The Abyssinian
Cache

The End of Italian Colonial Power

By Kurt J. Jaeger

Novel

Copyright: © 2018: Kurt J. Jaeger

Umschlag & Satz: Erik Kinting – www.buchlektorat.net

Publisher:

tredition GmbH

Halenreie 40-44

22359 Hamburg

978-3-7469-7711-9 (Paperback)

978-3-7469-7712-6 (Hardcover)

978-3-7469-7713-3 (e-Book)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher and author.

PROLOGUE

The full moon shone intermittently through wind-shredded cloudbanks illuminating the Italian army camp in Sawria. It was Sunday, March 1, 1896. Locals knew it as Yekatit 23, 1888 based on the Julian calendar commonly used by Abyssinians. The spotty moonlight offered limited assistance to the Askaris advancing on Adwa under the command of Brigadier General Albertone. Poor light made it difficult for troops on the left flank to adhere to the plan of following the path through rough, almost impassable terrain.

On the previous evening at the main camp in Sawria, the Supreme Commander General Baratieri had distributed sketches based on inaccurate topographical details of the several valleys that traversed the mountainous area northeast of Adwa. The inaccurate maps had resulted in the Askaris, ill-equipped with old Vetterli-Vitale single shot rifles, missing their route to the rounded mountaintop of Kidane Mihret and running the risk of running into units of their own infantry brigade which was at that very moment advancing from the right. To avoid this, Brigadier General Giuseppe Arimondi wisely stopped his infantry troops in the central sector from advancing at half-past two in the morning.

Meanwhile to the south, another Italian infantry brigade, that of Brigadier General Vittorio Dabormida, was slowly approaching on the right flank through the narrow valley of Mariam Shavitu. General Baratieri knew from his scouts’ reports that troops of various Abyssinian royal houses under the command of Emperor Menelik II had been pillaging the country in search of food. He believed that his opponents, whom he had unfortunately underestimated at only some thirty to forty thousand men, would soon dissent and defect because of a food shortage. General Baratieri realized that if he could delay the attack for a couple of days, the entire confrontation would perhaps turn to his advantage despite the enemy’s superior numbers.

General Baratieri expected that his own troops were considerably better trained and better equipped. And yet, the situation was critical for the General. He had been expecting the Abyssinians to attack his entrenched position at Sawria for the past 2 weeks. The constant attacks on his supply lines by the six thousand deserters from the Tigrean troops of Ras Sibat and Dejazmach Hagos Teferi had instead reduced his food reserves to a minimum. As of the previous day, he had been forced to put his troops on half rations.

Since March 1 happened to be a Sunday, General Baratieri’s brigadiers believed they would surprise the fanatically religious Abyssinians at Sunday prayer. With his three-pronged attack, he expected to achieve the best results against the troops of Menelik II. Also, because of the lack of food, he hoped that they would not be too willing to fight.

Pressure from the government in Rome under Prime Minister Crispi was coming down on him hard. The brigadier-generals insisted that their troops march southward through the night to meet the unprepared enemy on the plains of Adwa at about 8 a.m. Thus, General Baratieri finally decided, against his own better judgment and knowledge of the situation, to launch the attack that Sunday, March 1, 1896.

He still wished to have the latest reports from scouts he had sent out. His generals, however, and in particular Brigadier General Vittorio Dabormida, pressed for an immediate departure to surprise the enemy at daybreak. In Dabormida’s opinion, the loss of two to three thousand men would be quite acceptable to re-establish Italy’s honor on this battlefield.

What actually transpired at Adwa was, however, the exact opposite. The plans and goals that most of the Italian commanders had so painstakingly devised were crushed. The events at Adwa led to a resounding victory for Emperor Menelik II and the subsequent massacre of the Italian troops.

***

It was just after 6 a.m. Having advanced in the dark of night, the roughly seven thousand Askaris under Brigadier General Albertone’s command reached the top of Kidane Mihret. To their surprise, they encountered the advance of hostile Abyssinian units under the leadership of Negus Tekle Haymanot when still some five kilometers away from their attacking position. These troops had also advanced from Abba Gerima in the darkness, and their artillery had already arrived hours previously and moved into position to rake the enemy. Although pressed hard by the enemy’s fourfold numerically superior strength, the Askaris responded astonishingly well. Empress Taitu was surprised by this development. Despite Emperor Menelik II’s continuous doubts, Empress Taitu decided to immediately use her own cavalry and the infantry waiting in reserve for the relief of the Haymanot troops.

During these clashes, Brigadier General Albertone was taken captive. The slowly-retreating Askaris were now seeking protection from General Arimondi’s troops who were advancing in the central sector.

Adwa Battle Plan, “Power and Protest in Black Afrika” OUP, 1970, Prof. Sven Rubenson, approved for publication March 30, 2007.

