Topic summary
East African campaign (World War II)
United Kingdom and Empire:
Arbegnoch
Belgian Government in London
R. Godwin-Austen
William Platt
Alan Cunningham
Abebe Aregai
Mengesha Jembere
Auguste Gilliaert
Ralph Monclar
Pietro Gazzera
Guglielmo Nasi
Luigi Frusci
Carlo De Simone
77,000
30,000
6,000
2,000
2 cruisers
2 destroyers
2 auxiliary cruisers
- Italian: 50,000
- Colonial: 200,000
- German: 140
63 tanks
126 armoured cars
1,154 killed
74,550 wounded or sick
138 aircraft
Ethiopia:
~5,000 killed
Belgium:
462 killed
Free France:
2 aircraft
16,966 killed (5,511 Italian)
25,098 wounded or sick
~230,000 captured
250 aircraft
The East African campaign (also known as the Abyssinian campaign) was a military campaign fought in East Africa during the Second World War by the Allies of World War II, mainly from the British Empire, against Italy and its colony of Italian East Africa, between June 1940 and November 1941. The British Middle East Command with troops from the United Kingdom, South Africa, British India, Uganda Protectorate, Kenya, Somaliland, West Africa, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Sudan and Nyasaland participated in the campaign. These were joined by the Allied Force Publique of Belgian Congo, Imperial EthiopianArbegnoch (resistance forces) and a small unit of Free French Forces.
Italian East Africa was defended by the Comando Forze Armate dell'Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East African Armed Forces Command), with units from the Regio Esercito (Royal Army), Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force) and Regia Marina (Royal Navy). The Italian forces included about 250,000 soldiers of the Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali (Royal Corps of Colonial Troops), led by Italian officers and NCOs. With Britain in control of the Suez Canal, the Italian forces were cut off from supplies and reinforcement once hostilities began.
On 13 June 1940, an Italian air raid took place on the RAF base at Wajir in Kenya and the air war continued until Italian forces had been pushed back from Kenya and Sudan, through Somaliland, Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1940 and early 1941. The remnants of the Italian forces in the region surrendered after the Battle of Gondar in November 1941, except for small groups that fought a guerrilla war in Ethiopia against the British until the Armistice of Cassibile in September 1943, which ended the war between Italy and the Allies. The East African campaign was the first Allied strategic victory in the war; few Italian forces escaped the region to be used in other campaigns and the Italian defeat greatly eased the flow of supplies through the Red Sea to Egypt. Most of the Commonwealth forces were transferred to North Africa to participate in the Western Desert campaign.