Background

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Italian Invasion (Amharic: የጣልያን ወረራ,
Tigrigna: ናይ ጣልያን ወረራ, Afaan Oromoo: Weerara Xaaliyaanii) by Ethiopians, was a war of aggression
which was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from October 1935 to February 1937.

On 3 October 1935, two hundred thousand soldiers of the Italian Army commanded by
Marshal Emilio De Bono attacked from Eritrea and a small force under General Rodolfo
Graziani attacked from Italian Somalia. Italy mobilised 390 aircraft, 9300 machine guns,
2275 pieces of artillery, and 899 tanks and 205 aircraft. On the other hand, The Ethiopian
Army, which was made up of between 350,000 and 60,000 trained and untrained peasants,
with 400,000 rounds of ammunition, mostly obsolete rifles, 234 antiquated pieces of artillery,
75 anti-tank guns, 4 tanks, and 13 outdated aircraft. It is as clear as the day light that the Italy
army out matched the Ethiopians.

General Graziani bombarded the Ethiopian city of Harar on March 29, 1936, and two days
later, the Italians won the Battle of Maychew, putting an end to any potential organised
opposition. Following the loss of the Ethiopian soldiers under Emperor Haile Selassie’s direct
command at the Battle of Maychew on 31 March 1936. The emperor departed their empire to
the League of Nations to ask for their support and assistance against the fascist Italy. During
his departure, he appointed Ras Imru Haile Selassie, a personal friend and close relative, as
his regent. In Gore, in the southwest of the nation, Ras Imru Haile Selassie sought to establish
a Provisional Government. Gore, on the other hand, was situated deep within the Oromo
people's territory, and they resented his efforts to uphold imperial authority. Some even went
so far as to contact the British to ask them to acknowledge their efforts to forge a Western
Galla Confederation. Ras Imru considered his position to be untenable as the Italians pushed
closer to Nekemte on October 24 and marched south in search of friendlier circumstances.
During November, the two sides moved throughout southwest Ethiopia, with the Italians
chasing the Ethiopians, until Ras Imru was cornered on the banks of the Gojeb River. There,
after a bloody battle, Ras Imru surrendered on December 18.

On July 28, The Ethiopian forces attempted a miss calculated effort to retake Addis Abeba.
Although this attack was sudden, the italian general, Gariboldi, had anticipated the possibility
of an attack on the city. Hence, the Ethiopians were repelled from all sides. The attack on the
city was unsuccessful despite a decisive rally by Abune Petros on the penultimate day of
combat, who led a final offensive in St. George's Square.

Eventually, the last Ethiopian soldiers in the southeast were being run down. Through
November, Ras Desta Damtew and Dejazmach Beyene Merid still held sway over the
provincial capitals of Irgalem and Goba, respectively.Ras Desta and Dejazmach Beyene
Merid fled into the Bale Province highlands when a mechanized brigade led by Captain Tucci
entered the area on November 23 and set off a Sidama rebellion. On December 1, the Italians
captured Irgalem. A hunt down followed, and on February 18, 1937, at the Battle of Gogetti,
the final few thousand men under their command were surrounded near Lake Shala and
wiped out by the superior Italian numbers. Ras Desta was able to flee the battlefield on his
own, but a few days later he was found and put to death. Ras Desta Damtew's passing
signified the end of all organized Ethiopian resistance to the fascist Italians.

Attack on Graziani
To commemorate the birth of the Prince of Naples, Graziani announced that on Friday,
February 19, he would personally distribute alms to the poor at the Genete Leul Palace (also
known as the Little Gebbi). Abraha Deboch and Mogus Asgedom, two young Eritreans living
in Ethiopia, were among the crowd that gathered that Friday morning. Officials began
distributing the promised alms to priests and the poor at 11 a.m. Abraha and Mogus slipped
through the crowd to the bottom of the steps leading to the Little Gebbi, where they began
throwing grenades.

According to one account, they lobbed ten of them before fleeing in the ensuing confusion.
According to Richard Pankhurst, a third conspirator, a taxi driver named Simeyon Adefres,
rushed them away from the scene. Pankhurst also credits him with supplying the grenades
thrown by Abraha and Mogus. It is said that Adefres obtained the grenades from an Ethiopian
resistance soldier whom he had befriended, and that this same soldier, a machine-gunner,
taught Abraha and Mogus how to use the grenades.

Among those injured were the Abuna himself, Vice-Governor General Armando Petretti, Air
Force General Aurelio Liotta, and the Viceroy himself; one grenade exploded next to him,
sending 365 fragments into his body. Graziani was rushed to an Italian hospital, where he
was immediately operated on and saved. The attack resulted in the loss of General Liotta's
leg.

Abraha and Mogus sought refuge in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan after hiding at the ancient
monastery of Debre Libanos. They were murdered somewhere in Gojjam by locals. Adefris
returned to Addis Abeba after driving Abraha and Mogus to the monastery, their first
destination, where he stayed for a week; however, soon after his return to the capital, he was
arrested and tortured to death by Fascist authorities.