The combined units from four Abyssinian Princes – Ras Makonen, Ras Olie, Ras Mikael, and Ras Mengesha – made up an enormous army of roughly 35,000. They had meanwhile engaged Arimondi’s advancing troops in a bloody battle in the central sector.

Despite the enemy’s superior strength, Arimondi’s troops managed to maintain their steadily weakening position against the enemy’s increasingly hostile cavalry and infantry for the next three hours. Emperor Menelik II’s decision to order his reserve of 25,000 men to immediately support the central sector led to the collapse of Arimondi’s lines of defense. Two additional companies of “Bersagliere” from General Ellena’s reserves swiftly came to Arimondi’s aid, but they, too, could not withstand the enemy’s superior numbers. A massive attack on the left flank delivered the Italians a crushing defeat in which Brigadier General Arimondi himself was also killed. The ensuing chaos ended in the panicked retreat of his troops.

General Baratieri stood back and watched in anguish as the battle unfolded. He had decided shortly before 8 a.m. that day to send a messenger to Brigadier General Dabormida with orders to immediately support Arimondi’s troops under such pressure in the central sector. Consequently, Dabormida inadvertently veered into an isolated valley and at 10 a.m. was attacked by the roughly 30,000 men from Prince Ras Makonnen’s Wagshum Guangal, as well as those troops under Princes Ras Mengesha Yohannes and Mengesha Atikim. General Dabormida quickly realized he could not hold his position under this kind of pressure, so he attempted to retreat. In doing so, however, his troops were forced into a narrow valley where the dreaded Oromoia cavalry, under the leadership of Lij Mekuas, bore down on them. Dabormida’s surviving troops had to make a hasty retreat and in confusion lost almost all their weapons.

At three o'clock that afternoon, the outcome of the battle inevitably became obvious. The Italian troops with their Askaris were wholly routed and put to flight towards the nearby Eritrean border. Subsequently, Emperor Menelik II called off his victorious fighters who had been in hot pursuit of the Italian colonial troops and thus mercifully avoided their complete destruction. However, spoils from this single victory in the form of some eleven thousand rifles of all kinds, 56 cannons, as well as all manner of transport made a welcome addition to the Emperor’s arsenal.

The losses of the Italian troops, not only material but also personnel, were considerable. Brigadier General Albertone had been taken captive. Generals Arimondi and Dabormida and another 289 officers, as well as some four thousand Italian soldiers, were killed in action. Another three thousand Italians were taken prisoner and held for ransom, and were released several months later for an undisclosed sum of several million Liras. Of the more than seven thousand Askaris, fewer than two thousand had fallen victim to bullets, swords or lances by their Abyssinian enemies, while eight hundred had been taken captive. The Askari captives were sentenced as traitors to the Ethiopian cause, and their punishment was to stand as an example: according to reports the right hand and left foot were amputated.

This was a day when the entire history of Abyssinia, otherwise known as Ethiopia would be irrevocably and forever altered.

***

Decades later, the Italians could still not shrug off, nor easily forget, the disgrace and ignominy of the defeat inflicted on their armies by Emperor Menelik II at the battle of Adwa in 1896. The construction of a military Fort at the Welwel Oasis in the Ogaden territory in Eastern Abyssinia and the intentional miscalculation of the border between Abyssinia and Italian Somalia in 1934 led to massive protests from the Abyssinian government which ended in a series of armed border clashes. The calculated consequence of this was that Italy, although itself to the blame for the dispute, demanded not only an official apology from the government in Addis Ababa but also a border-clearing financial compensatory settlement biased heavily to their own advantage. It was a stance typical of colonial attitudes prevalent in Europe at that time.

In the misguided hope of being able to solve the dispute peacefully, Abyssinia still tried to seek arbitration at the League of Nations in Geneva. This was, however, torpedoed by a pact between France and Italy entered into on January 7, 1935. Italy was granted, for all intents and purposes, a virtual free hand to settle the quarrel with Abyssinia in exchange for future Italian support for France against possible aggression by Nazi Germany. Italy’s reaction to the implications of this pact was swift. On February 23, 1935, Benito Mussolini sent his two highest-ranking officers to handle things. General Emilio De Bono was sent to the Italian colony in Eritrea and General Rodolfo Graziani to Italian Somalia. Together with about one hundred thousand soldiers shipped from Italy, they prepared for the imminent invasion of Abyssinia.

As a consequence, stifling negotiations in a court of arbitration at the League of Nations dragged on for months until finally, on October 3 of that same year, Italian troops crossed the Eritrean border into Abyssinia without a declaration of war. Three days later, Adwa, the location of their earlier humiliation, as well as the prominent city of Adigrat had fallen under Italian control. Although some five months earlier the government in Addis Ababa had already ordered the mobilization of an army of several hundred thousand, Emperor Haile Selassie still hoped that the power of the League of Nations would draw Mussolini’s expansionist aims back into line. The Emperor waffled on the decision to meet the Italian aggression with full strength.

