Gideon Force
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The Gideon Force was a British-led African guerrilla force fighting the Italian occupation forces in Ethiopia during the World War II. Leader and creator of the force was British Major Charles Orde Wingate.
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[edit] Political situation
Italy conquered and occupied 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 Benito Mussolini joined the war against France and Britain in 1940, Italian forces became a potential threat to British supply routes in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. British troops in Egypt and Sudan were outnumbered relative to the Italian forces in Ethiopia and Libya. Therefore, the British government recognized Haile Selassie in July 1940 and promised to help him.
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.[citation needed] The British sent Mission 101, a small expedition led by Colonel Daniel Sandford, to contact the Arbegnoch, arranged bases in Gojjam and made gifts of money to local leaders who agreed to fight the Italians.
General Archibald 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. However, the British had no manpower to launch a direct offensive against the Italians. Wavell, who had met Wingate during their service in Palestine, sent for him. On November 6, 1940, Wingate arrived in Khartoum.
[edit] Beginnings
Wingate wanted to create a special force with good training and equipment. Against the protests of the British command in Khartoum, he demanded supplies and met with emperor Selassie.
Wingate created his troops from one battalion of Sudanese of the British-led Sudan Defense Force and one battalion of Ethiopian soldiers of the 2nd Ethiopian Battalion, mostly composed of soldiers that had served in the Ethiopian army. In total, they numbered only 2,000 men and 18,000 camels meant for transport. The camels were under the care of Laurens van der Post who would go on to become a famous author. Wingate named these soldiers as the Gideon Force, after the biblical figure of Gideon.
[edit] Battle begins
Troops of the Gideon Force departed on December 1940 in small columns towards Mount Belaya in Gojjam (the contemporary Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumaz Region). In January 19, 1941, the British launched an offensive against the Italians. On January 20, the Emperor, accompanied by Wingate, met Ethiopian soldiers in the border crossing of Um Idla.
Horse-mounted Sudanese troops made it to Mount Belaya in five days, while Ethiopians with their camel caravan took 2 weeks. Wingate and the emperor arrived on February 6 and Haile Selassie established his headquarters there. On February 8, Wingate was assigned to command all the British and Ethiopian forces with the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel.
On February 18-19, the Gideon Force crossed over an escarpment into the eastern part of Gojjam. Aided by Arbenyotch fighters, they attacked the Italian forts, garrisons and patrols. Also due to the British advance in Somalia, the Italians withdrew eastward from their positions.
On February 24, Wingate led the Gideon Force to surround the Italian fort in Bure. Some of the Ethiopian force got lost and a grass fire hindered them, but they met with no Italian resistance. Wingate tried to give an impression of a larger force to intimidate the Italians; he spread the men wide and again, accompanied by the Arbegnoch, began to ambush the Italians. Wingate led some groups himself.
At the same time, Selassie approached the area. Formerly neutral or pro-Italian local rulers turned to support him. Ethiopian irregulars attached to Italian units, known as banda, began to desert to the Emperor's side.
The numerically superior Italians retreated to the southeast on March 4. The British command in Khartoum, which had cracked the Italian codes, informed Wingate of the move. He ordered a Sudanese unit to block and ambush the Italians, but the commander of the unit failed to do so. Disappointed, Wingate ordered a pursuit and his men made small harassing attacks against the Italians. The Italians pushed through a small Ethiopian force near Dembecha on the Chakara River with 325 casualties (Ethiopian casualties were only 48). The Italian commander of Dembecha also retreated to the east against his orders; the Gideon Force occupied Dembecha March 8.
[edit] Debra Marqos
The next target of the combined British force was a fort near Debre Marqos. This time, the Italians counterattacked and fierce fighting ensued. The Gideon Force retreated and began hit-and-run attacks and raids to drain Italian strength. Italian losses amounted to 200 over the next weeks. Their intention to evacuate was blocked by the Arbegnoch.
In late April, Italian forces in Dessie surrendered to advancing British troops. A couple of days after the Italians had left Debra Marqos, Haile Selassie entered the city April 6. At the same time, British regular forces entered Addis Ababa.
Other Italian forces retreating to the east and over the Blue Nile were continuously harassed by the Arbegnoch and the Gideon Force. However, some Arbegnoch began looting in the retaken areas and the Gideon Force had to restore order.
When most of the Gideon Force proceeded towards Addis Ababa, a smaller force pursued retreating Italians to the north towards Debre Sina. While this was going on, on May 5, the Gideon Force and Emperor Selassie began a victory march on Addis Ababa.
[edit] Last battles
When Wingate received the order to stop the pursuit of retreating Italians and help other British forces elsewhere, he pretended that he could not decipher the message and continued on his course. The other part of the Gideon Force, lead by the explorer Wilfred Thesiger, crossed to the north of the Debra Sinai plateau and attacked from the north. On May 18, the Italians found themselves blocked from the north and south. Thinking he faced superior numbers, the Italian commander agreed to surrender on May 24.
The Gideon Force was officially disbanded June 1, 1941. Wingate returned to Egypt. The last Italian troops surrendered in Begemder province in the north to British and Arbegnoch forces.
[edit] Aftermath
With the surrender of the Italians, the British, under pressure from the US administration, signed an agreement acknowledging Ethiopian sovereignty in January 1942.
Wingate came down with malaria and was sent back to Britain by troop ship, much to the relief of the general staff in Cairo who had feared that he would get involved in the post war politics of Ethiopia. They also ignored Wingate's request for decorations for his men and obstructed his attempts to get back-pay for his force.
While still in Cairo, out of frustration, Wingate had written a report for Wavell, the Commander-in-Chief Middle East, in which he outlined the successes of the campaign and his views on future actions of a similar type. He wrote, in part:
- To sum up it is proposed to assemble and employ a force of the highest fighting qualities capable of employment in widely separated columns...that it should be allocated an objective behind the enemy's lines, the gaining of which will decisively affect the campaign; and that to enable it to carry out its task it must be given a political doctrine consonant with our war aims.
His report impressed the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery, who persuaded Wingate to remove the recriminations in the paper, and then passed it to the War Cabinet and Winston Churchill. He also notified Wavell who was now Commander-in-Chief, India that Wingate had been declared medically fit. In February 1942, Wingate left London for Burma at the request of India Command. It was there that Wingate further developed his ideas and put them into practice when he formed the Chindits.
