User:Pfifer11/Sandbox/Battle of Amba Alagi (1941)

The Battle of Amba Alagi was fought in May 1941, during World War II, part of the East African Campaign. Italian forces troops under command of the Viceroy, the Duke of Aosta, and General Vorpini. Allied forces under the command of Wayne and Pienaar surrounded the mountain massaive and forced the Italians to surrender.

Background
Wavell's strategic priority was for Platt to push southwards from the Sudan to Addis Ababa and for him to meet up with Cunningham pushing northwards from Kenya. A major obstacle for Platt was located at Amba Alagi, a 12000 ft high mountain between Asmara and Addis Ababa. Italian troops withdrew themselves into the Amba Alagi area in the spring 1941 during the British counter attack in Italian East Africa. There the duke of Aosta with his 7,000 men wanted to defend itself like already Toselli had done in 1895. Across the Alagi massif led a strategically important traffic axle, which was controlled on the pinnacle height of the Toselli fortress. There and on the surrounding summits eastward of the massif running of the west the had over well defended Italian positions. The mountain had galleries carved into the rock to protect the defending troops and hold ample ammunition and stores as well as the troops there over 40 cannons and enough supply for three months. The Italian defenders thought themselves to be impregnable. Platt gave newly promoted Major-General Mosley Mayne and the Indian 5th Infantry Division the task of taking Amba Alagi. Mayne was only able to deploy a single expanded brigade, the Indian 29th Infantry Brigade, for this action. His attacking force was therefore inferior in numbers to the Italian defending force. Mayne's limited deployment was due to the demands on the British for internal security and for protecting their lines of communication. The supply route to Amba Alagi extended nearly 250 mi south of Asmara and some 400 mi from the main rail head at Kassala. Mayne knew that Pienaars Brigadier Dan Pienaar's 1st South African Brigade was moving further to help a pincer move which had captured the Italian garrison of Dessie (April 20) located 200 miles south of Amba Alagi.

Battle
The initial attacks on the approaches to Amba Alagi by British troops under Major-General Mayne from the north, commenced on May 4 with a pincer from the eastern and western sides. There was hard fighting in the jagged mountainous terrain.

On 3 May 1941, Mayne sent in a feint attack from the east while, in the early hours of 4 May, the main attack was made from the northwest over the hills. The hills were fiercely defended by the Italians. On 11 May, Pienaar's brigade group arrived from the south and was put under Mayne's command. By 14 May Amba Alagi was surrounded. With the arrival of Pienaar, the 7000 Italian troops of the Duke of Aosta were directly attacked by 9000 British troops and more than 20000 Ethiopian irregulars.

A final assault was planned for 15 May, but a fortuitous artillery shell hit an Italian fuel dump and ruptured a vessel containing oil. This caused oil to flow into the remaining drinking water of the Italian defenders. The lack of drinkable water then forced the Italians to surrender.

Aftermath
On 18 May, the Duke of Aosta surrendered his embattled forces at Amba Alagi. General Mayne agreed to a surrender with "full military honors" (allowing the troops to march off the battlefield in formation and then surrender their arms) in exchange for the Duke's agreement to hand over the battlefield 'clean'. This put the Duke on his honour to identify all mines and booby-traps to the troops taking over the area and included his agreement that the Italians' remaining equipment and stores should not be sabotaged or destroyed. Mayne later wrote"The Duke of Aosta was delighted with my concession and, as he told me, gave a rigid and unmistakable edict that the hand-over was to be complete and clean, making it quite clear that any breach of his orders would mean that he had broken his own word. So the Italians did play up. We got everything intact and no one, save Abyssinian patriots who broke all bounds in their search for loot and deserved their fate, suffered so much as a scratch from a hidden mine, although there were plenty of them about." While the Duke of Aosta faced defeat in East Africa, his brother, the Duke of Spoleto was being made the King of Croatia after the successful invasion of Yugoslavia.

The Duke of Aosta had endured the last months of fighting while suffering a severe attack of malaria (and died of malaria and Tuberculosis a few months later).

The campaign in Italian East Africa was all but over.

In popular culture
The film La Pattuglia dell'Amba Alagi, shot in 1953 by Flavio Calzavara, glorifies the Italian defense against the British.