The First Victory

by Andrew Stewart

  24.Royle, Orde Wingate: Irregular Soldier, p. 180.

  25.Boca, The Negus, pp. 206–207; The Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 63.

  26.Trevor Royle, Orde Wingate: A Man of Genius, 1903–1944 (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2010), p. 317; Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East: Vol. I, pp. 425–428.

  27.Report No. 605, February 1941, CAB146/374, TNA.

  28.Mackenzie, Eastern Epic, pp. 69–70.

  29.This brief meeting with Wingate, who was sitting on a white horse near the Awash River, still remained clear to him sixty years later; interview with Jim Brown, 13 January 2001, IWM Oral History, Reels 1 and 2, IWM.

  30.Shirreff, Bare Feet and Bandoliers, p. 286; Dawn M. Miller, ‘“Raising the Tribes”: British Policy in Italian East Africa, 1938–41’, Journal of Strategic Studies (Vol. 22, No. 1, Mar. 1999), p. 115; David Rooney, Wingate and the Chindits (London: Cassell & Co., 1994), pp. 52–56.

  31.Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East: Vol. I, p. 427; Bierman and Smith, Fire in the Night, p. 166; Shirreff, Bare Feet and Bandoliers, p. 219; Miller, Raising the Tribes, p. 98.

  32.The Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 13. This was written by George Steer, a correspondent for The Times based in Addis Ababa during the Italian invasion and himself an intelligence officer in the campaign, and an entire chapter is devoted to ‘Mission 101’, pp. 56–67.

  33.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 47.

  34.Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East: Vol. I, p. 427.

  35.Ibid., p. 428.

  36.Miller, Raising the Tribes, p. 117.

  37.R.J. Collins, Lord Wavell 1883–1941 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1947), pp. 278–279.

  38.Platt, The Campaign Against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture I, pp. 12–13.

  39.Ibid., Lecture III, p. 15.

  40.Royle, Orde Wingate: Irregular Soldier, p. 187; Thesiger, The Life of My Choice, p. 320.

  41.Unknown to Barton, 20 February 1948, CAB106/908, TNA.

  42.Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, pp. 310–313.

  43.Wavell to Cunningham, 19 December 1940, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–7, NAM; ibid., Cunningham to Wavell, 4 January 1941; ‘East Africa, Vol. IV – Miscellaneous’, handwritten comments, n.d., Wavell Papers, AW.

  44.Wavell to Cunningham, 10 January 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–7, NAM; ‘East Africa, Vol. IV – Miscellaneous’, handwritten comments, n.d., Wavell Papers, AW.

  45.‘Notes on interview with . . . Cunningham, 7th November 1945’, CAB106/904, TNA.

  46.Typical of such accounts is that by the Daily Express correspondent who followed Wingate in Burma; W.G. Burchett, Wingate’s Phantom Army (Bombay: Thacker & Co., 1944), pp. 60–67. The best wartime account is undoubtedly W.E.D. Allen, Guerrilla War in Abyssinia (London: Penguin Books, 1943).

  47.Foot, SOE, p. 252.

  48.Brooke to Amery, 21 July 1942, Amery Papers, AMEL2/1/34, CAC.

  49.Rooney, Wingate and the Chindits, p. 53; Royle, Orde Wingate: Irregular Soldier, pp. 204, 206.

  50.Wavell, ‘Operations in East Africa, November 1940–July 1941’, p. 3528; Sykes, Orde Wingate, pp. 236–320.

  51.‘The Role of British Forces in Africa’, Lanning, ODRP.

  52.Foot, SOE, p. 253.

  53.Barton, ‘Notes on Meeting with Field-Marshal Slim’, January 1953, f.355, CAB106/206, TNA.

  54.Platt, The Campaign against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture III, p. 12.

  55.Andrew Railton to Barton, 20 April 1948, CAB106/908, TNA.

  56.Rooney, Wingate and the Chindits, pp. 52–53.

