Sebastian O’Kelly - Amedeo - The True Story of an Italian’s War in Abyssinia

GVILLET

To Emily and Anna

‘Le due figliole’

Cover

Title Page

Gvillet

Dedication

Epigraph

List of Illustrations

Introduction

1 The Prisoner

2 The Black Sword

3 The Spahys di Libya

4 Riding through Clouds

5 The Conquest of Abyssinia

6 The Sword of Islam

7 Black Flames ZARAGOZA, SPAIN, MARCH 1938

8 The Viceroy

9 City of Facilidas

10 Northern Chessboard

11 Lightning War

12 The Man on the White Horse

13 Keren

14 Private War

15 Major Max

16 A Horse Called Sandro

17 Captain Reich

18 Le Maschere

19 The Well

20 The Smugglers’ Ship

21 Sayed Ibrahim

22 Captain White

23 Arabia Felix

24 Giulio Cesare

25 Sua Maestà

26 Liberation

27 A Bracelet

Epilogue

The Honours Conferred Upon Amedeo Guillet

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

‘On 19 January the 4th and 5th Indian Divisions crossed the frontier north of the Blue Nile … they met little resistance, though at one point a force of local horsemen, the Amharic Cavalry Band led by an Italian officer on a white horse, attempted a death-or-glory charge against their machine-guns.’

John Keegan, The Second World War

Beatrice Gandolfo

Khadija, photographed by Amedeo before the Second world War

The invasion of Ethiopia, October 1935: Amedeo on Sandor with the Spahys di Libya

Uncle Amedeo

Sotto-Tenente Amedeo Guillet, newly commissioned at the Cavalleggeri di Monferrato, 1931

Amedeo, in full dress uniform, 1935

Amedeo jokingly reviews some splendidly attired fellow officers

Amedeo at the Military Academy at Modena, 1928

Amedeo rides down a steep hillside during a cavalry exercise at Pinerolo

Two views of Amedeo as a competitive rider, Genoa 1934

A horseman from the Spahys di Libya

Ethiopian irregulars confront their better-armed adversaries

Realising their position is hopeless, some Ethiopian warriors take flight

The Spahys di Libya completely surround the remaining Ethiopians

Panicking warriors flee amid the Italian light tanks

The Spahys charge on, leaving the remaining Ethiopians to the Italian infantry

Italian infantry pour down the hillside and the remaining Ethiopians make a bid to escape

Ethiopian warriors parade through Addis Ababa

Marshal Badoglio arrives at the front © Ullstein Bilderdienst

Front page story …‘The punishment of Abyssinian brigands …’

Amedeo Guillet after the charge at Selaclaclà in December 1935

Haile Selassie after the defeat at Mai Ceu

The Spahys di Libya in Rome on the first anniversary of the founding of Italy’s African empire, June 1937

Antonio Ajmone Cat

The Duke of Aosta dwarfs King Vittorio Emmanuele III

Princess Jolanda and Amedeo in 1937 in Libya

Mussolini rides into Tripoli © Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contem-poranea

Mussolini, Balbo and other Fascists salute the tricolore © Biblioteca di

Storia Moderna e Contemporanea Libyan crowds greet the Duce and Italo Balbo © Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea

Mussolini on horseback surrounded by Libyan troops bearing the fasces

The Duce raises the Sword of Islam

The governor of Libya, Italo Balbo, pins a medal on Amedeo

Amedeo in Spain, beside the Fiat Ansaldo tanks

The general’s adjutant at the Italian front during the Spanish Civil War

General Frusci in the uniform of the ‘Black Flames’ division during the Spanish Civil War

A Russian armoured car captured by Amedeo and the arditi from the Spanish forces, Santander, August 1937

Rome 1938: Hitler stands beside the king; also pictured are Mussolini, Marshal De Bono, Queen Elena, Ciano, Hess, Ribbentrop and Goebbels

Barefoot, malnourished children with their heads shaven turn out for a civic ceremony in Salerno, 1937

General Graziani; and being carried away after an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, 1937

Beatrice Gandolfo in February 1937, in medieval costume

The fortified outpost at Amba Gheorgis on the road from Gondar to Asmara

Amedeo talking to Landolfo Colonna

Amedeo welcomed by dancing women in the highlands of Begemeder, 1938

Amedeo with an important Ethiopian chief in 1939

Amedeo drilling his garrison at Amba Gheorgis in 1939

The Duke of Aosta inspects the fort at Amba Gheorgis

The garrison at Amba Gheorgis rides out, with Amedeo saluting

Amedeo and others are carried in triumph at Amba Gheorgis after a successful operation against Ethiopian rebels

The Gruppo Bande Amhara a Cavallo Group in full charge

Amedeo with his Gruppo Bande in Eritrea, 1940

Amedeo rides beside General Frusci’s car at an inspection of the Gruppo Bande in the summer of 1940

The infantry of The Gruppo Bande were made up of Yemeni mercenaries

The British invade: The Gazelle Force on the move

The West Yorks Regiment at Dologorodoc

General Nicola Carnimeo

General Frank Messervy

General Lorenzini, the ‘Lion of Keren’

Surrender of the Duke of Aosta

Lieutenant Renato Togni with the horse on which he was killed at Keru in 1941

Daifallah the Yemeni

Amedeo as Ahmed Abdullah

A rare photograph of Ahmed, Imam of the Yemen

Major Max Harari riding the captured Sandor at Asmara, autumn 1941

Major Max Harari leaving his office in Asmara

Sandor’s hoof

Captain Lory Gibbs, who opened fire on Amedeo and Khadija on the road to Ghinda

The tortured Captain Sigismund Reich

Amedeo and Beatrice finally married in Naples, 21 September 1944

Torre Cretarella

The Italian ambassador with a live cobra in New Delhi, 1971

Amedeo, ambassador to Morocco with Italian foreign minister Aldo Moro in 1969

Sir Reginald Savory with his old adversary, London 1976

Amedeo with horsemen from the president of India’s bodyguard, whom he trained to ride Carilli fashion

Amedeo embraces an elderly ascaro at the Catholic cemetery in Asmara

Amedeo beside the tomb of Renato Togni

Amedeo at the pass of Ad Teclesan, where he destroyed three British light tanks

The palace of Italian governors in Massaua, the scene of bitter fighting during Eritrea’s war of independence © Nicola Gaydon

The palace of Italian governors photographed by Max Harari in 1941

Ahmed Abdullah, the water-seller, returns to his old hideout in Al-Katmia

Amedeo in Ireland with Anna and Emily

All pictures without credits are from the private collection of Amedeo Guillet and the author

In 1995 when I was a magazine editor, I asked the great Bill Deedes of the Daily Telegraph to go to Milan to interview Indro Montanelli. In Italian journalism Montanelli, who died in July 2001, was a figure of similar stature and, like Lord Deedes, he had served in the Abyssinian war, although as a volunteer officer rather than as a newsman. I decided that I would go along too, acting as a consigliere –translator, but really to eavesdrop on their conversation.