Apocalypse World War 2: Second Italo-Ethiopian War, A Reflection of Italy's Military Weaknesses Asse... See More
Apocalypse World War 2: Second Italo-Ethiopian War, A Reflection of Italy's Military Weaknesses Assessed by Its Enemies in the Second World War!
As one of the goals of colonialism in western countries, the region in Africa may be more often heard of as a colony of England, France and a small part occupied by the Spanish Kingdom, but in fact Italy also has quite a lot of power in this area, but it cannot be denied that the power of this country is very different compared to the golden age of ancient Rome.
In fact, Italy was defeated by the Ethiopian Coptic Christian kingdom in the battle of Adowa on March 1 1893, a humiliating defeat that is still remembered by Italians today with the term "Stain in Adowa", this battle also became a symbol for various nations in Africa regarding their struggle against the invaders, only with their strong determination could the invaders on their land finally be eliminated.
One of the early events leading up to World War 2 apart from the second Sino-Japanese war was when Italy under Mussolini's regime was determined to avenge the humiliation in the battle of Adowa for the sake of Italy la prima, a glorious and great Italy!
The incident that resulted in the war occurred in 1934 when a clash between the two countries on the Walwal border resulted in 130 personnel being killed on both sides. This pizza country's military carefully took allies from several tribes in Ethiopia who were not loyal to Emperor Haile Selassie.
The advance of the Italian troops, led directly by Benito Mussolini, quickly moved towards Addis Ababa, armed with more sophisticated weapons and prohibited chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene, the empire collapsed in Italy's hands while the emperor fled to the British Empire.
Even though Emperor Haile Selassie had spoken a lot in the LBB forum, even before Italy invaded his country and after he was displaced, many of the top officials in the League of Nations did not know anything about Ethiopia. This is one proof of the failure of the world organization before it turned into the UN.
The second Italian-Ethiopian war involved 760 thousand Ethiopians, only a quarter of whom were soldiers with 5 light tanks and 12 obsolete Biplanes, against 400 thousand fully armed Italian troops supported by 150 tanks and 150 fighter planes.
In this war that was like heaven and earth, it also revealed to the world several weaknesses in the Italian military, such as the disobedience of several commanders to the orders of their superiors, the intense competition between the official army and the fascist militia and also some of the mature strategies of the Ethiopian troops, several times destroying the Italian military, such as when the emperor Haile Selassie's cousin, Ras Imru, and 3000 of his troops attacked the Eritrean Colonial Battalion which killed 9 officers and 22 Italian soldiers, 370 Italian supporting troops from the native Ethiopian tribe, captured many rifles. machines and liberated several important cities such as Abbi-adda.
This incident made Mussolini angry and he replaced Marshal de Bono with Marshal Badoglio and ordered the new leader to use whatever means he could to win, including launching a prohibited chemical weapons attack.
The heroics of the Ethiopian troops were expressed by Haile Selassie himself in an article:
WE ATTACKED THE NESTS OF ENEMY MACHINE GUNS, ARTILLERY, TANKS CAPTURED WITH BARE HANDS, WE RESISTED AIR BOMBARDMENTS, BUT WE COULDN'T DO ANYTHING AGAINST THE POISON GASES THAT WERE INVISIBLY FALLING ON OUR FACE AND HANDS.
The final battle took place in Mai-chou, north of Lake Asheng when 31 thousand Ethiopian troops fought 125 thousand Italian troops equipped with 210 artillery pieces, 276 tanks and hundreds of fighter planes, this was the last biggest battle in the war because after that there were only small battles until May 5 1935 the Italian troops entered Addis Ababa.
However, in reality the second Italian-Ethiopian war never ended until 1941 when the Italian army finally left the country, because fighting often occurred because several tribes loyal to the Ethiopian emperor carried out guerrilla warfare tactics. In this war, 275 thousand soldiers were recorded as dead, 300 thousand civilians died of starvation and 181 thousand people were executed or in concentration camps.
Perhaps this was one of Italy's victories that made Mussolini's jumawa, which had fatal consequences because he judged a war based on the strength possessed by countries in Africa, whereas the military in Europe was certainly very different from that in Europe, to the point that there was even an opinion that the Italian military during the Second World War was actually only suitable for fighting countries in Africa.
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