For whatever reason, General De Bono consciously slowed down the advance towards the south. He engaged in skirmishes with the slowly retreating troops of the local Princes Ras Syoum, Ras Imiru, and Ras Kassa who were unable to cause significant losses to the Italian army. Impatient at the slow progress, Mussolini, replaced De Bono with General Pietro Badoglio without further ado. The new general immediately accelerated the advance with renewed vigor and on November 8, 1935, the Italians had captured and occupied the significant trading town of Mekele.

Four days after this success, Graziani established a second front with his troops from Italian Somalia, and on January 12, 1936, defeated the Abyssinian units under Ras Desta Damtew at Ganale Dorya near the border to Somalia. Five thousand men of the tenacious Abyssinian troops fought grimly on but were annihilated entirely in a series of bloody battles which lasted three long days. The survivors fled northwards in disarray.

Meanwhile, Badoglio drove the enemy from the north in an unstoppable advance towards Emperor Haile Selassie’s capital, Addis Ababa. To achieve his unopposed advance and the swiftest possible resolution, Badoglio resorted to the unrestrained use of mustard gas against the Abyssinian enemy. This act was a notably callous contravention of The Hague Conventions to which Italy was a signatory. Airplanes, contraptions which few Abyssinians had ever seen, equipped with spraying devices swept over the countryside. These flying machines sprayed clouds of mustard gas over areas thought to conceal hostile troops and dropped metal canisters that spewed the poisonous gas into the Abyssinian Highland winds.

Incapable of fighting against or even resisting such an unknown weapon, many thousands of Abyssinians succumbed to these attacks. Almost all were innocent, defenseless civilians, farmers with their wives and children, young and old, plus livestock grazing in the fields and villages. At the same time, the fatal ‘netch zinaab,’ the white rain, contaminated the entire harvest.

Finally, on January 23, 1936, heavy fighting erupted in the north between the hostile invading armies and the Abyssinian troops in the mountains of Tembiei where over eight thousand Abyssinian soldiers fell. After that, Ras Mulugeta tried once again to turn the tide of war in his favor but was thoroughly beaten at the Battle of Amba Aradam where he suffered severe losses. A second attack against the Italians also ended in catastrophe on February 27 when only a few of his remaining troops survived.

Emperor Haile Selassie meanwhile moved from Addis Ababa and established his headquarters at Dessie with an army of about forty thousand strong. He still hoped for a political solution at the League of Nations. For the longest time, Selassie could not decide whether or not to start a counter-offensive against Badoglio’s troops. However, on March 3, 1936, he finally faced the hated enemy advancing from Eritrea in the hills at May Chew.

It was the last great battle in that war and a terrible personal defeat for Haile Selassie. Not only did he have to retreat with severe losses, but his demoralized troops were harried and attacked by warriors of the Abyssinian Raya and Azebo tribes. These were tribes who had long felt deceived by Emperor Haile Selassie for not declaring Lij Eyasu the new and lawful Negus and King of Ethiopia

A month later, on May 5, 1936, the Italian troops victoriously marched into Addis Ababa under newly promoted Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Four days later, Viktor Emmanuel III was proclaimed Italy’s puppet Emperor of Abyssinia and Marshal Graziani, who had entered Abyssinia from Somalia, became Viceroy of Ethiopia and took up residence as Governor in the Guenete Leul Palace of Haile Selassie. At the beginning of May, Emperor Haile Selassie had already fled to Europe via the port of Djibouti in French Somalia taking with him his entire family and a large retinue.

With the annexation of Abyssinia at the Horn of Africa, Italy had fundamentally enlarged its power, and its expansionist plans were curtailed, at least for the time being. Shortly after that the notorious Rodolfo Graziani, Marchese di Neghelli, was appointed Governor. Following an attack on his life by two Ethiopians, however, and the retaliatory massacre by the Italian military in which hundreds local civilians in Addis Ababa were killed, he was replaced on December 21, 1937, by the moderate Amadeo di Savoia, the Duca d'Aosta.

The colonial supremacy of Mussolini’s fascist Italy, however, fell into dire straits when, on June 10, 1940, Italy entered into the war and joined the Axis alliance with Nazi Germany. The Italian army in its East African Colonies was not only severely beaten by the British and her Allies in North Africa, but encircled in the north, west, and south by colonies of the British Crown. With the Red Sea and Suez Canal controlled by the British Navy, the umbilical cord to Italy was severed, and it was only a matter of time before colonial troops in Eritrea, Somalia, and Abyssinia would eventually have to lower their flags.