  57.Winston Churchill, ‘War Situation’, House of Commons Debate, 2 August 1944, Hansard, Vol. 402, c 1459.

  58.Talk with Major Anthony Irwin, 13 January 1945, Liddell Hart Papers, LH11/1945/9, LHCMA.

  10: Winning the War, Worrying about the Peace

  1.Orpen, East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 94.

  2.Wavell, cited in Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 171.

  3.Sykes, Orde Wingate, p. 295; Sutherland and Canwell, Air War East Africa, p. 100.

  4.Birkby, It’s a Long Way to Addis, p. 246.

  5.Raugh, Wavell in the Middle East, p. 168.

  6.Major G.P. Wallace, ‘Abyssinia’, 17 October 1941, DO35/1001, TNA.

  7.‘Operations of 22nd E.A. Infantry Brigade’, Part II, Askari (formerly The Journal of the King’s African Rifles), January 1964, p. 11.

  8.Viceroy to Mussolini, 4 April 1941, CAB146/374, TNA.

  9.‘Notes of the Week’, Great Britain and the East, 3 April 1941.

  10.‘The Role of British Forces in Africa’, Ennals, ODRP.

  11.Pitt, ‘Adui Mbele (Enemy in Front)’, pp. 30–32, 89/1/1, IWM.

  12.Stephen Bell, ‘The Liberation of Addis Ababa’, After the Battle (No. 71, 1991), p. 39.

  13.‘The Role of British Forces in Africa’, Young, ODRP; Brown, The War of a Hundred Days, p. 197.

  14.‘The Role of British Forces in Africa’, Captain C.W. Catt (22nd East African Infantry Brigade), Box 3, No. 39, MSS. Afr.s.1715, ODRP.

  15.Blewitt to Buttons, 13 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  16.Birkby, It’s a Long Way to Addis, pp. 232–234.

  17.Pitt, ‘Adui Mbele (Enemy in Front)’, pp. 30–32, 89/1/1, IWM. They also captured the wine cellars and their contents, which were later distributed throughout the brigade units.

  18.Churchill, The Grand Alliance, p. 76.

  19.Cunningham to Barton, 30 September 1942, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–22, NAM.

  20.Blewitt to family, 8 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  21.Blewitt to Buttons, 13 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  22.‘The Role of British Forces in Africa’, Filmer-Bennett, ODRP. This was quickly converted into a British officers’ club and dances were later held, with Italian and Hungarian hostesses as partners.

  23.‘The Role of British Forces in Africa’, Davis, ODRP.

  24.Blewitt to Miss Annie Blewitt, 17 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  25.Wavell, ‘Operations in East Africa, November 1940 to July 1941’, p. 3589.

  26.Blewitt to family, 6 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  27.‘Keren – The Breakthrough’, n.d., CAB106/904, TNA.

  28.Fletcher to Barton, 25 June 1946, CAB106/905, TNA.

  29.Major Graham, ‘East African Campaign’, 12 July 1941, p. 3, CAB106/390, TNA.

  30.‘A Troop Sudan Artillery, War Diary’, 16 May 1941, 80/27/1, IWM.

  31.Birdwood, The Worcestershire Regiment 1922–1950, pp. 28–29.

  32.Crosskill, The Two Thousand Mile War, p. 199.

  33.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 30 June 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  34.General Mayne, ‘Extract from Liaison Letter No. 9’, 28 May 1941, CAB106/925, TNA.

  35.Smart, Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War, pp. 214–215; ‘Obituary: General Sir Mosley Mayne’, The Times (London), 20 December 1955.

  36.Birkby, Springbok Victory, pp. 244–246.

  37.General Mayne, ‘Extract from Liaison Letter No. 9’, 28 May 1941, CAB106/925, TNA.

  38.Ibid., ‘Chapter “E” – Note on Administrative Aspect’, n.d.

  39.Birdwood, The Worcestershire Regiment 1922–1950, p. 28.

  40.George Munn to Barton, 27 April 1948, CAB106/908, TNA.

