| East African campaign | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of the Second World War | |||||||||
&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:MoyaleEastAfrica1941.JPG) South African soldiers with a captured Italian flag, 1941 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Ethiopian Arbegnoch Belgium
| |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Archibald Wavell R. Godwin-Austen William Platt Alan Cunningham Haile Selassie I Abebe Aregai Auguste Gilliaert |
 Duke of Aosta  Pietro Gazzera Guglielmo Nasi Luigi Frusci Carlo De Simone | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
80+ aircraft 2 cruisers 2 destroyers 2 auxiliary cruisers |
323 aircraft 63 tanks 126 armoured cars | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
British Empire: 1,154 killed 74,550 wounded or sick[a] 138 aircraft Ethiopia: 5,000 killed[citation needed] Belgium: 462 killed Free France: 2 aircraft |
Italy: 16,966 killed 25,098 wounded or sick ~230,000 captured 250 aircraft | ||||||||
| AOI casualties exclude Giuba and the eastern front | |||||||||
The East African campaign (also known as the Abyssinian campaign) was fought in East Africa during the Second World War by Allies of World War II, mainly from the British Empire, against Italy and its colony of Italian East Africa, between June 1940 and November 1941. The British Middle East Command with troops from the United Kingdom, South Africa, British India, Uganda Protectorate, Kenya, Somaliland, West Africa, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Sudan and Nyasaland participated in the campaign. These were joined by the Allied Force Publique of Belgian Congo, Imperial Ethiopian Arbegnoch (resistance forces) and a small unit of Free French Forces.
Italian East Africa was defended by the Comando Forze Armate dell'Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East African Armed Forces Command), with units from the Regio Esercito (Royal Army), Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force) and Regia Marina (Royal Navy). The Italian forces included about 250,000 soldiers of the Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali (Royal Corps of Colonial Troops), led by Italian officers and NCOs. With Britain in control of the Suez Canal, the Italian forces were cut off from supplies and reinforcement once hostilities began.
On 13 June 1940, an Italian air raid took place on the RAF base at Wajir in Kenya and the air war continued until Italian forces had been pushed back from Kenya and Sudan, through Somaliland, Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1940 and early 1941. The remnants of the Italian forces in the region surrendered after the Battle of Gondar in November 1941, except for small groups that fought a guerrilla war in Ethiopia against the British until the Armistice of Cassibile in September 1943, which ended the war between Italy and the Allies. The East African campaign was the first Allied strategic victory in the war; few Italian forces escaped the region to be used in other campaigns and the Italian defeat greatly eased the flow of supplies through the Red Sea to Egypt. Most of the Commonwealth forces were transferred to North Africa to participate in the Western Desert campaign.
- ^ Brock Katz 2017, p. 34.
- ^ Milkias 2011, pp. 58–59 Better source needed.
- ^ Reybrouck 2014, p. 132.
- ^ Stewart 2016, p. 187.
- ^ Maravigna 1949, p. 191.
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