Until then, il Duce Mussolini had not yet taken the opportunity to visit the new Italian colonies in East Africa. Nor had he entered Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, in official triumph as the conquering hero, Commander-in-Chief of the invincible, Italian Armed Forces, as he believed he was. Therefore, an event befitting such a victor of this magnitude was planned in 1940. It would surpass the splendor of the triumphant return of victorious Roman generals, such as Marcus Antonius when war chariots would roll along the Appian Way, legions would mass behind the venerated general just to be honored by a gracious Caesar tumultuously cheered on by the many thousands of Roman citizens.

While British Rolls-Royce and American Cadillacs were the considered choice of European Kings, Czars, and Indian Maharajas, they were not appropriate given the current climate of political allegiances. There were the beautiful Mercedes luxury cars, of course, but even there the atmosphere was somewhat tainted. In the end, the most elegant and beautiful vehicles on the world market at that time, deservedly reflecting the grand purpose of the Fascist cause and befitting the dignity and social significance of the event, were sought out and brought to Ethiopia to be stored in a safe place in preparation for the spectacle. The choice fell on two of the most luxurious models of the Bugatti, the T 57 C ‘Stelvio’, drop-head coupé automobiles, which were shipped to the port of Massawa before the closure of the Suez Canal.

With the entry of Italy into the war as a German ally in June 1940, however, the visit of Il Duce to Italian East Africa was temporarily postponed awaiting the looming, victorious thrust of the German and Italian divisions from the Mediterranean across the Sahara to the Northern Frontier Province of Kenya. Thus, a plan was necessary to store the two Bugattis at a secret location ensuring, at whatever cost, they do not fall into enemy British hands or any other undeserving, thieving, piratical hands, as the spoils of war.

An intricate plan was swiftly drawn up to put this endeavor into action. Every possible eventuality was calculated. To ensure secrecy, only a single, most senior officer of the Italian High Command in Addis Ababa was tasked with hiding these two Bugattis in the most discrete, secret location possible. In turn, this high-ranking commander handed the mission over to one of his most efficient, most trustworthy officers. This honored individual was Major Umberto Mancino, a seasoned and brave officer who, as chance would have it, had recently come down from Asmara after courageous service in Eritrea.

Colonel Meniconi of the Fascist MVSN, having sworn Major Mancino to secrecy and warning him never to divulge the plan, gave him carte blanche in the execution of the safe and entirely secret safekeeping of the two Bugattis. Despite the risk that nothing of such dimensions as a Bugatti luxury model car, and in particular two of them, might remain a complete secret, the two vehicles were hidden under heavy tarpaulins. They were delivered from France via Marseille on board an inconspicuous Italian cargo ship, then to Somalia through the Suez Canal, and on to the Italian Navy port of Massawa. From there they had been transported up a highway with 55 hairpin turns to Asmara, the Capital of Eritrea, and then 656 Kilometers on the Strada Imperiale to Addis Ababa.

Now, Ethiopia is well known as a country where the inadvertent jingle of coin in a man’s pocket will attract a horde of beggars from a hundred meters away. So, it is somewhat surprising that the sudden disappearance without a trace of two of the world’s most expensive and luxurious automobiles should not have provoked rumor and speculation. Yet, strange as it may be, since those fateful days of frantic, disrupted, and danger-fraught activity in and around Addis Ababa as the British and Allied Forces were closing in and tightening their grip on the capital, decades have passed. Not a single soul, not a man or woman, Faranji or Habasha seemed to know the what, when, or where of the fate of those two Bugattis. It was as if they had not existed at all.

One of the least known frailties of the human mind is that if you wish a lie to be believed, you have only to whisper it on the wind and as time passes by it will assume substance and ultimate reality. And so it was that during an unrelated telephone conversation with an Ethiopian colleague, the seeds of the Bugatti story were planted and took root. It has taken years of careful investigation to exhume the skeletons of this complicated, intriguing tale as to what in fact happened to those two supreme Bugattis.

Meanwhile, the monetary value of the two veterans, luxury Model T 57C Stelvio, drop-head coupé Bugatti automobiles has outrageously escalated in value, by parabolic proportions, to several hundreds of thousands of US dollars on the antique car dealers’ markets of Europe and the Americas. If they could be recovered undamaged, or even in reasonable condition to be restored to their original splendor, they would represent a not inconsiderable value for the salvager and antique car collector alike.

The vague, yet intriguing rumors which had initially started from a somewhat casual and spurious inquiry soon became an addictive thirst to know more. The first tenuous investigations cast a state of helpless indecision, suspense, and doubt as to the authenticity of the circumstances surrounding the fate of those two Bugattis. Then, a curious quirk of fate produced extraordinary evidence that perhaps the somewhat fictitious references to the hidden Bugattis, were probably accurate after all.

Map of Abyssinia /Ethiopia ca. 1942.

