Amba Alagi

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Amba Alagi
Elevation	3949 m
Location	Ethiopia
Range	Ethiopian highlands
Coordinates	12°59′N, 39°33′E

Amba Alagi is a mountain in northern Ethiopia. Located in the Debubawi Zone of the Tigray Region, Amba Alagi dominates the roadway that runs past it from the city of Mek'ele south to Maychew. As Anthony Mockler describes it,

It was [a] real amba, flat-topped, covered with crevices and canyons and caves, impregnable on the north and north-east where the Tug Gabat ran round its flanks through precipitous ravines, falling steeply away in the rear to the spur of Antalo, behind which lay the broad plain of Mahera.^[1]

1 History
2 Notes
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

The first Battle of Amba Alagi occurred in December 1895. On December 7, the Ethiopians defeated an Italian army of 2,350 led by Pietro Toselli and a day later, on December 8, the Ethiopian emperor, Menelik II, drove out the Italian forces of General Oreste Baratieri. After the defeat, the Italians withdrew from Amba Alagi and Gondar to their half-finished fort at Mek'ele, which Menelik then besieged for 15 days (6 - 21 January 1896).^[2]

The second Battle of Amba Alagi was fought in May 1941, during World War II, part of the East African Campaign. The mountain had galleries carved into the rock to protect the defending troops and hold ample ammunition and stores. The defenders, Italian troops under command of the Viceroy, the Duke of Aosta, thought themselves to be impregnable. 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. Mayne's troops were joined on May 12 by Brigadier Dan Pienaar's 1st South African Brigade, which had on April 20 captured the Italian fortress of Dessie located 200 miles south of Amba Alagi, and by May 14 Amba Alagi was completely surrounded. A final assault was planned for the next day but a lucky strike by an artillery shell hit an Italian fuel dump, upsetting oil into their last remaining drinking water and forcing the garrison's surrender).^[3]

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

[edit] Notes

^ Anthony Mockler, Haile Selassie's War (New York: Olive Branch Press, 2003), p. 97.
^ The 1895 battle at Amba Alagi is described by Chris Prouty, Empress Taytu and Menilek II: Ethiopia 1883-1910 (Trenton: Red Sea Press, 1986), pp. 140-3.
^ Compton Mackenzie, Eastern Epic, pp. 67-70