Amedeo: The True Story of an Italian’s War in Abyssinia. Sebastian O’Kelly
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Amedeo turned to face the hill, and began trotting towards it over the uneven rock and sand. He closed his eyes for a second and thought of his mother, before whom he had knelt to be blessed with the sign of the cross before he had left for war. The black sword of his father was strapped to the saddle behind his leg. In his dreams, war was still something out of a painting by Baron Gros, serried ranks of cuirassiers crying Vive l’empereur! Now was the moment of his awakening. He took his Glisenti revolver out of its holster, unravelled the cord attached to its grip and placed it like a noose around his neck.
The white figures on the hill were moving about excitedly, some taking cover behind rocks. But Amedeo was less anxious about those he could see. There could not have been more than a couple of dozen, probably poorly armed tribesmen. It was what they would encounter on the far side of the hill that concerned him.
‘Canter march!’ He ordered, putting a slight pressure on Sandor to ease him up a gait.
The enemy began firing and Amedeo could hear the shots whistling over his head. Four hundred metres away from the enemy, he turned in the saddle and shouted: ‘Caricat! Charge!’
At last he gave Sandor his head, letting him surge forward into a furious gallop straight towards the hill. The horse was plunging up the slope towards the enemy when Amedeo turned again behind him and felt his heart miss a beat. Only Sarduk and two others were still with him. Of the rest there was no sign.
The shumbashi caught his appalled expression. ‘Keep going, Comandante. Don’t stop!’
It was too late for that anyway. Amedeo cursed and invoked divine protection at the same time, digging in his spurs to keep Sandor bounding in cat-leaps up the hill. It was only when nearly at the top that he saw that his Spahys had fanned out, and were charging up at the enemy from all directions.
‘Comandante! Watch out to your left!’ cried the shumbashi again.
Amedeo turned to see a crouching figure level his rifle at him. He quickly aimed and fired his revolver, and a small dark circle instantaneously appeared on the man’s forehead and he jerked back against a rock. Other Spahys had reached the crest, firing their rifles with one hand at a gallop, reloading and firing again. Complete panic set in among the enemy, who stumbled and ran down the far side of the hill.
Almost as soon as it had begun, the charge was over. Amedeo’s heart was pounding. He had survived without a scratch, and felt elated and proud. He had not hesitated, even when he thought that he had been abandoned. And at the price of one wounded Spahy, five or six of the enemy had been killed, and several captured. The rest had fled into the dense woodland.
‘An interesting manoeuvre, Guillet,’ said Major Ajmone Cat, when he rode up. But he was pleased. The Spahys’ first engagement of the war had been a triumph, and the officers celebrated that evening with bottles of the major’s chianti.
A few days later, the Libyan cavalry were the first to arrive at Axum. Three huge granite columns, venerating the southern Arabian deities of the sun and the moon, rose above the juniper trees, and beside them many others were lying broken on the ground. These were all that remained of the ancient city of the Queen of Sheba, where she returned after her seduction by Solomon, according to the Ethiopian version of the biblical story. From the church of Mariam priests emerged carrying gold Coptic crosses of beautiful intricacy. The Spahy officers dismounted and kissed them: the first Christian invaders to seize the land of the mythical Prester John. Adowa was taken at the same time and Amedeo made a point of riding over the plain where Barattieri’s army had been destroyed forty years before. Little fields rippled down the contours of the hills, newly ploughed or filled with ripe crops. But of the populace there was hardly a trace. Only slowly and hesitantly did the inhabitants of Adowa emerge from their huts, the older ones remembering the last time the Italians had come south across the Mareb.
Later, column after column of Italian infantry and Eritrean ascari, wearing high red fezes, marched into Adowa and Axum, led by officers mounted on horses or mules, the flags and pennants of the unit behind them. The whole of Tigre seemed there for the taking, but instead of pressing on, General De Bono halted the advance. He had not been surprised by the lack of resistance. During the months of waiting, considerable efforts, and funds, had been expended to turn the Tigrean nobles against the emperor. The biggest catch was Haile Selassie Gugsa, the twenty-seven-year-old lord of Makalle, who had been married to the emperor’s favourite daughter until her early death. A notoriously debauched young man, he declared for Italy, but instead of bringing over an army of 30,000 warriors, as he had promised, only 1200 followed him in his treachery. The spark De Bono had hoped would set the empire ablaze fizzled out. Tigre might be his, but he was going to have to fight his way to Addis Ababa, and for that he had little appetite. For nearly a month the army stood idle, while its commander pleaded with Rome for yet more men.
But time was working against Mussolini. In the British general election in mid-November, the Labour Party pledged to close the Suez Canal to Italian shipping: virtually an act of war. Marshal Pietro Badoglio, chief of the general staff, and Alessandro Lessona, the colonies minister, were sent to Africa to assess the situation. The army was eager to fight, morale was high and the condition of the crack Italian regiments and the Eritrean ascari was excellent, Badoglio reported (though noting the poor state of 2nd Corps mules and horses after the mandef epidemic). The chief problem was De Bono, ‘a tired, almost totally exhausted man’. After much prodding, De Bono hesitantly resumed the advance, seizing Makalle without a fight, but then again halted. Mussolini’s patience finally snapped. He bumped his old friend up to marshal and reluctantly handed the command of the regular army over to Badoglio.
In the British elections, the National government of Stanley Baldwin was returned, but though less bellicose than Labour, it pledged ‘all sanctions short of war’. These were imposed on Italy by the League of Nations on 18 November 1935. A ‘Black Day’ of mourning was declared by the Duce and the wives of Italy, wearing widows’ weeds, followed Queen Elena in donating their gold wedding rings to the Patria. Amedeo’s mother became the first woman to do so in Capua, receiving an iron one in return.
For Nazi Germany, the breakdown of the old First World War alliance was an opportunity. German coal and steel were freighted into Italy from the north, ensuring that the League’s sanctions were ineffective. If an oil embargo, which remained to be discussed in mid-December, were imposed, Mussolini’s war machine would grind to a halt and he would have to begin negotiations. He need not have worried. The resolve of the democracies was already cracking. Both Sir Samuel Hoare and Pierre Laval, the French prime minister, were appalled that Italy was being thrown into the arms of Hitler on account of Ethiopia. The only solution, which at any rate was preferable to full conquest, was a secret pact whereby a large chunk of Ethiopia – all Tigre, some of the Ogaden – was handed over to the Duce.
It was the first of many acts of appeasement in the coming years, but when details of the ignominious deal leaked out, it caused outrage. Coinciding with the news of the Italian bombing of Dessie, during which the emperor was photographed gallantly firing an anti-aircraft gun, the public indignation was uncontrollable, particularly in Britain where Hoare had been praised for his previously tough stand. Both he and Laval were swept from office. But in the resulting furore the issue of oil sanctions on Italy was quietly dropped. The Duce’s war went on.
It was not long, however, before he was complaining about Marshal Badoglio’s interminable delays. A cautious man, the chief-of-staff was a Piedmontese of the higher peasantry, devoted to the king, who had raised him to marchese after the Great War. Having witnessed at first hand the disaster of Caporetto, he knew that it was best to leave nothing to chance with his troops. Like the legions of Rome, the invaders advanced with painstaking attention to their lines of communication. Behind the army, a labour corps of many thousand began building a network of roads and bridges of a quality Tigre had never seen before. Only when these were complete would the army nudge forward again.
But now the initiative passed to the Ethiopians. While the main armies faced each other thirty miles apart, a daring Ethiopian attack was launched against the exposed 2nd Corps of General Maravigna at Axum. Ras Imru was one of the emperor’s most devoted followers, and his