East African Campaign (World War II)

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The East African Campaign refers to the battles fought between British Commonwealth forces and Italian Empire forces in Italian East Africa during World War II. This campaign is often seen as part of the North African Campaign. The vast majority of the Allied forces were from India, South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana.

Contents 1 Political situation 2 The Italian invasion of British Somaliland 2.1 Insights from the campaign 3 Italian passivity 4 Allied counter-offensive 4.1 Northern front 4.2 Southern front 4.3 Seaborne assault 4.4 The liberation of Addis Ababa 5 Political settlement 6 Sources 7 References 8 See also 9 External links

Political situation

Italy conquered and occupied Ethiopia in 1935 and eventually created Italian East Africa out of newly-occupied Ethiopia and the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. Italian troops in Italian East Africa numbered about 250,000, most of them Local East African askaris recruited by the Italian Army.

When Benito Mussolini entered the war against the Allies in 1940, Italian forces became a potential threat to British supply routes in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. British Commonwealth troops in Egypt and Sudan were outnumbered by Italian forces in Italian East Africa and Libya. Therefore, the British government recognised Haile Selassie in July 1940 and promised to help him.

The Italian invasion of British Somaliland

On August 3, 1940, approximately 25,000 Italian troops — about 70 percent of them African — invaded British Somaliland. They were commanded by Amedeo, Duke of Aosta (the Governor-General of Italian East Africa) and General Guglielmo Nasi. The Italian force had been assembled to capture the major French base in French Somaliland, but the Vichy government's neutrality after the fall of France in June 1940 allowed the Italians to shift their focus to the more lightly defended British Somaliland.^[1] The five Italian Colonial brigades, three Blackshirt battalions and three Banda Groups (from Central Africa) along with 100 armoured vehicles, artillery, and air support were opposed by a small British contingent of about 4,000 men consisting of the Somaliland Camel Corps, the 2nd/King's African Rifles, the 1st/Northern Rhodesians, the 1st/2nd Punjabis, the 3rd/14th Punjabis, and the 2nd/Black Watch.^[2] The Italians advanced in three columns, with the western towards Zeila, the central towards Hargeisa, and the eastern towards Odweina in the south.

Within two days the undefended towns of Zeila and Hargeisa were taken. The occupation of Zeila effectively sealed British Somaliland off from French Somaliland. Odweina fell the following day, and the Italians' central and eastern columns combined to launch attacks against the main Commonwealth positions at Tug Argan.

The Commonwealth forces had received minor reinforcements and a new commander, General Alfred Godwin-Austen. He reached Tug Argan on August 11, but early on August 15, Godwin-Austen concluded that further resistance would be futile, and he requested and received permission to withdraw from British Middle East Headquarters in Cairo. The lack of a determined Italian effort to break through the Black Watch, which covered the retreat, allowed the entire Commonwealth contingent to withdraw to Berbera, where it was successfully evacuated to Aden by August 17. The Italians took control of Berbera on August 19 and then moved down the coast to complete their conquest of British Somaliland, which was annexed to Italian East Africa.^[3]

Commonwealth losses in the short campaign are estimated at 260:

• 38 killed in action (KIA)
• 102 wounded
• 120 missing

The Italians lost about 2,050:

• 465 KIA
• 1,530 wounded
• 34 missing

Winston Churchill criticized General Archibald Wavell, whose Middle East Command was responsible for the campaign, for the rapid defeat of the Commonwealth forces. Because of the low casualty rate, Churchill fretted that the territory had been abandoned without a fight. To this criticism, Wavell claimed that Somaliland was a textbook withdrawal in the face of superior numbers and pointed out to Churchill that “A bloody butcher’s bill is not the sign of a good tactician.” That retort moved Churchill to greater fury than his staff had ever seen before.^[4]

After this victory, the Italians soon began a series of minor raids into Sudan and Kenya, including the capture of the Kenyan town of Buna.

Insights from the campaign

• The invasion of British Somaliland showed that Italian forces could co-ordinate columns separated by many miles of desert.
• British forces showed good discipline in the retreat and were able to salvage most of their forces.
• The invasion of British Somaliland was the only campaign the Italians won unaided in World War II.
• British Somaliland was the first British colony to fall to enemy forces in World War II.

