Second Italo-Ethiopian War - End of Italian East Africa

End of Italian East Africa

On 10 June 1940, Mussolini entered World War II and joined Hitler as his Axis ally. As a result, the colony of Italian East Africa proved to be short-lived. Initially, the Italians attacked British and Commonwealth forces in the Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland. In August, the Italians even overran all of British Somaliland and forced the British and Commonwealth forces there to flee. But, by the end of 1941, during the East African Campaign, Ethiopia was liberated from Italian control by a combination of British, Commonwealth, Free French, Free Belgian, and Ethiopian forces.

While in exile in England, Haile Selassie had sought to gain the support of the Western democracies for his cause. But he had little success until World War II broke out. During that war, the British and the Ethiopian Emperor sought to cooperate with Ethiopian and other local forces in a campaign to dislodge the Italians from Ethiopia. Haile Selassie went to Khartoum, where he established closer liaison with both the British headquarters and the resistance forces within Ethiopia.

On 18 January 1941, Emperor Selassie crossed the border into Ethiopia near the village of Um Iddla. Two days later the Emperor joined Gideon Force, a small British-led African regular force. The standard of the Lion of Judah was raised again. By 5 May, the Emperor and an army of Ethiopian Free Forces entered Addis Ababa. Following the Italian defeat, the victorious forces faced a guerrilla war carried out by remnants of Italian troops and their allies that only ended in last quarter of 1943 after the formal surrender of Italy.

Among other things, the Treaty of Peace with Italy signed between the Italian Republic (Repubblica Italiana) and the victorious powers of World War II on 10 February 1947 in Paris, included Italy's formal recognition of Ethiopian independence and an agreement to pay $25,000,000 in reparations. Ethiopia became an independent nation again, and Haile Selassie was restored as its leader. At the time of this treaty, Ethiopia presented Italy with a bill of its own for damages inflicted during the course of Mussolini's colonial adventure. Claimed were the loss of 2,000 churches, the loss of 525,000 houses, and the slaughter and/or confiscation of six million beef cattle, seven million sheep and goats, one million horses and mules, and 700,000 camels. The bill for this presented to the Economic Commission for Italy came to £184,746,023.

In addition, these human losses were recorded by the Ethiopians:

• 275,000 – combatants killed in action; 78,500 – patriots killed during the occupation (1936–1941); 17,800 – civilians killed by bombings; 30,000 – massacre of February 1937; 35,000 – persons who died in concentration camps; 24,000 – patriots executed by Summary Courts; 300,000 – persons who died of privations due to the destruction of their villages.
• The Total was 760,300 human losses. Of course the Italians complained about this huge amount, arguing that real Ethiopian casualties were half those losses