  41.Condon (ed.), The Frontier Force Regiment, pp. 251–253.

  42.Major Graham, ‘East African Campaign’, 12 July 1941, p. 3, CAB106/390, TNA.

  43.Ibid.

  44.‘Notes on Operations in East Africa 11th February 1941–3rd July 1941’ (Army Staff College), n.d., p. 39, JSCSC.

  45.Orpen, East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, pp. 256–272.

  46.Brown, The War of a Hundred Days, pp. 212–232.

  47.General Mayne, ‘Extract from Liaison Letter No. 9’, 28 May 1941, CAB106/925, TNA.

  48.Captain Shaukat Hyat, ‘The Battle of Ambar Alagi or The Fall of an Empire�
��, The Journal of the United Service Institution of India (Vol. LXXII, No. 306, Jan. 1942), p. 90.

  49.‘Review of the East African Campaign Based on Captured Documents and the Interrogation of Senior Italian Officers’, n.d., WO201/2683, TNA.

  50.Letter from Major J.D. de C. Guille (Skinner’s Horse) to his parents, July 1941, CAB106/907, TNA.

  51.Major Graham, ‘East African Campaign’, 12 July 1941, p. 10, CAB106/390, TNA.

  52.‘A Troop Sudan Artillery, War Diary’, 16 May 1941, 80/27/1, IWM.

  53.‘Review of the East African Campaign . . .’, n.d., WO201/2683, TNA.

  54.‘A Troop Sudan Artillery, War Diary’, 16 May 1941, 80/27/1, IWM.

  55.Lieutenant-Colonel J. Gifford, ‘Fighting in Abyssinia: Being an Account of the Part Played by the Composite Infantry Battalion of the Eastern Arab Corps’, The Army Quarterly (Vol. XLIV, No. 2, Aug. 1942), pp. 59–64.

  56.Scully, ‘1st Battalion, The Worcestershire Regiment in Eritrea’, n.d., The Worcestershire Regiment Museum; Birkby, It’s a Long Way to Addis, p. 296.

  57.Mackenzie, Eastern Epic, pp. 67–70.

  58.Mayne to Colonel H.B. Latham, 28 January 1946, CAB106/905, TNA.

  59.‘Duke of Aosta’s Funeral’, The Times (London), 9 March 1942.

  60.M.O.1 (Records), ‘East Africa . . .’, n.d., WO106/2337B.

  61.Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East: Vol. I, p. 396.

  62.Blewitt to family, 23 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  63.Ibid., Blewitt to family, 6 April 1941.

  64.Ibid., Blewitt to family, 18 May 1941.

  65.‘The Role of British Forces in Africa’, Ennals, ODRP.

  66.Cunningham to Wavell, 6 June 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–7, NAM.

  67.Haywood and Clarke, The History of the Royal West African Frontier Force, pp. 358–359; Brigadier M.W. Biggs, ‘The End of Mussolini’s East African Empire’, Royal Engineers Journal (1994), p. 147.

  68.Cunningham to Wavell, 6 June 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–7, NAM; Blewitt to family, 8 June 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  69.Ibid., Blewitt to family, 29 May 1941; Birkby, Springbok Victory, pp. 259–262.

  70.Wavell to Cunningham, 15 May 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–7, NAM.

  71.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 30 June 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  72.Ibid., Blewitt to family, 10 June 1941; Cunningham to Selassie, 25 June 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–6, NAM.

  73.Letter to Barton, 11 March 1948, CAB106/908, TNA.

  74.‘La Campagne des troupes Coloniales Belges en Abyssinie’, CAB106/573, TNA. They fought seven engagements between March and July during which a total of 10 Europeans were killed or injured along with more than 600 local troops.

  75.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 14 July 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM; ibid., Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 14 July 1941.

  76.Ibid., Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 12 June 1941; Blewitt (Jakes) to Family, 18 June 1941.

  77.Ibid., Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 30 June 1941.

