Despite what had happened, Britain’s media tried to remain positive. Once the fighting had begun to grow in intensity and the narrative had started to point to the protectorate’s possible loss, the argument that this was not that critical an element of the imperial network had begun to play out. One commentator wrote that it was simply of ‘scant account’ in the overall strategic picture, while others highlighted the idea that the Italians were in fact being deliberately encouraged to wear down their manpower and resources.77 As late as 12 August it was still being reported that the invading forces had not reached the main defensive positions when the final battle was in fact already poised to begin.78 In all these accounts Berbera was consistently referred to as being important and it was argued that there was never any intention of surrendering the port.79 Such statements exposed the initial lack of recognition by the media and the public at large that the situation was so desperate. An editorial in the Manchester Guardian three days later argued that there was still an opportunity to inflict a setback on the Italians by mounting a successful defence, and called for more troops to be sent. This also noted that the official statements referred to the situation as ‘serious but by no means critical’, which was reminiscent of the comments made in France before its final collapse. Even when news arrived that the withdrawal back to Berbera had begun, correspondents on the ground remained optimistic that the British and Commonwealth troops would be able to hold on to the port. One writer for The Times described the Italian forces across the region as ‘a beleaguered army which must live on its reserves of supplies and whose only hope of survival is that Hitler may pull Mussolini’s chestnuts out of the fire by winning the war elsewhere’.80 Whilst this assessment was, of course, entirely correct, and would later be shown to be exactly what the Italians were also thinking, it was some time before this would become known and did little to help the situation.
Having pursued such a broadly positive outlook, when news of the evacuation was finally made public on 20 August it was perhaps not surprising that many in the British media continued to try to draw out the positives. It was claimed that in addition to the troops and wounded, virtually all the equipment and stores had been safely withdrawn, and prominent reference was constantly made to heavy losses having been suffered by the Italians.81 Editorials offered a similar analysis, although it was acknowledged that this was ‘a blow to our reputation’ and ‘a distressing setback’ that had left ‘a most disagreeable taste’.82 As others wrote, however, although the events were sad, it was not ‘tragic’; more ‘a sentimental setback’.83 During the weeks that followed references to a ‘distortion of news’ and ‘a clumsy piece of propaganda’ – which had incorrectly suggested the garrison was trying to offer serious resistance – did begin to emerge.84 This, if anything, had helped to inflate the Italian success. There was also some increasingly critical discussion about the failure to send more men and equipment to British Somaliland once Ethiopia had been occupied in 1936, with claims that ‘a handful of British officers could have looked after itself and . . . dealt with the Italians’.85 Instead, because of neglect and the lack of any general plan for the defence of the British Empire, two territories – the other being the Channel Islands – had now been abandoned in quick succession. The Ministry of Information’s daily reports throughout August 1940 also revealed an initial public apathy about events in British Somaliland which was gradually replaced by growing criticism and a sense that ‘there is more behind it than meets the eye’.86 Added to this was mistrust of ‘the customary explanation of the military reverse’ and the argument that it did not really matter.87 This was concealed by anxiety over how the Battle of Britain was developing, but reports of the evacuation, although expected, had apparently left many Britons feeling angry, both at the defeat itself and the manner in which it had been reported. As one of those recorded in these reports put it, ‘we should have recognised the danger signals: first silence, then inadequate news, then hints that the place wasn’t worth defending, then the successful strategic withdrawal’.88
Such concerns were not shared, either at the time or subsequently, by a range of senior officials who were centrally involved in events. General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay, now sitting alongside Churchill as one of his senior military advisers, had fought in British Somaliland earlier in the century in the battles against the Mad Mullah. He wrote after the war that in August 1940 it had been ‘a foregone conclusion’ that the protectorate could not be held. Instead, he argued, the sensible strategy should have been to evacuate Berbera and send the garrison southwards to the Somaliland plateau from where, using dumps that had been established previously, it would have been possible to harry the Italians.89 It was also later argued that the defeat had actually forced the Italian forces to become more dispersed, that they had wasted resources to win the battle, and that Aosta had from this point on become fixed on a dubious course of action when alternatives could have yielded better long-term outcomes. According to the official British post-campaign account, a ‘little force . . . outnumbered, certainly by ten to one, possibly fifteen to one’, had distracted the Italian High Command and delayed them at a time when British and Commonwealth troops elsewhere were still largely unprepared.90 Few senior politicians, if any, showed obvious signs of alarm too. Lord Halifax referred in his private diary to having lunch with Eden on 7 August and concluding that, although an Italian victory was ‘a bore politically’, British Somaliland was ‘not of much importance militarily’.91 A week later the protectorate’s loss was once again described by him as ‘not very important strategically but bad politically’.92 Even Glenday later concluded that the local Somali population, who had suffered the most, whilst ‘disappointed, surprised and puzzled at being left to their enemies without warning after they had been encouraged to resist’, remained positive and expected the British would return and drive out the Italians.93
