.

This was in the fullest accord with my views. The brigade was sent from the Cape, and I understood that all preparations were moving for an advance in January before the rains set in. I was therefore shocked to see the following telegram:

General Wavell to C.

23 Nov. 40

I.G.S
.

Cunningham has decided not possible to carry out
bold operations this winter. He proposes to carry out
series of minor operations in Northern Kenya about
middle of December, and requires both West African
brigades for these….

The High Commissioner for South Africa told us that General Smuts had expressed disappointment that the expedition against Kismayu, which he had hoped would be in January, was apparently being postponed till May in spite of the dispatch of the 3d Union Brigade. At the meeting of the Defence Committee on November 25, 1940, I inquired why the projected operation against Kismayu had been postponed until May. Sir John Dill said that he had received a telegram from General Wavell saying that he would shortly be holding a conference of commanders, including General Cunningham, to consider plans for the next six months.

We were none of us satisfied with this, and the Committee invited the Chiefs of Staff to call for a full explanation of the matter from General Wavell, and to report further to the Prime Minister.

I minuted as follows to the Secretary of State for War and the C.I.G.S.: