Ucalgary 2019 Holbert Quentin

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Regional Influences on the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis,

1934-1938
Holbert, Quentin Colin
Holbert, Q. C. (2019). Regional Influences on the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1938 (Unpublished

master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB.
http://hdl.handle.net/1880/110477
master thesis
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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
Regional Influences on the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1938
By
Quentin Colin Holbert
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY
CALGARY, ALBERTA
JUNE, 2019
© Quentin Colin Holbert 2019

Abstract
The Italo-Ethiopian Crisis (c. 1934-1938) is both a common case

study for the failure of the League of Nations; and as a major event
leading up to the Second World War. Much of this existing research
focuses on international diplomacy, but far less on people in East
Africa. Regional actors, be it colonial officers, soldiers, or civilians, had
a major impact on the conduct of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The
main conflict that led to the outbreak of war, the December 1934
Welwel Incident, was not a conspiracy, but rather a culmination of
several decades of tensions that escalated into an international affair.
The British colonial officers in East Africa, fearing provocation of Italy,
adopted a strict neutrality during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War itself.
Non-Governmental Organizations, like the Red Cross and Women’s
Suffrage groups, took sides during the war and during Italy’s early
colonization of Ethiopia. Religious affiliation largely indicated who
Ethiopian civilians supported during the war with Ethiopian Catholics
and Muslims supporting the Italians, and Orthodox Ethiopians and
Protestant missionaries in opposition.
ii
Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank my thesis supervisor Professor Timothy

Stapleton of the Department of History at the University of Calgary.
His feedback was both quick and helpful, and he was always available
when I had questions or concerns about the project. Professor
Stapleton also gave me considerable freedom in making the project
my own while ensuring that I did not stray away from good historical
research.
The Arthur J. E. Child Bursary for History provided funding for
the completion of my MA degree, which made this research possible.
Further funding through Graduate Assistantships and Graduate
Scholarships came from the Department of History and from the
Faculty of Graduate Studies. The Vice President’s Provost Office and
the Department of History both provided travel funding which made
archival research in England possible.
Rosen, Julie Robertshaw, Belinda Haley, Sarah Paterson, and
Angela Wootton were librarians that provided support to my research
at the Imperial War Museum in London. Julie Ash, Greg Cole, Karen
James, Grace Noonan, Hannah Grithis, Joe Walsh, Kevin McFaul, and
Grace Delahunty were the staff members that provided support to my
research at the National Archives in Kew Gardens, London.
Finally, I wish to thank my parents, Denise and James Holbert,
for their continued love and support as I travelled across the country
to pursue my passion.
iii
Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements .............................................................................. iii
Table of Contents ................................................................................. iv
Table of Figures .................................................................................... v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 1
Transliteration and Language ............................................................... 3
Literature Review ............................................................................... 5
Conclusion ...................................................................................... 17
CHAPTER 2: THE WELWEL INCIDENT..................................................... 18
Borders in the Horn of Africa ............................................................. 20
The Welwel Incident and Historiography .............................................. 27
Skirmishes and Conflict Before the Welwel Incident .............................. 30
The Welwel Incident and its Aftermath ................................................ 37
CHAPTER 3: COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS UNDER BRITISH APPEASEMENT .... 47
CHAPTER 4: PARTISANSHIP AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS . 63
CHAPTER 5: RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES ON THE SECOND ITALO-ETHIOPIAN
WAR .................................................................................................. 79
Religion in Ethiopia Before the Second Italo-Ethiopian War .................... 80
Religion During the War .................................................................... 89
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ................................................................... 99
Bibliography ..................................................................................... 102
Archives ........................................................................................ 102
Books ........................................................................................... 102
Journal Articles and Book Chapters ................................................... 112
iv
Table of Figures
Figure 1 Confirmed conflicts between Ethiopia and Italy. Created by Quentin
Holbert. ............................................................................................. 31
v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
On October 3rd, 1935, Italy launched a multi-pronged military

offensive against Ethiopia from Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea.
The total Italian military presence numbered 285,000 in Italian
Somaliland and 400,000 in Italian Eritrea spread across the Regio
Esercito [Royal Army], the Regia Aeronautica [Royal Airforce], and the
Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali [Royal Corps of Colonial Troops]. Italian
Field Marshall Emilio De Bono, who devised and implemented the
invasion plan, announced on October 14th, 1935 that “in the name of
His Majesty the King of Italy I assume the government of the country
[Ethiopia].” 1 William Donovan, later head of the American Office of
Strategic Services, characterized the Italian invasion force as
“magnificent” and anticipated the war to be “a short one.” 2 Seven
months later, in May 1936, the Italian forces captured Addis Ababa
under the leadership of Italian Marshall Pietro Badoglio, but fighting
continued for another nine months. Historian Anthony Mockler argued
that “the conquest of Ethiopia was complete” only after the defeat of
the final Ethiopian guerrilla army on February 17th, 1937.3
This invasion has received much attention from historians
studying the roots of the Second World War, and from historians
1
Emilio De Bono, Anno XIIII: The Conquest of an Empire, trans. Bernard Miall
(London: The Cresset Press Limited, 1937), 250.
2
Churchill Archives Centre (CAC), CHAR 2/251/32-33. “Notes on Visit to Abyssinia
and Libya by William Donovan, Former United States Attorney General. Commenting
That the Italian Army and Air Force in Northern Abyssinia Were ‘Magnificent’, and
That the War Would Be a Very Short One. Also That the Italians Had Assembled a
Very Powerful Army in Libya, with an Immense Number of Aircraft,” January 1936,
32.
3
Anthony Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, (1984; Reprint, Oxford: Signal Books, 2003),
173.
1
interested in African independence movements. The Second Italo-
Ethiopian War is key to both topics’ overarching narratives. Yet many
historians and political scientists have simplified the war as Mussolini
orchestrating a brutal conquest of one of Africa’s last independent
countries. This oversimplification fails to account for peoples’ diverse
experiences in East Africa during the 1930s, and the influence that
many individuals in smaller-roles had on the war’s outcome.
Peoples experiences, be it as civilians, colonial administrators, or
soldiers, directly shaped the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. This was not
a conflict where nations’ leaders dictated the course of the conflict.
While national leadership was still important, especially in establishing
general war policies, neither their authority nor influence were
absolute. This war was not simply Italian Fascists versus Ethiopian
nationalists; many people had diverse views and experiences, both as
participants and observers of the war.
This thesis will examine the different local forces active during
the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis (1934-1938). Chapter 2 explores the Welwel
Incident and how different regional forces escalated a skirmish into an
international crisis. Chapter 3 examines how Great Britain’s
appeasement policies in the 1930s affected its East African colonies,
with a primary focus on frontier security. Chapter 4 looks into the
different Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) active in Ethiopia
during the war, including the Red Cross and women’s rights
associations. Chapter 5 presents a breakdown of how religion
influenced peoples’ decisions during the war and early occupation,
namely the relationship between Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity,
outside Christian missionary groups, and Islam.
2
Transliteration and Language
Transliteration of East African place names varies heavily

between sources. Many early written records of English-Ethiopian
relations employ varied spellings, as many of them were attempts to
transliterate Amharic or Arabic into Latin-characters. This has
occasionally resulted in very different spellings for any given person or
place, especially where accent could alter the spelling. Where possible,
people and place names will use Ethiopian-English spelling conventions.
One example is the Welwel wells, which native-speaking English
authors commonly spell as “Wal Wal” while Ethiopian authors usually
use “Welwel” when using Latin characters. In cases where Ethiopian
authors use multiple ways to write a name, the Amharic conventions
will be used in this thesis. The name “Haile Selassie” could be spelled,
for example, “Haylä Səllasé” if using Ge’ez language conventions
instead of Amharic.
Before examining the historiographical trends in the Second
Italo-Ethiopian War, the terms “Ethiopia” and “Abyssinia” must also be
addressed. Many historic records of the war use the names
interchangeably, which was also common in academic writing until the
1974 Ethiopian Revolution. The presence of two distinct terms for the
same empire is significant because, as Richard Moore observed, “the
impression it [the language used] makes in the minds of others and
the reactions which it invokes through the association of ideas." 4 The
term Ethiopia originally emerged as a derivative of the Ancient Greek
4
Richard B. Moore, The Name “Negro”: Its Origin and Evil Use (Black Classic Press,
1992), 48.
3
term Aethiopia, 5 which broadly referenced all of the lands south of the
kingdom of Egypt. Ancient Roman scholar Pliny the Elder also
references a “Æthiops” as the region’s ruler during the first century
BCE. 6 In both cases, the term Ethiopia was a recognition of an
autonomous kingdom south of Egypt. Abyssinia, however, is a term
that emerged from the Europeanized form of either “Habash,” “Habish,”
or “Habsha,” 7 which was an Arabic people that conquered the region
before the Common Era. The term Abyssinia has evolved within
Ethiopia, as Yosef Ben-Jochannan argued, to become “the equivalent
to Ethiopians as ‘Nigger’ is to Africans or African-Americans.” 8 Ethiopia
and Abyssinia, while used interchangeably throughout scholarship well
into the 1970s, hold very different connotations within Ethiopia. This
thesis will, therefore, use Ethiopia and Ethiopians when referring to the
Zagwe Dynasty’s Empire and its peoples respectively. Quotations,
meanwhile, will retain the authors’ original vernacular. All quotations
and references to contemporary institution names will also retain their
original phrasing, including any racial epithets and out-dated
terminology, throughout this thesis.
5
Ayele Bekerie, “Ethiopica: Some Historical Reflections on the Origin of the Word
Ethiopia,” International Journal of Ethiopian Studies 1, no. 2 (2004): 113.
6
John Bostock, ed., ‘Chapter 35: Ethiopia’, in The Natural History, by Pliny the Elder
(London: Taylor and Francis, 1855), para. 30.
7
E. A. Wallis Budge, A History of Ethiopia: Volume I (Routledge Revivals): Nubia and
Abyssinia (1928; Reprint, New York: Routledge, 2014), vii.
8
Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Africa: Mother of Western Civilization (New York: Alkebu-Lan
Books Associates, 1988), 244.
4
Literature Review
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War took place in what Federico

Caprotti characterized as “a backdrop of increasing Italian ambition
and mounting international tension.” 9 The 1930s were a tumultuous
period, with the expansion of Fascist and Communist powers a
constant concern for other western powers like Britain and France. A
poor global economy, as the Great Depression was still in full force in
most of the western world in 1935, exacerbated the expansion of
totalitarian regimes. Historian Louise Young, for example, noted that
many Japanese citizens viewed Imperial Japan’s conquest of
Manchuria in 1931 an essential “lifeline” during the Great Depression. 10
Many of the issues that British colonial administrations faced in
East Africa were tied to major economic limitations. There are a
plethora of studies dealing with Ethiopia’s economy before and during
the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. 11 There are fewer studies of 1930s
economics in other parts of the Horn of Africa or East Africa. Political
scientist Edwin Allan Brett published the landmark economic study of
East Africa in the early 1970s encompassing Kenya, Tanganyika, and
Uganda. Brett focused on the causation of colonial administrations, in
9
Federico Caprotti, “The Invisible War on Nature: The Abyssinian War (1935–1936)
in Newsreels and Documentaries in Fascist Italy,” Modern Italy 19, no. 3 (August
2014): 308.
10
Louise Young, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime
Imperialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 95.
11
Charles L. Geshekter, “Anti-Colonialism and Class Formation: The Eastern Horn of
Africa before 1950,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 18, no. 1
(1985): 1–32; Joseph Calvitt Clarke, Alliance of the Colored Peoples: Ethiopia &
Japan before World War II (Woodbridge, Suffolk, Great Britain: James Currey,
2011); Michael B. Lentakis, Ethiopia: A View From Within, (2005; Reprint, London:
Janus Publishing Company, 2006); Ethiopian Trade and Economic Review (Addis
Ababa: Sheba Printing Press, 1972).
5
these regions, stunting regional development of an organic capitalist
economic system. 12 He did not address the impact of the Second Italo-
Ethiopian War on regional economics, which requires further
investigation.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War is a common case study of
collective security. One common criticism of League of Nations policy
during the war is the exclusion of steel, coal, and oil from the
sanctions imposed on Italy after the invasion. Historians and political
scientists have debated the impact of these resources’ exclusion on the
Italians’ success in East Africa. 13 Some authors cited this war as
definitive proof that the League of Nations was ineffective at resolving
ongoing international crises. 14 Ruth Henig, a historian of twentieth
century international affairs, expanded these arguments and argued
that the conquest of Ethiopia caused European powers to discard
collective security in favour of “old diplomacy.” 15 This shifted British
foreign policy from working through the League of Nations to doubling
their efforts to build a coalition in case war erupted with Nazi Germany.
12
Edwin Allan Brett, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in East Africa: The Politics of
Economic Change, 1919-1939 (London: Heinemann Educational Books Limited,
1973), 284–85.
13
George W. Baer, “Sanctions and Security: The League of Nations and the Italian–
Ethiopian War, 1935–1936,” International Organization 27, no. 2 (1973): 165–179;
Lowell R. Tillett, “The Soviet Role in League Sanctions Against Italy, 1935-36,”
American Slavic and East European Review 15, no. 1 (1956): 11–16; Stephen
Mathias, “Structural Challenges Facing International Organizations,” International
Community Law Review 17, no. 2 (May 2015): 127–37; G. Bruce Strang, “‘The
Worst of All Worlds:’ Oil Sanctions and Italy’s Invasion of Abyssinia, 1935–1936,”
Diplomacy & Statecraft 19, no. 2 (June 13, 2008): 210–35; Cristiano Andrea
Ristuccia, “The 1935 Sanctions Against Italy: Would Coal and Oil Have Made a
Difference?,” European Review of Economic History 4, no. 1 (2000): 85–110.
14
Spencer Tucker, The Roots and Consequences of 20th-Century Warfare: Conflicts
That Shaped the Modern World (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2016), 142;
Helen McCarthy, British People and League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and
Internationalism, C. 1918-48 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 212.
15
Ruth Henig, The League of Nations (London: Haus Publishing, 2010), 173.
6
British endeavours for a strong alliance largely explain their
official neutrality during Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. During the 1930s,
Britain “balanced against the most threatening components of
Germany, Japan, and Italy’s power that challenged Britain’s vital geo-
strategic interests.” 16 British officials, for example, were fearful of
Germany’s increasingly powerful air force. 17 Italy’s strong presence in
the Mediterranean and Red seas was also a direct threat to Britain’s
naval route to India through the Suez Canal. Britain, however, did not
want to directly confront Italy. 18 This policy predicated that Italy would
remain neutral unless provoked, which was a belief that some British
officials held well into 1940. One example of this is that, in an
interview dated March 13th, 1940, British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain stated that Mussolini ”had no intention of leaving the
fence on which he at present rested.” 19 Before the Second Italo-
Ethiopian War’s outbreak, there was some correspondence among
British officials on partitioning Ethiopia to gain Italy’s favour, 20
although this policy was not pursued beyond initial conceptualization.
16
Steven E. Lobell, “Bringing Balancing Back In: Britain’s Targeted Balancing, 1936–
1939,” Journal of Strategic Studies 35, no. 6 (December 1, 2012): 749.
17
National Archives, Kew (NA), FO 800/290. “Volume 6: Abyssinia; Air Convention;
Air Estimates; Anglo-French Conversations; China; Dominions; France; General
Matters; Germany; Japan; Private Manufacture of Arms; Saar; Spain; Steel-Maitland,
Sir A.; U.S.A..” (Public Record Office, n.d.), 199–231.
18
William C. Mills, “The Nyon Conference: Neville Chamberlain, Anthony Eden, and
the Appeasement of Italy in 1937,” The International History Review 15, no. 1
(1993): 10.
19
NA 1, FO 800/326. “Conversations” (Foreign Office, March 13, 1940).
20
CAC, CHAR 1/272/12. Amy Guest to Winston Churchill, “Letter from Amy Guest to
WSC on Italian Expansion, Suggesting That Britain and the U.S.A. Should Allow Italy
to Take Eastern Abyssinia, While Keeping Western Abyssinia under British or League
of Nations Protection,” September 1935, 1–2.
7
Historians that specialize in African nationalist movements often
examined the impact of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Many leaders
of African nationalist movements regarded Ethiopia as “the sole
remaining pride of Africans and Negros in all parts of the world.” 21
Historian Jonathan Derrick’s book Africa’s ‘Agitators’: Militant Anti-
Colonialism in Africa and the West, 1918-1939 is an excellent study of
African nationalist movements during the interwar period. Derrick
recognized the “remarkable surge of feeling” the invasion invoked
among African communities. 22
S. K. B. Asante, who specialized in West African History, wrote
much of the literature about African intelligentsia’s responses to the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Asante observed that West African
nationalist leaders, including lawyers, journalists, merchants, doctors,
and clergymen, summarized the invasion of Ethiopia as “Fascist
aggression against a 'black' state.” 23 Organisations including the
Prominent Lagos Women Society and the West African Civil Liberties
and National Defence League strongly opposed Britain’s appeasement
of Italy’s conquest. I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson, a prominent and radical
political activist and journalist from Sierra Leone, organized a protest
with his Youth League within one day of Italy’s invasion. 24
21
John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, From Slavery to Freedom (New York:
McGraw Hill, 1994), 433–34.
Jonathan Derrick, Africa’s ‘Agitators’: Militant Anti-Colonialism in Africa and the

22
West, 1918-1939 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 332.
23
S. K. B. Asante, “The Italo-Ethiopian Conflict: A Case Study in British West African
Response to Crisis Diplomacy in the 1930s,” The Journal of African History 15, no. 2
(1974): 292.
24
S. K. B. Asante, “I.T.A. Wallace Johnson and the Italo-Ethiopian War,” Journal of
the Historical Society of Nigeria 7, no. 4 (1975): 634.
8
African American communities “were captivated with the Second
Italo-Ethiopian War,” 25 with many authors discussing these
communities’ reactions. Journalist George Schuyler was among the
earliest voices in the African American community calling for action. He
captured the sentiment of many African Americans with the following
passage:
There is not a Negro with other than ice water trickling through
his articles who is not anxious to do something to help Ethiopia
in her hour of extremity, who is not burning to strike through her
a blow at white imperialism and aggression. 26
On November 23rd, 1935, Schuyler made a call for African Americans

to support Ethiopia’s war effort monetarily to help prevent “a major
catastrophe for the darker peoples of the world.” 27 Roi Ottley, an
African American journalist, argued that Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia
was a “tailor-made issue” for the racialists as “at long last, was some
sort of tangible - certainly a legitimate issue - around which the black
nationalist could rally, and indeed rally a great section of the black
population.” 28 Many African Americans felt a close connection with
Ethiopia and, following these calls for action, many participated in a
grassroots campaign to support their Ethiopian brethren. Authors like
Ayele Bekerie, Edward O. Erhagbe, and Ehimika A. Ifidon extensively
25
Ivy Wilson, “‘Are You Man Enough?’ Imagining Ethiopia and Transnational Black
Masculinity,” Callaloo 33, no. 1 (2010): 265.
26
George S. Schuyler, Ethiopian Stories, ed. Robert A. Hill (Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 1994), 1.
27
Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie, Azaz Wahrnek Martin, and Tecle-Hawariate.,
The Friends of Ethiopia in America (New York: Friends of Ethiopia in America, 1935),
2.
28
Roi Ottley, “New World a-Coming”: Inside Black America (1943; Reprint, New
York: The World Publishing Company, 1945), 105.
9
studied African Americans’ pro-Ethiopian activism. 29 This support is a
part of the broader Pan-African movement, which is the idea of
solidarity among all Africans, both on the continent and in the diaspora.
Kehinde Andrews, professor of Black Studies, argued that Pan-
Africanism formally began with the first Pan-African conference in
London in 1900. 30 Pan-Africanism exploded in the first half of the
twentieth century, with several scholars identifying Ethiopia as a
central idea in Pan-African thought. 31 Fikru Gebrekidan’s doctoral
dissertation is an excellent study of Ethiopian-Caribbean Pan-African
connections from the Second Italo-Ethiopian War to the end of the
Ethiopian Civil War in 1991.32
Some scholars labelled the captivation with Ethiopia among
African American communities since the eighteenth century as
‘Ethiopianism.’ Historian William Scott summarized Ethiopianism as “a
biblically based myth of black nationality and destiny…. the concept
identifies all people of African descent as Ethiopians and ordains global
black redemption from white oppression.” 33 Political scientist Robbie
29
Ayele Bekerie, “African Americans and the Italo-Ethiopian War,” in Revisioning
Italy: National Identity and Global Culture, by Beverly Allen and Mary J. Russo
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Edward O. Erhagbe and Ehimika
A. Ifidon, “African-Americans and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1935-1936: The Practical
Dimension of Pan-Africanism,” Aethiopica 11 (2008): 68–84.
30
Kehinde Andrews, “Beyond Pan-Africanism: Garveyism, Malcolm X and the End of
the Colonial Nation State,” Third World Quarterly 38, no. 11 (2017): 2502.
31
Harry Odamtten, “Critial Departures in the Practice of Pan-Africanism in the New
Millennium,” in Pan-Africanism, and the Politics of African Citizenship and Identity, ed.
Toyin Falola and Kwame Essien (New York: Routledge, 2014), 174–75; Barry
Chevannes, “Ships That Will Never Sail: The Paradox of Rastafari Pan-Africanism,”
Critical Arts 25, no. 4 (December 1, 2011): 567–68.
32
Fikru N. Gebrekidan, “Bond without Blood: A Study of Ethiopian-Caribbean Ties,
1935–1991” (Doctoral Dissertation, Michigan State University, 2001).
33
William Scott, “The Ethiopian Ethos in African American Thought,” International
Journal of Ethiopian Studies 1, no. 2 (2004): 40.
10
Shilliam characterized further this movement as “a hermeneutic that
allowed a vision of Pan-African liberation and healing adequate to
challenge the global colonial order of slavery and differential racial
rule.” 34 This movement initially gained momentum with African
Americans invoking Ethiopia’s biblical connections, namely to Psalms
68:31 with “the significance of the lines – ‘Princes shall come out of
Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.’” 35 Some
African American authors, including Frances Harper, invoked this
divine imagery as a part of larger African racial pride further solidifying
Ethiopia as the quintessential African nation.
Very few authors have discussed one of the exceptions to African
and African-American opposition to the Italians: Tigrayan royals. With
the ascendancy of the Amhara to power in the mid-nineteenth century,
the Tigrayan power base decreased, and the “Tigrayan feudal elites
were systematically strangulated into political irrelevance.” 36 Menelik II,
after becoming Emperor in 1889, shifted power to the Amhara Region
and away from Tigray. 37 With the Italian invasion in 1935, some parts
of the Tigrayan elite aligned with the Italians. Their hope was that they
could regain the influence they enjoyed during the previous
fragmented-state of Ethiopia. Tigrayan leaders such as Ras Ghetacciù
Abaté, Ras Kebbedé Guebret, and Ras Sejum Mangascià received
recognition from the Italian Il Duce [The Leader, in reference to
34
Robbie Shilliam, “Intervention and Colonial-Modernity: Decolonising the
Italy/Ethiopia Conflict through Psalms 68:31,” Review of International Studies;
London 39, no. 5 (December 2013): 1143.
35
Wilson, “"Are you Man Enough?,” 266.
36
Alemseged Abbay, ‘Identity Jilted: The Eritrean and Tigrayan Divergent Nationalist
Paths’ (University of California, Berkeley, 1996), 96.
37
James McCann, People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800-1990
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 111–13.
11
Mussolini] on February 6th, 1937 for their collaboration with Italy. 38
Most references to these Tigrayans are footnotes in larger studies of
the war and Ethiopian national history, which merits further research
on this topic.
Scholars have pointed to Italy’s loss in the First Italo-Ethiopian
War (1895-1896) as a motivation for their 1935 military invasion. Italy
was among the participants in the Scramble for Africa, which was
when European Powers rapidly colonized most of Africa in the late-
nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Historian Giuseppe Finaldi
characterized “empire building” during this period “as a collective and
national enterprise” that many Italians considered important. 39 Italy
initially settled Eritrea in 1882 and conquered the Red Sea port of
Massawa in 1886. Italian colonizers arrived in Somaliland in 1880 and
signed protectorate treaties with the Sultanate of Hobyo and the
Sultanate of Majeerteen in 1888 and 1889 respectively. Italy and
Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II signed the Treaty of Wuchale in 1889,
but “the difference in meaning of Article XVII was considerable”
between the Italian and Amharic translations. 40 The Italian translation
implies that Ethiopia was an Italian protectorate while the Amharic
translation lacks this detail. Menelik II’s withdrawal from the treaty,
upon discovering the differences between the two versions, was Italy’s
casus belli for a military invasion in 1895. Ethiopia’s subsequent
victory against the Italians in the Battle of Adowa, sometimes
transliterated as Adwa, stalled Italy’s colonial expansion. Historian
38
Enrico G. Dapei, Una Potenza Virtuale Alla Resa Dei Conti: Le Velleitarie Dottrine
Strategiche Dell’Italia Fascista (Lulu Press Incorporated, 2010), 54–55.
39
Giuseppe Finaldi, A History of Italian Colonialism, 1860-1907: Europe’s Last
Empire (London: Routledge, 2017), 66.
40
Sven Rubenson, “The Protectorate Paragraph of the Wichale Treaty,” The Journal
of African History 5, no. 2 (1964): 250.
12
Raymond Anthony Jonas noted that “Ethiopia alone had successfully
defended its independence” following a European nation’s sustained
military campaign in Africa. 41
The First Italo-Ethiopian War has had different legacies for Italy
and Ethiopia. Many Italians considered this defeat a national shame,
which was still present in Italian collective memory in the centenary
celebrations of the Battle of Adowa. 42 When this defeat was within
living memory, many Italians wanted to regain their lost honour.
Mussolini evoked this desire in his declaration of war on October 2nd,
1935 when he proclaimed that “Con l'Etiopia abbiamo pazientato
quaranta anni! Ora basta! [We have been patient with Ethiopia for
forty years. That is enough!]” 43 Ethiopia, meanwhile, became
internationally respected following its victory at Adowa. Ethiopia also
became the “hope to thousands of Africans who were experiencing the
full shock of European conquest and were beginning to search for an
answer to the myth of African inferiority.” 44 While Italy’s prestige
decreased, Ethiopia’s increased.
Campaign narratives of Italy’s 1935 invasion are plentiful in both
English and Italian. Between 1935 and 1940, multiple authors
published books in England describing the campaign. While most
English-language publications about the war focused on the lead up,
journalist George Martelli was among the first authors to describe the
41
Raymond Jonas, The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2011), 1.
42
Alessandro Triulzi, “Adwa: From Monument to Document,” Modern Italy 8, no. 1
(2003): 97–99.
43
Benito Mussolini, Benito Mussolini - Roma: Discorso del 2 Ottobre 1935 - La
mobilitazione Generale (Roma, 1935),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDnCNxcsaY.
44
Matthew Charet, Root of David: The Symbolic Origins of Rastafari (Delhi: Indian
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2010), 169.
13
full campaign in English in 1938. 45 Some later authors that offered in-
depth narratives of the campaign include A. J. Barker, Angelo del Boca,
and James Dugan and Laurence Lafore. 46 Italian campaign narratives
emerged shortly before their earliest English counterparts. After the
conquest of Addis Ababa in May 1936, Italian politicians published
retrospectives of the campaign. Three examples are Emilio De Bono,
Alessandro Lessona, and Pietro Badoglio, 47 who participated in the
campaign and the subsequent colonial administration. These works,
while by-products of an imperial fascist state, offer a thorough
breakdown of the war itself. They are also valuable because of large
gaps in Italian primary sources from Ethiopia. Most written sources
from Italians stationed in Ethiopia, including diaries and maps, were
destroyed during Britain’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1941, 48 which makes
discussing Italy’s war doctrine difficult. These campaign narratives,
however, help narrow the gap and are key insights into Italian high
command. Domenico Quirico and Giorgio Rochat, meanwhile, offer
more recent and comprehensive, and less politicized, studies of the
45
George Martelli, Italy Against the World: The First Complete & Impartial Account of
Italy’s Repudiation of the League & Her Conquest of Abyssinia by an English Author
Writing with an Intimate Knowledge of the Facts (1937; Reprint, New York: Harcourt,
Brace and Company, 1938).
46
A. J. Barker, The Civilizing Missions: The Italo-Ethiopian War 1935-1936, 1968;
Angelo Del Boca, The Ethiopian War, 1935-1941, 1969; James Dugan and Laurence
Davis Lafore, Days of Emperor and Clown: The Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1936 (New
York: Doubleday, 1973).
47
De Bono, Anno XIIII; Alessandro Lessona, Verso l’Impero: Memorie per la Storia
Politica del Conflitto Italo-Etiopico (Firenze: Sansoni, 1939); Pietro Badoglio, La
Guerra D’Etiopia (Milano: A. Mandadori, 1936).
48
Alfredo González-Ruibal, “Fascist Colonialism: The Archaeology of Italian Outposts
in Western Ethiopia (1936–41),” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 14,
no. 4 (December 1, 2010): 550.
14
military campaign from the Italian perspective. 49 Ferdinando Pedriali
and Roberto Gentili also published more specialized studies on the
Regia Aeronautica’s role in the campaign. 50
The role of NGOs has been discussed in more specialized studies
of the war. The World Bank defines an NGO as any “private
organizations that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the
interests of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social
services or undertake community development.” 51 Historian Joseph
Fronczak published the most recent, and most comprehensive, study
of the “Hands Off Ethiopia” campaign. This campaign was a
decentralized international movement advocating for Mussolini to
withdraw his military from Ethiopia. Rainer Baudendistel, in his book
Between Bombs and Good Intent: The Red Cross and the Italo-
Ethiopian War, 1935-1936, outlined how the Red Cross’ services were
inconsistent and, often, contradictory. Baudendistel noted that the Red
Cross national societies were entirely supportive of the Ethiopian
government, exclusively loyal to the Italian government, or apolitical
groups concerned with providing neutral service. 52 The main limitation
of these studies, however, is that many of them have not been
contextualized in either regional colonial politics or in larger
international movements. Fronczak noted that there is still “a broader
49
Domenico Quirico, Squadrone Bianco: Storia delle Truppe Coloniali Italiane
(Milano: Mondadori, 2002); Giorgio Rochat, Le Guerre Italiane 1935-43: Dall’Impero
Alla Disfatta (Torino: Einaudi, 2005).
50
Ferdinando Pedriali, L’Aeronautica Italiana Nelle Guerre Coloniali. La Guerra
d’Etiopia 1935-36 (Roma: Stato Maggiore Aeronautica, 1997); Roberto Gentili,
Guerra Aerea Sull’Etiopia 1935–1939 (Firenze: EDAI, 1992).
51
Carmen Malena, “Working With NGOs: A Practical Guide to Operational
Collaboration Between the World Bank and Non-Governmental Organization”
(Washington, D.C.: Operations Policy Department, World Bank, 1995), 7.
52
Rainer Baudendistel, Between Bombs and Good Intent: The Red Cross and the
Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1936 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 59–60.
15
historiographical neglect of transnational social movements.” 53 This
limitation is despite historians’ larger adoption of international
perspectives of world history since the end of the Cold War. 54
A small number of historians and political scientists contextualize
war in Ethiopian developmental theory. Political scientist Marco
Antonsich referred to Ethiopian urbanization as “a cyclical rather than
a cumulative phenomenon, because of the constant shift in location of
the political and military capitals” well into the nineteenth century. 55
Even with the consolation of power into a Shewan empire, western
conceptions of modernized infrastructure were not widespread in
Ethiopia, even with Selassie’s modernization programs in the early
1930s. Political scientist Mordechai Abir observed that while the
Italians did not “themselves establish modern schools…. However, the
Italian conquest shook the Ethiopians to the extent that they began to
realise the necessity to modernise their country.” 56 Indeed many
historians have pointed to the often-lopsided technological capabilities
of each military as a major factor in Ethiopia’s defeat. Selassie, in
conjunction with the Allied powers, saw widespread development of
Ethiopia as politically expedient in the postwar period. 57
53
Joseph Fronczak, “Local People’s Global Politics: A Transnational History of the
Hands Off Ethiopia Movement of 1935,” Diplomatic History 39, no. 2 (April 1, 2015):
246.
54
Georg G. Iggers, Q. Edward Wang, and Supriya Mukherjee, A Global History of
Modern Historiography, Second Edition (New York: Routledge, 2017), 328–30.
55
Marco Antonsich, “Signs of Power: Fascist Urban Iconographies in Ethiopia (1930s-
1940s),” GeoJournal; Dordrecht 52, no. 4 (2001): 325.
56
Mordechai Abir, “Education and National Unity in Ethiopia,” African Affairs 69, no.
274 (1970): 48.
57
Getnet Bekele, “Food Matters: The Place of Development in Building the Postwar
Ethiopian State, 1941-1974,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 42,
no. 1 (February 2009): 31–33.
16
Conclusion
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War is a popular topic among

historians. There are excellent histories of this war and its relationship
to the Second World War. Historians also thoroughly explored the
war’s connection to Pan-African intellectuals and their advocacy for
African independence. Current historiography, however, does not
adequately explore what people in East Africa did during the war. This
war is one that many scholars have focused on from a top-down
perspective, with very few authors having considered other
experiences.
From soldiers on border patrol to foreign women’s’ rights
activists, more people influenced the war than current historiography
would imply. This thesis will broaden the scope of current literature
about the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and offer another perspective on
East African conflict in the 1930s.
17
CHAPTER 2: THE WELWEL INCIDENT
The Welwel Incident, also transliterated as Walwal in many

English sources and Ual-Ual in Italian sources, was an engagement
lasting from December 5th to December 7th, 1934 between an
Ethiopian force and an Italian colonial garrison. The Welwel Incident is
what anthropologist Jan Záhořík called the “breaking point in the
mutual Ethiopian-Italian relations as well as in relations between
Ethiopia and Europe in general.” 58 This was the first engagement
between the two empires referred to the League of Nations and it
garnered international attention.
The Welwel Incident demonstrates how imperial and colonial
policies were inconsistent. Regardless of intentions and plans in an
empire’s core, imperial authorities cannot dictate every action in the
colonies. The Welwel Incident represented the culmination of over five
years of Italian occupation of eastern Ethiopia and Italo-Ethiopian
skirmishes for control of the Odagen region. Many commentaries on
the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, however, oversimplify the Welwel
Incident as a premediated conspiracy, and entirely ignore the
difference between imperial and colonial dimensions. Many authors,
while correctly identifying that Italy occupied Welwel since 1929, fail to
correlate this occupation with increased levels of violence in eastern
Ethiopia. These commentaries often neglect the smaller conflicts that
led to the Welwel Incident.
This chapter, therefore, will examine the leadup to the Welwel
Incident and its aftermath to assess the escalation of Italo-Ethiopian
58
Jan Záhořík, “Italy, Ethiopia, and the Walwal Incident in 1934,” in Prague Papers
on the History of International Relations 2010/2 (Prague: University of Vienna;
Charles University of Prague, 2010), 155.
18
conflicts. Studying Welwel will require studying borders because, with
the Italians having occupied the region and constructed a fort, it is
important to contextualize how this was able to occur. It is also
necessary to consider how Italy was able to exert so much influence
across the frontiers of Ethiopia, with military installations and officers
over a hundred kilometers inside Ethiopia. Then, following a brief
review of the scholarly consensus surrounding the Welwel Incident,
there will be a breakdown of the events leading up to and including the
clash. This summary is important because, aside from scarce
scholarship about the Welwel Incident itself, many authors disagree
about the details of the engagement. This summary then makes it
possible to evaluate how different countries responded to the
engagement. Here, there is marked indifference from Britain’s
government toward the dispute between Italy and Ethiopia. The only
third party concerned with this conflict was the British Somaliland-
Ethiopian Boundary Commission, which was working with the Ethiopian
government to resolve complications with the frontier’s poorly-defined
borders.
Italian colonial forces in East Africa likely acted independently
from their national government. There were multiple minor skirmishes
from about 1928 to 1934, which gradually increased tensions between
Ethiopia and Italy. This uneasiness culminated in a larger engagement
at Welwel. Italian leaders in Rome were subsequently opportunistic
and exploited the incident to gain casus belli for an invasion of Ethiopia.
Arguments that there was a conspiracy behind the Welwel incident
both lack considerable evidence and ignore the separation between
local colonial conditions and the imperial core. Britain and France
stayed largely uninvolved because they were concerned about whether
Italy would oppose Nazi Germany’s rapid militarization. However, the
19
Boundary Commission was interested in the effect the incident would
have on their work.
Borders in the Horn of Africa
Borders are a complicated, and well-discussed, issue in colonial

studies. European powers drew their borders in Africa “arbitrarily”
since many of these borders were “not reflective of long-term historical
realities.” 59 The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 was the main event
that regulated European expansion into Africa, namely, to prevent
armed conflict between competing colonial powers. Articles 34 and 35
of the General Act of the Berlin Conference mandated that if a
European nation wanted to expand its territory in Africa, there had to
be “a notification addressed to the other signatory Powers of the
present Act.” 60 While the treaty did not overtly outline the partition of
Africa, as legal scholar Matthew Craven noted, the language employed
“implied that African territory had a status equivalent to terra nullius
(either in the strict sense of being ‘empty’ or as ‘ownerless’) and that
European sovereignty could be established at will over territories not
yet occupied.” 61 Colonial powers opted to work with each other rather
than indigenous communities as they partitioned territory. Many local
communities, resultantly, were split between different colonies
59
Francis Dube, “‘In the Border Regions of the Territory of Rhodesia, There Is the
Greatest Scourge …’: The Border and East Coast Fever Control in Central
Mozambique and Eastern Zimbabwe, 1901–1942,” Journal of Southern African
Studies 41, no. 2 (2015): 220.
60
“General Act of the Conference of Berlin Concerning the Congo,” The American
Journal of International Law 3, no. 1 (1909): 24.
61
Matthew Craven, “Between Law and History: The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885
and the Logic of Free Trade,” London Review of International Law 3, no. 1 (2015):
44.
20
including the Boki nation between Cameroon and Nigeria, the
“essentially continuous cultural area” of Somalia split across five
separate nations, 62 and the Maasai across the Kenyan-Tanzanian
borders.
These splits caused multiple complications for communities.
Indigenous people in colonial Africa were concerned about their fishing
and grazing rights. The formation of colonial borders often split across
lands suitable for grazing, and strict enforcement of borders
threatened some communities, whose livelihoods had been dependent
on livestock for over two thousand years. 63 The Turkana people, an
ethnic group native to northwest Kenya, had a skirmish with local
Ethiopian irregular soldiers in Toipen in July 1932 over fishing rights. 64
On the frontier territories between Ethiopia, British Somaliland,
and Kenya, there were multiple issues with arms smugglers. Much like
in other colonial frontiers, 65 firearm smugglers had largely free license
to operate without significant government interference. These
smuggling operations were also often connected to local violence. The
Ethiopian Section of the Boundary Commission, for example, indicted
several men connected to the arms trade for the murder of a “Herr
Beits” in late 1934. 66
62
Henry Kam Kah and Walter Gam Nkwi, “Colonial Boundaries and Disintegration: A
Study of the Boki ‘Nation’ Of the Cross River Region of Cameroon and Nigeria,” in
Boundaries and History in Africa: Issues in Conventional Boundaries and Ideological
Frontiers, ed. Daniel Abwa et al. (Mankon, Cameroon: Langaa Research and
Publishing Common Initiative Grou, 2013), 58.
Fiona Marshall, “Origins of Specialized Pastoral Production in East Africa,”

63
American Anthropologist 92, no. 4 (1990): 888.
64
NA, CO 967-158. Joseph Byrne, December 8, 1932, 2.
65
Giacomo Macola, “Reassessing the Significance of Firearms in Central Africa: The
Case of North-Western Zambia to the 1920s,” The Journal of African History 51, no.
3 (2010): 315.
66
NA, CO 535-111-8. Andrew Cohen to M. P. Chanoit, Petition, January 19, 1935.
21
These frontier territories were difficult regions to exercise control
over, especially when nomadic communities did not recognize British
or Ethiopian rule. Colonial administrations, therefore, regularly
observed these indigenous communities’ movements in these frontier
territories. 67 Assistant District Commissioner for North Kavirondo in
Kenya, Gerald Reece, in a letter dated June 20th, 1933, observed that
The general position on the Frontier both as far as Turkana and

the Northern Frontier Province are concerned is unsatisfactory,
as you know, and it seems useless to attempt to get the
Abyssinians to exercise any effective control of the nomads on
these outlying frontiers. As I write we are hearing that the
Turkana are now becoming restless as a result of murders by the
Merille [Daasanach people] for which we have not been able to
claim compensation. 68
The Turkana is an ethnic group who historically resided in the north-

western corner of Kenya. Historian John Lamphear, in his seminal work
The Scattering Time: Turkana Responses to Colonial Rule, observed
that the Turkana “derived a strong sense of economic and political
integrity from their pre-colonial experiences.” 69 The Turkana’s desire
for independence often meant inconsistent relations with their
Ethiopian neighbors. Many Ethiopians “conducted 'private wars' against
67
Richard Waller, “Pastoral Production in Colonial Kenya: Lessons from the Past?,”
African Studies Review 55, no. 2 (2012): 1–27; Christopher Vaughan, “Violence and
Regulation in the Darfur-Chad Borderland c. 1909–56: Policing a Colonial Boundary,”
The Journal of African History 54, no. 2 (2013): 177–98; Zoe Cormack, “Borders Are
Galaxies: Interpreting Contestations Over Local Administrative Boundaries in South
Sudan,” Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute 86, no. 3 (2016):
504–27; Matthew D. Turner, “Livestock Mobility and the Territorial State: South-
Western Niger (1890–1920),” Africa: The Journal of the International African
Institute 87, no. 3 (2017): 578–606.
68
NA, CO 967-158. Gerald Reece to Reece, June 20, 1933, 1–2.
69
John Lamphear, The Scattering Time: Turkana Responses to Colonial Rule (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992), 260.
22
them [the Turkana] to obtain livestock and other loot” from the 1880s
onward, 70 which the Turkana heavily resisted. When Ethiopia and
Britain disputed the ownership of Lake Turkana in the early 1910s,
however, then Ethiopian heir Ras Lif Iyasu supported the Turkana’s
resistance of British rule. 71 The Turkana operated outside of both
Ethiopian and British rule and maintained active resistance against the
British well into the 1930s. This pocket of resistance within the frontier
territories between Ethiopia and British-ruled Kenya meant that
controlling, much less administrating, this community was extremely
difficult.
The borders were further complicated with how Ethiopia
previously demarcated its territory. From the mid-eighteenth to the
mid-nineteenth centuries, Ethiopia was in the Zamana Masafint, or the
Era of the Princes. This period, which Kjetil Tronvoll called “one of its
[Ethiopia’s] darkest and most troubled,” 72 was when no central
authority ruled all of Ethiopia. Princes formed coalitions and alliances
for regional control in different parts of the country. Saheed A.
Adejumobi cited the governor of Ye-Maru-Qimis’ victory over Ras Ali of
Shoa in 1855 as “the beginning of the end of close to a century-long
fratricidal conflict in the Abyssinian core.” 73 This governor subsequently
conquered Tigre and Shoa and became Emperor Tewodros II later the
same year. Two subsequent emperors, Yohannes IV (1872–1889) and
Menelik II (1889–1913), continued this legacy of consolidating the rest
70
John Lamphear, “Aspects of Turkana Leadership during the Era of Primary
Resistance,” The Journal of African History 17, no. 2 (1976): 230.
71
Lamphear, The Scattering Time: Turkana Responses to Colonial Rule, 140–42.
72
Kjetil Tronvoll, War & the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia: Making Enemies & Allies
in the Horn of Africa (New York: James Currey, 2009), 37.
73
Saheed A. Adejumobi, The History of Ethiopia (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood
Press, 2007), 25.
23
of Ethiopia under their control. Yohannes IV was most concerned about
protecting “the country’s northern marches against Egypt, Italy and
disorder in Sudan” during his reign as emperor.74 Menelik II, while a
Negus, or a monarch with limited power, from 1866 to 1889, focused
extensively on southern Ethiopia, expanding the Shoans’ influence with
both militaristic and diplomatic approaches. His expansion
encompassed several distinct regions including Kaffa, Gibe Oromo,
Anywa, Walayta, the Afar, and Borana. Menelik II signed the Treaty of
Wuchale with Italy in 1889, which confirmed the Ethiopian-Italian
borders and provided financial assistance and military supplies to
Menelik II. 75 While optimistic, Menelik was still wary of Italy’s rapid
expansion in the Horn of Africa during the 1880s and 1890s. 76
Aside from direct conquest, these three emperors also
negotiated a system of indirect rule. This meant that the regional
rulers kept direct authority but were subservient to the emperor. One
example was with the Ogaden in eastern Ethiopia. The principal
advantage of indirect rule was that it allowed the emperors to focus on
more militant opposition within Ethiopia while regional rulers kept
other areas stable. The downside, however, was that the actual
territorial boundaries between these regional rulers was vague.
Between 1897 and 1908, Ethiopia delimited its borders with the
adjacent British, French, and Italian colonies. These European powers
negotiated their borders as a part of the Scramble for Africa, and
Ethiopia and Liberia were the only African states to remain
74
Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000),
146.
75
“Text of Wuchale Treaty: 1889 Ethio-Italian Treaty,” 2011,
https://hornaffairs.com/2011/08/17/text-of-wuchale-treaty-1989-ethio-italian-
treaty/.
76
Henze, Layers of Time, 161–63.
24
independent during this process. These delimited borders, however,
were not always demarcated locally. The Ogaden province had this
problem because the terrain was not officially demarcated with British
Somaliland until the early 1930s. This meant that the province, while
formally recognized as Ethiopian, did not have clear borders with
British or Italian Somaliland.
A. T. Curle was a Political Officer and Assistant Commissioner
with the British Somaliland-Ethiopian Boundary Commission from
approximately 1932 to 1937. While stationed in the city of Burao,
which is a city in the Togdheer region of modern-day Somalia, Curle
wrote in his diary that “things here are a bit vague as in 1888 we
chose a line with the French and made a treaty. Then they chose a line
with Abyssinia taking as their point a place off our line with them.” 77
This lack of clarity meant that many interactions between local powers
concerned border rights. Most interactions between local British and
Italian colonial officials and the Ethiopian government officials
concerned pastoralists’ cross-border grazing rights.
Britain and Italy’s East African colonies had good diplomatic
relations. Britain was supportive of Italian unification in the 1860s, and
still retained positive relations after Italy joined the Triple Alliance with
Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882. These relations strengthened
in 1915 when Britain persuaded Italy to join the Allied Powers in the
First World War against its former allies. Britain later rewarded Italy, in
part, with the cessation of Jubaland, 78 which was a territory then
attached to British Kenya. The rise of fascism in Italy during the 1920s
77
Imperial War Museum (IWM), Documents.10911, Box 1, File No. 11. Alexander
Tancred Curle, “Private Papers of Lieutenant A. T. Curle” (Diary, October 17, 1933),
3.
78
NA, CO 822-89-7. “Papers Relating to Negotiations for the Cession of Jubaland to
the Italian Government,” 1974.
25
did not immediately derail positive interactions either. The British
government decided that further relations with Italy “caused no
substantial problems so long as Mussolini and his regime seemed to be
contributing to the stability of Europe.” 79 Their relations, however,
were not perfect. Italy’s acquisition of the Dodecanese Islands in the
Aegean Sea and its conquest of Libya during the 1911-1912 Italo-
Turkish War “created an Italian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean
that had the potential to challenge Britain’s interests.” 80 Italy also felt
betrayed because Britain did not give Italy the promised territories
from the dissolved Ottoman Empire after the First World War. 81 Overall,
however, Italy and Britain maintained positive relations well into the
early 1930s despite these grievances.
These positive diplomatic relations trickled into positive colonial
relations in East Africa. Local administrators were flexible in their
dealings with their neighbors. Curle wrote in his diary on May 21st,
1926 that the Marchess Della Stuffa, who was an Italian colonial officer,
allowed him to hunt in Italian Somaliland despite “saying that officially
he couldn’t give me leave.” 82 In this situation, the local Marchess Della
Stuffa bypassed official imperial policy in favour of a flexible, amicable
colonial relations. Gerald Reece, as late as March 1933, was able to
travel through Italian Somaliland without impediment. 83 There is no
79
Alfred Willits McKinley, “Anglo-Italian Diplomacy, 1934-1940” (Doctoral
Dissertation, University of Delaware, 1982), 64.
80
Saho Matsumoto-Best, “British and Italian Imperial Rivalry in the Mediterranean,
1912-14: The Case of Egypt,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 18, no. 2 (June 2007): 297.
81
Isaiah Friedman, British Miscalculations: The Rise of Muslim Nationalism, 1918-
1925 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2012), 257–71; Norman
Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, Since 1914 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 12–20.
82
IWM, Documents.10911, Box 1, File No. 5. Alexander Tancred Curle, “Private
Papers of Lieutenant A. T. Curle” (Diary, May 26, 1926), 26.
83
NA, CO 967-158. Gerald Reece to Henry Monck-Mason Moore, March 30, 1933, 3.
26
evidence of hostilities between British and Italian colonies before
November 1934.
The Welwel Incident and Historiography
Many scholars believe that the Italians, specifically Mussolini,

orchestrated the Welwel Incident. Harold Marcus, who was described
as “one of North America’s leading historians of modern Ethiopia,” 84
asserted that the Italians doubtlessly attacked first “obviously acting
under orders.” 85 Africanist Martin Meredith also argued that the Italians
“using aircraft and armoured cars, launched an attack on Abyssinian
positions at Walwal” while the Ethiopians were resting. 86
Anthropologist Jan Záhořík also argued that the Italians “sought to
provoke border tensions and incidents and to use the fragile situation
for their own purposes.” 87 Záhořík proceeded to explain that the
Italians orchestrated the incident as justification for militarization
against Ethiopia. Political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft argued that
Ethiopia, leading into the conflict, acted “precisely so as to avoid any
chance of a border ‘incident’ which Italy could inflate into a pretext for
invasion.” 88 Arreguín-Toft also argued that Italy was entirely to blame
for the fighting, and implies Italy purposefully provoked Ethiopia into a
84
Hussien Ahmed, review of Review of A History of Ethiopia, by Harold G. Marcus,
85
Harold G. Marcus, A History of Ethiopia, Updated (1994; Reprint, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002), 139.
86
Martin Meredith, Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed and
Endeavour, Google Books (London: Simon and Schuster UK Limited, 2014), chap. 55.
87
Záhořík, “Italy, Ethiopia, and the Walwal Incident in 1934,” 147.
88
Ivan Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 114.
27
border conflict before December 1934. Richard Davis, a historian
specializing in British foreign policy, portrayed the Welwel Incident as
an insignificant skirmish that Mussolini was entirely responsible for the
planning and orchestration of this conflict. 89 These authors shared the
same basic argument: imperial policies dictated local operations, with
somebody attempting to provoke a military escalation. Most striking
about this argument is how prevalent it is across disciplines: historians,
anthropologists, and political scientists with different specializations all
argued that the incident was, to some extent, premeditated.
This argument, however, is what David Hackett Fischer would
have called a furtive fallacy, which is when “history itself is a story of
causes mostly insidious and results mostly invidious.” 90 This fallacy
affects historians that assume conspiracy because one or more parties
benefit from negative events. In the case of scholarship around Welwel,
most authors fall into this category. Authors like Meredith and Davis
who asserted that Welwel was an orchestrated conflict did not present
evidence for this claim. All these authors reach this conclusion based
on Mussolini’s mobilization of forces on Ethiopia’s border in the
following months.
The one exception to this trend is Robert Mallett, an expert on
Italy during the Second World War. Mallett provided a thorough
analysis of Italian mobilization in the Horn of Africa in Mussolini in
Ethiopia, 1919–1935: The Origins of Fascist Italy's African War,
including the leadup to the Welwel Incident. The one limitation with his,
otherwise excellent, study is that he did not offer any insight into the
separation of local colonial conditions versus imperial policy. He,
89
Richard David, Anglo-French Relations Before the Second World War:
Appeasement and Crisis (Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001), 43–44.
90
David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought
(New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970), 74.
28
instead, offers a chronology of events leading into the Second Italo-
Ethiopian War. Most of the actual analysis is, instead, focused on the
imperial level with Mussolini and his cohorts working around other
European powers.
Another common characteristic of English language pieces about
the Welwel Incident is authors calling it a border or frontier conflict.
Most articles and books call it a “border incident.” 91 Even the most
common term for the conflict, the Welwel Incident, is derived from
people calling it a border, or frontier, incident. It is difficult to explain
why people adopted this terminology. One possibility is that some
newspapers, within the first month after the Welwel Incident, used
variations of the terms “border incident,” “border conflict,” and
“frontier incident.” 92
This characterization as a ‘border conflict’ is not entirely accurate.
Calling something a border conflict implies that roaming forces near
the delineated borders happened upon one another and fought. The
incident, however, occurred deep inside Ethiopia’s borders at a central
watering site for nomadic communities. This location was not in close
proximity to the borders nor was it a previously-disputed territory.
While the frontiers and borderlands were ambiguous, calling it a
border conflict misrepresents what happened. The Italians also built a
fort at Welwel in 1929, completing construction in early 1930. Under
the definition of Article 42, Convention IV of the 1907 Hague
91
Harry Forrest Lupold, “Italo-Ethiopian War - 1935-1936,” Social Studies;
Philadelphia 61, no. 5 (October 1, 1970): 213; A. J. Barker, Rape of Ethiopia 1936
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1971), 17; Mekuria Bulcha, “The Politics of Linguistic
Homogenization in Ethiopia and the Conflict over the Status of Afaan Oromoo,”
African Affairs 96, no. 384 (1997): 331.
92
“Frontier Dispute in Abyssinia: British Officials Affected, Serious Clash,” Citizen,
December 8, 1934; “A Triumph for Moderation,” The Western Daily Press and Bristol
Mirror, January 22, 1935; “War Clouds in Africa,” Courier and Advertiser, February
12, 1935.
29
Convention, of which Italy was a signatory, a territory “is considered
occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile
army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such
authority has been established and can be exercised.” 93 Italy exercised
an active military presence at Welwel, and the Italian colonial forces
controlled the movement of civilians in this Ethiopian territory. It
diminishes the significance of the incident to call it a border conflict
when it was, more accurately, a violent clash between Ethiopian
soldiers wanting their territory back and the Italian colonial force that
refused to surrender the occupied territory.
Skirmishes and Conflict Before the Welwel Incident
Italian policy toward Ethiopia sharply shifted “from collaboration

to antagonism” in the early 1930s. 94 Italy and Ethiopia did not have
normalized relations following Italy’s defeat in the First Italo-Ethiopian
War in 1896. There were, however, some minor examples where Italy
and Ethiopia worked with one another. They were still neighbors and
could not ignore each other indefinitely, so some relations were
necessary. Northern Ethiopia had “modest commercial exchanges”
with Italian Eritrea from 1903 to 1935. 95 The British and Italian
governments attempted to pursue development projects in Ethiopia
93
“Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and Its
Annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land”
(International Conferences (The Hague), October 18, 1907), sec. 3,
http://www.refworld.org/docid/4374cae64.html.
94
Alberto Sbacchi, Ethiopia Under Mussolini: Fascism and the Colonial Experience
(London: Zed Books, 1985), 8.
95
Abdussamad H. Ahmad, “Trade Relations of Northern Ethiopia With Italian Eritrea
1903-1935,” Africa: Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi e Documentazione Dell’Istituto
Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente 52, no. 3 (1997): 416.
30
from 1926 onward. In early 1928, Italy signed the “Treaty of Amity
and Arbitration” with Ethiopia where “Italian financiers enjoy an option
of financing any concessions which may be let along the new trade
route from Assab to Addis Ababa.” 96 There were also negotiations to
construct a railroad between Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Assab in
Eritrea, with financing from both the Ethiopian and Italian
governments. Ethiopia signed this treaty, however, under the rule of
Empress Zewditu. She died two years later and was succeeded by
Haile Selassie, born Tafari Makonnen. Selassie was more suspicious of
Italian intentions in Ethiopia, especially over the proposed railway
construction project that would have connected Italian Eritrea to the
Ethiopian capital. Relations between Italy and Ethiopia, around this
point, began to stagnate. It was around this time that Italy began
exerting its influence near Welwel.
Figure 1 Confirmed conflicts between Ethiopia and Italy. Created by Quentin Holbert.
96
“Fascist New Year,” Time Magazine, November 5, 1928, para. 6.
31
Welwel was an oasis in the Ogaden province of Ethiopia.
Nomadic pastoralists from British and Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia
frequented Welwel, and there were small Ethiopian communities
permanently settled near the oasis. Despite the complicated border
policies of the Ogaden, foreign governments did not dispute the
Ethiopian ownership of Welwel itself before 1930. The Times Atlas of
1920 and British colonial maps up to late 1934 depict Welwel as fifty
to sixty miles within Ethiopian territory. 97 The Italian minister in Addis
Ababa, Giuliano Cora, recognized Welwel as Ethiopian territory in a
January 1929 letter to the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry. 98 This meant
that while unmarked borders affected other communities in the
Ogaden, Welwel was certainly accepted among all local powers as
belonging to Ethiopia.
Despite this certainty, Italy exerted its influence as early as
1929 with patrols by Italian colonial soldiers across the Ogaden. The
Italians further extended their influence in 1930 with the construction
of forts at Welwel and Wardair, which was another oasis approximately
nine miles southwest of Welwel. One Somali dubat, which was an
irregular soldier in the Regio Corpo di Truppe Coloniali, testified that
“the officer commanding at Galadi [a small town approximately 110
kilometers southwest of Welwel] had ordered us to challenge any
person Coming from that side [west], whatever his tribe, and to send
him into Italian territory with his live-stock.” 99 Anybody that
approached the territory and refused “to become Italian nationals” had
97
Emile Burns, Ethiopia and Italy (New York: International Publishers, 1935), 14–15;
C. J. Lowe and F. Marzari, Italian Foreign Policy 1870-1940, Volume 8, Foreign
Policies of the Great Powers (1975; Reprint, London: Routledge, 2002), 251.
98
Pitman Benjamin Potter, The Wal Wal Arbitration (Washington: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 1938), 38.
99
League of Nations Official Journal, Volume 11, 1930, 751.
32
all their possessions confiscated and was sent back while those that
agreed “received money and clothing.” 100 Anybody who approached
and did not have any valuable property with them were supposed to
be returned in the direction that they originally came.
One common misconception about the Welwel Incident is that
the Italians remained entirely unchallenged in that area until late 1934.
While it is true that the Ethiopian government never officially protested
the Italian occupation, 101 there were multiple skirmishes between the
Ethiopians and Italians between 1931 and 1934. Most of these smaller
conflicts occurred between Fitaurari Meslekia, head of the Ethiopian
troops in Ogaden, and the Italian garrisons across the province.
Meslekia also often engaged in direct diplomacy with the Italian Consul
in Adowa, including his demand in April 1932 that Europeans were not
allowed to leave Adowa and enter the countryside. 102 Meslekia
launched a limited military campaign against Italian garrisons in early
1933, but failed “because of a strong diplomatic stand by Italy and a
shrinking of Ethiopian troops because of illness.” 103
Ethiopian soldiers also acted independently in some smaller
diplomatic crises. One example was when Ethiopian soldiers arrested,
and seized all the assets, from nine Italian Somalis in May 1934 near
Welwel for unknown reasons. 104 These soldiers acted, as far as later
reports could show, independently of the Ethiopian military’s higher
100
League of Nations Official Journal, 11:751.
101
Potter, The Wal Wal Arbitration, 28.
102
Dispute Between Ethiopia and Italy; Request by the Ethiopian Government;
Memorandum by the Italian Government on the Situation in Ethiopia, Volume 7,
League of Nations Publications (Geneva: League of Nations, 1935), 23.
George W. Baer, The Coming of the Italian-Ethiopian War (Cambridge,

103
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967), 47.
104
Dispute Between Ethiopia and Italy, VII:14.
33
command. All these conflicts were, largely, local to the Ogaden and did
not involve the central imperial governments of either nation.
There were some incidents where Ethiopian forces attacked
Italian civilian colonial subjects. In late 1931, there was an Ethiopian
attack on Somalis who were part of the Mijurtini community, which
was under the jurisdiction of Italian Somaliland, near Bubi. Bubi was a
small town about 107 kilometers southwest of Welwel, although there
is also a Bubi in the north-west of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian soldiers,
under the command of Fitaurari Assaue, raided these Mijurtini at Bubi
and “seized 300 camels, 9 taniks [sic] of butter, and 50 akals (straw
huts).” 105 The Italians received around 80,000 Lire in compensation
from the Ethiopian government in September 1932.
Not every incident between the Italians and Ethiopians was
violent. There were multiple incidents that, while not violent, caused
tensions between Ethiopia and the Italian colonial administration in the
early 1930s. These non-violent conflicts were based around the rights
of Italians arrested in Ethiopia. The Franco–Ethiopian Treaty of Amity
and Commerce of 1908, colloquially the Klobukowski Treaty, was what
legal historian Hailegabriel Feyissa called the “‘only legal basis’ of
European extraterritoriality in Ethiopia until 1936.” 106 While only
technically applicable to France, other European nations used this
treaty as “the basis for consular jurisdiction within Ethiopia in the long
run and greater security and privileges for foreigners living in the
capital and the empire.” 107 Article 7 of this treaty mandated that
105
106
Hailegabriel Feyissa, “European Extraterritoriality in Semicolonial Ethiopia,”
Melbourne Journal of International Law 17, no. 1 (2016): 113.
Peter P. Garretson, A History of Addis Abäba from Its Foundation in 1886 to 1910
107
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000), 22.
34
Ethiopian police had the right to arrest foreign citizens and protected
persons. The police, however, had to notify the arrested person’s
consul and relinquish custody at the soonest opportunity. There were
multiple incidents between 1932 and 1934 where Ethiopian police did
not comply to these requirements. On June 4th, 1932, the Ethiopian
police arrested Italian subject Emanuele Hagginikitas for “unlawfully
carrying arms” in an unknown region, 108 but the police lied to the
Italian consul about the arrest. In 1933, Mezlekia arrested nine
Italians in the Ogaden without notifying the Italian consul. There were
fourteen separate incidents in other parts of Ethiopia with Italian
citizens arrested without notification and without formal charges in
1933. 109
In November 1934 there was an attack against the Italian
consulate in Gondar, which was where the Italian Government housed
its diplomats since the early 1920s. 110 There was substantive
“opposition to foreigners that emanated from religious grounds”
among local communities. 111 Local Ethiopian militia, acting
independently, attacked the consulate to destroy the local telegraph
station because they believed that the radio transmissions were
demonic. 112 De Bono recalled that the Ethiopian government’s
response to this attack “gave full moral satisfaction to Italy, and
108
109
Dispute Between Ethiopia and Italy, VII:14
110
Shitara Tomohiro, “Present Condition of Historical Italian Buildings in Gondar,”
Journal of Ethiopian Studies 10 (2006): 16.
111
Solomon Addis Getahun, “Urbanization and the Urban Space in Africa: The Case
of Gondar, Ethiopia,” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 45 (2012): 127.
Raffaele Di Lauro, Tre Anni a Gondar (Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1936),
112
42–47.
35
compensation to Italian subjects who had suffered injury.” 113 While
none of these incidents garnered international recognition, save for
brief news coverage of the attacks at Gondar, they were still sources
of contention between Italy and Ethiopia.
The Ogaden was not stable during the early 1930s. Ambiguous
borders plus competing desires to control the region caused multiple
incidents between Ethiopian and Italian colonial soldiers. The Italian
penetration of Ethiopia was deep enough to classify as an occupation
under international law. There were no formal orders dictating the
occupation, but it was instead an initiative of local Italian colonial
officers. Why the local Italian officers acted aggressively in this region
is open to interpretation. The Italians believed they owned the area as
a part of Italian Somaliland since the Ogaden is, mostly, ethnically
Somali. 114 The number of conflicts between Ethiopia and Italy were
greatest in the Ogaden, and far fewer were recorded in Tigray or
Northern Gondar, which were provinces bordering Italian Eritrea.
Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden, meanwhile, frequently retaliated
against the Italian occupation. Other Ethiopian soldiers and irregulars
attacked civilians under Italian administration, be it European colonists
or indigenous communities, during this timeframe. Both the Ethiopian
and Italian forces, while independent from central government control,
escalated tensions between Ethiopia and Italy to a point where any
incident could erupt into a larger war. This explosion occurred in
December 1934 at the Welwel wells.
113
De Bono, Anno XIIII, 55–56.
114
Paolo Tripodi, The Colonial Legacy in Somalia: Rome and Mogadishu: From
Colonial Administration to Operation Restore Hope (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1999), 104.
36
The Welwel Incident and its Aftermath
In early November 1934, the Anglo-Ethiopian Boundary

Commission departed for Welwel to meet with the Italian garrison.
This commission proceeded because they believed instability in the
Ogaden could be resolved, at least partially, if the borders were
properly demarcated. Leading this commission was Esmond Clifford,
Senior British Commissioner for the Anglo-Ethiopian Boundary
Commission. On November 22nd, 1934 the council arrived in Welwel
with an escort of approximately one thousand Ethiopian soldiers. The
Ethiopian soldiers wanted to reclaim the territory from the Italians,
seeing it as a violation of their sovereignty, and charged one of the
wells. The Italian garrison, which included two Somali Non-
Commissioned Officers (NCO) commanding sixty Italian and African
soldiers, retreated to the fort and refused Ethiopian demands to
surrender the territory. The Somali NCOs, Ali Uelie and Salad Mahmud
Hassan, contacted Captain Roberto Cimmaruta of the nearby Uarder
garrison for further support. Cimmaruta arrived by the following day
and began negotiating with the Boundary Commission on November
24th. These negotiations fell apart when an Italian plane fired on the
British and Italian officers early that evening. The observer inside the
plane, who was responsible for firing at the delegation, claimed that he
thought that Cimmaruta was a prisoner. 115 The pilot, believing that
firing on the British would have protected a superior officer, acted on
his instincts. Whether this was an excuse for the attack or if the pilot
only confessed that they acted recklessly is unclear.
The British left the region to avoid further conflict, leaving the
Ethiopian force behind. On December 5th, a gunshot of unknown origin
115
Quirico, Squadrone Bianco, 272–73.
37
led to direct violence between the Italian and Ethiopian forces. The
Italian garrison called in three planes and two tanks to support their
line and fighting ended with the Italian garrison repelling the Ethiopian
force. The final casualty count was over one hundred Ethiopian dead,
over thirty Italian and Somali dead, and an unknown number of
wounded on both sides.
Cimmurata was responsible for issuing the demands for
reparations, not the Italian nor colonial governments, to Addis Ababa
after the Welwel Incident. 116 Selassie responded that it was
unreasonable to provide Italy compensation. Selassie’s reasoning was
that Italy had violated Ethiopia’s sovereignty in occupying the Ogaden
and Ethiopia sustained more than three times the losses in the fighting.
Selassie later recalled that the incident ”came as a thunderbolt to me.
The Italian provocation was obvious, and I did not hesitate to appeal
to the League of Nations [for conciliation and arbitration].” 117 The
Italian government, after Selassie’s escalation to the League of
Nations, claimed that “there was nothing to arbitrate, that Ethiopian
troops had delivered an attack without warning or justification upon
Italian troops,” 118 rejected Ethiopia’s appeal, and refused to participate
in the arbitration process. Italy, during this period, demanded direct
negotiations with Ethiopia to discuss reparations for the skirmish.
Mussolini was not involved in the Welwel Incident until after
Selassie’s request for arbitration through the League of Nations.
Mussolini had to react to a long-brewing colonial conflict. The officer
116
David H. Shinn and Thomas P. Ofcansky, Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia, Second
(1981; Reprint, Plymouth: Scarecrow Press Incorporated, 2013), 412.
117
Molefi Kete Asante and Abu S. Abarry, eds., African Intellectual Heritage: A Book
of Sources (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 666.
118
38
who made the demands for reparations acted unilaterally, and
Mussolini was initially unaware of these demands. Mussolini’s earliest
report to his high command about a prospective invasion plan was on
December 20th, 1934. This report, which was entitled “Directions and
Plan of Action for the solution of the Italo-Abyssinian question”
highlighted that any further actions in Ethiopia required the co-
operation of other European powers. 119 He also urged his high
command to be prepared for the possibility of conflict and ensure that
there were 120,000 soldiers ready for combat by fall 1935. Italy
mobilized forces on the Ethiopian border from both Italian Somaliland
and Italian Eritrea from January 1935 onwards. In early January 1935,
De Bono received notification from Mussolini that they would “see how
the Wal-Wal affair turns out.” 120 The plan was, if they received
adequate compensation from Ethiopia, that De Bono would have
become the High Commissioner to work with Ethiopia in future
diplomacy. Mussolini, however, noted that “we shall follow subsequent
events exclusively in accordance with our own standpoint” if
compensation was inadequate. 121 What Mussolini considered these
‘subsequent events’ was still uncertain, and he “did not plan for the
immediate execution of a military solution of the Ethiopia question.” 122
Skirmishes continued during these military preparations. On
December 28th, 1934, there were reports of an Italian raid on
“Gerloguli.” 123 This location does not appear on any contemporary
119
De Bono, Anno XIIII, 116.
120
De Bono, 57.
121
De Bono, 58.
122
Sbacchi, Ethiopia Under Mussolini: Fascism and the Colonial Experience, 8.
123
IWM, Documents.10911, Box 1, File No. 12. Alexander Tancred Curle, “Private
Papers of Lieutenant A. T. Curle” (Diary, December 28, 1934), 17.
39
English maps and the only other reference to this location is in a 1903
newspaper article that discussed conflicts on the Ethiopian-Somali
frontiers. 124 It is, therefore, most likely that Gerloguli was a misspelling
or mis-transliteration of “Gerlogubi,” which is a small town about 45
kilometers south-west of Welwel. On January 25th, 1935, Ethiopian
soldiers at Afdub killed five Italian Somali soldiers. 125 Afdub refers to
two different locations in the Ogaden; one site at approximately 6.81N
45.08E, and another at 9.50N 40.83E. The most likely site is the
former, which is approximately 47 kilometers southwest of Welwel.
Both these incidents, while not widely published, demonstrate the
tense relations between local Italian and Ethiopian forces.
Mussolini’s first confirmation that he was definitely planning to
invade Ethiopia was in a letter to De Bono received on March 8th, 1935.
Mussolini explicitly stated that they must “take the initiative of
operations at the end of October of September.” 126 Other
correspondence, to this date, showed preparations for conflict, but
these earlier letters denoted conflict as less likely to be necessary.
After committing to an invasion and while still negotiating with
Ethiopia, Mussolini tried to gauge French and British reactions to a
prospective conflict with Selassie. Mussolini was in a unique position
for negotiations during the mid-1930s. Italy’s alliance with Britain and
France during the First World War was a strong basis for future
military co-operation. Italy and Nazi Germany, however, were both
fascist nations with similar goals of rebuilding themselves as empires.
French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval recognized Italy’s unique position
and signed the Franco-Italian Agreement on January 7th, 1935, which
124
“The Somaliland Campaign,” Ashburton Guardian, September 5, 1903, 1.
125
“Italian Crisis in the League,” World Affairs 98, no. 4 (1935): 208.
126
40
France’s parliament ratified on March 26th, 1935. France, in this
agreement, authorized Italy to invade and occupy Ethiopia without
interference. Laval believed that promising non-intervention in Ethiopia
would have earned him good favour with Mussolini. Another clause in
the Franco-Italian Agreement was that “no country should modify by a
unilateral act its obligations as regards armaments.” 127 Laval
interpreted this clause as “a direct Italian promise of Italian support
and consultation should Germany denounce the armament clauses of
Versailles.” 128
Britain was also unwilling to oppose Italy in early 1935, 129 which
is also something Italian decision makers believed and based their
diplomacy around. 130 The Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign
Office, Robert Vansittart, was crucial in codifying Britain’s
appeasement of Italy. Vansittart recognized that Italy was in a unique
geographic position to defend Austria against German aggression and
believed it essential to secure Italy’s loyalty in Europe. 131 These
concerns resulted in representatives from Britain, France, and Italy
meeting in Stresa, Italy on April 14th, 1935 to form a front against Nazi
Germany.
One day later, on April 15th, Italy “announced her readiness to
proceed to the nomination of arbitrators” in negotiations with
127
“Franco-Italian Agreement: Official Announcement of Details,” The Advertiser,
January 10, 1935, 10.
128
“The Secret Laval-Mussolini Agreement of 1935 on Ethiopia,” Middle East Journal
15, no. 1 (1961): 71.
129
Marcus, A History of Ethiopia, 140.
Jason Davidson, “Italy, British Resolve and the 1935-1936 Italo-Ethiopian War,”
130
Cahiers de La Méditerranée, no. 88 (2014): para. 20.
131
Michael Lawrence Roi, “From the Stresa Front to the Triple Entente: Sir Robert
Vansittart, the Abyssinian Crisis and the Containment of Germany,” Diplomacy and
Statecraft 6, no. 1 (1995): 65–66.
41
Ethiopia. 132 This announcement was significant because it was the first
time Italy acknowledged the League of Nations’ right to arbitrate over
the Welwel Incident. From May to late August, Italian and Ethiopian
delegates met with the League of Nations Council in Geneva for
discussions.
Mussolini’s willingness to work with the League of Nations
correlated with his desire to invade Ethiopia. While his intentions were
still unknown immediately following the Welwel Incident, he
demonstrated increased anxiousness to resolve the situation with
Ethiopia, be it through the arbitration and concessions, or through
conquest. Mussolini told the Undersecretary to the Minister of the
Colonies, Alessandro Lessona, that they had “to resolve, once and for
all, the problem of relations with Ethiopia” in early May 1935. 133
Military buildup in Italian Eritrea continued, with De Bono handling the
logistics of supplying up to 400,000 soldiers plus attached mechanized
units, air support, and supply lines. There was also a buildup of
labourers, increasing from 10,000 in February to 50,000 by October,
working on building roads and railways from Italian to Ethiopian
territory. 134 Italy, during the summer of 1935, was prepared for either
incorporating conceded territory into its colonies, or conquest of
Ethiopia.
Italy was in an excellent position during the arbitration process.
If the League of Nations recognized Mussolini’s grievance, then Italy
would gain reparations and territory without further conflict. If the
League was neutral or against him, however, he could have cited
border instability as a reason for military intervention. If Selassie
132
133
Lessona, Verso L’impero, 120.
134
42
challenged the Italian occupation of the Ogaden, Mussolini would have
gained a justification to push back against Ethiopia further. If the
League turned against him and sided with Ethiopia, he only had to
maintain large forces just outside the disputed area to provoke further
border disputes. While the least ideal situation, Mussolini could have
escalated these potential disputes into a new cause for war. No matter
how the League concluded, Mussolini could have turned the situation
to his advantage.
On September 3rd, the League of Nations Council overseeing the
arbitration process reached the following conclusion:
This incident was due to an unfortunate chain of circumstances:

the first shot might have been as accidental in character as
those, so many and so frequent, that preceded it; it is wholly
understandable that in the state of nervousness, excitement and
suspicion that prevailed among the rival troops, stationed for
two weeks in dangerous proximity, this shot should have
determined the regrettable results that followed. 135
The report then concluded that neither side could be held liable for the
escalation of conflict. The commission argued both that Italy took
every reasonable measure to avoid conflict and Ethiopia “had no
reasonable interest in provoking the engagement.” 136 The commission
made no comments about the ownership of Welwel or of Italy’s legal
standing in the region. This meant that the territory was still in dispute
and, with more small-scale conflicts almost guaranteed, it gave
Mussolini his casus belli to occupy that region to secure his own
colonies’ borders.
135
Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1978: Documents of the Thirtieth
Sessions (Excluding the Report of the Commission to the General Assembly), Volume
Two (New York: United Nations, 1980), 184.
136
Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1978, Two, 185.
43
The Welwel Incident was not preplanned to provide Italy with an
excuse to invade Ethiopia. It was, instead, the result of over five years
of conflict between Italy and Ethiopia. Italy expanded into Ethiopia
from 1929 onward, with local Italian colonial forces constructing forts
over sixty kilometers inside the Ogaden. These initiatives were all
locally-determined, with no direct input from government officials in
Rome. The Italian colonial forces wrestled for control of eastern
Ethiopia, and directly controlled the movement of local peoples.
Ethiopian and Italian forces engaged in multiple skirmishes across the
Ogaden between 1931 and 1934 before the Welwel Incident. The
Ethiopians actively resisted the Italian occupation, and Ethiopian
displeasure was a major reason for their sponsorship of the British
Somaliland-Ethiopian Boundary Commission; to, peacefully, settle the
dispute of who owned the frontier territories of the Ogaden.
When the Ethiopian force of a thousand soldiers arrived
unexpectedly at Welwel and charged one of the buildings, especially
considering all the previous skirmishes, the local Italian colonial
soldiers were tepid. Considering previous tensions between smaller
numbers of Italian and Ethiopian soldiers elsewhere in the Ogaden, the
presence of a larger Ethiopian force was perceived as an aggressive
act. After the Ethiopians and Italians spent two weeks together near
contested territory, a fight erupted between the two forces.
The local Italian commander Cimmurata initiated the escalation
of this incident into a diplomatic crisis with his demands to Ethiopia for
immediate reparations, not the Italian government. When Ethiopia
declined and requested arbitration through the League of Nations, the
incident exploded into an international affair. Mussolini did not partake
in League negotiations until he was certain that France and Britain, the
two colonial powers that posed the greatest threat to him, would not
44
interfere. Once he knew they were not a factor, then he opened
negotiations with Ethiopia through the League of Nations while building
forces along the Ethiopian border. Mussolini was forced to react to the
Welwel Incident and had no role in either planning nor escalating it.
Mussolini instead saw the situation as an opportunity to gain the
Somali territories of Ethiopia. While Mussolini waited for responses
from Britain and France, there were further conflicts in the Ogaden.
Multiple skirmishes and small-scale battles erupted in early 1935
between Ethiopian and Italian colonial forces, which were significant
because they demonstrated widespread tensions between local forces.
The Welwel Incident was neither a conspiracy for casus belli nor
was it a uniquely horrific conflict. It was the natural evolution of
several years of tension between two local colonial forces feuding for
control of the Ogaden, with a gradual escalation from the construction
of forts in Welwel in 1929 and the titular conflict in December 1934. In
the following months, there was no single agenda; Italian colonial
forces continued fighting with the Ethiopians while Mussolini was
waiting to see what the League of Nations would concede.
The Welwel Incident was a classic example of how people
assumed that what decision makers wanted in an empire’s capital
were the same as what isolated people acting thousands of kilometers
away desired. What made the Welwel Incident infamous, and so
thoroughly connected to the narrative of the Second Italo-Ethiopian
War, was people conflating the local conflicts between colonial forces
with an imperial army’s conquest of the region. The local colonial
soldiers operated independently, not maliciously nor conspiratorially.
Why local officers chose to expand into Ethiopia is an open question,
but one probable reason is they sincerely believed that the Ogaden
province should belong to Italian Somaliland because of the large
45
Somali presence in the Ogaden. The later post-colonial Somali
government also held this belief, which later led to the Ogaden War
(1977-1978). While local officers’ motives require further research,
namely in Italian colonial archives, it was subsequent reactions from
decision makers in Rome and Addis Ababa that set the course for the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
46
CHAPTER 3: COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS UNDER BRITISH
APPEASEMENT
The British national government’s policy of appeasement towards

German, Italian, and Japanese expansion in the early-mid 1930s often
created complications for Britain’s colonial counterparts. Appeasement
policies forced all levels of a government to avoid provoking Italy
further, meaning that colonial administrators and officers had to avoid
actions that could be perceived as remotely threatening. Some of the
problems these British governments faced included keeping frontier
territories near the Ethiopian border secure, protecting British-
administered pastoral communities, difficulties in providing
humanitarian support in Ethiopia, difficulties handling refugees and
deserters, and even offering support to their Italian neighbors. The
British colonial governments in Sudan, Kenya, and Somaliland all faced
these challenges because of this policy of appeasement.
Cornerstone to British national policy during the early-mid 1930s
was to avert conflict unless absolutely necessary. Britain’s Chief of
Staffs cautioned that
It is of the utmost importance that this country should not

become involved in war within the next few years…. no
opportunity should be lost to avert the risk of war, whether in
the Far East or in Europe, as long as possible in order to give
time for making good the heavy deficiencies in our defence
services as a whole. 137
137
NA, AIR 8/200. “Chiefs of Staff, Imperial Defence: Revision of Defense
Requirements,” May 28, 1935. Retrieved from Steven Morewood, “‘This Silly African
Business:’ The Military Dimension of Britain’s Response to the Abyssinian Crisis,” in
Collision of Empires: Italy’s Invasion of Ethiopia and Its International Impact, ed.
Bruce G. Strang (Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2013), 83.
47
Historians have already thoroughly documented the impact of this
attitude in British-German relations, and a smaller subsection has
examined Italian-British diplomacy in the 1930s. The British national
government wanted Italy as an ally against Nazi Germany, which to
some politicians meant appeasing some of Italy’s expansionary desires.
France, similarly, pursued an ardent anti-German policy in the 1930s
and they pursued an alliance with Italy. France also wanted to avoid
conflict with Italy “at all costs.” 138 This left Britain in an awkward
position as, if they opposed Italy’s Mediterranean expansion, then
there was a risk that France would break off diplomatic ties with
Britain. Historian Robert Mallett argued that “provided that [French
Foreign Minister] Pierre Laval remained in power and determined to
avoid being drawn into any vigorous action against the Italians,
Mussolini could continue to pursue his uncompromising line over the
entire Ethiopian matter.” 139
The extent of Britain’s response to Mussolini was in flexing its
naval might in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. While still wanting to
avoid conflict, British officials felt that they had to project their
strength to Italy to protect their East African possessions. Britain
mobilized a total of 144 warships to the Mediterranean and Red Seas
in 1935, which was the largest naval force Britain and its Dominions
had mustered since the First World War. 140 Such gestures, however,
were largely meaningless because Britain already expressed that it did
not see conflict as a valid resolution. With British Prime Ministers
138
Robert Mallett, Mussolini in Ethiopia, 1919–1935: The Origins of Fascist Italy’s
African War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 199.
139
Mallett, 199.
140
Morewood, “‘This Silly African Business:’ The Military Dimension of Britain’s
Response to the Abyssinian Crisis,” 81.
48
Stanley Baldwin (1935-1937) and Neville Chamberlain (1937-1940)
having already expressed willingness to work with Italy after they
invaded Ethiopia, combined with failed policy initiatives like the Hoare-
Laval Pact, Italy had no reason to believe that Britain would intervene.
The British navy would not likely have responded to any of Italy’s
actions unless the Italians directly attacked the British.
The Italians, by contrast, were unafraid of provoking the British
into fighting. Mussolini stated that “out of desperation I would not
hesitate, if it were necessary, to make war on [The British].” 141 While
Mussolini’s military leaders “would have hoped that the order to
engage Britain would never be given” because of Britain’s superior
navy, 142 it is plausible that they would have attacked if deemed
necessary. With Britain having already expressed reluctance to fight,
however, it let the Italo Comando Supremo [Italian High Command]
proceed with more aggressive policies in East Africa without fear of
intervention. This Italian aggressiveness and British passivity meant
that British colonial security in East Africa was not proactive.
British regional security practices during the 1920s and 1930s,
directly influenced how colonial administrators responded to the Italian
invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Instead of a set of new policies, colonial
administrators simply expanded on the previous fifteen years of work,
which remained consistent until 1938. British East Africa was not well
equipped for conflict in the early twentieth century. The outbreak of
the First World War, for example, highlighted the lack of preparedness
in Britain’s East African possessions. Britain’s prewar African forces
were “little more than 'armed gendarmeries', primarily employed to
secure colonial frontiers, uphold internal law and order and to aid
141
Baer, The Coming of the Italian-Ethiopian War, 255.
Mallett, Mussolini in Ethiopia, 1919–1935: The Origins of Fascist Italy’s African

142
War, 197.
49
neighbouring colonies in an emergency.” 143 Historian George Simpson
argued that the British assigned “primary importance to local
considerations in the determination of colonial frontier policy” in the
1900s and 1910s.144 The British colonial administration, for example,
relied mostly on junior officers’ judgement in handling Ethiopian
raiders’ attacks on “Gabbra, Boran, and Samburu settlements” in the
Northwestern section of the Northern Frontier District of Kenya in April
1913. 145 The Ethiopian slave trade was also highly prevalent in the
frontier territory between Ethiopia and Sudan, with 40,000 members
of the Dizi community uprooted from southwestern Ethiopia in 1912
alone. 146 The British, therefore, monitored large population movements
near its colonial borders. Almost immediately on the declaration of war
in August 1914, rumours spread across Kenya that Nairobi was at
immediate threat of a German invasion. 147 There were continued
security concerns in the 1920s. Hubert Moyse Bartlett, then officer in
the Royal Corps of Signals and instructor at the Nautical College at
Pangbourne, reflected that “tribal unrest was rife in many parts of the
East African territories” during the 1910s and 1920s. 148
143
Richard S. Fogarty and David Killingray, “Demobilization in British and French
Africa at the End of the First World War,” Journal of Contemporary History 50, no. 1
(2015): 104.
144
George L. Simpson, “Frontier Banditry and the Colonial Decision-Making Process:
The East Africa Protectorate’s Northern Borderland Prior to the First World War,” The
International Journal of African Historical Studies 29, no. 2 (1996): 280
.
145
Simpson, “Frontier Banditry and the Colonial Decision-Making Process," 291.
146
Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia: 1885-1991, Second Edition (Oxford:
James Currey, 2001), 93.
Ian Parker, The Last Colonial Regiment: The History of the Kenya Regiment (T.F.),
147
2011 Paperback (Kinloss, Scotland: Librario Publishing Limited, 2009), 28.
148
Hubert Moyse-Bartlett, The King’s African Rifles: A Study in the Military History of
East and Central Africa, 1890-1945, Reprint, Volume Two (Naval and Military Press,
2012), 434.
50
Disarmament following the First World War exacerbated
concerns about this unrest among Indigenous communities. Many
colonial administrators resented African colonial forces like the Kings
African Rifles and did not want these forces to be well-equipped in
case they revolted against the colonial governments. 149 The total
strength of the defence forces in British East Africa dropped from 5740
to 2386 full-time soldiers from 1920 to 1933. 150 These soldiers had no
significant overhauls in weaponry during this period, often retaining
the same firearms used during the East Africa Campaign (1914-1918).
Concerns about these forces’ weakness, however, increased during the
1930s with the rise of totalitarian regimes in Europe. Guy Campbell,
former commander of the Kenya Regiment, observed that “the rise of
Nazism under Hitler troubled many of the settlers who realized the
weakness of Kenya’s defences.” 151 A well-equipped Italian or German
invasion force, which would likely have had hundreds of thousands of
soldiers engaged in combined warfare, could easily eliminate a couple
of thousand poorly-equipped soldiers scattered across all of British
East Africa. As the Italian army advanced into Ethiopia, it became
apparent to many British soldiers and politicians that they could not
ignore the tepid security situation. Rapid rearmament, however, could
have raised Italy’s suspicion of a prospective surprise attack.
The British colonial governments in Kenya, Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan, and British Somaliland paid close attention to the fighting
149
Timothy Hamilton Parsons, “East African Soldiers in Britain’s Colonial Army: A
Social History, 1902-1964” (Doctoral Dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University,
1997), 37.
150
Malcolm Page, A History of the King’s African Rifles and East African Forces
(London: Leo Cooper, 1998), 50.
151
Guy Campbell, The Charging Buffalo: A History of the Kenya Regiment (London:
Leo Cooper, 1986), 13.
51
between Ethiopian and Italian forces. This scrutiny of the conflict is
unsurprising because there was a large risk that the war would spill
over into neighboring colonies. Italy’s highly-aggressive strategy
against Ethiopia further exacerbated these concerns. Italy’s
commanders believed that “the war with the Ethiopians would need to
be ruthless, brutal and above all extremely quick.” 152 One example is
that on June 5th, 1936 Mussolini ordered that “all rebels made prisoner
are to be shot” rather than risk a prolonged conflict, 153 and Badoglio
was supposed to eliminate any remaining rebels with poison gas. 154 On
February 21st, 1937, Mussolini ordered the execution of all men
eighteen and older in Goggetti, 155 which is a village about ninety
kilometers south of Addis Ababa, in retaliation to the failed
assassination attempt on Graziani by two Eritreans in Addis Ababa on
February 17th, 1937. There were also British concerns that Italy’s
widespread use of poison gas. Steve Baldwin, the British Prime
Minister from June 1935 to May 1937, argued that if a European nation
“employs them [chemical weapons] in Africa, what guarantees have
we that they may not be used in Europe?” 156 There was also a risk that
these gases could have spread into British-controlled territory. The
British, therefore, carefully monitored Italy’s progress through Ethiopia,
Mallett, Mussolini in Ethiopia, 1919–1935: The Origins of Fascist Italy’s African

152
War, 160.
153
MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 1939-1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist
Italy’s Last War (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 3.
154
Knox, 4.
Giorgio Rochat, “L ’Attentato a Graziani e La Repressione Italiana in Etiopia Nel

155
1936-37,” Italia Contemporanea 118 (1975): 21.
156
Edward M. Spiers, Chemical and Biological Weapons: A Study of Proliferation
(London: Macmillan Company, 1994), 9.
52
with a special focus on frontier territories on the British-Ethiopian
borders.
There were hundreds of reports sent between the British Foreign
and Colonial offices from November 1935 to March 1936. 157 One of the
issues that the British tracked was the Regia Aeronautica’s bombing
runs. The Regia Aeronautica followed similar aggressive doctrines as
Italy’s land forces. Any groups without clear Italian insignia were
considered fair targets, which included neutral pastoral communities.
This fear of Italy’s indiscriminate air power extended to British-
controlled towns and centers. One example of this was Britain’s
concern about Moyale, which is a market town on the Kenyan-
Ethiopian border. Originally a Greek-immigrant’s house dubbed Fort
Harrington, British Major C. W. Gwynn identified the area as “well
placed as a healthy administrative post and as a possible commercial
centre” for its potential to revitalize “the important, though at present
little used, trade route from Kismayu, vid the Wajjeira oasis, to Boran
and central Abyssinia.” 158 The British built infrastructure around this
settlement and shared administrative control of Moyale with Ethiopia.
After October 1935, however, Moyale was under risk of Italian attack
because of the presence of Ethiopian administrators. The commanding
officer of the Northern Brigade of the King’s African Rifles, J. A.
Campbell, wrote to Bryne in February 1936 that “unless due care is
exercised an Italian bombing attack might include British MOYALE [sic]
by mistake, thus creating a most unfortunate international incident.” 159
Many of these letters are available in NA, FCO 141-6347. “Kenya: Intelligence
157
Reports on War Between Italy and Ethiopia.”
158
C. W. Gwynn, “A Journey in Southern Abyssinia,” The Geographical Journal 38, no.
2 (1911): 122.
159
NA, FCO 141-6347. J. A. Campbell to Joseph Aloysius Byrne, “Italo-Ethiopian
Situation: N.F.D.,” February 1936, para. 2.
53
Since Italy’s official attitude was that it was Britons’ fault if they
happened to be too close to an Ethiopian encampment during a
bombing run, 160 Campbell’s concern was justified.
There is some evidence suggesting that the Italians actively
communicated with British-administered communities. On March 13th,
1936 the Officer-in-Charge of the Northern District of Kenya, V. G.
Glenday, noted that the Italians had renewed a prewar policy of
“attracting our tribesmen across the frontier” as potential allies against
remaining Ethiopian forces. 161 While there were still attacks against
neutral communities after this shift, the frequency dramatically
dropped.
British colonial officers were also highly concerned about causing
an incident with Italy along several of their frontiers neighboring
Ethiopia. Maurice Stanley Lush was among the British officers
stationed in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan responsible for frontier security. In
a later interview, he claimed that there were no interactions with any
Italian officers that he was aware of during the 1930s.162 Lush instead
described that the British administrators had to be very careful not to
provoke the Italians “until Italy came into the [Second World] war,
there was no question – in fact we had to be very careful not to do
anything until Italy came into the war against us.” 163 It is very likely
that the British could not employ many patrols to combat slavers in
the frontier because they wanted to avoid confrontation with Italy.
160
“Own Fault If Hit,” Aberdeen Press and Journal, January 17, 1936, 7.
161
NA, FCO 141-6347. “Record of a Conference Held at Government House, Nairobi,
on the 13th March, 1936,” March 13, 1936, 2.
162
IWM, Sound 4594. Maurice Stanley Lush, "Lush, Maurice Stanley (Oral History),"
interview by D. H. Johnson, Cassette, January 25, 1980, pt. 3.
163
Lush, "Lush, Maurice Stanley (Oral History)," pt. 3.
54
There was probably a fear of repeating the Welwel Incident in other
frontier territories. These more cautious policies continued until 1937-
1938 when the British-Italian colonial governments agreed to meet
more regularly to handle issues in the borderlands. 164 Until this
increased communication, which was after Ethiopia’s larger defeat in
1937, it was supremely difficult for British colonies to send patrols
through their territories.
This concern with security had a direct, detrimental impact on
indigenous African communities. Indigenous populations living near
the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Ethiopian borders were highly
vulnerable during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War because the regional
British officers worried about provoking the Italians. While Anglo-
Egyptian Sudan and Ethiopia outlined their borders in 1907,
populations within the frontier territories were often beyond the
jurisdiction of either government. The Funj populations, for example,
were vulnerable to slavers well into the 1930s. 165 British authorities in
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan “have annually spent large sums in controlling
the frontiers” and repelling Ethiopian slavers. 166 These British anti-
slaver units, however, could have sent mixed signals to nearby Italian
units and a repeat of the Welwel Incident could have occurred. These
British colonial forces, therefore, reduced operations in the frontier
territories with Ethiopia.
NA, FO 401-73. “Further Correspondence Respecting Abyssinia” (Foreign Office,

164
1939), 23.
Mc Jedrej, “The Southern Funj of the Sudan as a Frontier Society, 1820-1980,”

165
Comparative Studies in Society and History; Cambridge 46, no. 4 (October 2004):
717.
Joseph James Cooksey, “Crisis in Ethiopia,” World Dominion 13, no. 2 (1935):
166
168.
55
Indigenous communities near the Ethiopian borders were also
vulnerable to Italian attacks. In early January 1936, Italian aircraft
bombed an unnamed indigenous community that was under the
protection of Britain. 167 This attack, which occurred near the Bulale
Wells in the British Somaliland-Ethiopian frontier territory, was likely
accidental because there was an Ethiopian force stationed near the
indigenous community and it is possible that the pilots, depending on
their altitude, mistook their targets. While British administrators raised
concerns with their Italian neighbors, the British did not expand their
forces to protect these neutral communities. It is likely that, for similar
reasons as reducing forces in frontier territories, they did not want to
escalate to a violent confrontation with Italian aircraft.
Another danger for the British administrators was the influx of
Italian deserters in early 1936. 415 Eritreans, all deserters from the
Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali, entered Kenya in 1936. Historian David
Wilkin observed that
to oppose armed and trained men who had obviously mutinied

successfully from the Italian army would have been dangerous
since the numbers of Kenyan police and KAR soldiers who
patrolled the NFD [Northern Frontier District] in that area were
probably fewer than these 415 soldiers. 168
There were also predictions that an additional two thousand soldiers

were expected to desert in the following weeks. The KAR disarmed
these deserters and sent them to a military camp near the Isiolo
Provincial Headquarters, which was in the town of Isiolo approximately
167
“British Tribesmen Bombed,” Citizen, January 7, 1936, 1.
David Wilkin, “Refugees and British Administrative Policy in Northern Kenya,

168
1936-1938,” African Affairs 79, no. 317 (1980): 515.
56
285 kilometres north of Nairobi. Around two hundred more Eritreans
deserted and fled into Kenya by November 1937.
While not a physical threat, Ethiopian refugees were perceived
among Britons as an existential crisis. The British public closely
followed the cases of refugees in 1930s Europe and Africa “as not
discrete incidents, but all tied to fascist violence.” 169 It was, therefore,
not within the British government’s interest to ignore the potential
crisis that Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia posed. The British colonial
administrations, however, wanted to transfer the refugees out of their
colonies as soon as possible because they “were expensive, they
caused administrative difficulties, and hosting them engendered
tensions with the new Italian rulers to the north.” 170 The concerns over
tensions with Italy were, especially, serious considering Britain’s
overall desire to appease Italian interests.
Approximately eight thousand Ethiopians fled to Kenya from
October 1935 to November 1937. 171 Most of these Ethiopians were
relocated to work camps near the Kenyan-Ethiopian border while
colonial administrators struggled to find more permanent
accommodations. When Italy launched an anti-Ethiopian intelligentsia
campaign in 1937, creating what historian Msmaku Asrat called “the
Brett L. Shadle, “Reluctant Humanitarians: British Policy Toward Refugees in

169
Kenya During the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1940,” The Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History 25, no. 1 (2018): 13.
170
Shadle, 2.
171
Osa Johnson, “Lions Prey on Band Fleeing Ethiopia: Two Women and Two Children,
Lagging Behind Party on Way to Kenya, Are Killed 8,000 IN British Colony
Government Concentrates the Refugees and Forms Them Into Work Battalions Little
Human Life There Four Lingered Behind Work Squads Organized Good Land
Available,” New York Times, November 14, 1937, 25.
57
missing generation’ in Ethiopia’s intellectual and political history,” 172
most potential refugees were killed before they had a chance to flee.
Some people, who believed the Italians would target them, fled to the
American Legation in Addis Ababa. 173 After a brief stay, these people
fled into the countryside where their fates are currently unknown.
These challenges did not prompt any substantive changes in
British regional security policies before the Second World War.
Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief Middle East, was frustrated
with London’s lack of commitment to keeping East Africa safe from an
Italian invasion in 1939-1940. 174 Angus Gillan, the Civil Secretary in
Sudan, characterized Sudan’s security as “typically British
improvisation” rather than a well-organized set of protocol. 175 It would
not be until Italy’s conquest of British Somaliland in the summer of
1940, and Britain’s shift to a wartime government in East Africa, that
there would be any major changes.
The Italian officers were also concerned about potential incidents
with British forces, which further highlight the limitations British
administrators faced. Adolfo Graziani, then Governor and Commander-
in-Chief of Italian Somaliland, sent a request on January 29th, 1936 to
Byrne that British soldiers on the Italo-British borders should stop
communicating with their Italian counterparts. Graziani cited that
there were three incidents where “officials and officers of the Kenya
172
Msmaku Asrat, “Modernity and Change in Ethiopia: 1941–1991. From Feudalism
to Ethnic Federalism (a Fifty-Year Political and Historical Portrait of Ethiopia). A
Participant-Observer Perspective” (Doctoral Dissertation, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, 2003), 14.
173
Ian Campbell, The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame (Oxford
University Press, 2017), sec. The Mystery of Engert’s Refugees,
https://books.google.com/books?id=-YY0DwAAQBAJ.
Andrew Stewart, The First Victory: The Second World War and the East Africa
174
Campaign (Yale University Press, 2016), 51.
175
Stewart, 18.
58
Colony have very kindly come to our lines to offer cigarettes and
magazines or to congratulate with us on our successes.” 176 Graziani,
however, requested that Byrne order that similar gestures of kindness
“not happen again in the future as they might be the cause of serious
incidents.” 177
This letter clearly demonstrates the disconnect between colonial
administrators and colonial soldiers. Graziani likely believed that this
was a serious, or at least pervasive, issue if he contacted Byrne about
it. There were examples of gift-giving along the Italian-British borders
during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, although it is unclear how
widespread this practice was. It is also likely, if there were three
official incidents recorded, that there were others that were not. This
letter also demonstrates British soldiers’ sense of comradery with their
Italian counterparts. Why they felt this way is somewhat unclear, but it
is likely that they felt a connection to their fellow European colonials.
Some British soldiers gave the Italians gifts celebrating the conquest
of Ethiopia, which was the last independent indigenous nation in Africa.
Yet, upon the receipt of this complaint from Graziani’s office, it is likely
that Byrne had to enforce a no-contact policy to avoid provoking the
Italians.
There is also evidence that some of the British administrators
felt positively about their Italian counterparts. Hugh Stonehewer-Bird,
the British Consul-General to Addis Ababa from 1937 to 1940, which
was a period of substantial trade between British and Italian East
176
NA, FCO 141-6347. Adolfo Graziani to Joseph Aloysius Byrne, January 29, 1936.
177
Graziani to Byrne.
59
Africa, 178 prepared the annual reports of Italian East Africa for the
British Foreign Office. In his report for 1938, he referred to Ethiopia as
a “vast parasite” not liable to turn any profits for several years despite
Italy’s immense investment in the country’s infrastructure. 179
Stonehewer-Bird also lamented the lack of Italian colonists migrating
to Ethiopia in 1937 and 1938. Stonehewer-Bird, however, still had to
be cautious not to provoke any diplomatic incidents with Italy despite
being a proponent of its imperialism.
This support of Italy’s imperialism further extended to some
British civilians. English novelist Evelyn Waugh argued that the Italian
invasion was a positive influence for indigenous Africans. He believed
that
The neighbouring territories would have been saved much
expense and anxiety through the establishment of an orderly
rule on their frontiers; the subject peoples would have gained by
changing to progressive and comparatively humane masters; the
Abyssinians themselves would have preserved the traditional
forms of their independence and participated in the profits
resulting from the development of their resources.180
Waugh’s writings, while controversial in England for supporting Fascist

Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia, 181 represent a real sentiment that some
Europeans held toward Ethiopia: that it would be better as a colonized
state. British socialist and Marxist Historian Cyril Lionel Robert James
noted that several newspapers like The Observer regularly presented a
178
For more information see NA, CO 822-89-7. “Recognition of Italian Annexation of
Ethiopia: Question of Possible Ceding to Italy of Area in North East Kenya,” 1937-
1939; NA, CO 852-236-4. “Italy: Ethiopia and Other East African Territories,” 1939.
179
NA, CO 852-236-4. Hugh Stonehewer-Bird, “Italian East Africa: Annual Report,
Economic (A) for 1938” (Addis Ababa: British Foreign Office, April 1, 1939), 3.
180
Evelyn Waugh, Waugh in Abyssinia (London: Longmans, Green and Company
Limited, 1936), 46.
181
Douglas Lane Patey, The Life of Evelyn Waugh (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 141.
60
pro-fascist slant on Ethiopian-Italian relations during the 1930s. 182
Letter-to-the-editor sections of British newspapers offered a wide
range of opinions on the conflict between Ethiopia and Italy. One
anonymous writer to The Evening Telegraph, for example, argued
during the early stages of the diplomatic crisis that Italy had as much
right to Ethiopia as Britain did to Egypt and, therefore, Britain should
not intervene. 183 On October 14th, 1935 a C. Duvivier argued that
international responses to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia were no different
than people’s opposition to the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902)
and therefore Italy had the right to “restore order and civilisation in
this anarchic country [Ethiopia].” 184 These civilians, while not directly
involved in colonial administration, further reflect the diverse
perspectives that Britons held toward their Italian counterparts.
While the war was still ongoing, the British national government
did not want to risk any incidents with Ethiopia or Italy. The
Chamberlain government tried to use appeasement to both avoid
conflict with Nazi Germany, and to gain favour with Italy as a potential
ally. This meant limiting frontier operations and monitoring cross-
border conflicts. Once the Italians gained control over most of the
country in 1937, the British colonial government dropped most of its
reservations about its neighbors, with most discussions over the
following two years related to economic concerns. The main result of
these prior reservations were fragmentary security policies heavily
based on 1920s colonial doctrines. There were, furthermore,
182
Cyril Lionel Robert James, “Is This Worth a War? The League’s Scheme to Rob
Abyssinia of Its Independence,” The New Leader, October 4, 1935, Marxists Internet
Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1935/new-leader.htm.
183
“Present-Day Statesmen,” The Evening Telegram and Post, January 18, 1935, sec.
Editorial, 3.
C. Duvivier, “Italy and World Opinion: To the Editor of the Devon & Exeter
184
Gazette,” Devon & Exeter Gazette, October 18, 1935, 11.
61
inconsistent attitudes toward the combatant nations in all levels of
government and among civilians. These inconsistent attitudes likely
complicated efforts to form cohesive security and diplomatic policies at
the regional level.
62
CHAPTER 4: PARTISANSHIP AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL
ORGANIZATIONS
NGOs were active in the Horn of Africa during the 1930s as a

direct response to the humanitarian crisis that the Italian invasion
caused. NGOs are a clear example of how colonial administrators
viewed the war differently than civilians and soldiers. Administrators
often saw NGOs as an impediment to maintaining stability in the
region whereas soldiers and civilians, generally, supported NGOs
endeavours in East Africa.
It is important to consider what an NGO was when viewing
responses to them during the colonial period. While political scientists
like Eric Werker and Faisal Z. Ahmed noted that scholarly definitions of
NGOs are vague, 185 there are two common characteristics that apply to
many NGOs: the ability to operate across borders, and independence
from government bodies. Historian Cherri Wemlinger asserted that
“nation-state boundaries, whether geographic or political, are no
longer useful in defining international relations,” 186 because people and
organizations, often operate across national boundaries. While some
NGOs focus on one province or country, they are able to operate in
multiple countries simultaneously. Closely related to this potential
transnationality is their independence from government bodies.
Political scientists Martin Barber and Cameron Bowie observed that
'Independence' for NGOs working in humanitarian emergencies

is intended to allow them to operate in all areas of a country
185
Eric Werker and Faisal Z Ahmed, “What Do Nongovernmental Organizations Do?,”
Journal of Economic Perspectives 22, no. 2 (2008): 74.
186
Cherri Wemlinger, “Collective Security and the Italo‐Ethiopian Dispute Before the
League of Nations,” Peace & Change 40, no. 2 (April 1, 2015): 160.
63
where people are suffering, irrespective of which group or faction
is running a particular area. The 'independence' of a
development NGO is based on the need to distance itself from
the political standpoints adopted by the government of the
country in which it is registered. 187
This independence, theoretically, is essential for an NGO to operate

during major conflicts. If an aid organization is financially beholden to
an invading nation, for example, then there is an incentive to not help
victims from the defending nation. For organizations like the Red Cross
“neutrality is inherently tied to” their missions. 188
NGOs worked around different governments during the Second
Italo-Ethiopian War. In some cases, colonial administrations and their
central imperial powers interfered with NGOs based on political aims.
In one case, the Italian Red Cross, the NGO worked in tandem with the
Italian government to further support their nation’s greater ambitions.
NGOs tied to resistance and social movements, including Ethiopian
suffragettes and insurgents, violently opposed the Italian occupation of
Ethiopia. British suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst established The New
Times and Ethiopia News in opposition to the Italian invasion.
The most prominent NGO during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War
was the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
(Subsequently called the Red Cross). The Red Cross originated
following a battle between Franco-Sardinian and Austrian forces at
Solferino, Italy in 1859. Civilian onlookers, including Swiss
businessman Henry Dunant, noticed that many wounded soldiers
lacked medical aid and provided this aid themselves. Dunant formally
187
Martin Barber and Cameron Bowie, “How International NGOs Could Do Less Harm
and More Good,” Development in Practice 18, no. 6 (2008): 749.
Barbara Ann Rieffer-Flanagan, “Is Neutral Humanitarianism Dead? Red Cross

188
Neutrality: Walking the Tightrope of Neutral Humanitarianism,” Human Rights

Quarterly 31, no. 4 (October 31, 2009): 894.
64
established the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in
1863 as a centralized, private body based in Geneva, Switzerland that
offers humanitarian aid across the world. Different countries later
established national Red Cross societies, which provide direct aid to
their respective nations with the support of their governments. A third
branch of the Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), formed in 1919 to better organize
national Red Cross societies for international relief programs.
Selassie launched the Ethiopian Red Cross Society on August 6th,
1935 in reaction to the Welwel Incident and the increased tensions
with Italy. In Selassie’s autobiography, which he initially wrote in
1936-1937, he outlined that he originally proposed the foundation of a
Red Cross Society in Addis Ababa in July 1935 “with the object of
safeguarding the lives of Our soldiers as far as possible.” 189 Selassie
believed the forthcoming war was “unwinnable,” 190 and he wanted to
mitigate the loss of Ethiopian life as much as possible. Selassie likely
saw the long-term benefits, as the New York Times reported Selassie
as emphasizing “the necessity of a Red Cross…. not only in war but
also in peace.” 191 Selassie, however, was interested in the positive
impact a national Red Cross could have if Italy invaded Ethiopia.
Ethiopia wanted its medical services to catch up to Italy, who were
much better equipped to handle massive casualties.
The Ethiopian Red Cross faced multiple challenges during the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The ICRC formally recognized the
189
Haile Selassie, “My Life and Ethiopia’s Progress” 1892-1937: The Autobiography
of Emperor Haile Selassie I, trans. Edward Ullendorff, Volume One (Oxford: Oxford
190
Marcus, A History of Ethiopia, 142.
G. L. Steer, “Ethiopia Launches Red Cross Society: Emperor Sees Aid in Peace, as
191
Well as in War, in Fight Against Epidemics,” New York Times, August 7, 1935, para. 5.
65
Ethiopian Red Cross Society as the 48th official member of the IFRC on
September 25th, 1935, which was less than two weeks before the
Italian invasion. The ICRC did not have time to provide training and
support to the Ethiopian branch before the outbreak of conflict. The
ICRC sent two European doctors, Marcel Junod and Sydney Brown, to
both offer expertise to the Ethiopian Red Cross and to provide broader
support to frontline casualties. 192 While Brown had worked with the
ICRC for seven years by 1935, Junod’s first exposure was when he
received an urgent invitation to work in Ethiopia on October 15th, 1935.
To the ICRC, Ethiopia was substantially behind their Italian
counterparts and there was little optimism about the Ethiopian Red
Cross’s functionality in a crisis. From 1896 to 1948, Ethiopia relied
upon western-managed hospitals for healthcare within major cities like
Addis Ababa, Harrar, and Dessie. The rest of the country, however,
still depended on Hakim, which were local experts in herbal remedies
and cures. A Hakim usually learned from another expert in the same
region and carefully guarded their knowledge. Brown explained to
Junod that “if my information is correct there is only one Abyssinian
medical man [Workneh Eshete] in the whole of the country.” 193 Many
of the doctors and expert medical staff, therefore, came from
European nations with British and Scandinavian national Red Cross
societies offering the most direct support. 194 Then ICRC president Paul
Logoz stated that “Dr [Marcel] Junod told us that the Ethiopian Red
Cross was only a façade. Perhaps it would have been better not to
192
Marcel Junod, Warrior Without Weapons, trans. Edward Fitzgerald (Oxford:
Jonathan Cape, 1951), 15; Selassie, “My Life and Ethiopia’s Progress” 1892-1937:
The Autobiography of Emperor Haile Selassie I, Volume One: 211.
193
Junod, Warrior Without Weapons, 27.
194
W. R. Smyser, The Humanitarian Conscience: Caring for Others in the Age of
Terror (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 50.
66
have tried to create such a façade and not to have admitted to the
League of Nations a ‘State’ whose ‘civilisation’ was questionable.” 195
Trained doctors for frontline work came almost entirely from European
nations, with many having no prior experience with work in East Africa.
The Ethiopian Red Cross was simply unequipped to handle the
forthcoming conflict.
The British Red Cross played an active role during the war. The
British Red Cross, from the early 1930s onward, sought to have at
least one branch available in every British protectorate and colony. 196
They provided, alongside their Scandinavian counterparts, a plethora
of supplies and medical professionals. There was some popular support
for their work during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in England.
Cosmo Gordon Lang, then Archbishop of Canterbury, offered blessings
to both Red Cross doctors and the Red Cross flag before departure to
Ethiopia. 197 Some protestant church programs had their pastors make
requests of their congregations to donate to the British Red Cross. 198
There was a general sense of duty among many Britons to help
Ethiopia where possible, be it through donated funds, medical supplies,
or offers of service to the British Red Cross.
The British colonial government, however, exercised caution
when the British Red Cross requested specific support. G. A. Burgoyne
was a First World War veteran who later joined the British Red Cross.
195
Rieffer-Flanagan, “Is Neutral Humanitarianism Dead?,” 899.
196
Marie-Luise Ermisch, “Children, Youth and Humanitarian Assistance: How the
British Red Cross Society and Oxfam Engaged Young People in Britain and Its Empire
With International Development Projects in the 1950s and 1960s” (Doctoral
Dissertation, McGill University, Montreal, 2014), 131.
Medical Aid for Ethiopia. British Red Cross Unit Blessed by the Archbishop of
197
Canterbury, Digital, 1935, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7FYhntGr6Q.
“Babes in the Wood,” Daily Mail, January 4, 1936, 3; “Opera And Revue From
198
Regionals To-Night 8.0 & 9.30,” The Nottingham Evening Post, January 4, 1936, 6.
67
When his Red Cross unit requested support from the colonial
government in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, their request was refused
because “the policy of the British government aims at the
concentration of British subjects and the reduction of travelling to a
minimum.” 199 Burgoyne later entered Ethiopia without any support
from the British colonial government.
The Italian military in Ethiopia made multiple attacks against
Red-Cross hospitals during the war. On December 6th, 1935 the Italian
Regia Aeronautica dropped incendiary bombs on the town of Dessie,
with many of said bombs hitting both Selassie’s palace and the
hospital. 200 On December 30th, 1935 Italian aircraft bombed Swedish
ambulances at Melka Dida, 201 which was a camp in the Dolo Addo
district of Eastern Ethiopia. There was also an attack against the
Egyptian Red Cross Society, that was active near Degehabur in the
Ogaden region, in early January 1936. 202 Junod claimed that from
February 1936 onward all of the Red Cross units were constantly
fleeing from Italian bombing runs and frequently under attack. 203 One
of these attacks included an Italian air raid on the Harar hospital in
late March 1936, which was the largest Red Cross-operated facility in
Ethiopia. 204 Contemporary records become scarcer due to the rapidity
199
IWM, Documents.12484, Item 34. G. A. Burgoyne, “Private Papers of Major G. A.
Burgoyne,” Letter, November 15, 1935, 1.
200
“Italian Air Raid Wrecks Dessye Palace, Hospital; 32 Killed, 200 Wounded,” New
York Times, December 7, 1935, 1.
201
United Nations Archives (UNA), C.207.M.129.1936.VII. “Dispute Between Ethiopia
and Italy: Communication From the Swiss Government” (League of Nations, May 7,
1936), 1.
202
“Red Cross Work in Ethiopia,” Aberdeen Press and Journal, January 6, 1936, 7.
203
204
“The Bombing of Harar by Italian ’Planes,” The Western Daily Press and Bristol
Mirror, April 1, 1936, 8.
68
of these assaults, with greater gaps in primary sources. Burgoyne, for
example, stopped writing in his diary in late January, and he died in an
Italian bombing raid a month later. 205 Brown sent a letter to Geneva in
February 1936 stating that
it is now very clear that this little colonial affair has become a
war of extermination and that if we do not manage to have the
Red Cross emblem respected by a country calling itself civilized
we will never be able to do so later if we are ever faced by a war
in Europe. 206
The frequency of these attacks supports Brown’s claim. As attacks

continued into March and April, the common Italian response was that
the camps were close to Ethiopian forces. Following a bombing run on
British Red Cross members in March 1936, the Italian embassy
reported that their pilots bombed the camp because, according to the
Italians, the British ambulance was close to Ethiopian anti-aircraft
guns. 207 These attacks were almost certainly Italian military policy, and
not accidental bombings. Smaller and more infrequent incidents could
have been blamed on individual pilots and bomber squadrons.
Similarly, poorly marked encampments with armed guards could be
mistaken for military outposts. These possibilities, however, do not
address how many attacks occurred across the entire Ethiopian front
nor their intensity. These attacks were probably official Regia
Areonautica policy whereby pilots likely received specific orders to
target any large groups that were not Italian, or any groups even
suspected of helping Ethiopia to any capacity. The Italian military
205
“British Major Killed in Italian Bomb Raid,” Daily Mail, March 6, 1936, 1.
206
Smyser, The Humanitarian Conscience: Caring for Others in the Age of Terror, 50.
207
“Italian Charges Against British Red Cross,” Citizen, April 17, 1936, 7.
69
rejected the ICRC’s pledge to neutrality and treated them as an enemy
combatant during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
The Italian Red Cross refused all assistance from other Red
Cross societies. While the ICRC only recognizes one Red Cross society
per nation to maintain cohesion, 208 it is typical for societies to co-
operate during an international crisis. It is also common for civilians
from other countries to provide support; Italian Americans, for
example, donated almost exclusively to the Italian Red Cross. 209 The
official explanation that the Italian government gave was that the
Italian Red Cross did not require any foreign support to care for Italian
casualties. The Italian government viewed Italian emigrants,
meanwhile, as extensions of the nation and obligated to support their
imperial endeavours. There is some truth to this claim of lacking need,
as mortality rates from illness in East Africa during the war were
reportedly lower than equivalent Italian units stationed in Italy. 210 This
highly disproportionate efficacy of Italian medical treatment, even
compared to other European Red Cross units in Africa, implies that the
Italian Red Cross acted more as a medical unit for the Italian military
instead of a third party. It is highly likely that the Italian Red Cross
prioritized Italian casualties and, through rejecting offers for
international aid except from Italian emigrants, wanted to do so
without scrutiny from other Red Cross societies.
208
Jean Pictet, “The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross: Commentary”
(International Committee of the Red Cross, January 1, 1979), chap. 6,
https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/fundamental-principles-
commentary-010179.htm.
Fiorello B. Ventresco, “Italian-Americans and the Ethiopian Crisis,” Italian

209
Americana 6, no. 1 (1980): 16.
210
“The Italian Army in Abyssinia,” Public Health 51, no. C (1937): 5.
70
The Italian Red Cross’ administration had a clear partisan bias
toward the fascist government. Filippo Cremonesi, president of the
Italian National Red Cross, often opposed the actions of the ICRC and
tried to align the national organization with the Italian fascist
government. Cremeonesi spent his tenure moulding the Italian Red
Cross “to the service of the Fascist Fatherland and to the orders of the
Duce.” 211 Since the Italian government saw Ethiopia and other East
African colonies as “one region of a Magna Italia,” 212 international
NGOs did not have much influence in Italian-controlled territory.
One example of Cremenosi’s influence was with the usage of
poison gas during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, which was a major
component of Italy’s war effort. Historian Richard Overy stated that
there were 103 confirmed attacks using mustard and phosphorous
bombs in Ethiopia from December 22nd, 1935 to March 29th, 1936. 213
Italy’s total budget for its chemical gases for the Second Italo-
Ethiopian War were one hundred million Lire, 214 which included funding
for gas masks, flamethrowers, and storage of volatile materials. There
were at least five cases of Italian aircraft having used lethal poison gas
against Ethiopian soldiers: over the Takkaze Valley in Northeastern
Ethiopia on December 22nd, 1935, the Battle of the Shire from
February 29th 1936 to March 2nd 1936, the Battle of Maychew on March
211
Baudendistel, Between Bombs and Good Intent: The Red Cross and the Italo-
Ethiopian War, 1935-1936, 31.
212
Haile Larebo, “Empire Building and Its Limitations: Ethiopia (1935–1941),” in
Italian Colonialism, ed. Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Mia Fuller, Italian and Italian American
Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2005), 83.
Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945 (London: Penguin Books,
213
2013), 39.
Alberto Sbacchi, “Poison Gas and Atrocities in the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–
214
1936),” in Italian Colonialism, ed. Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Mia Fuller, Italian and Italian
American Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2005), 48.
71
31st 1936, and a series of attacks on Ethiopian towns in April 1936. 215
Selassie described how he “has been accosted by old friends whom he
could not recognize because of burns” from poison gas. 216
Conservative estimates place the total amount of gas used against the
Ethiopians around five hundred thousand tonnes. 217 Unnamed Soviet
analysts estimated that approximately thirty percent of the 50,000
casualties resulted from chemical weapons. 218 Chemical warfare was,
based on these figures, instrumental in the Italian war effort and not
an incidental inclusion into pre-existing strategies.
These weapons were highly effective partially because the Red
Cross failed to provide direct support to affected communities. Red
Cross missions need to justify requests for specialized supplies, which
meant that for gas masks to be sent to Ethiopia there had to be
evidence of chemical warfare being present. Cremonesi, not wanting to
be implicated in any war crimes, refused to discuss Italy’s use of
poison gas in Ethiopia during any official meetings with the ICRC. 219
This culminated in the ICRC refusing Ethiopian requests for gas masks
because, without an approved investigation, the Ethiopian government
215
Lina Grip and John Hart, “The Use of Chemical Weapons in the 1935–36 Italo-
Ethiopian War,” SIPRI Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Programmme, 2009, 3.
216
G. L. Steer, “Defeat Is in Sight, Ethiopians Admit; Blame Poison Gas: Haile
Selassie in Peril Foe May Surround Him If His Troops Fail to Stem Advance. Mustard
Gas Hits Many Women and Children Among Victims Burned by Chemical Dropped by
Enemy Fliers. Invaders at Lake Tana. Emperor’s Troops Reported in Retreat Near
Ashangi Are Harassed by Planes,” New York Times, April 4, 1936, 1.
217
Sbacchi, “Poison Gas and Atrocities in the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1936),” 49.
218
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Problem of Chemical and
Biological Warfare, Volume I: The Rise of CB Weapons (Stockholm: Almqvist and
Wiksell, 1971), 142–43.
219
Rainer Baudendistel, “Force versus Law: The International Committee of the Red
Cross and Chemical Warfare in the Italo-Ethiopian War 1935-1936,” International
Review of the Red Cross 38, no. 322 (1998): paras. 15–16.
72
could not irrefutably demonstrate “for what purposes the masks were
to be used.” 220 This is an example of direct intervention in the Red
Cross’ operations from somebody who had specific political goals. The
Red Cross, on the ground level, were unable to provide direct support
to affected communities after attacks. Junod, in the aftermath of one
bombing, described how “the monotonous chant rose towards the
refuge of the Emperor…. Who was to help them in their suffering?
There were no doctors available and our ambulances had been
destroyed.” 221 The constant attacks on Red Cross societies made
assisting those communities almost impossible, especially as Ethiopia
was already ill-equipped to combat chemical warfare. The Red Cross,
because of partisan actors, were unable to perform their duties
adequately in Ethiopia.
The ICRC’s involvement in Ethiopia ended with the Italian
conquest of Addis Ababa. Junod was among the last Red Cross
members still alive in Addis Ababa after the Italian conquest, and
Badoglio reportedly told Junod that “the International Red Cross would
have done better not to interfere.” 222 Junod subsequently left Ethiopia
and, in July 1936, went to Spain as an observer in the ongoing civil
war. Other Red-Cross affiliated personnel evacuated Ethiopia as able,
including three missionaries attached to the Ethiopian Red Cross,
during the spring of 1936. 223 The Red Cross’ involvement in the Second
Italo-Ethiopian War was, effectively, over.
220
John H. Spencer, Ethiopia at Bay: A Personal Account of the Haile Selassie Years
(Hollywood: Tsehai Publishers, 2006), 50.
221
222
Junod, 83.
223
“Britisher’s Dangerous Journey,” The Evening Telegram and Post, May 13, 1936,
4.
73
Different Red Cross societies had different roles during the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The ICRC, while providing supplies and
expertise to Ethiopia, largely limited itself in its absolute pledge to
neutrality. The Ethiopian Red Cross, formed specifically as a response
to Italian aggression in 1935, was too poorly equipped for the
forthcoming war. Other national societies like the British Red Cross
and American Red Cross provided support more directly, although their
respective governments limited their actions to varied extents. The
Italian Red Cross was weaponized for the Italian war machine and was
largely responsible for the ICRC’s complicit attitude toward Italy’ use
of chemical warfare.
The Red Cross societies were not the only NGOs active in
Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Many women’s
organizations and activists, both international and Ethiopian, opposed
Italy’s invasion and were active in their opposition. The most robust
research on women’s involvement in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in
English is Wemlinger’s work, including her doctoral thesis Making Their
Voices Heard: Expressions of World Opinion to the League of Nations
During the Italo-Ethiopian Dispute (1934-1938). Wemlinger estimated
that, before the Italian invasion in October 1935, “over sixty
exclusively women’s national and international organizations contacted
the League of Nations” concerning the Italo-Ethiopian crisis. 224 Princess
Tsehai Haile Selassie, the third daughter of Haile Selassie, became an
important symbol for women’s groups during the Second Italo-
Ethiopian War. Following Tsehai Selassie’s radio speech urging all
women to help Ethiopia on September 8th, 1935, the League of Nations
received a plethora of letters requesting a peaceful resolution to the
224
Cherri Reni Wemlinger, “Making Their Voices Heard: Expressions of World Opinion
to the League of Nations During the Italo-Ethiopian Dispute (1934-1938)” (Doctoral
Dissertation, Washington State University, 2012), 186–87.
74
ongoing Italo-Ethiopian Crisis. Many of the women that wrote to the
League cited Tsehai as their main inspiration. 225
Ethiopian women and women’s organizations actively
participated in the war, usually on behalf of Ethiopia. Scholarship on
these groups remains scarce, with most of the existing research being
unpublished B.A. and M.A. theses from Addis Ababa University. 226
Ethiopian women traditionally appeared on battlefields as supports for
the fighting men. Historian Tsehai Berhane-Selassie noted that, while
women fighting were rare, they frequently “appeared as fighters with
guns or other weapons, in response to mobilisation decrees of the
government” and during times of national emergency. 227 The Second
Italo-Ethiopian War was one of these occasions, where many women
directly participated in the resistance movements. The Ethiopian
Women’s Volunteer Service Association, for example, resisted the
Italian invasion. The women involved had varied roles, from supplying
patriot fighters with medical supplies to conducting intelligence
operations, from 1936 to 1941. Many women also became Shifta,
which was a broad term for any bandits, outlaws, and rebels in East
Africa. 228 These Shifta consistently opposed Italian rule, often
disrupting supply lines and attacking isolated patrols and outposts,
well into 1940 and 1941.
225
Wemlinger, 204–9.
226
Belete Bizuneh, “Women in Ethiopian History: A Bibliographic Review,” Northeast
African Studies 8, no. 3 (2001): 10.
227
Tsehai B. Selassie, “’Centre’ and ’Periphery’ in History: The Case of Warriors and
Women in Traditional Ethiopia,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 12,
no. 1 (1981): 39.
228
Berhane-Selassie, 42–44; Berhe Aregawi, “Revisiting Resistance in Italian-
Occupied Ethiopia: The Patriots’ Movement (1936–1941) and the Redefinition of
Post-War Ethiopia,” in Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History,
ed. Jon Abbink, Klaas Walraven, and Mirjam Brujin (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2003),
96–97.
75
One of the most prominent western women advocating for
Ethiopia was Sylvia Pankhurst. Pankhurst found Ethiopia’s “long history
of independence” appealing to “her anti-colonialist sentiments.” 229 She
initially wrote to newspapers like The New York Times warning readers
that Italy was likely going to invade Ethiopia. In 1936 she founded The
New Times and Ethiopia News newspaper in response to Italy’s
invasion, using this paper to argue against Italy’s fascist expansionism.
Pankhurst’s activism on Ethiopia’s behalf was “much appreciated by
black activists in Africa, the West Indies, Britain and America.” 230 Her
work was also likely considered important in undermining Italian rule,
with many Ethiopian nationalists sharing translated copies of her
publication with one another. It is difficult to quantify the effect of
Pankhurst’s activism had on the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, but
Ethiopian resistance fighters saw her as important.
One of Pankhurst’s colleagues, Hakim Warqenah Eshate, was
also deeply involved in the war. Eshate, sometimes known by his
baptized name of Charles Martin, was a “Ethiopian statesman,
diplomat and occasional businessman” with a personal relationship to
Selassie. 231 Eshate vocally opposed, and in large part brought to light,
Britain’s neutrality following Italy’s invasion. He regularly contributed
to The New Times and Ethiopia News and launched “an ambitious
appeal to raise 2 million pounds sterling” for relief efforts across
229
Richard Pankhurst, “Sylvia and New Times and Ethiopia News,” in Sylvia
Pankhurst: From Artist to Anti-Fascist, ed. Ian Bullock and Richard Pankhurst
(London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1992), 150.
Mary Davis, Sylvia Pankhurst: A Life in Radical Politics (London: Pluto Press,
230
1999), 108.
231
Richard Reid, “Review of A Victorian Gentleman & Ethiopian Nationalist: The Life
and Times of Hakim Warqenah, Dr Charles Martin,” Reviews in History, Review
Number 1388 (2013): para. 1, https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1388.
76
Ethiopia. 232 Similar to Pankhurst, he was pivotal in raising general
awareness of the Italo-Ethiopian conflict, and the plight of Ethiopians
under their new imperial rulers.
One small set of NGOs in Ethiopia during the war were
veterinary hospitals and ambulances. The Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) was concerned about the
welfare of horses and mules, 233 which were used extensively for
transporting soldiers and supplies. Italy’s use of poison gases,
furthermore, exacerbated concerns of animal welfare and suffering
during the war. These NGOs and activists, however, have almost no
presence in current academic literature on the Second Italo-Ethiopian
War and merit further investigation.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War cannot be understood, in full,
when examining only national or colonial governments. NGOs were
important in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. As entities, theoretically,
outside of direct government control, they worked within Ethiopia
according to their different goals. The war, however, shaped which
side different organizations supported. The Ethiopian Red Cross, being
poorly equipped and having only formed a few months before the
outbreak of war, received immense support from the ICRC and other
national Red Cross societies. The Italian Red Cross acted as an arm of
the Italian military, and supplied support almost exclusively to Italian
soldiers and civilians. Administration within the Italian Red Cross
blocked the ICRC from performing their full duties within Ethiopia,
including blocking investigations over Italy’s use of chemical warfare.
Women’s groups, both inside and outside of Ethiopia, provided direct
support to Ethiopia. Many women within Ethiopia aided in the war and
Bahru Zewde, “The Ethiopian Intelligentsia and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-
232
1941,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 26, no. 2 (1993): 290.
233
Beryl H. Brodhurst, “An Appeal,” The Dover Express, April 17, 1936, 14.
77
later resistance movements in both logistics support and direct combat
roles. Individuals like Sylvia Pankhurst and Warqenah Eshate,
organized awareness and fundraising campaigns for Ethiopia.
78
CHAPTER 5: RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES ON THE SECOND ITALO-
ETHIOPIAN WAR
Religious organizations were caught in a quagmire during the

war. These organizations, typically, hold influence across national
boundaries and spread their beliefs wherever they take hold. While
some religious institutions become state-mandated, they are still
separate entities from governments. That said, governments
attempted to weaponize religion to garner support for their regimes
during the war. Religion, generally, motivated many people more than
national loyalties, with many factions siding with, or opposing, the
Ethiopian government because of a common faith. There are a few
exceptions where religion did not override political motives, but
generally religion determined alliances within Ethiopia in the 1930s.
Ethiopia was a pluralist society in the 1930s. American
missionary Samuel Marinus Zwemer estimated, in 1936, that
about three and a half million are monophysite Jacobite

