May 5, 1941, marks the victorious entry of Haile Selassie into Addis Ababa to end the atrocious Italian occupation. The war of the Italian Fascists on Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 was marked by numerous atrocities.
Underlying philosophy of the brutality:
- Fascism
- Capitalism, Imperialism (Italian version later copied by Nazi Germany as Lebensraum).
- Revenge for the humiliating defeat at Adwa
Key atrocities committed by Italian forces in Ethiopia:
- Use of chemical weapons:Italian forces deployed mustard gas, including in aerial bombardments, violating international protocols like the Geneva Protocol and Geneva Conventions. This included attacks on civilian areas.
- Bombing of Red Cross facilities:Italian forces deliberately targeted Red Cross ambulances and hospitals.
- Indiscriminate bombing of civilians:Beyond attacks on Red Cross facilities, Italian forces also engaged in widespread bombing of civilian areas and infrastructure.
Massacres:
- Yekatit 12 Massacres:In February 1937, over thirty thousand Ethiopians were killed in a brutal three-day rampage in Addis Ababa, followed by more
- executions and deportations across the country.
- Däbrä Libanos Massacre:The massacre of close to 3,000 monks and deacons at the Däbrä Libanos monastery in May 1937 is another instance of mass killings during the occupation.
- Gogetti Massacre:The execution of all male residents above 18 in the village of Gogetti was ordered by Mussolini.
- Execution of prisoners:Italian forces summarily executed prisoners of war and captured resistance fighters. This is in sharp contrast to the Ethiopian practice where both during Adwa and later Italian POWs were cared for and released peacefully.
- Concentration camps:Thousands of Ethiopians were imprisoned in harsh and life-threatening conditions in concentration camps in Ethiopia, Somalia, Red Sea islands and Italy.
- Destruction of religious and cultural sites: Reports showthat Italians destroyed more than 2,000 churches and half a million houses.
- Other massacres: It is known that the five-year occupation was characterized with numerous massacres, public hangings and mass graves the news of which the fascists tried to suppress.
Impact of Italian atrocities:
- High civilian casualties:The Italian invasion and occupation resulted in hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian civilian deaths. Some estimates suggest over a million civilian deaths were directly attributable to the Italian invasion.
- Targeting of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church:The Church and its members faced particularly harsh treatment. An estimated 30,000 priests and clergy of the church were killed. Over 2000 churches were burnt. The traditional schools of the church were mostly disbanded. Over half a million Christians perished in the gas bombings, the war and the displacements. This was particularly disturbing considering that the invading nation was also supposedly a Christian nation.
- Targeting of the Amhara. Italian fascists incited other tribes against the Amhara and offered them incentives to attack and target the Amhara. Many Amhara perished, lost all their possessions or were forcibly displaced from vast areas of Southern, Eastern and Western Ethiopia. The ancestral Amhara lands of Shewa, Gojam, Gondar and Wollo were targets of regular areal bombing and attack by large ground forces.
- Crippling of the Educational System: In addition to destroying the traditional, religious and cultural schools, Fascist Italy persecuted the small class of Ethiopian youth with modern civil and military education. A great majority were killed, while some were thrown in concentration camps.
- Widespread devastation:Beyond human losses, the war and occupation led to the destruction of villages, farms, churches, mosques and cultural sites.
International response:
- US Government: A broad pattern of American business interests viewed the Italian conquest favorably and the U.S. government expressed approval.
- African Americans: Even though forbidden by the US government, large numbers of African Americans registered to fight against the Italian aggression of Ethiopia.
- The League of Nations: The League condemned Italy’s aggression and imposed ineffective sanctions that were later lifted.
- Later investigations:After Italy’s entry into World War II, the UN War Crimes Commission investigated Italian atrocities in Ethiopia. Nothing significant came out of these investigations with respect to serving justice.
- Impunity: Nothing happened to most Italian Generals on account of their war crimes in Ethiopia. Graziani, the butcher of Addis Ababa for instance died of a natural cause after having lived without ever being persecuted for his atrocities.