Italian passivity

After their offensive petered out, the Italians adopted a passive attitude. The setbacks suffered by the Italians in North Africa prompted the new Italian Chief of the General Staff in Rome, General Ugo Cavallero, to persuade the High Command in December 1940 to abandon aggressive thoughts on Sudan and focus on defending the Empire of Ethiopia. Orders were sent to General Luigi Frusci, Acting Governor of Eritrea and commander of the Italian forces there, to withdraw from Kassala and Metemma on the lowlands along the Sudan / Eritrea border and hold the mountain passes from Agordat to Gondar. However, Frusci chose not withdraw from Kassala, arguing that withdrawal would involve too great a loss of prestige.^[5]

Attention then shifted to the naval sphere. The Italians had a squadron of seven destroyers and eight submarines based at Massawa in Eritrea.^[6] While the Italian naval squadron was not used aggressively, the British viewed it as a threat to Allied convoys heading from the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea. As Italian fuel supplies dwindled, so did the Italian Navy's opportunity for action. The fate of the destroyers is chronicled below.

Allied counter-offensive

A significant aspect of the Allied campaign to retake Ethiopia was irregular forces. Major Orde Wingate, later to gain fame in Burma with the Chindits, was a major mover behind the Ethiopian Arbegnoch ("patriots"). Wingate's Gideon Force, which comprised a Sudan Defence Force Frontier battalion and the 2nd Ethiopian Battalion, moved into Ethiopia from Roseires in Sudan, some 200 miles southwest of Gallabat and 450 miles northwest of Addis Ababa. Gideon Force conducted a guerrila campaign in the Ethiopian province of Gojjam, rallying patriots with the help of Emperor Haile Selassie, who accompanied it. Using surprise and bluff, this small force disrupted Italian supply lines and provided important intelligence to British Commonwealth forces.

Northern front

During December and early January, the limited British forces available conducted harrying raids and attacks. The Allied push to take Eritrea would only begin once reinforcements arrived from Egypt. The arrival of an Australian division in Egypt allowed Wavell to release the Indian 4th Infantry Division — under Major-General Noel Beresford-Peirse — from Operation Compass in the Western Desert. The main British attack on Eritrea was scheduled to go in on January 18 against Kassala, but aggressive skirmishing in the previous month prompted the Italians to withdraw on January 17 to the jagged foothills of the Eritrean Plateau on the approaches to Agordat.

On January 19, 1941, the 4th Indian Division and the Indian 5th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General Lewis Heath, advanced into Eritrea towards the heavily fortified town of Agordat under the overall direction of Lieutenant General William Platt, head of British forces in the Sudan. The 4th Indian Division took the northern road via Keru and the 5th Indian Division the southern via Barentu. Within nine days, Platt's forces had advanced 100 miles (160 kilometres) and broken through the Italian positions in the foothills to capture Agordat.^[7]. The key action in the campaign then took place at Keren, 60 miles further east of Agordat towards the Red Sea coast.^[8] The first assaults in the mountains leading to Keren commenced on February 5, but the resolute Italian defence prevailed with heavy casualties on both sides. Further heavy attacks took place over the next 10 days but with no breakthrough. Platt then decided to regroup before attacking again. On March 1, his command was joined by the four battalions under Brigadier Briggs — two Indian, one Senegalese and one Free French — which had independently entered Eritrea from the north through the border town of Karora. By the time the next assault on Keren commenced on March 14, Platt's force of 13,000 was facing reinforced Italian positions of 23,000 strong. Once again, both sides fought with determination, suffering heavy losses. It took until 27 March for Keren to fall.^[9]

The 5th Indian Division then set off westwards in pursuit towards the Eritrean capital Asmara, some 50 miles away, leaving the 4th Indian Division behind to mop up in Keren and then to return to Egypt. The retreating Italians fought minor skirmishes but mounted no major stand. On April 1, Asmara was declared an open town. Three days later, after resupply along the lengthening road to Kassala on the Sudanese border, the 5th Indian Division set off west again towards Massawa, some 50 miles away and 7000 feet lower, on the coast. Admiral Bonnetti, the Italian commander in Massawa, had been ordered by Mussolini to defend the town to the last man.^[10]. The Italians had 10,000 troops and 100 tanks and armoured cars to defend Massawa, and another bloody battle seemed in prospect.^[11] However, after some initial strong opposition, resistance collapsed, and Massawa was taken on April 8. On April 11, Heath was promoted to command Indian III Corps in the Far East, and command of the 5th Indian Division was assumed by Mosley Mayne who had been commanding the Division's 9th Indian Brigade.^[12]

In the meantime, the seven Italian destroyers put to sea. One was sunk off Massawa by the Royal Navy, and four attacked the fuel tanks at Port Sudan, where two were sunk by the Fleet Air Arm and two ran aground near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The remaining two destroyers were ordered to attack Suez and were sunk. The Italian submarines escaped making an epic voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to return to Italy.^[13]

Keren was decisive in terms of the British forces' strategic objectives: whilst hard fighting continued before the campaign's end, the fall of Keren broke the Italian forces' resistance and led to the almost immediate capture of Massawa on the coast, freeing the Red Sea for ships bringing munitions and supplies to the North African theater.