Christians connected with the Coptic patriarchate of Alexandria.
There are some Catholics and Protestants, fifty thousand Jews,
perhaps a million animistic pagans, and the rest of the
population is Moslem, i.e., about three million, or thirty-seven
per cent of the total. 234
The two major forces in Ethiopia during the 1930s were Ethiopian
Orthodoxy and Islam, which was mostly Sunni and almost no Shia.
The Ethiopian government tried to rally national support,
partially, around their longstanding religious institutions, namely the
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC). Many resistance
234
Samuel Marinus Zwemer, “Islam in Ethiopia and Eritrea,” The Muslim World 26,
no. 1 (1936): 6.
79
fighters during Italy’s occupation unified around Ethiopian Orthodoxy.
Ethiopia as a bastion of true Christianity was a powerful image among
many Ethiopians. Italy used Catholicism to legitimize their conquest of,
from their perspective, a backwards African nation. The small Catholic
communities in Ethiopian celebrated the Italian invasion and the
expansion of Catholic Churches in the late 1930s. The Muslim minority
worked with Italy in exchange for more political power, which the
Italians gave them.
Religion in Ethiopia Before the Second Italo-Ethiopian War
From the fourth to early twentieth centuries, a large part of

Ethiopia’s population practiced Christianity largely through the EOTC,
which was among the only Sub-Saharan African Christian
organizations before the colonial period. While precise records are
scarce, 235 scholars generally agree that Ezana of Axum (320 – 360 CE)
of the Kingdom of Aksum, which comprised modern-day Eritrea and
the Tigray Region of Northern Ethiopia, codified Christianity as the
state religion early in the fourth century.
The EOTC’s interpretation of Christianity remained largely
Alexandrian, which was where several apostles to Ethiopia originated.
The term Tewahedo, or unity, is the central doctrine of this branch of
Christianity whereby there is a “union of the divine and human natures
in Christ, whom they [Orthodox Ethiopians] view as one person with
235
D. W. Phillipson, Foundations of an African Civilisation Aksum & the Northern
Horn, 1000 BC-1300 AD (Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey, 2012), 87.
80
one nature, which is uniquely divine and human.” 236 Ethiopia
specifically sent ambassadors to Alexandria “to ordain them [EOTC] a
bishop, and some presbyters” well into the mid-seventh century. 237
There were some splits between Ethiopian and Eastern
Orthodoxy, however, starting with the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the
mid-seventh century. Islam rapidly spread across North and East
Africa from the seventh to twelfth centuries, with many Ethiopians
having “came to see themselves as an island of Christianity in a hostile
sea of Islam and of paganism.” 238 This meant that the EOTC began to
develop separately from other branches of Eastern Orthodoxy. One
example is the appropriation of Queen Sheba into Ethiopia’s founding
mythology. Queen Sheba, who originally appeared in Hebrew tradition
as a caravanner that brought gifts to King Solomon, is seen as the
origin of Ethiopia’s monarchy. References to Queen Sheba as the
ancestor of Ethiopia’s royal family emerged as early as the eleventh
century. 239 Emperor Fasilides moved the imperial capital to Gondar in
1636, which established a precedent for the EOTC being prevalent in
the capital. This shift to Gondar also meant the ascension of the
Amhara ethnic group, which were overwhelming Ethiopian Orthodox,
236
Donald Crummey, “Church and Nation: The Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahedo Church
(From the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century),” in Eastern Christianity, ed. Michael
Angold, Volume 5, Cambridge History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge
237
Michael Geddes, The Church History of Ethiopia: Wherein, Among Other Things,
the Two Great Splendid Roman Missions Into That Empire Are Placed in Their True
Light; to Which Are Added, an Epitome of the Dominican History of That Church, and
an Account of the Practices and Conviction of Maria of the Annunciation, the Famous
Nun of Lisbon (London: Rose and Crown, 1696), 17.
238
Crummey, “Church and Nation: The Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahedo Church (From
the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century),” 459.
239
Stuart Munro-Hay, “Abu al-Faraj and Abu al-ʽI zz,” Annales d’Ethiopie 20, no. 1
(2004): 24.
81
as the rulers of Ethiopia. 240 The EOTC has, since this period,
maintained hegemony across most of Ethiopia.
From the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, many Christian
evangelists travelled to, or studied, Ethiopia with different perspectives
of the country’s religiosity. The last neighboring pre-colonial Christian
State adjacent to Ethiopia was the Kingdom of Nubia (modern-day
southern Egypt and central-Sudan), which ultimately converted to
Islam.” 241 That there was a Christian nation thriving in a sea of Islamic
states seemed amazing to some Europeans. Martin Luther, Christian
monk and reformer, commended Ethiopian Deacons as highly
educated compared to their Arab counterparts in the 1530s. 242
Portuguese explorer Francisco Alzarez, during his expeditions during
the sixteenth century, found Christian Ethiopians worthy of respect. 243
Jesuit missionaries despised the EOTC’s orthodoxy, and attempted to
forcefully convert the Ethiopians during the mid-seventeenth
century. 244 In his expedition to Ethiopia in the early 1840s, British
engineer William Cornwallis Harris advocated for a more ‘intimate’
connection between Ethiopia’s Christian population and the global
240
John Dulin et al., “Transvaluing ISIS in Orthodox Christian-Majority Ethiopia: On
the Inhibition of Group Violence,” Current Anthropology 58, no. 6 (December 2017):
788.
Kim Searcy, The Formation of the Sudanese Mahdist State: Ceremony and
241
Symbols of Authority: 1882-1898 (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2011), 11.
242
David D. Daniels and Lawrence Anglin, “Luther and the Ethiopian Deacon,”
Lutheran Quarterly 32, no. 4 (December 13, 2018): 429.
243
Francisco Alvarez, Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia During the
Years 1520–1527, trans. Henry Edward John Stanley (1881; Reprint, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), 259.
244
Johann Michael Wansleben, A Brief Account of the Rebellions and Bloudshed
Occasioned by the Anti-Christian Practices of the Jesuits and Other Popish Emissaries
in the Empire of Ethiopia (London: Jonathan Edwin, 1679), 4.
82
Christian community. 245 All of these Europeans saw Ethiopia as a
devoutly-Christian state.
At no point did any of these Christian travellers and missionaries
make any significant progress in converting Ethiopians to their
respective denominations. The Catholic church, for example,
repeatedly failed to introduce Catholicism to Ethiopia. The greatest of
these failures was in 1633, when Emperor Fasilidas ordered the
expulsion and execution of all Jesuit missionaries. When Bishop
Giustino de Jacobis received an assignment to Ethiopia in 1829,
Monsignor Vincent Spaccapietra commented that “it is God who will
have him for this terrible Abyssinian mission.” 246 Jacobis was,
nonetheless, successful in establishing Catholic communities from
1839 to 1847, which is the basis for many modern Ethiopian Catholic
communities. These communities, however remained small until after
Italy’s invasion in 1935.
The other major religion in East Africa was Sunni Islam. Among
Ethiopian leaders dating to the twelfth century, Islam held “secondary”
and “inferior” status to Christianity. 247 Islam initially emerged in the
Kingdom of Aksum sometime between 613 and 615 CE, with Islamic
historian Ibn Ishāq citing Ethiopia as a safe haven for those fleeing
persecution elsewhere. 248 While no particular regional or ethnic groups
are overwhelmingly Muslim over Christian, there is a higher
William Cornwallis Harris, The Highlands of Ethiopia (New York: J. Winchester,

245
New World Press, 1844), vii.
Mary Elisabeth Herbert, Abyssinia and Its Apostle (London: Burns, Oates and
246
Company, 1867), 24.
247
Jon Abbink, “An Historical-Anthropological Approach to Islam in Ethiopia: Issues
of Identity and Politics,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 11, no. 2 (1998): 113.
248
Ibn Ishāq, Sīratu Rasūlillāh, trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford
University Press, 1955), 146–50.
83
concentration of practising Muslims in the Eastern half of the country
with a small concentration in western Ethiopia. 249 These eastern
Muslims originally migrated to modern-day Somalia around 622 CE.
Somali oral tradition depicts a peaceful adoption of Islam and
subsequent propagation across the rest of the Horn of Africa. 250 This
Somali migration into Ethiopia, most likely, occurred starting in the
twelfth century among Cushitic-speaking pastoral communities. 251
Some of these communities, including the Beja, had a minor impact on
spreading Islam to North Ethiopia.
Other ethnic groups adopted Islam over the following centuries,
but not necessarily at equal rates. Oromo communities adopted Islam
at different rates, as many traditional Oromo communities despised
their early Islamic counterparts. When the Oromo became
predominantly Muslim is unclear, as conversion rates differed by
region, but many communities began to shift in the late-eighteenth
century and became dominant by the late nineteenth century. 252 Islam,
however, never became the majority religion in Ethiopia. British
diplomat Gerald Herbert Portal called Islam a great wave that, for
centuries, has “beaten against the mountain barriers of Abyssinia, but
never has it succeeded in breaking into the country.” 253
Portal’s description of Islam being a wave alludes to the
centuries of conflict between Christian Ethiopia and its Muslim
249
Abbink, “An Historical-Anthropological Approach to Islam in Ethiopia,” 112.
250
Afyare Abdi Elmi, Understanding the Somalia Conflagration: Identity, Islam and
Peacebuilding (London: Pluto Press, 2010), 49.
251
Terje Østebø, Localising Salafism : Religious Change among Oromo Muslims in
Bale, Ethiopia, ed. John Hunwick, Rüdiger Seesemann, and Victør Knut, Volume 12,
Islam in Africa (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012), 47.
252
Østebø, Volume 12, 63–64.
253
Gerald Herbert Portal, My Mission to Abyssinia (London: Edward Arnold, 1892), iv.
84
neighbors. The Sultanate of Ifat (c. 1285 – 1415 CE) controlled a part
of the Ogaden, and waged wars against their Christian neighbors in
the 1320s. King Yeshaq of Ethiopia declared Muslims “enemies of the
lord” and invaded the sultanates of southern Ethiopia in 1415. 254 King
Dawit I of Ethiopia led an army to Sennar, which is a town on the Blue
Nile in modern-day Sudan, in the early fifteenth century to force
nearby Muslim raiders from attacking isolated Christian
communities. 255 Conflict between Christian Ethiopia and the Adal
Sultanate, succeeded the Ifat Sultanate, persisted during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. General Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi of the
Adal Sultanate conquered much of Ethiopia in the 1530s, including the
entire Ogaden, by 1539. Many historians and political scientists
consider this war the origin of modern Ethiopian-Somali territorial
disputes. 256
This war also highlights how the EOTC and Catholicism was not
compatible beyond temporary alliances. Dawit II, shortly before his
death in September 1540, appealed to Portugal for assistance.
Portugal sent four hundred soldiers to Ethiopia, which participated in
the final three years of the war and helped defeat al-Ghazi’s army in
1543. While a Portuguese diaspora did appear in Ethiopia, having
lasted from the 1540s to the 1620s and 1630s, there is little evidence
suggesting that the Catholics and Orthodox Ethiopians co-operated
254
Seifuddin Adem Hussien, “Islam, Christianity and Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy,”
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 17, no. 1 (April 1997): sec. The Ethiopia-Somali
Dispute.
255
Getatchew Haile, The Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s Tradition on the Holy Cross
(Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2018), 9–11.
256
Christopher Clapham, “Ethiopia and Somalia,” The Adelphi Papers 12, no. 93
(December 1, 1972): 1–24; Getatchew Haile, “The Unity and Territorial Integrity of
Ethiopia,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 24, no. 3 (1986): 465–87; David D.
Laitin and Said S. Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of a State (Boulder, Colorado:
Westview Press, 1987).
85
beyond opposing Islamic invaders. Emperor Aṣnāf Sagad I (c. 1540 –
1559), having won some battles against his Muslim neighbors without
support in the 1550s, saw no need for further alliances.
These prior conflicts were a factor in Amharics’ forced conversion
of Ethiopian Muslims. Yohannes IV was determined to Christianize the
Muslims in “the eastern escarpment and coastlands” from 1878 to his
death in 1889, 257 but the extent of Yohannes IV’ persecution is unclear.
Yohannes IV was reported to have made an ultimatum to Muslim
communities in Gondar: convert to Christianity or be expelled. 258
Yohannes IV made a similar ultimatum to the Galla, which were the
pastoral communities that lived in Ethiopia’s southern highlands. It
was during a battle against the Mahdists, who were members of
Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah’s religious and political movement in
Sudan, that Yohannes IV was killed. For many Muslims in the Gondar
region of Ethiopia their primary goal was ”not so much to spread the
Islamic faith as to survive with it” during the nineteenth and the early-
twentieth centuries. 259 It is, therefore, unsurprising that many Muslim
communities resented the EOTC. The communities that practised Islam
during this period of persecution were, predominantly, previously-
pagan communities. Historian J. Spencer Trimingham argued that the
popularity of Islam among Ethiopia’s pagan communities “was helped
by the fact that it was religion hostile to the Amharic race who lorded
257
Richard Alan Caulk, “Religion and the State in Nineteenth Century Ethiopia,”
258
Caulk, 28.
Abdussamad H. Ahmad, “The Gondar Muslim Minority in Ethiopia: The Story up to

259
1935,” Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Journal 9, no. 1 (January 1, 1988): 83.
86
it over them.” 260 Islam was used as a unifier for those already facing
oppression.
Menelik II, from 1889 to his death in 1913, continued his
predecessors’ anti-Islamic policies but made some pro-Muslim
gestures. He “developed a sophisticated diplomatic system that
allowed for him to open up toward non-Christians” while he “occupied
the Somali Ogaden.” 261 The Ethiopian government was a mosaic of
Muslim and Christian representatives, and large parts of his military
were Islamic. Political representation, however, does not reflect many
citizens’ experiences. Menelik’s colonization of the Ogaden was a key
part of building Ethiopia’s economic and military power from the 1890s
onward. 262 A combination of tributes from local communities “along
with revenue from the control of the slave trade (an estimate 25,000
slaves per year in the 1880s) and valuable ivory, coffee and civet
exports financed Menelik's consolidation of power.” 263 Menelik II
masked his continuity of pro-Christian and anti-Islamic policies with
some examples of political representation.
Islamic-Christian divides directly dictated Ethiopia’s neutrality
during the First World War. As a powerful independent state, Ethiopia
had the potential to affect the outcome of the war in Africa. The
Ottoman Empire and Imperial Germany both tried to gain Ethiopia as
an ally against Britain, namely, to cripple Britain’s access to the Suez
J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (1965; Reprint, Abingdon, Oxon:

260
Routledge, 2013), 101.
261
Tony Karbo, “Religion and Social Cohesion in Ethiopia,” International Journal of
Peace and Development Studies 4, no. 3 (2013): 45.
262
Asafa Jalata and Harwood Schaffer, “The Ethiopian State: Authoritarianism,
Violence and Clandestine Genocide,” Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 6 (March
15, 2010): 163.
263
Glen Bailey, “An Analysis of the Ethiopian Revolution” (Masters’ Thesis, Ohio
University, 1980), 12.
87
Canal. Losing the Suez Canal meant cutting off soldiers and supplies in
East Africa and, more importantly, India. Lij [Child] Iyasu was the heir
to Ethiopia following Menelik II’s death and was more amicable to
Ethiopia’s Muslim population than his predecessors. Some authors
have speculated that Iyasu converted to Islam and wanted to unify
Ethiopia under Islamic law. 264 Rumours spread that Iyasu was turning
against the EOTC and, while these rumours remain contested, it is
clear that he sought alliances with the Muslim minorities in Ethiopia,
the Ottoman Empire, and Muhammad Abd Allah al-Hassan, then leader
of the Somali Dervish movement for independence. The EOTC
subsequently excommunicated Iyasu, which made him ineligible to
become emperor. Britain, Italy, and France further levied pressure
against Iyasu and his Islamic allies until their eventual military defeat
in 1921. Religious lines, above everything else, were critical in
Ethiopia’s conduct during the First World War. Iyasu, straying from the
conventional EOTC power base in favour of Islamic allies, garnered
mistrust from the EOTC and other Amharic elites. This directly led to
his overthrow, and the eventual installment of Selassie as the official
ruler of Ethiopia.
There is a precedent for European powers aligning with Muslim
communities, or in some cases recruiting them into their colonial
armies, to gain control of African colonies. Lord Frederick Lugard, the
first British High Commissioner for Northern Nigeria, tried to rule
indirectly through the Islamic Emirs. The Portuguese, in Guinea and
Mozambique, tried to enlist Muslims in their colonial forces to better
264
Harold G. Marcus, The Life and Times of Menelik II: Ethiopia 1844-1913
(Lawrenceville, New Jersey: Red Sea Press, 1995), 265–76; Ibsa Ahmed Hassen and
Seyfettin Erşahin, “The Price of the Conversion to Islam: The Case of Iyasu, the King
of Ethiopia (1913-1916),” Journal of History Culture and Art Research 7, no. 1
(March 31, 2018): 740.
88
control nationalist guerrilla forces. The Italians also attempted to
consolidate support among African Muslims in Libya and Eritrea. 265
There are a few themes that recur in the centuries of religious
conflict in Ethiopia. The EOTC has, largely, been the core of political
power while Islam was a persistent threat. Other religious groups,
including Catholics, largely held a peripheral role within Ethiopia and
had little impact on the nation’s politics. There were a few examples of
external powers, including Portugal, trying to gain favour with the
Ethiopian government through supporting the Orthodox Church against
Islamic enemies. Neutral Muslim communities within Ethiopia had,
historically, faced oppression during times that the EOTC held more
influence in said communities’ provinces. These divisions and conflicts
all set the foundation for how religion influenced the Second Italo-
Ethiopian War.
Religion During the War
The EOTC was a pivotal part of the anti-fascist resistance from

1936 onward. The famous line from Psalms 68:31 “Ethiopia shall
stretch out her hands unto God” was deeply-engrained among many
Ethiopians, 266 and they saw the violation of Ethiopia as sacrilegious.
Indeed, many Ethiopians, when later asked why they fought the
Italians, replied “ba mateb, ba haimonot [i.e. for the cross worn
around one's neck, for the Christian religion].” 267 The sense of
265
John. L. Wright, “Mussolini, Libya, and the Sword of Islam,” in Italian Colonialism,
ed. Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Mia Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 121–30;
Aregawi, “Revisiting Resistance in Italian-Occupied Ethiopia.”
266
Aregawi, “Revisiting Resistance in Italian-Occupied Ethiopia,” 98.
267
Charles McClellan, “Observations on the Ethiopian Nation, Its Nationalism, and
the Italo-Ethiopian War,” Northeast African Studies 3, no. 1 (1996): 76.
89
nationalism, in the protection of Ethiopia, was for many people far
weaker than their loyalty to their faith. Religious unity was later a
factor in the Ethiopian Civil War (1974-1991) where religious groups
resisted Ethiopia’s socialist authoritarian regime. 268 One anonymous
Ethiopian, following the shutdown of several churches in the early
1980s, lamented that “religion was here a long time before
Marxism.” 269
Although not all EOTC groups explicitly supported insurgent
warfare, the Italians did directly attack EOTC monasteries. Following
the failed assassination attempt on Graziani on February 19th, 1937,
the Italians suspected the involvement of monks in the Debre Libanos
monastery, which is approximately one hundred kilometers north of
Addis Ababa. In May 1937, before any official investigations completed,
Italian colonists massacred 426 monks and 23 laymen at this
monastery. 270 The monastery did house the two would-be assassins,
Abraha Deboch and Mogus Asgedom, briefly before their flight to
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Whether the failed assassins had prior
connections to any of the monks or simply invoked their religious right
to sanctuary is unclear. Regardless, the Italian colonists still saw the
monks as traitors to the Italian empire.
One exception to the EOTC’s support of an independent Ethiopia
was with the Tigrayan royal family. Tigray, at the time of the war, was
overwhelmingly Christian with a small Muslim minority. The Tigrayan
268
Tibebe Eshete, “Evangelical Christians and Indirect Resistance to Religious
Persecution in Ethiopia,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 8, no. 1 (March
2010): 16.
Alan Cowell, “Religion Remains Heart of Revolutionary Ethiopia; The Talk of Addis
269
Ababa,” New York Times, June 25, 1983, 2.
270
Micheal Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of
Casualty and Other Figures, 1492-2015, Fourth Edition (Jefferson, North Carolina:
McFarland and Company Limited Publishers, 2017), 355.
90
royal family vied for power in the mid-nineteenth century, and
opposed Menelik II’s, and his successors’, Shewan-based rule.
Tigrayan Ethiopians were the largest case of an overwhelming
Ethiopian Orthodox community opposing Haile Selassie during the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Their opposition to Selassie, unlike some
other groups, was political and not religious.
The Catholic Church faced multiple challenges during the Second
Italo-Ethiopian War. Many internationally-based Catholic leaders were
split on whether to remain loyal to Italy or not. 271 The Vatican was
technically bound “to remain extraneous to all temporal disputes.” 272
Catholic doctrine from Pope Leo XIII (1878–1903) to Pius XI “focused
on the element of peace in just war theory.” 273 The Catholic Church,
theoretically, saw itself as outside of Fascist Italy’s expansionary wars.
Mussolini, however, saw the Vatican as a key part of his vision for a
greater Italy. Many Catholic leaders within Italy also saw the war in
Ethiopia as a civilizing mission and a chance to spread their influence
in the Horn of Africa. 274
Among those against Mussolini was Pope Pius XI, who believed
in the Church’s abstinence from international affairs. Pius XI, however,
felt that Mussolini had greater influence over the rest of the Church. 275
Pius XI, therefore, decided that it was in his best interests to align with
271
Peter C. Kent, “Between Rome and London: Pius XI, the Catholic Church, and the
Abyssinian Crisis of 1935-1936,” The International History Review 11, no. 2 (1989):
253.
Anthony Richard Ewart Rhodes, The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, 1922-
272
1945 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973), 72.
273
Lan T. Chu, “God Is Not Dead or Violent: The Catholic Church, Just War, and the
‘Resurgence’ of Religion,” Politics and Religion 5, no. 2 (August 2012): 424.
Aristotle A. Kallis, Fascist Ideology Territory and Expansionism in Italy and