The most serious criticism of what had taken place in the Horn of Africa came from Churchill. At first he gave no indication that the outcome did not fit with his wider strategic vision of how the war should develop. Wavell sent a message to Cairo from London on 15 August after his final interview with the prime minister which made no mention of any rancour. This was just before he set off back to Egypt, and he noted that the strategic need for the evacuation had been accepted and there had been ‘no recrimination’.94 All of this changed once a report was received by the War Cabinet containing further details about the action fought at Tug Argan.95 Churchill now questioned why it had been broken off and whether the attackers had at that stage really enjoyed a ‘hopeless superiority’, particularly as they had not then pressed home their advantage and continued their advance. Eden was quizzed once again two days later about why the defence of the gap had been ‘precipitately discontinued’ and why Godwin-Austen referred to heavy losses when the estimate of casualties during the battle was only 33 British, Indian and African officers and men killed with another 220 wounded or missing.96 The prime minister now pressed for a full report that might enable decisions to be taken about further disciplinary steps. Desperate for a British victory, in his own mind Churchill laid the blame on Wavell’s subordinates – and by extension, their commander – who he believed had broken their promise and had not conducted an effective fighting retreat.97 In his later post-war recollections he pointedly wrote that British Somaliland was the ‘only defeat at Italian hands’ and failed to make any reference to the political and military constraints that had been imposed upon the various senior British officers in the years prior to the Italian invasion who held any interest in its fall.98
The fact that Wavell had chosen to write back to London commenting that ‘butchery is not the mark of a good tactician’ deepened Churchill’s anger. Wavell’s explanation for why the protectorate had been evacuated was said to have roused the prime minister to a greater fury than any of his aides and assistants had ever seen. Churchill apparently never forgave this comment, and if his relationship with his c
ommander in Cairo had been uncertain before, it was now fatally weakened; more immediately, it strengthened the misgivings and lack of trust that had been quick to emerge between both men.99 On 13 August the prime minister had sent a private letter to Eden in which, whilst acknowledging he was ‘favourably impressed with General Wavell in many ways’, he also wrote that ‘I do not feel in him that sense of mental vigour and resolve to overcome obstacles, which is indispensable to successful war’.100 As he put it, ‘I find instead, tame acceptance of a variety of local circumstances in different theatres, which is leading to a lamentable lack of concentration upon the decisive point.’ No longer merely meddling in military strategy, he was unashamedly doubting the abilities of one of Britain’s leading officers who, Churchill thought, was no better than ‘a good average colonel’ or a ‘good chairman of a Tory association’. Whilst the commander ultimately responsible for the defence of East Africa might not have known it, his position had been damaged irreparably.
Militarily, Wavell had done nothing wrong; indeed, with the disparity between the opposing forces in the protectorate it was remarkable that the defenders were able to hold out as long as they did. The Battle of Britain was, however, in full flow and there was no Churchillian appetite for a defeat that could not be portrayed in heroic tones. The prime minister’s vision of strategy may have had moments of genius but it was also often based on acts of heroism and sacrifice, not the logical use of force and the notion that it is sometimes preferable to wait for a better opportunity to secure a decisive victory. Churchill was wrong to condemn Wavell and his subordinates for their entirely reasonable actions, but one of the steps he had taken when he assumed leadership of Britain only a few months before was to appoint himself as the first ever Minister for Defence. It was this title that offered him the conviction that his way was the only way and there would be consequences for those involved in the defeat.
The loss of British Somaliland marked the first redrawing of the British Empire’s map since 1931 when a strip of land in the Sudan had been ceded to Italy. Godwin-Austen admitted that he smarted about what had happened and it drove him on during the subsequent campaign to show the Italians ‘what being overwhelmed by numbers and superior armament felt like’.101 Hitler apparently referred to it as ‘a hard blow to British prestige’, but it was actually more an emotional setback than a military one.102 As one contemporary writer put it, ‘all the British had lost was the privilege of maintaining an expensive garrison in their least valuable colony’.103 And the outcome could have been much worse. Aosta wrote after his own eventual surrender the following year that the key theme of his plan had been speed and his commanders had been urged to move on as quickly as they could following Berbera’s capture.104 Difficulties in getting supplies forward, particularly food and water, along with some very poor weather and heavy rains which rendered some of the roads impassable, made this difficult to achieve. Having encountered the strong defences around Tug Argan and the additional delay they imposed, Aosta made an attempt to send troops forward by aircraft and a force of 300 volunteers was readied to make a bold attempt to seize the port; but the only landing ground was in British hands and so the plan was abandoned. If it had not been, the haphazard and poorly defended evacuation could easily have been disrupted and some, or even all, of the withdrawing forces captured. Once again, the Italians had failed to exploit the opportunities presented to them and within a matter of months this high point of victory would seem a distant memory.
