Italian Conquest of British Somaliland - Casualties

Casualties

According to Italian historians, during the campaign to conquer British Somaliland the casualties were 250 for the British army and 205 for the Italian. However, according to the British official History of the Second World War total British casualties were 260 and Italian losses were estimated at 2,052

Unofficially, De Simone estimated that nearly one thousand irregular Somalis fighting against the Italian invasion were casualties during the campaign. These armed men operated as local "Bande", with only minimal control from British officers (like Brigadier Chater). Lieutenant-General Luigi Frusci—commander of the Italian East Africa Northern Sector—also referred to these thousand casualties in his writings, and believed that the Somalis fighting as "armed Bands" on the Italian side suffered two thousand casualties (the most popular local tribal chief - named Afchar - greeted the Italians after the conquest of Zeila and offered his men against the British).

The Somali irregulars fighting against the British were the descendants of the Dervish fighters of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (called Sayyid Mohammed Hassan by Somalis and the "Mad Mullah" by the British), a prominent Somali rebel against the British colonial occupation of Somaliland in the 19th century. Indeed, at the beginning of 1920, the British struck the Dervish settlements with a well-coordinated land, sea and air attack and gave them a decisive defeat. The forts of Sayyid Mohammed were damaged and his army suffered great losses. They hastily fled to Ogaden. Here, he tried to rebuild his army and create a coalition of Ogadeen clans which would make him a power in Somaliland once again. Sayyid died in 1921, however, and the British maintained the Somaliland albeit with frequent local rebellions. On the other side, there were many irregulars (Ethiopians and Somalis) fighting a guerrilla war in Ogaden (and even in deserted eastern Somaliland) against the Italians after their conquest of Ethiopia in 1936.