CHAPTER 1

March 15, 1941, Strada Imperiale

All the color had drained from Major Umberto Mancinos’ face. His skin was ashen. Only the wrinkles on his forehead, etched by sweat, showed the texture of his suntanned skin under the layers of grime and dust. Ahead of him, a heavy truck lumbered in torment over the crushed stone of the road creating clouds of dust that swirled up behind it. Although Mancino’s Fiat 626 goods vehicle lagged almost 100 meters behind, the dust continuously enveloped the Fiat in a veil of dense dust. The heat in the cabin was building up, yet Mancino had only slightly opened the window on his side of the lorry. Fine sand seemed to reach every corner of the cabin.

It was towards the middle of March. The last rain clouds had disappeared, and the sun was beating down mercilessly on the Abyssinian, or Ethiopian highlands. The Major slapped at the coating of dust on his uniform to no avail. Considerably annoyed by this unpleasantness, he grumbled his discontent into his slightly trimmed mustache. He pushed the Bustina cap propped askew on his head back up to his hairline. His reddened eyes, watering slightly, clearly showed traces of fatigue from the last two days since they had left Adigrat in a hectic rush. Although dog-tired, he had found fitful sleep only for a short time in the armed forces camp of Mekele. Dogs from shanty dwellings of the local population barked incessantly. L3 tanks clattered, and large military trucks continuously rumbled as they brought reinforcements to the fighting forces of General Tessidore. This clamor through the night, as well as the nagging worry over the course of battles in Keren, kept him awake most of the time.

Major Mancino doubted whether General Fruscis’ army would be able to hold its position in the mountains near Keren for any length of time. A substantial portion of the Italian East African troops was stationed there with limited means and was hampered by a lack of morale. Also, the local Askaris were unwilling to fight. It was, therefore, abundantly clear that they found themselves in a hopeless situation against the well-planned offensive of British forces advancing from Sudan.

The battle-tested the 11th and 65th regiments. The Granatieri di Savoia Division and units of the MVSN (Militia Voluntaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) would hardly make any difference to the final outcome. Also, if the British with their Indian allies broke through, the defensive positions at Keren and Asmara were beyond redemption. This vast, fertile valley offered no natural barriers against the advancing enemy. Mancino considered bitterly: If the Air Force had still been in place and operational at Asmara and Guru, the chance of a successful resistance might have been vastly better.

Old Fiat CR42 biplanes and Sia-Marchetti SM.79 bombers were no challenges for the modern British Hawker ‘Hurricane’ fighter planes. Daily they attacked vital transport lines on the roads from an airfield near the border with neighboring Sudan. British bomber formations flew from Aden to Keren dropping high-explosive bombs on Italian fortifications and infrastructures. They inflicted serious losses on men and equipment. Mancino did not care to even consider the completely inadequate and obsolete Ansaldo L3 tanks so highly thought of by Marshal Badoglio. Thus, at the beginning of February, the Battle of Agordat had left no doubt that the L3 tanks didn’t stand a chance against the new lightweight tanks of the British. The L3’s armor plating offered little resistance against British 40 mm cannons. The four brigades of the highly praised General Lorenzini in Agordat had counted on the efficiency and support of their L3 tanks but were shown otherwise.

All their tanks had fallen victim to the light cannons of the British tanks. The defenders not taken prisoner had looked after their own well-being by fleeing into the mountains. As he had now heard in Adigrat, the significant part of their CR42 fighter planes and Caproni bombers at the airfields of Asmara and Guru had been destroyed on the ground by strafing attacks from the Hawker Hurricanes. If the defensive positions in the mountains west of Keren fell into British hands – in his opinion more than likely – then the fate of the Italian Colony of Eritrea was sealed. Somalia had already fallen into the hands of the allied British contingents from South Africa and Nigeria at the end of February. According to confidential sources in Addis Ababa, these troops were moving with astonishing swiftness along the Strada Imperiale through the Ogaden towards the border of Abyssinia and the city of Harar. Mancino considered with increasingly oppressive fear: The Duce di Aosta, Amadeo di Savoi, as Commander-in-Chief had to come up with a swift and workable solution very soon. A disintegration of the Italian Colonial Armies had to be avoided at all cost to stem the unhindered advance of the British troops towards Adigrat.

After a short breakfast in the officers’ mess in Mekele, he once again checked a load of ammunition on the two trucks before signing the delivery papers. From the documents, it was clear that almost all of the ammunition and new Breda 38 machine guns were bound for Fort Tosseli. He had overseen the loading of the smaller Fiat 626 lorry he was personally accompanying. It was filled with ammunition for Carcano rifles and Beretta MAB 38 submachine guns intended for the garrison in Addis Ababa. Major Mancino had counted the boxes and initialed the delivery papers in the presence of a second lieutenant.

“What happened to the special delivery items for Addis Ababa, the documents?” Mancino wondered aloud, somewhat morosely. Instead of giving an answer, the second lieutenant turned around abruptly pointing to a handcart which was being pushed towards the trucks that very instant. On it were three of the usual olive-green wooden boxes of 6.5 millimeter Carcano rifle ammunition. Each box bore a large yellow dot stenciled on each lid.

