Gideon Force - Background and Political Situation

Background and Political Situation

Italy occupied parts of Ethiopia in 1936, and eventually created Italian East Africa (covering modern-day Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia). Italian troops in Ethiopia numbered about 250,000, most of them native Eritreans recruited to the Italian army.

When Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared war against France and Britain in June 1940, Italian forces became a potential threat to British supply routes in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. British troops in Egypt and the Sudan were outnumbered relative to the Italian forces in Ethiopia and Libya. This was put into stark perspective when Italian troops made advances to capture territory on the borders of Kenya and the Sudan in June and July before moving to conquer British Somaliland in August.

Short of men, General Archibald Wavell (the Commander-in-Chief of the British Middle East Command) needed all of the local support he could find. One answer was Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. The deposed emperor had been living in England ever since the Italians invaded his country in 1936 during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. Ethiopian resistance fighters called Arbegnoch ("Patriots") had been fighting the Italians ever since the beginning of the occupation. They would raid Italian forts and communication lines. However, they hardly cooperated at all and the Italians were often able to play one group against another.

In June 1940, Wavell invited Emperor Selassie to Sudan so his supporters could rally around him. The British recruited a bodyguard for him from among the Ethiopian refugees in Khartoum. In July the British government recognized Haile Selassie and promised to help him.

In August 1940, the British set up Mission 101 led by Colonel Daniel Sandford, a close friend and advisor of Haile Selassie and who had encouraged him to return from Britain. The role of Mission 101 was to contact the Arbegnoch and make gifts of money to local leaders who agreed to fight the Italians. It would then organise "Operational Centres" (small groups of officers and NCOs) in Gojjam to provide weapons, training and co-ordination for Arbegnoch attacks. Wavell expected that these irregular forces would be able to tie down large numbers of Italian units throughout the colony, although Lieutenant-General William Platt, Wavell's senior commander in the Sudan did not believe that Hailie Selassie had the support of the majority of the Ethiopian people and was lukewarm towards providing support to the patriot groups.

At the end of October 1940, because of the increasing Axis threat in the Middle East, the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden convened a conference in Khartoum. In attendance were Emperor Selassie, South African General Jan Smuts (who held an advisory brief for the region with Winston Churchill), the Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Command, Archibald Wavell and his senior military commanders in East Africa, Lieutenant-General Platt and Lieutenant-General Cunningham. The general plan of attack, including the use of Ethiopian irregular forces, was agreed upon at this conference. Also agreed was an increased level of support for the Arbegnoch.

Part of the increased support saw the posting in early November of Major Orde Wingate (who had spent five inter-war years with the Sudan Defence Force and was later to gain fame in Burma with the Chindits) to Khartoum as a staff officer with the brief of liaising between Platt, Mission 101 and the Emperor. Wavell had met Wingate during their service in Palestine and selected him for the job. On November 6, 1940, Wingate arrived in Khartoum.