Wavell's strategic priority was to push south to Addis Ababa and meet Cunningham's forces fighting northwards. The capture of the capital would remove land-based threats to supplies and reinforcements from South Africa and British East Africa for the campaign in North Africa.

The major obstacle for 5th Indian Division was at Amba Alagi, a 12,000 ft mountain with galleries driven into the rock to protect the defending troops and hold ample ammunition and stores. The defenders, under command of the Viceroy, Amadeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta, thought themselves to be impregnable. Mayne, owing to the demands for internal security and lines of communication (which now extended nearly 250 miles south of Asmara and so some 400 miles from the main rail head at Kassala) could only employ a single expanded brigade, 29th Indian, for the action and therefore was inferior in numbers to the defending forces. On May 3, Mayne sent in a feint attack from the east whilst in the early hours of May 4 the main attack was made from the northwest over the hills. The hills were fiercely defended, but by May 14 Amba Alagi had been surrounded. On May 11 Mayne's forces had been reinforced by Brigadier Dan Pienaar's 1st South African Brigade, which had been detached from General Cunningham's force fighting northward from Addis Ababa and had captured Dessie, 200 miles to the south, on April 20. A final assault was planned for May 15, but a fortuitous artillery shell hit an Italian fuel dump, upsetting oil into the Italian defenders' remaining drinking water and forcing them to surrender.^[14]

Southern front

On January 24, the Commonwealth's Southern Force, comprising the South African 1st Division and the 11th and 12th African Divisions (Nigerian and Ghanaian troops under British officers), commanded by Lieutenant General Alan Cunningham invaded Italian Somaliland from Kenya, capturing most of it by February 25. The Allies' southern campaign received air support from the South African Air Force.

Seaborne assault

On March 16, 1941, two Sikh battalions of the Indian Army, staging from Aden, made the first successful Allied landing on an enemy-held beach in World War II to recapture British Somaliland. A tearful Italian colonel along with the 60 men constituting the Berbera garrison stood in formation on the beach to surrender to the superior British force, which promptly secured Berbera. A British officer present at the Italian surrender later wrote that "War can be very embarrassing."^[15]

The liberation of Addis Ababa

General Cunningham's force advanced 1,725 miles from Kenya in 53 days to reach the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, which was liberated on April 6, 1941; Haile Selassie entered the city on May 5, which afterwards was observed in Ethiopia as Liberation Day, a national holiday. In spite of the Duke of Aosta's surrender in May, Italian forces under General Nasi continued to resist until November 27, holding onto Gondar, the capital of Begemder Province about 120 miles west of Ambi Alagi. Thereafter, scattered units, totaling an estimated 7,000 men, fought a guerrilla war from the deserts of Eritrea and the forests of Ethiopia in the hope of holding out until the Germans or Japanese intervened.^{[citation needed]} Hostilities finally ceased in September 1943 when the government in Italy surrendered to the Allies.

Political settlement

With the surrender of the Italians, the British, under pressure from the US administration, signed an agreement with Emperor Haile Selassie acknowledging Ethiopian sovereignty in January 1942.

Sources

• Anthony Mockler (1984). Haile Selassie's War: The Italian-Ethiopian Campaign, 1935-1941. Random House, New York. ISBN 0-394-54222-3.. 
• Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.
• The Italian Invasion of British Somaliland 1st–18th August 1940, by Lt Col JEB Barton, Section 5 Chapter M.
• Italian invasion of British Somaliland, UK PRO Ref WO106/2336.
• War Diary HQ Somaliforce Jul–Aug 1940, UK PRO file WO169/2870. This file contains many reports, photographs of defensive positions and maps.
• Major-General I.S.O. Playfair (1954). History of the Second World War: The Mediterranean and the Middle East Volume 1. HMSO, London. ISBN?.  This is the official history.
• Revised Notes on the Italian Army (with amendments 1–3 incorporated), The War Office.
• Compton McKenzie (1951). Eastern Epic. Chatto & Windus, London. ISBN?. 
• David Rooney (1994). Wingate and the Chindits. Cassell & Co, London. ISBN 0-304-35452-X. 

References

See also

• Military history of Italy during World War II
• North African campaign
• Western Desert Campaign
• László Almásy

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