“Are these the documents?” Mancino asked astonished.

“It seems that way, Signor Maggiore,” answered the second lieutenant, pulling a strange face. “These are the three boxes, no doubt a bit heavy, but inconspicuous. That’s how they are scheduled, merely as documents!”

Mancino couldn’t help but notice that when the two Askaris lifted the boxes one by one onto the loading gate, the strain on their faces and their bulging biceps as they heaved the boxes onto the loading gate indicated the freight’s weight. At that moment, he found it strange that documents – no matter how voluminous – should be so heavy. If nothing else, he had learned one thing in his army career: Never question orders. And so, he signed the delivery note, though not without some reservation. Silently, he bid farewell to the second lieutenant with a military salute.

Although it was clear to Mancino that an officer should personally escort the two lorries to Addis Ababa, he was puzzled by the fact that the weighty cargo in the Lancia truck had been allocated eight armed guards, while his smaller Fiat had no escort other than the driver. After all, as an officer, it was his responsibility to personally accompany the important documents in the marked wooden boxes on the Fiat lorry. Somewhat nonplussed and reasonably uncomfortable with this arrangement, Mancino accepted these orders that had been given by a very senior officer, likely with good cause. Given the rapidly advancing front of the British at Keren, it was best not to question orders. In the end, he decided that, for whatever reason, someone of high rank had ordered that as few people as possible should escort the valuable documents loaded on his vehicle. The Lancia 3RO with the armed escort had left the protected base at Mekele first. In the meantime, he vaulted into the cabin of the Fiat lorry and took a seat next to the driver. Soon they rolled onto the main road and changed course heading south. Having driven for a couple of hours on the reasonable navigable Strada Imperiale, they were now finally past the endless climb to the plateau where the artillery fort near May Keyil was hidden. Major Mancino stretched his legs and lifted himself from the well-worn seat to shift the Beretta pistol hanging from his belt into a more comfortable position. He raised the leather strap running diagonally across his chest, heaved, and turned towards the driver who was apparently concentrating on avoiding the potholes in the road.

“Sergente Santini, at this speed – how much longer to the Tosseli Pass?”

“Seniore, I think in half an hour we will reach the village of Betmera at the foothills of the mountain range and afterward we will tackle the steep rise to Amba Alagi.”

Mancino held the map open on his knees and followed the line of the road with his right index finger. He gazed through the passenger window over the dry countryside, the cleared sorghum, and barley fields, then over to the other side of the valley where the mountain slopes filled the hazy sky. Individual acacia trees stood out in stark green contrast to the parched land, casting deep shadows where groups of goats nibbled on dried grass stems and some shepherds sat in the shade eagerly awaiting the day’s end.

“That will be in about half an hour?” Mancino considered.

“Si, Seniore!”

Mancino ignored that the driver addressed him incorrectly. He couldn’t be bothered about military rank under the current circumstances. Nevertheless, he did briefly consider whether he should make it clear that he was not a member of the fascist “Camicie Nere” and thus not to be addressed as a so-called “Seniore,” but instead as a Maggiore, or major, of the regular Italian army. Yet he could imagine that it most likely made no difference at all to the driver and was not worth going to the trouble of explaining.

Again Mancino looked over at the driver, observing the way he concentrated on the road and how he kept a reasonable distance from the truck ahead. Over the last few days, he had learned to appreciate Santini as a driver. No empty prattle over the doubtful policies of Rome or the sad events on the military front in Somalia had ever crossed his lips. Outwardly, this man seemed to be interested only in his task as a driver.

“Sergente Santini! How old are you, actually?”

“Trenta uno,” replied the driver without taking his eyes off the road.

“Married?”

“Si, Seniore, e due Bambini,” Santini replied quickly, anticipating the next question.

‘A solid family man, with two children and a woman who awaited his return back home in Italy,’ thought Mancino appreciatively. A second thought flashed through his mind at the same time: ‘How many married women around the world waited for their men, most of whom would never return? Take, for example, the young men who were recently drowned at sea when their boat was torpedoed during the evacuation of Djibouti, or the ones who had lately fallen at the front in Agordat.’

“What will you do when this bloody war is over? Have you got a profession or do you own business back home?” asked the major.

“Just a small car body repair shop in Trento, but it is now closed,” replied Santini while he shifted the gear one step higher to keep pace with the Lancia that had suddenly sped up. Mancino could appreciate how much Santini longed for his small workshop back home and his waiting family. Although he still had no family to worry about, he would have loved to disappear from here right now and return to Italy.

That was, however, out of the question – at least for now! In the north, the British and Indian troops were advancing steadily. In the west, Haile Selassie himself, with British help, hobbled slowly towards the old Imperial City of Gondar and the region of Gojjam. In the east was the Red Sea with enemy battleships lying in wait. In the south, the British colonial troops of Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa were advancing at an alarming speed toward the Ogaden having already overrun the Italian Colony of Somalia.