References
Alberto Sbacchi “Poison Gas and Atrocities in the Italo-Ethiopian War”, Springer. pp 47–56
Annalisa Urbano, “International Law of War, War Crimes in Ethiopia, and Italy’s Imperial Misrecollection at the End of Empire, 1946–1950,” The Historical Journal, Vol. 66, No. 1 (2022), pp. 237-257.
Baudendistel, R. (2021). Poison Gas and Atrocities in the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1936). In Between Bombs and Good Intentions: The International Committee of the Red Cross in Ethiopia, 1935-1936 (pp. 101-118). Berghahn Books.
Campbell, I. L. (2021). Italian Atrocities in Ethiopia: An Enquiry into the Violence of Fascism’s First Military Invasion and Occupation. Journal of Genocide Research, 24(1), 119–133.
Campbell, I. L. (2021). Holy War: The Untold Story of Catholic Italy’s Crusade Against the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
Campbell, Ian. (2017). The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame Italy’s National Shame.
Finaldi, G. (2008), Mussolini and Italian Fascism. Method in their Madness. 79–81
Kali-Nyah, Imani. Italy’s war crimes in Ethiopia, 1935-1941: Evidence for the war crimes commission. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: Ethiopian Holocaust Remembrance Committee, 2000.
Pankhurst, R. (1999). Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia: A History of Their Discussion, from the League of Nations to the United Nations (1936-1949). Northeast African Studies 6(1), 83-140.
Ross, Red. “Black Americans and Italo-Ethiopian Relief 1935-1936.” In Race and U.S. Foreign Policy from 1900 through World War II, 164–73. Routledge, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203822432-9.
Victoria Witkowski. (2024) Commemorating the Fascist Empire: The Public Memory of Rodolfo Graziani in Modern Italy. Interventions 26:7, pages 983-1010.
What is going on with this website? Now it does not allow copying or pasting and every typed letter shows in the upper case only during typing. Is it on its way out? If so, it will be sorely missed.
I wish we all refrain from politicizing this historic feat by our gallant fathers in which they stood tall and spat in the face of murderous fascists. Every regime that followed the late Emperor has used the anniversary to present itself just as one of those heroes especially when things start not going its ways. But we as members of the common generation should instead tell what those heroes accomplished paying with their priceless lives. I can tell you a few of their feats.
1) They were the first victims of being gassed to death after the First World War with Mussolini’s mustard and other banned chemical weapons. Over a million citizens were butchered this way 5 years before the gas chambers of Dachau, Treblinka, Chełmno, Auschwitz II-Birkenau and other concentration camps.
2) They had kept more than 250,000 soldiers of fascist forces tied up inside Ethiopia until the end of 1941 denying the Desert Fox Rommel a much needed reinforcement in the North African Theater. I’m not making this up because it was told by an American reporter on NBC Radio broadcast on May 18, 1941 with a blaring announcement ‘38,000 Italians surrendered on that day bringing the total captured Axis forces to more than 200,000 in Ethiopia ‘.
3) They were the first ones to beat the crap out of the Axis Powers even before the start of the Second World War in May 1941. They were the first ones who fascist forces capitulated to under Instruments of Surrender at Addis/Finfine, Dire Dawa, Jimma, Gambela, Alage and Gondar. Now some of you Ethiopia haters may start mumbling with British this and South Africa that. But by the time these came to the old country it was an open battle site already. Addis was Città Aperta; Dire Dawa was Città Aperta; Jimma Was Citta Aperta; Gambela was Città Aperta; Alage was Città Aperta and Gondar was already rendered Città Aperta by the constant siege by our gallant fathers. .
We have to tell our children and grandchildren about this entire feat by our fathers that has been etched in historic stone because no one is talking about it in history classes. I have been telling this to my American neighbors and colleagues for decades and and doing it with infectious pride. I call upon our well read historians among us here and everywhere to write about this. For now, I am gonna talk about it until these bigoted haters of the old country fall unconscious.