Amedeo: The True Story of an Italian’s War in Abyssinia
War-time love story set in Abyssinia, Eritrea and the Yemen 1935-1945. Amedeo Guillet is still alive and living in County Meath, Ireland. Khadija is lost.This is the story of Amedeo Guillet – an Italian calvary officer who was sent out to Abyssinia as part of Mussolini’s army to establish and command a troupe of 2,000 Spahis – or Arabic calvary. He met and fell in love with Khadija – a beautiful Ethiopian Muslim. Together they held up the British lorries heaving up the mountain road to Asmara and blew up the important Ponte Aosta. Eventually captured, Amedeo went on the run disguised as an Arab, eventually making it to Yemen, only to be thrown in jail.This is a rare view of the Second World War from an Italian perpective; particularly valuable are the chapters that tell the story of Italian resistance to the Nazis, and their subsequent withdrawal from Italy in 1943.There are few stories more cinemagraphic than this – Fascist Italy, his early years in Ethiopia commanding the Cossack-like Spahis, the brutal Abyssinian war waged by the Duce, Italian and British colonial rivalry; Amedeo led the last ever cavalry charge the British army faced (Eritrea 1941 – they were massacred by tanks and sub-machine guns), defeat and guerrilla warfare against the British; then flight, disguised as an Arab, imprisonment in the Yemen and a great love lost as he leaves his beloved Khadija behind to face her future alone and returns to Italy, to his fiancée and a career as a distinguished Italian diplomat and Arabist.Amedeo is still alive and living in County Meath, Ireland. Sebastian O’Kelly is a journalist for the Mail and Telegraph and has Amedeo’s full co-operation in writing this book.This is a very valuable and absolutely stunning story, beautifully told by O’Kelly.
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AMEDEO
The True Story ofan Italian’s Warin Abyssinia
SEBASTIAN O’KELLY
To Emily and Anna
‘Le due figliole’
‘On 19 January the 4th and 5th Indian Divisions crossed the frontier north of the Blue Nile … they met little resistance, though at one point a force of local horsemen, the Amharic Cavalry Band led by an Italian officer on a white horse, attempted a death-or-glory charge against their machine-guns.’
John Keegan, The Second World War
Beatrice Gandolfo
Khadija, photographed by Amedeo before the Second world War
The invasion of Ethiopia, October 1935: Amedeo on Sandor with the Spahys di Libya
Uncle Amedeo
Sotto-Tenente Amedeo Guillet, newly commissioned at the Cavalleggeri di Monferrato, 1931
Amedeo, in full dress uniform, 1935
Amedeo jokingly reviews some splendidly attired fellow officers
Amedeo at the Military Academy at Modena, 1928
Amedeo rides down a steep hillside during a cavalry exercise at Pinerolo
Two views of Amedeo as a competitive rider, Genoa 1934
A horseman from the Spahys di Libya
Ethiopian irregulars confront their better-armed adversaries
Realising their position is hopeless, some Ethiopian warriors take flight
The Spahys di Libya completely surround the remaining Ethiopians
Panicking warriors flee amid the Italian light tanks
The Spahys charge on, leaving the remaining Ethiopians to the Italian infantry
Italian infantry pour down the hillside and the remaining Ethiopians make a bid to escape
Ethiopian warriors parade through Addis Ababa
Marshal Badoglio arrives at the front © Ullstein Bilderdienst
Front page story …‘The punishment of Abyssinian brigands …’
Amedeo Guillet after the charge at Selaclaclà in December 1935
Haile Selassie after the defeat at Mai Ceu
The Spahys di Libya in Rome on the first anniversary of the founding of Italy’s African empire, June 1937
Antonio Ajmone Cat
The Duke of Aosta dwarfs King Vittorio Emmanuele III
Princess Jolanda and Amedeo in 1937 in Libya
Mussolini rides into Tripoli © Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contem-poranea
Mussolini, Balbo and other Fascists salute the tricolore © Biblioteca di
Storia Moderna e Contemporanea Libyan crowds greet the Duce and Italo Balbo © Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea
Mussolini on horseback surrounded by Libyan troops bearing the fasces
The Duce raises the Sword of Islam
The governor of Libya, Italo Balbo, pins a medal on Amedeo
Amedeo in Spain, beside the Fiat Ansaldo tanks
The general’s adjutant at the Italian front during the Spanish Civil War
General Frusci in the uniform of the ‘Black Flames’ division during the Spanish Civil War
A Russian armoured car captured by Amedeo and the arditi from the Spanish forces, Santander, August 1937
Rome 1938: Hitler stands beside the king; also pictured are Mussolini, Marshal De Bono, Queen Elena, Ciano, Hess, Ribbentrop and Goebbels
Barefoot, malnourished children with their heads shaven turn out for a civic ceremony in Salerno, 1937
General Graziani; and being carried away after an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, 1937
Beatrice Gandolfo in February 1937, in medieval costume
The fortified outpost at Amba Gheorgis on the road from Gondar to Asmara
Amedeo talking to Landolfo Colonna
Amedeo welcomed by dancing women in the highlands of Begemeder, 1938
Amedeo with an important Ethiopian chief in 1939
Amedeo drilling his garrison at Amba Gheorgis in 1939
The Duke of Aosta inspects the fort at Amba Gheorgis
The garrison at Amba Gheorgis rides out, with Amedeo saluting
Amedeo and others are carried in triumph at Amba Gheorgis after a successful operation against Ethiopian rebels
The Gruppo Bande Amhara a Cavallo Group in full charge
Amedeo with his Gruppo Bande in Eritrea, 1940
Amedeo rides beside General Frusci’s car at an inspection of the Gruppo Bande in the summer of 1940
The infantry of The Gruppo Bande were made up of Yemeni mercenaries
The British invade: The Gazelle Force on the move
The West Yorks Regiment at Dologorodoc
General Nicola Carnimeo
General Frank Messervy
General Lorenzini, the ‘Lion of Keren’
Surrender of the Duke of Aosta
Lieutenant Renato Togni with the horse on which he was killed at Keru in 1941
Daifallah the Yemeni
Amedeo as Ahmed Abdullah
A rare photograph of Ahmed, Imam of the Yemen
Major Max Harari riding the captured Sandor at Asmara, autumn 1941
Major Max Harari leaving his office in Asmara
Sandor’s hoof