Mancino was so deeply absorbed in thought that he did not immediately comprehend the reason for the sudden, shrill, piercing whistle that appeared to come from just outside the cab. A split second later, before he was able to react, a gigantic fireball shot through the cloud of dust in front of them flashing glowing orange and blinding white in the direction of the blue sky. Just as a sudden wrench of raw fright took hold of him, a deafening bellow followed instantly by the shock wave of a violent explosion slamming the front of the lorry as if it were hit by an invisible hand. The crunching blow seemed almost to stop the forward momentum of the truck.

“Scatto! – Jump!” Mancino screamed, desperately reaching for the door. As he launched himself towards the door, he watched in disbelief as the windshield shattered in a hail of bullets. Mancino felt the painful sting of a hundred glass fragments piercing his face. He heard the agonizing scream of his driver but did not look back as he took a mighty leap through the door while the lorry plowed forward. His feet hit the ground, and as he tried to find his balance, he fell rolling head over heels. While still tumbling, he felt a searing pain in his right shoulder and then landed flat on his back in the ditch on the side of the road. The lorry’s momentum caused it to move forward out of control, wobbling, threatening to topple over.

Mancino lay where he had landed. Dazed, his brain numbed with shock, he tried to assimilate what had happened, but it was impossible to think clearly. Explosions – burning rubber and fuel – rubble thumping violently to the ground. The acrid smells and deafening noise around him indeed were too close. It seemed as if the atmosphere were filled with the tortured wail of human shrieks, the howl of aircraft engines and the hammer of heavy gunfire. He lay there panic-stricken, and although his open mouth was filled with a potential scream, his vocal chords were cramped and unable to release a sound. Instinctively, his body wanted to run. ‘Out of here – away from the truck – out of the ditch,’ was all he could think. However, his muscles refused to move. With some terror, he felt warm blood trickle down his cheeks, and he darted a quick look over the edge of the deep ditch towards the now stationary lorry lying on its side. White steam hissed from the fragmented radiator. The engine was dead.

Mancino called for Santini as loudly as he could but received no answer. His heart skipped a beat as he ventured to look ahead. He realized that where the Lancia truck should have been, only a burning and smoking shell of twisted iron and the gaunt remnants of the reinforced steel chassis were left. It was abundantly clear to him that nothing and nobody in the Lancia could possibly have survived. Paralyzed with horror, fear bubbling up, he stared at the gruesome picture before his eyes. Suddenly, fright gripped him again when he recognized the yowl of a loud aircraft engine and instinctively identified the new danger approaching. He instantly jumped out of the ditch and started across the field beside the road, stumbling like a drunken sailor, gasping for breath, desperate to get away from the vehicles on the road.

Mancino did not even venture a glance back in the direction of the attacking aircraft, but clearly discerned the rapid staccato of machinegun fire. He expected any moment to feel the thump of bullets riddling his own flesh. Mancino ran blindly until he feebly toppled into an irrigation ditch at the end of the field. Infinitely relieved that he had not become a victim of the aircraft armaments, he looked back over the edge of the ditch towards his burning Fiat lorry which was again under attack. He also saw the aircraft sweeping low along the dirt road with its machine guns hammering, and then watched it pull up sharply into the azure morning sky.

This was a Hurricane and no doubt about it. He was familiar with the protruding construction of the glazed cockpit and knew that the eight machine guns in its wings must have riddled the truck with bullets and obliterated it. With his lungs pumped empty, his eyes followed the vanishing British fighter plane. However, then he noticed a second aircraft approaching at low altitude from the south. He remembered the identification panels which had been distributed months earlier. This airplane was obviously a single-engine Fairey “Battle” used by the British as light bomber aircraft. Mancino knew what to expect next. It would be the coup de grace for the Fiat lorry and its cargo. He studied the aircraft as it came nearer to its target. He was mesmerized by the sight of the bomb’s long, sleek body as it wobbled out of the open jaw of the bay driving towards the already bullet-raked, yet still intact lorry.

Oppressive rage took hold of him. This surprise enemy aircraft attack had already cost the lives of eight of his men. He had not seen or heard anything of his driver, either. Perhaps he was also dead? This damned war which had made him fail in his command made him burrow like a coward into a dry irrigation ditch. What else did this war have up its sleeve for him? What he wouldn’t have given for a 20 mm anti-aircraft cannon. To obliterate the Fairey ‘Battle’ as it sailed past him would undoubtedly have been as easy as taking a cock pheasant at an autumn shoot.

