Blood and Power by John Foot

Author:John Foot
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Massacre in Africa

On 19 September 1937, the ‘Viceroy of Ethiopia’, fascist general Rodolfo Graziani, was hosting a ceremonial ‘alms-giving’ event in Addis Ababa. Suddenly, at about 11.40 a.m., a series of explosions rang out. It was an audacious attempt on Graziani’s life by a handful of members of the Ethiopian resistance. Graziani himself was wounded. Nine grenades had been thrown.

Immediately, a reprisal began. Italian soldiers and carabinieri and other officials (alongside Eritrean and other Askari troops, although some of these refused to take part) killed every Ethiopian they could find in the vicinity, using machine guns, hand grenades and other weapons.23 Nearly all the Ethiopians present in the area, some 3,000 people, were murdered in the immediate aftermath of the attack on Graziani. As the massacre spread to the rest of the city, the violence became even more extreme. The 6th Division of Fascist Blackshirts based in the city, rampaged through the streets. Heads of victims were smashed to pieces, bystanders were beaten with shovels, pickaxes, iron bars or sticks or stabbed to death. Many were run over by trucks. Women were raped and then killed; children were not spared. Houses were burnt to the ground, often with their residents still inside them: ‘as children came running out of the burning houses, the Italians lifted them up and threw them back into the flames’.24 Thousands of prisoners were taken, many of whom were summarily executed, while others died later from torture, ill treatment, illness or lack of food. Death was accompanied by the theft of private property, from jewellery to livestock. A beautiful cathedral was looted and damaged.

The massacre continued for at least three days (19–21 February 1937), spreading right across the city to the outskirts (and beyond) where thousands more dwellings were destroyed. Vehicles roamed around full of bodies while dragging live locals tied by their feet or hands. It became apparent that this was not just a spontaneous reaction to the attempt on Graziani’s life, but that it had been ordered by the fascist regime in place in Ethiopia and it was encouraged directly from Rome. Once the butchery was finally called off, the city was literally in ruins. Most residents had either left, or were dead. It is estimated that over 19,000 people were killed in the massacre (20 per cent of the population of the city at the time).

Nobody was ever prosecuted for what happened in Addis Ababa in September 1937.25 There was no war crimes trial, or indeed criminal proceedings of any kind. A combination of the convenience of international geopolitics and internal pacification led to numerous leading members of the regime getting off scot-free – including Graziani himself, but also key perpetrators such as Guido Cortese (federal secretary of the Fascist Party) – a central figure in ordering and organising the massacre. Mussolini’s invasion, war and occupation of Ethiopia cost the lives of some 750,000 Ethiopians – an extraordinary figure over a period of just six years.26

*

Mussolini also sent more than 40,000 troops and equipment to fight with Franco in Spain during the civil war in the 1930s.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.