  78.‘East African Intelligence Summary’, Nairobi, 15 April 1941, WO208/34, TNA.

  79.Ibid.

  80.Moore to Lord Moyne, 14 June 1941, CO967/62, TNA.

  81.Frederick Cocks MP, House of Commons Debate, ‘War Situation’, 20 August 1940, Hansard, Vol. 364, cc 1198–1199.

  82.M.O.1 (Records), ‘East Africa . . .’, n.d., WO106/2337B, TNA; ‘Operations of East Africa Command, From 12th July 1941 to 8th January 1943’, 31 March 1943, pp. 9–11, DEFE2/712, TNA; Kenneth Williams, ‘An Empire That Fights for Principle – Sincerity Put to Test in Ethiopia’, Great Britain and the East, 10 April 1941.

  83.‘In East Africa’, Great Britain and the East, 20 February 1941.

  84.Del Boca, The Negus, p. 204.

  85.Amery to Cranborne, 24 January 1941, Amery Papers, AMEL2/1/32, CAC.

  86.Ibid., Cranborne to Amery, 24 January 1941.

  87.Ibid., Eden to Amery, 28 January 1941.

  88.‘New Regime in Africa – Sir P. Mitchell’s Post’, The Times (London), 5 March 1941.

  89.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 30 June 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  90.Eden to Amery, 28 January 1941, Amery Papers, AMEL2/1/32, CAC; Barton (with handwritten notes by Fabin) . . ., 11 July 1945, CAB106/904, TNA.

  91.Blewitt to his father, 30 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  92.Sandford to Barton, 12 October 1950, CAB106/911, TNA.

  93.Ibid., Cunningham to Barton, 24 February 1950.

  94.War Office to Wavell, 10 April 1941, CAB120/471, TNA.

  95.Churchill to Eden and Dill, 10 May 1941, WO106/5905, TNA.

  96.‘The Strange Case of – Haile Selassie’, Life, 21 July 1941.

  97.Moore to Sir Cosmo Parkinson, 1 May 1941, CO967/55, TNA.

  98.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 30 June 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  99.Ibid., Blewitt to family, 11 April 1941.

  100.Ibid., Blewitt to Colin, 2 August 1941.

  101.Wavell to Cunningham, 15 May 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–7, NAM.

  102.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 14 July 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM; Churchill to Selassie, 22 September 1941, Chartwell Papers, CHAR 20/43/7, CAC.

  103.Major G.P. Wallace, ‘Abyssinia’, 17 October 1941, DO35/1001, TNA.

  104.Amery to Eden, 31 October 1941, Amery Papers, AMEL2/1/32, CAC.

  105.Ibid., Eden to Amery, 4 November 1941.

  106.Churchill to Selassie, 11 October 1941, Chartwell Papers, CHAR 20/43/120, CAC; Selassie to Churchill, 25 October 1941, CHAR 20/44/79, CAC; British Military Administration of Occupied Territories in Africa during the Years 1941–43 (London: HMSO, 1945), pp. 8–11; The First to Be Freed: The Record of British Military Administration in Eritrea and Somalia, 1941–1943 (London: HMSO, 1944), pp. 49–71. Two years later Mitchell was appointed Governor of Kenya.

  107.Saul Kelly, ‘Desert Conquests: Early British Planning on the Future of the Italian Colonies, June 1940–September 1943’, Middle Eastern Studies (Vol. 50, No. 6, 2014), p. 1012.

  108.Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War, p. 194.

  109.Cunningham to Wavell, 4 January 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104-7, NAM.

  110.M.O.1 (Records), ‘East Africa . . .’, n.d., WO106/2337B, TNA.

  111.Blewitt to his father, 30 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  112.Major G.P. Wallace, ‘Abyssinia’, 17 October 1941, DO35/1001, TNA.

  113.Minute by Brigadier M.S. Lush (Deputy Chief Political Officer), 22 April 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–6, NAM.