CHAPTER 5
PREPARING FOR THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE
THERE WAS NO doubting that Britain had suffered an embarrassing defeat but, elsewhere, Wavell’s vision of a grand strategy had continued to develop as plans to support the rebellion on the Gojjam plateau gathered pace. To bring these to fruition he had appointed Colonel Daniel Sandford to play a leading part. Described as a ‘calm, stocky, balding, bespectacled colonel’, Sandford was a retired former gunner who had won two DSOs during a distinguished military career, and Wavell had worked with him previously.1 He had retired to a farm north of Addis Ababa where he lived for fifteen years, during which period he had got to know the country and its people well.2 At the same time he also became a trusted friend of Haile Selassie and, when the Italians invaded, he went into exile alongside him.3 Arriving at the headquarters in Cairo in September 1939, he had been given considerable autonomy to come up with a suitable plan for what was intended to be a self-dependent strand in the wider regional military strategy; Wavell made it quite clear that the ‘enterprise once launched had to take care of itself while I directed the regular operations against the north and south of the Italian African Empire’.4 To this end Sandford proposed the establishment of ‘Mission 101’, which he would also command; he named it after the percussion-type Fuse 101 used widely by the Royal Artillery before and during the war, as it was his intention that his activities would ignite the Ethiopian revolt.5
Initially Sandford headed a small group but he later received important support from the likes of Robert Cheeseman, another who had considerable experience of the region. Having been British Consul in the Gojjam for nine years until 1934, Cheeseman was recruited by Sir Stewart Symes, Governor-General of the Sudan, to form an Ethiopian Bureau and act as an adviser both to him and General Platt.6 He reached Khartoum at the end of March 1940 where he was given the rank of major and appointed to the Kaid’s staff as an intelligence officer co-ordinating the various plans involving irregular forces. The next three months were spent reviewing the list of Ethiopian chiefs who were considered potential allies; eleven were selected, who received promises of arms, ammunition and money to help them assemble more men. Cheeseman also oversaw the production of new maps of the region as well as route reports and an updated guidebook which would be issued to those British and Commonwealth officers who were selected to become advisers and help lead the groups once they began fighting.
With Platt having been instructed to give him all possible assistance, Sandford arrived in Khartoum on 17 June 1940. He wanted to cross into Ethiopia at once but the local commanders thought there was little chance at this stage of him or his men making it through Italian lines.7 This presented the opportunity for a meeting with Selassie who, with Italy now having declared war, had left England in secret, flying to Alexandria, where he paused for a week before travelling on to Khartoum. His arrival had not been expected and, fearful of assassination attempts or Italian bombing raids, ‘he was eventually accommodated incognito . . . and for several months was referred to as “Mr Smith”’. News of Selassie’s arrival was not announced in Britain until early November.8 It was during this long journey that Sandford’s meeting with the emperor took place, at Wadi Halfa in northern Sudan, when the position as it then stood was explained to Selassie. Also revealed was Wavell’s initial intention to mount two operations, one towards Kassala and the other Kismayu, the capture of which would protect his flanks, but Selassie was also assured of the efforts that were being devoted to supporting the rebellion. Insurgent activity was then mostly confined to the Amharic areas and was still strongest in Gojjam, Armacheho and Bagemdir. There were 420 Ethiopian refugees in Jibuti and British Somaliland and 600 more, plus the same number of Eritreans, in Kenya who were prepared to pledge their support to join the struggle. Seven points had been identified near the border where it was intended to store arms, and the plan was for these to be guarded by a special Sudanese unit under the command of Colonel Hugh Boustead.
Using these forces and equipment the plan for Mission 101 was relatively simple.9 Sandford proposed to start by clearing the border region in the Gojjam to open up routes in and out before exploiting this position to encourage further desertions amongst the enemy ranks in an effort to undermine morale. His force would also attack small frontier posts and camps along with other potentially important targets such as bridges. Only when his position appeared to be established would he target the larger African manned garrisons before threatening those where there were also Itali
an troops. Upon hearing this, Selassie was apparently disappointed that no air support or anti-aircraft guns were being offered for his men; he seemed to believe a commitment to supply such equipment had been given to him before he left London. During their invasion of Ethiopia, the Italians had used their superiority in airpower to often devastating effect and Selassie was concerned that his men would now once more be exposed. Nonetheless, even without such support, he indicated that he was prepared to accept the proposals he had heard and return home to lead the rebels.
Sandford and a small party of officers and other ranks – according to one account, as few as six men in total – eventually crossed the frontier on 12 August and established themselves in the Wandagaz area, the source of the Blue Nile approximately fifty miles south-east of Dangila.10 Major A.W.D. Bentinck, who had been appointed to command the northern section of the mission, followed on 21 September, heading to the Gondar area. Between them they had access to 17,600 rifles and about 10 million rounds of ammunition but there was no artillery and each group had only four mortars with 100 shells. Four hundred Hotchkiss light machine guns and twenty-eight Boys anti-tank rifles were on their way from Cairo but it was not clear when, or even if, these would arrive. What they did have was plenty of counterfeit funds, and an initial budget of 250,000 specially produced Maria Theresa thalers, with twice that amount sent to Khartoum for future use. Minted at a cost of about £25,000, the first batch came from the French Mint before the Royal Mint took over, with production finally being moved to India. (The originals, minted in Austria in 1780, bore the head of the Empress Maria Theresa, and these had been made to look exactly like them.)11 This currency was crucial for purchasing food and the other supplies the men needed to continue their mission, and it was also used to encourage potential local recruits to offer their support to Selassie and his cause. So vital was the currency that Sandford soon asked for an additional 500,000 thalers to be sent to him each month.12
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