Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia

Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia
Part of the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre of the Second World War
Fascist poster calling for revenge against the British takeover of Italian East Africa
Date 27 November 1941 – October 1943 Location Horn of Africa Result Anglo-Ethiopian victory Defeat of the guerrillas
Belligerents
United Kingdom  Ethiopian Empire	Italy
Commanders and leaders
Arthur Chater Haile Selassie	Various List of the main Italian guerrilla officers
Strength
Tens of thousands	7,000 (including supporters)

Anglo-Ethiopian victory

The Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia was as an armed struggle fought from the summer of 1941 to the autumn of 1943 by remnants of Italian troops in Ethiopia, in what had been the short-lived attempt to incorporate Ethiopia as part of Italian East Africa. Their guerrilla campaign was fought following the Italian defeat during the East African Campaign of World War II, while the war was still ongoing in Northern Africa and Europe.

By the time Haile Selassie I, the Emperor of Ethiopia, entered Addis Ababa triumphantly in May 1941, the military defeat of Mussolini's forces in Ethiopia, by the combined armies of Ethiopian partisans and British and Sudanese troops, was assured. When General Guglielmo Nasi surrendered with military honors the last troops of the Italian colonial army in East Africa at Gondar in November 1941, many of his personnel decided to start a guerrilla war in the mountains and deserts of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. Nearly 7,000 Italian soldiers (according to the historian Alberto Rosselli) participated in this fight against the British Army, in the hope that the German-Italian army of Rommel would win in Egypt (making the Mediterranean an Italian Mare Nostrum) and retake the recently liberated territories. An Imperial War Museum brief history refers to 'several thousand escaped to wage a guerrilla war until September 1943, when Italy surrendered to the Allies.'

There were originally two main Italian guerrilla organizations: the Fronte di Resistenza (Front of Resistance) and the Figli d'Italia (Sons of Italy). The Fronte di Resistenza was a military organization led by Colonel Lucchetti and centered in the main cities of the former Italian East Africa. Its main activities were military sabotage and collection of information about British troops to be sent to Italy in multiple ways. The Figli d'Italia organization was formed in September 1941 by Blackshirts of the "Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale" (a fascist organization of volunteer soldiers). They engaged in a guerrilla war against the British troops and harassed those Italian civilians and colonial soldiers that had been dubbed "traitors" (for being favorable to cooperation with the British and Ethiopian forces).

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