  114.M.O.1 (Records), ‘East Africa . . .’, n.d., WO106/2337B, TNA; ‘Operations of East Africa Command . . .’, 31 March 1943, pp. 7–9, DEFE2/712, TNA.

  115.‘Report on Operation Marie’, 5 December 1940, WO106/2357A, TNA.

  116.Mideast to Somaliforce, 21 July 1941, CAB106/919, TNA.

  117.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 12 June 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  118.Ismay, The Memoirs of General the Lord Ismay, p. 210.

  119.Basil Liddell Hart, The Rommel Papers (London: Collins, 1953), p. 78.

  120.Diary, 12 August 1941, Lady Moore Papers, MSS Brit Emp s466/2, File 5, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

  121.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 30 June 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  122.Letter to Cunningham, 10 September 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–18, NAM.

  123.Rosenthal, The Fall of Italian East Africa, pp. 87–88.

  124.‘Surrender of Gondar’, The Times (London), 29 November 1941.

  125.George Weller [ed. Anthony Weller], Weller’s War: A Legendary Foreign Correspondent’s Saga of World War II on Five Continents (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009), pp. 153–159.

  126.‘Enemy Intelligence in Gondar Area’, 4 December 1941, WO106/2352, TNA.

  127.Ibid., ‘Security Notes on Occupation of Gondar – Enemy
Communications with Other Parts of Eritrea’, 11 November 1941.

  128.‘Security Report 269 F.S. Section’, 30 November 1941, WO106/2352, TNA.

  129.War Office to GOC East Africa, 2 December 1941, CAB121/540, TNA.

  130.‘Operations of East Africa Command . . .’, 31 March 1943, pp. 4–7, DEFE2/712, TNA.

  131.Lieutenant-Colonel G.J. Pine to Barton, 4 March 1947, CAB106/906, TNA.

  132.Bell, ‘The Liberation of Addis Ababa’, p. 39.

  Conclusion: The British Empire’s First Victory

  1.Prasad, East African Campaign 1940–41, p. 154.

  2.Birkby, It’s a Long Way to Addis, p. 131; Crosskill, The Two Thousand Mile War, p. 212.

  3.Blewitt to family, 6 April 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  4.‘East African Campaigns’, House of Lords Debate, 28 May 1941, Hansard, Vol. 119, cc 297–311.

  5.Ibid.

  6.Wavell, ‘Operations in East Africa, November 1940–July 1941’, p. 3529.

  7.‘East African Campaigns’, House of Lords Debate, 28 May 1941.

  8.Stewart, ‘The Battle for Britain’, pp. 19–26.

  9.Platt, The Campaign Against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture II, p. 7.

  10.Orpen, East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, pp. 346–351.

  11.Minute by Cockram (High Commission, Pretoria), 1 September 1941, WO106/2351, TNA.

  12.Blewitt (Jakes) to family, 12 June 1941, Blewitt Papers, 08/88/3, IWM.

  13.Wessels, ‘The First Two Years of War’.

  14.‘Comments on Chapters A, B, C, & D by Lt-General Sir L.M. Heath . . .’, n.d., CAB106/941, TNA; Heath to Barton, 24 August 1946, CAB106/905, TNA.

  15.Barnett, The Desert Generals, pp. 29–30.

  16.Crosskill, The Two Thousand Mile War, p. 79.

  17.Mackenzie, Eastern Epic, p. 62.

  18.The Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 9.

  19.‘The War: Resolution of Thanks’, House of Lords Debate, 9 April 1941, Hansard, Vol. 118, cc 1032–47.

  20.A.P. Wavell, Generals and Generalship (London: The Times, 1941), p. 27.

  21.Glover, An Improvised War, pp. 38, 75.

  22.Churchill, The Grand Alliance, p. 75.

  23.Cunningham to Playfair, 8 June 1952, CAB106/926, TNA.

  24.Schofield, Wavell: Soldier and Statesman, p. 150.

  25.John Connell to Ismay, 6 September 1961, Lord Ismay Papers, ISMAY4/9/38, LHCMA.