Amedeo: The True Story of an Italian’s War in Abyssinia. Sebastian O’Kelly
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warriors flee amid the Italian light tanks
The Spahys charge on, leaving the remaining Ethiopians to the Italian infantry
Italian infantry pour down the hillside and the remaining Ethiopians make a bid to escape
Ethiopian warriors parade through Addis Ababa
Marshal Badoglio arrives at the front © Ullstein Bilderdienst
Front page story …‘The punishment of Abyssinian brigands …’
Amedeo Guillet after the charge at Selaclaclà in December 1935
Haile Selassie after the defeat at Mai Ceu
The Spahys di Libya in Rome on the first anniversary of the founding of Italy’s African empire, June 1937
Antonio Ajmone Cat
The Duke of Aosta dwarfs King Vittorio Emmanuele III
Princess Jolanda and Amedeo in 1937 in Libya
Mussolini rides into Tripoli © Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contem-poranea
Mussolini, Balbo and other Fascists salute the tricolore © Biblioteca di
Storia Moderna e Contemporanea Libyan crowds greet the Duce and Italo Balbo © Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea
Mussolini on horseback surrounded by Libyan troops bearing the fasces
The Duce raises the Sword of Islam
The governor of Libya, Italo Balbo, pins a medal on Amedeo
Amedeo in Spain, beside the Fiat Ansaldo tanks
The general’s adjutant at the Italian front during the Spanish Civil War
General Frusci in the uniform of the ‘Black Flames’ division during the Spanish Civil War
A Russian armoured car captured by Amedeo and the arditi from the Spanish forces, Santander, August 1937
Rome 1938: Hitler stands beside the king; also pictured are Mussolini, Marshal De Bono, Queen Elena, Ciano, Hess, Ribbentrop and Goebbels
Barefoot, malnourished children with their heads shaven turn out for a civic ceremony in Salerno, 1937
General Graziani; and being carried away after an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, 1937
Beatrice Gandolfo in February 1937, in medieval costume
The fortified outpost at Amba Gheorgis on the road from Gondar to Asmara
Amedeo talking to Landolfo Colonna
Amedeo welcomed by dancing women in the highlands of Begemeder, 1938
Amedeo with an important Ethiopian chief in 1939
Amedeo drilling his garrison at Amba Gheorgis in 1939
The Duke of Aosta inspects the fort at Amba Gheorgis
The garrison at Amba Gheorgis rides out, with Amedeo saluting
Amedeo and others are carried in triumph at Amba Gheorgis after a successful operation against Ethiopian rebels
The Gruppo Bande Amhara a Cavallo Group in full charge
Amedeo with his Gruppo Bande in Eritrea, 1940
Amedeo rides beside General Frusci’s car at an inspection of the Gruppo Bande in the summer of 1940
The infantry of The Gruppo Bande were made up of Yemeni mercenaries
The British invade: The Gazelle Force on the move
The West Yorks Regiment at Dologorodoc
General Nicola Carnimeo
General Frank Messervy
General Lorenzini, the ‘Lion of Keren’
Surrender of the Duke of Aosta
Lieutenant Renato Togni with the horse on which he was killed at Keru in 1941
Daifallah the Yemeni
Amedeo as Ahmed Abdullah
A rare photograph of Ahmed, Imam of the Yemen
Major Max Harari riding the captured Sandor at Asmara, autumn 1941
Major Max Harari leaving his office in Asmara
Sandor’s hoof
Captain Lory Gibbs, who opened fire on Amedeo and Khadija on the road to Ghinda
The tortured Captain Sigismund Reich
Amedeo and Beatrice finally married in Naples, 21 September 1944
Torre Cretarella
The Italian ambassador with a live cobra in New Delhi, 1971
Amedeo, ambassador to Morocco with Italian foreign minister Aldo Moro in 1969
Sir Reginald Savory with his old adversary, London 1976
Amedeo with horsemen from the president of India’s bodyguard, whom he trained to ride Carilli fashion
Amedeo embraces an elderly ascaro at the Catholic cemetery in Asmara
Amedeo beside the tomb of Renato Togni
Amedeo at the pass of Ad Teclesan, where he destroyed three British light tanks
The palace of Italian governors in Massaua, the scene of bitter fighting during Eritrea’s war of independence © Nicola Gaydon
The palace of Italian governors photographed by Max Harari in 1941
Ahmed Abdullah, the water-seller, returns to his old hideout in Al-Katmia
Amedeo in Ireland with Anna and Emily
All pictures without credits are from the private collection of Amedeo Guillet and the author
In 1995 when I was a magazine editor, I asked the great Bill Deedes of the Daily Telegraph to go to Milan to interview Indro Montanelli. In Italian journalism Montanelli, who died in July 2001, was a figure of similar stature and, like Lord Deedes, he had served in the Abyssinian war, although as a volunteer officer rather than as a newsman. I decided that I would go along too, acting as a consigliere–translator, but really to eavesdrop on their conversation.
The founder-editor of Il Giornale, Montanelli had split with his proprietor, Silvio Berlusconi, over his political ambitions – the tycoon had just become prime minister for the first time – and, at eighty-eight, was about to launch a daily newspaper. He and Bill Deedes were well matched. Bill, the inspiration for William Boot in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, had risen to become a cabinet minister, editor of the Telegraph and the most illustrious figure in our trade. Montanelli, who became a pressman after the conquest of Abyssinia, was purged from the Fascist Corporation of Journalists for writing with insufficient fervour about the Italian victories during the Spanish Civil War. He moved to Helsinki, to teach Italian literature, and was therefore conveniently on hand to cover the start of the Second World War. He interviewed Hitler after the fall of Poland and reported on the Finnish war from the Russian front. Back in Milan in 1944–5, he was sentenced to death for his critical writing by Mussolini’s Social Republic, but was saved by the war’s end. By the Seventies, he was equally unpopular with Italy’s extreme left, and was shot in the legs by the Red Brigades as he walked along a Milan street.
‘I won’t mention the mustard gas they used in ’35 until last,’ said Bill conspiratorially, while we waited outside Montanelli’s office. A few minutes later, the Italian appeared, tall, donnish and a little stiff, in contrast to Bill who, at eighty-two, was a sprightly, irrepressible figure. After greeting us cordially, for he had long known