However, the ignominious truth was that his anger was diluted by aching fear that gripped his throat. Mancino now lay flat on his belly, his arms crossed above his head to protect himself from falling debris, his face shoved into the dirt. The explosion of the bomb shook the earth, and the shock wave swept over him with an enormous thunderclap. Dust filled his lungs, made him cough. He heard the rushing of flames and impact of falling debris. He instinctively tried to shrink, to make himself invisible, when a heavy object landed with a thump right in front of him in the ditch. The screaming of the aircraft engine diminished only the crackle of exploding rifle ammunition could be heard above the rush of flames.

Mancino slowly looked out from under his arms that were still protecting his head, swept the dirt off his face, then looked around carefully. Not quite two meters in front of him one of the ammunition boxes from the truck had smashed into the ditch. That was close. He was damned lucky that he didn’t receive a direct hit. Immensely relieved, he made the sign of the cross on his forehead.

Just then, his attention was drawn to a wooden box which lay fractured in the ditch in front of him. The sheer weight of the contents had splintered one corner of the box, and the side had burst open. It was one of the Carcano rifle ammunition boxes with ‘special delivery items’ that had been loaded onto his Fiat lorry. To his surprise, a dull metallic yellow suddenly caught his eye between the grey-green wooden slabs. Slowly, his shocked senses began to register. These contents were far from documents, and even ammunition clips for Carcano carbines wouldn’t have shined quite so bright. Dazed, he stared at the gaping hole in the box. It was as if a bright yellow eye were staring back at him.

“Mama Maria!” he exhaled. His body shivered, and he shook his head making the eye of gold blink … or was it a wink? Slowly, layer by layer at first, a creeping suspicion sunk in. The full impact of what he was looking at made it dawn on him. Incredible! The content of these damned ammunition boxes marked with a yellow dot was not strategic documents, but bars of gold. Gold bound for Addis Ababa, but for whose hands? It appeared to him that by chance shrapnel had cut through the wooden box and a metal container inserted therein. Was this shipment perhaps originally meant to be shipped to Rome via the Port of Massawa and, because this port was now under blockade by the British, had it been diverted to another route? And if things went badly in this country, the gold would fall into the hands of the British! Not if he could help it!

Transformed and his pulse racing with excitement, he crawled towards the box and tore at the cracked wooden lid. He lifted a corner of the top to reveal a thick sheet metal seal which had been sliced open by bomb shrapnel. Mancino strove to concentrate. One central thought that had at first crept into his mind like a ghost suddenly took control of him: One chance in a million, a throw of the dice in life’s crap game, had cast the key to an unencumbered future for him right in front of his nose. A stroke of serendipitous luck waiting to be grabbed. He vaguely remembered lines from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” which he had learned in his youth. They reminded him of how “the affairs of men taken at the flood led on to fame and fortune.” Reality finally caught up with him again.

Quickly, his heart pounding with excitement, he tentatively glanced over the edge of the ditch again, stole a glance at the wreckage of the burning Fiat in the road, then scanned the open countryside behind him. Ethiopian farmers and shepherds stood some distance silently away seemingly only interested witnesses of the airborne attack. Yet Mancino knew that this thieving lot was just waiting like vultures for the opportunity to scavenge something valuable from the wreckage. Mancino again studied both sides of the road, but there was no vehicle in sight or suspicious dust cloud to indicate an approaching car.

While he scanned the scattered parts of the truck and ammunition boxes around him, he determined that it was time for action. It was a crucial time to make a now-or-never decision. He took one last look around and jumped to his feet. Determined, he jostled the damaged wooden box until he could remove the lid. Sure enough: a neatly packed metal container appeared inside. Mancino tried to open it, but it was locked. After some consideration, he pulled his Beretta pistol from its leather holster, leaned slightly back, and fired. Seconds later he bent back the metal lid and looked in astonishment at six gold bars bedded in wood shavings. Almost devoutly, his fingers slid slowly over the shining metal. He held one of the bars in his hands and critically checked its weight. Mancino guessed the weight of each bar was at least ten kilograms. He lifted them out of the box one by one.

Without hesitation, a brilliant plan of action occurred to him. MAB ammunition for submachine guns was not wanted at Fort Tosseli. The troops there had no need of it. This consignment of ammo was explicitly meant for Addis Ababa, and as the accompanying officer, he could confirm this when the soldiers arrived to salvage the scattered remains of the cargo. The papers for the consignment were still in his jacket pocket and nobody, except maybe a couple of officers in Adigrat, knew of gold smuggling. If by chance this place of horror was tidied by troops within the next few hours, no one would question the loss of a simple box of documents. Indeed, everyone would understandably assume that it had been destroyed or lost in the air attack. Once he had arrived in Addis Ababa with the supposed ammunition boxes and it was discovered that one box was missing, it would be damned difficult to organize a search party under the present circumstances of war and internal civil unrest. Who could possibly know if some of the boxes had not been scattered to the winds and some native Ethiopians had in the meantime foraged through and looted the area, found the gold, and carried it off?

Strada Imperiale