274
Germany, 1922-1945 (New York: Routledge, 2000), 74.
275
Kent, “Between Rome and London,” 255.
91
Mussolini for the short term to protect the Church’s long-term security.
The Fascist Italian government ultimately received “the support of the
Vatican…and concluded a concordat which safeguarded the rights of
the Catholic Church in Italy.” 276 It is difficult to assess how much real
power Pius XI had but, through his endorsement of Mussolini, he had
given legitimacy to claims of Fascist Italy’s divine right for conquest.
Some observers found this allegiance treasonous to the faith, 277 but
these individuals held little political power in Italy. The Catholic Church
was, during this war, a tool of the Fascist government to offer greater
legitimacy to the invasion. Pius XI’s endorsement of Italy gave a clear
signal to otherwise politically-disengaged soldiers that a civilizing
mission in Ethiopia aligned with their Catholicism.
Catholics within Ethiopia, while numerically insignificant,
generally supported the Italian invasion. On October 13th, 1935, the
Catholic procession in Adowa prayed for the success of the Italian
invaders. 278 In June 1936 the Vatican announced the establishment of
a Catholic hierarchy in Ethiopia, 279 which was as a part of its
integration into the Italian Empire. The Italian colonial government, in
co-operation with the Catholic Church, expelled all non-Catholic
missionary groups between 1936 and 1937.280
The Italians did initially not believe that these foreign
missionaries were a threat. Protestant missionary groups were not
very large compared to their Catholic counterparts. Eight out of the
276
“Abyssinia and After,” The Nottingham Evening Post, June 12, 1936, 13.
277
Quincy Wright, “The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,” The American
Journal of International Law 30, no. 1 (1936): 45–56.
278
“Simple Memorial,” Courier and Advertiser, October 14, 1935, 7.
279
“Pope and Ethiopia,” The Nottingham Evening Post, June 1, 1936, 8.
280
Larebo, “Empire Building and Its Limitations,” 84.
92
ten protestant missionary groups only had around 150 members in
Ethiopia each. 281 The size of the other two groups, a series of Swedish
parishes and the Church Mission to Jews, is unclear but estimated to
hover anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 members each. Italy’s main
opposition to these groups was, initially, that the protestant schools
and churches did not teach students to be loyal to Italy. 282 Author
Joseph James Cooksey argued that if Ethiopia lost its sovereignty then
it would be impossible for evangelicals to continue their work in that
country. 283 As many denominations were associated with their
respective governments, including the Church of England and
Sweden’s Low Church Lutherans, quelling the missionaries was an
indirect way of blocking said governments.
One example of the war’s impact on Protestant missionaries is
with the Sudan Interior Mission’s (SIM) work. SIM was a
fundamentalist Protestant group originally formed in 1893 in
opposition to the rising popularity of liberal Christian organizations. 284
SIM, after multiple failures, established its first missionary outpost in
Patigi of the Kwara state in Nigeria in 1902. The mission spread across
West Africa and, in the 1920s, expanded to East Africa. While SIM
offered medical support to Ethiopians along the Sudan-Ethiopian
border in 1918-1919 due to the ongoing influenza epidemic, SIM’s first
building in Ethiopia was a hospital in late 1925, which offered religious
Ingeborg Lass-Westphal, “Protestant Missions During and After the Italo-Ethiopian

281
War, 1935-1937,” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 10, no. 1 (1972): 90.
282
Lass-Westphal, 93.
283
Joseph James Cooksey, A Serious Aspect of the Abyssinian Situation: On the
Threat of the Italian Invasion of Abyssinia to Evangelical Missions in That Country
(London: New Mildmay Press, 1935), 44.
284
Tibebe Eshete, “The Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) in Ethiopia (1928-1970),”
Northeast African Studies 6, no. 3 (1999): 27.
93
services alongside medical support. This organizations’ influence
expanded until the Italian invasion in 1935. While some missionaries
departed, most remained active in Ethiopia during the early stages of
the war. Ethiopians, mostly Catholic or Muslim, revolted against
Selassie in Spring 1936, which was when Ethiopia lost its last major
battle with the Italians. These rebels subsequently pushed many S.I.M.
missionaries out of Ethiopia because they saw SIM. as an unwanted
foreign influence. 285 The Catholic Church, however, believed that the
remnants of this fundamentalist Protestant group exerted too much
political control and would potentially challenge Italian rule in
Ethiopia. 286 The Italian colonial government, under pressure from the
Catholic Church, forced the remaining SIM members active in Ethiopia
to relocate to Sudan in 1937. 287 The Italians, while initially tolerating
these groups, moved to expel them once it became clear that they
would not conform to Italian Fascist doctrine nor co-operate with the
Catholic groups.
Protestants in other countries, meanwhile, sharply opposed
Italy’s expansion. Daniel Bartlett, secretary of the Bible Churchman’s
Missionary Society, argued that this war demonstrated “the essential
difference between Italian Christianity and Bible Christianity” whereby
Italian Christianity was “founded on tradition” rather than the Bible. 288
Bartlett, representing the only group in Ethiopia with British
Lass-Westphal, “Protestant Missions During and After the Italo-Ethiopian War,

285
1935-1937,” 96.
286
Eshete, “The Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) in Ethiopia (1928-1970),” 45.
287
Lilian Sanderson, “The Sudan Interior Mission and the Condominium Sudan,
1937-1955,” Journal of Religion in Africa/Religion En Afrique; Leiden 8, no. 1
(January 1, 1976): 15.
288
“Missionary Work in Ethiopia,” The Western Daily Press and Bristol Mirror, October
9, 1935, 8.
94
missionaries at the time, clearly saw the Catholic invaders as
antithetical to his view of true Christianity.
In October 1935 “all missionaries, both British and American,
were advised by their respective Governments to leave the country.” 289
Every missionary from the Bible Churchman’s Missionary Society, an
evangelical Anglican society, stayed in Ethiopia after the declaration of
war. 290 Correspondence remained steady between the society’s
missionaries and their home base in England well into 1936, with
communication only slowing as Italy forcefully expelled all missionaries
in 1937. Following this expulsion, the British government was reluctant
to let these missionaries work too close to the Ethiopian border. The
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan administration, for example, forbade SIM from
operating along the Sudan-Ethiopian border in the mid-1930s because
of the risk of violence. They were also not allowed to send evangelists
to the Koma community, who resided near the border, in case the war
spilled into Sudan. 291 It is likely that the British colonial governments
were also apprehensive of provoking a conflict with Italy, which
supporting missionary groups that rivalled the Italian Catholics could
have caused. This is a case where a religious organization faced
opposition from two separate governments but for two different
reasons: one that did not trust them, and one that wanted to avoid
potential conflicts.
Esmé Ritchie Rice, ed., Eclipse in Ethiopia and Its Corona in History (London:
289
Marshall, Morgan, and Scott Limited, 1938), xii.
290
“Old Reptonian in Ethiopia,” Derby Evening Telegraph, October 19th, 1935, 4.
Sanderson, “The Sudan Interior Mission and the Condominium Sudan, 1937-
291
1955,” 17.
95
Scholars have previously noted the long-lasting cultural impact
of evangelism and its significance in imperial identities. 292 Ethiopia, a
country and region that has had a Christian influence for sixteen
centuries, became a battleground for European denominations.
Catholicism and Protestantism, in their battle for Ethiopia, represented
how different imperial powers wanted to exert their influence in the
last uncolonized African state. With Italian Catholics pushing out other
European Christian groups, Orthodox Ethiopia would have become
saturated with Italian religious, and thus imperial, ideals.
There is evidence of Islamic groups aligning with the Italians
before the end of sustained hostilities in 1937. Jihad movements in
late 1935 directly aided the Italian military, mobilizing around twelve
thousand soldiers to fight Selassie’s forces in the Somali-dominant
Ogaden province. 293 This Islamic force diluted Ethiopia’s military across
a wider front, which made them more vulnerable to Italian offensives.
Muslim Oromo groups launched attacks against Ethiopian weapon
shipments in early 1936. 294
While these divisions existed before 1935, Italy exploited these
splits to better control Ethiopia. The Italian colonial government
offered Islamic communities more political power in an Italian-
292
Edward E. Andrews, “Christian Missions and Colonial Empires Reconsidered: A
Black Evangelist in West Africa, 1766–1816,” Journal of Church & State 51, no. 4
(2009): 663–91; Nathan Nunn, “Religious Conversion in Colonial Africa,” The
American Economic Review 100, no. 2 (2010): 147–52; Hilary M. Carey, God’s
Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World, c.1801–1908 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011).
293
Ahmed Hassen Omer, “The Italian Impact on Ethnic Relations: A Case Study of a
Regional Policy in Northern Shoa (Ethiopia), 1936-1941,” Annales d’Ethiopie 16
(2000): 154.
294
McClellan, “Observations on the Ethiopian Nation, Its Nationalism, and the Italo-
Ethiopian War,” 70.
96
controlled Ethiopia if they helped support the Fascist regime. 295
Furthermore, the Italians appealed to some Muslim communities’ anti-
Semitic attitudes toward Ethiopia’s Jewish minority. Divide-and-
conquer had been a part of Italian colonial policy since the 1890s, 296
although Badoglio amplified these efforts after November 1935. He
recognized that long-standing religious identities fostered stronger
loyalty than recently-formed nationalism. Mussolini promised on March
18th, 1937 that he was dedicated “to prove to you how it [Italy] is
interested in improving your [African Muslims] destiny.” 297 There is
some evidence proving that Mussolini kept this promise in Ethiopia.
From 1936 onward, the Italian colonial government built fifty new
mosques and provided direct funding for Islamic education across
Ethiopia. 298 Wahhabism, which was a branch of conservative Islam that
emerged in the Arabian Peninsula during the eighteenth century,
gained some support from the Italian colonial government as the
Italians supported Wahhabis’ pilgrimage to Mecca. 299
This support of Muslims, however, only extended to conservative,
Orthodox factions. Muslims in Ethiopia were largely “divided between a
pro-Ethiopian wing led by reformists such as Rashid Rida, and
Islamicist militants such as the author Yusuf Ahmad, who perceived
295
Aregawi, “Revisiting Resistance in Italian-Occupied Ethiopia,” 103.
296
Omer, “The Italian Impact on Ethnic Relations: A Case Study of a Regional Policy
in Northern Shoa (Ethiopia), 1936-1941,” 151–52.
297
“Mussolini Again Courts Moslems: Tells Them in Tripoli Italy Will Soon Adopt Laws
to Aid Their Destiny Sees ‘New Epoch’ Ahead Premier Receives Gem-Studded Islamic
Sword in Libya From Arab Horsemen,” New York Times, March 19, 1937, 12.
298
Ahmed Hussein, “Islam and Islamic Discourse in Ethiopia (1973-1993),” in New
Trends in Ethiopian Studies: Humanities and Human Resources, ed. Harold G. Marcus
(Lawrenceville, New Jersey: Red Sea Press, 1994), 776.
299
Mustafa Kabha and Haggai Erlich, “Al-Ahbash and Wahhabiyya: Interpretations of
Islam,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 38, no. 4 (2006): 522.
97
Ethiopia to be a historic enemy of Islam deserving destruction.” 300
While the colonial government endorsed Orthodox Islam, 301 reformist-
minded Islamic groups received little support. This distinction likely
occurred because the Italians probably believed that the Orthodox
wing was less likely to sew discord whereas the reformists were
already accustomed to creating civil unrest. Italy’s alliance with East
African Orthodox Muslims lasted until September 1940, whereby
Italy’s invasion of Egypt prompted Islamic leaders to declare Jihad
against Italy. 302
Religion was integral to much of the factionalism during the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Many people did not automatically align
with Ethiopia out of nationalism, but instead interpreted the war
through religious doctrine. Different interpretations of the conflict
exacerbated fractures within religious groups, and often intersected
with secular political ambitions. The EOTC was a center for Ethiopian
resistance because of many Ethiopians’ views of their country as a holy
land. Both Islamic and Catholic groups, meanwhile, unified around the
Italians because both groups expected to gain more power within
Ethiopia. The Italians privileged Catholic programs over other Christian
denominations, going so far as to expel all non-Catholic missionary
groups like SIM. The Italians also appealed to downtrodden Muslims,
who desired more political power in a Christian-dominated state. These
different alliances were all important during the war and Italy’s
attempted colonization of Ethiopia.
300
Haggai Erlich, “Identity and Church: Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue, 1924-59,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies 32, no. 1 (2000): 29.
301
Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, 137.
302
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98
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, while sometimes simplified as a

colonial conflict leading up to the Second World War, was a
multifaceted and complex affair. While national policies, like Britain’s
appeasement or Italy’s imperial ambitions, were important in the
conduct of the war, these policies offer an incomplete picture of the
conflict. While figures like Mussolini or Badoglio were important, they
alone did not shape the war’s outcome nor the experiences of those
involved.
The outbreak of war was not a simple order from Italian Il Duce
Benito Mussolini. Complex relationships between colonial officers in
East Africa, conjoint with a convoluted border situation, prompted a
skirmish in December 1934. This skirmish was an accident, where
soldiers that distrusted one another stayed in close proximity for two
weeks before an anonymous soldier fired a single shot, which erupted
into a battle between Ethiopian and Italian forces. With Ethiopian
Emperor Haile Selassie calling for reparations from Italy, it makes
sense that the Italians’ would respond that they were not guilty for the
fighting. Mussolini, caught in a diplomatic crisis regardless, opted to
try and gain what he could from Ethiopia diplomatically. It was this
escalation to the League of Nations that set the course for war.
The outbreak of war caused a dilemma for British colonial
administrators. Politicians in London wanted to appease Italy because
they thought that Mussolini could be a useful ally against German
Fuhrer Adolf Hitler’s rapid rearmament and expansion in Europe. This
appeasement, however, handcuffed British colonial administrators in
East Africa. Anything that potentially could have provoked Italy was
off-limits. Regular security duties, like protecting British borders and
99
British-administered pastoral communities, became complicated affairs.
Even actions supporting Italy, like British soldiers giving gifts to their
Italian neighbors, were condemned for their risk of provoking incidents.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) were active during the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War. As groups typically outside of national
governments’ control, NGOs have a unique perspective on
international conflicts. The Italian Red Cross operated outside of the
larger ICRC to benefit the Italian military while other Red Cross
Societies, seeing Ethiopia’s plight, rushed to its aid exclusively. Within
Ethiopia, groups like the Ethiopian Women’s Volunteer Service
Association further participated in insurgency warfare against the
Italian occupiers. The role these participants played varied, from
noncombative supply units to guerrilla fighters.
Religion greatly influenced the course of the war, which many
historians have overlooked. The Catholic Church, aligned with the
Italian Fascists, spread its influence across Ethiopia. The Ethiopian
Orthodox Church was a critical part of Ethiopian resistance to the
Italians, while hitherto marginalized Muslim and Catholic minorities
aided their new colonial rulers. Italy, meanwhile, expelled all non-
Catholic missionary groups to further solidify control in Ethiopia.
Religion has remained important to many Ethiopians, with religious
identity becoming a major unifying force against the Marxist Mengistu
regime in the 1980s and Christian-Islamic conflict a security concern in
the 2010s.
This thesis could form the foundation for future research. One
limitation in this thesis, largely due financial and time constraints, is
the number of archives used. Future, larger-scale projects should
incorporate African archives. Three possible East African archives
include the National Library and Archives of Ethiopia, the Kenyan
100
National Archives, and the National Records Office of Sudan. The
National Library and Archives of Ethiopia contain extensive records
about the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, including Italian-language documents
from their occupation of Addis Ababa from 1936 to 1941. The Kenyan
National Archives and the National Records Office of Sudan have files
about their respective colonial administrations not available in the UK
National Archives, Kew.
There is also the possibility for greater work on ethnic groups’
experiences during this war. Very few authors have discussed different
ethnic groups experiences during the crisis. Communities like the
Mijurtini are barely referenced, much less extensively studied, among
historians. One option is to examine colonial correspondence to see if
certain groups emerge, and to see how they reacted to the invasion.
Scholars with fluency in regional languages could also, potentially,
conduct oral histories of communities’ memories of 1930s Ethiopia.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War was not a simple invasion where
one army annihilated the other. Many groups scattered across East
Africa contributed and participated in the war, with varied roles and
opinions. Reducing the conflict to the common images of tanks and
planes versus an army of spears is reductive in explaining the diverse
factions vying for control, or in some cases survival, in 1930s Ethiopia.
101
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Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Regional Influences on the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis,

Holbert, Quentin Colin

Holbert, Q. C. (2019). Regional Influences on the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1938 (Unpublished

Regional Influences on the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1938

Quentin Colin Holbert

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY

© Quentin Colin Holbert 2019

The Italo-Ethiopian Crisis (c. 1934-1938) is both a common case

I would first like to thank my thesis supervisor Professor Timothy

Figure 1 Confirmed conflicts between Ethiopia and Italy. Created by Quentin

On October 3rd, 1935, Italy launched a multi-pronged military

Transliteration of East African place names varies heavily

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War took place in what Federico

Jonathan Derrick, Africa’s ‘Agitators’: Militant Anti-Colonialism in Africa and the

West, 1918-1939 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 332.

On November 23rd, 1935, Schuyler made a call for African Americans

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War is a popular topic among

The Welwel Incident, also transliterated as Walwal in many

Borders in the Horn of Africa

Borders are a complicated, and well-discussed, issue in colonial

Fiona Marshall, “Origins of Specialized Pastoral Production in East Africa,”

American Anthropologist 92, no. 4 (1990): 888.

The general position on the Frontier both as far as Turkana and

The Turkana is an ethnic group who historically resided in the north-

The Welwel Incident and Historiography

Many scholars believe that the Italians, specifically Mussolini,

Skirmishes and Conflict Before the Welwel Incident

Italian policy toward Ethiopia sharply shifted “from collaboration

George W. Baer, The Coming of the Italian-Ethiopian War (Cambridge,

Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967), 47.

(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000), 22.

In early November 1934, the Anglo-Ethiopian Boundary

Cahiers de La Méditerranée, no. 88 (2014): para. 20.

This incident was due to an unfortunate chain of circumstances:

The British national government’s policy of appeasement towards

It is of the utmost importance that this country should not

Mallett, Mussolini in Ethiopia, 1919–1935: The Origins of Fascist Italy’s African

2011 Paperback (Kinloss, Scotland: Librario Publishing Limited, 2009), 28.

Mallett, Mussolini in Ethiopia, 1919–1935: The Origins of Fascist Italy’s African

Giorgio Rochat, “L ’Attentato a Graziani e La Repressione Italiana in Etiopia Nel

1936-37,” Italia Contemporanea 118 (1975): 21.

Reports on War Between Italy and Ethiopia.”

NA, FO 401-73. “Further Correspondence Respecting Abyssinia” (Foreign Office,

Mc Jedrej, “The Southern Funj of the Sudan as a Frontier Society, 1820-1980,”

to oppose armed and trained men who had obviously mutinied

There were also predictions that an additional two thousand soldiers

David Wilkin, “Refugees and British Administrative Policy in Northern Kenya,

1936-1938,” African Affairs 79, no. 317 (1980): 515.

Brett L. Shadle, “Reluctant Humanitarians: British Policy Toward Refugees in

Campaign (Yale University Press, 2016), 51.

Waugh’s writings, while controversial in England for supporting Fascist

Gazette,” Devon & Exeter Gazette, October 18, 1935, 11.

NGOs were active in the Horn of Africa during the 1930s as a

'Independence' for NGOs working in humanitarian emergencies

This independence, theoretically, is essential for an NGO to operate

Barbara Ann Rieffer-Flanagan, “Is Neutral Humanitarianism Dead? Red Cross

Neutrality: Walking the Tightrope of Neutral Humanitarianism,” Human Rights

Canterbury, Digital, 1935, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7FYhntGr6Q.