Reprisals
The Italian response was immediate. According to Mockler, "Italian carabinieri had fired into
the crowds of beggars and poor assembled for the distribution of alms; and it is said that the
Federal Secretary, Guido Cortese, even fired his revolver into the group of Ethiopian
dignitaries standing around him." Hours later, Cortese gave the fatal order:

“Comrades, today is the day when we should show our devotion to

our Viceroy by reacting and destroying the Ethiopians for three
days. For three days I give you carte blanche to destroy and kill and
do what you want to the Ethiopians.”

Italians murdered Ethiopians with daggers and truncheons for the remainder of the day, all
through Saturday and Sunday, to cries of "Duce! Duce!" and "Civiltà Italiana!" They lit the
houses on fire after dousing them in gasoline. Their servants were lynched after they broke
into the homes of the neighborhood Greeks and Armenians. Some even posed on the corpses
of their victims to have their photographs taken. Between 1,400 and 30,000 Ethiopians were
murdered by the Italians in Addis Abeba alone over the course of three days.
The attempted murder gave the Italians a justification for carrying out Mussolini's order for
the quick execution of "The Young Ethiopians," a small group of intellectuals who had
attended American and European colleges. Mussolini had issued this order as early as 3 May
1936. A military trial was established the same day as the murder, and by evening, 62
Ethiopians were shot and tried at the Alem Bekagn jail in Addis Abeba. According to Bahru
Zewde, "The Graziani Massacre signaled the virtually complete extermination of the
intellectual component of the Resistance.

Many thousands of Ethiopians from all social groups were taken to the prison facilities at
Nokra and Danan in the Dahlak Archipelago. Inhumane conditions prevailed at Danan, and
Graziani had instructed that the captives would only be provided with the barest necessities in
terms of food and drink. Poor sanitary conditions, such as those in the latrines, the humid
climate, malaria, stomach infections, and venereal disease all contributed to the deaths of
many people, particularly those who were forced to work on the irrigation canal or on the
banana and sugarcane plantations, according to Sbacchi. At Danan, between ten percent and
fifty percent of the prisoners perished.

Sbacchi claimed that the circumstances in Nokra were even worse than those at Danan. The
additional detainees brought the overall number of people in prison to 1,500, where 500
people are currently serving life terms for significant political offences. The prisoners had
diarrhea, marsh fever, sunstroke, and a shortage of fresh water.

In May, the last retaliation occurred. The fact that Abraha and Mogus had spent some time at
Debra Libanos was discovered by the investigators, and a thin line of circumstantial evidence
suggested that the monks were aware of their intentions. Because of his mishap at Jijiga,
Graziani believed that they were involved. On May 19, he cabled the local commander,
ordering him to summarily execute all monks, including the Vice-Prior. The whole residents
of the monastery—297 monks and 23 laymen were shot the following day, which was also
the feast day of Tekle Haymanot, their patron saint, according to the records of the Italian
fascists; other sources place the death toll between 1,500 and 2,000.

Casualties
The number of victims of the massacre is uncertain. According to Ethiopian authorities, 30,000
people died, although French and American newspapers reported death tolls between 1,400 and 6,000.
3,000 deaths were reported by British novelist Anthony Mockler and historian Angelo Del Boca. Ian
L. Campbell's 2017 chronicle of the massacre estimates 19,200 fatalities.

"BURNING HOUSES ILLUMINATED THE AFRICAN NIGHT”

The Hungarian, Dr. Ladislav Sava, or Shaska, offers one of many graphic eyewitness reports. He
recounts that Guido Cortese, the leader of the fascist party, "called the blackshirts to the seat of the
Fascio, the chiefs to a consultation, and the others to wait for orders" immediately following the
attempt. They quickly sped away from the Fascio in all directions while fully armed. Everyone in the
town fell victim to expectation, but the reality was far worse than anyone could have imagined. It is
true that blood was really running down the streets, so I feel compelled to express it. Vultures were
circling over the men, women, and children's corpses as they lay scattered in all directions. The
African night was lit up by massive flames coming from the burning houses.

"The greatest slaughter began after 6 o’clock in the evening… During that awful night, Ethiopians
were thrust into lorries, heavily guarded by armed blackshirts. Revolvers, truncheons, rifles and
daggers were used to murder completely unarmed black people, of both sexes and all ages. Every
black person seen was arrested and bundled into a lorry and killed, either in the lorry or near the
Little Ghebi [the present Addis Ababa University building], sometimes at the moment when he met
the blackshirts. Ethiopian houses and huts were searched and then burnt with their inhabitants. To
quicken the flames, benzine and oil were used in great quantities. The shooting never ceased all night,
but most of the murders were committed with daggers and blows with a truncheon at the head of the
victim. Whole streets were burned down, and if any of the occupants of the houses ran out from the
flames they were machine-gunned or stabbed with cries of ‘Duce! Duce! Duce!’ From the lorries in
which groups of prisoners were brought up to be murdered near the Ghebi, the blood flowed on to the
streets and again from the lorries we heard the cry, `Duce! Duce! Duce!'”.

“I shall never forget,” Sava concludes, “that I saw that night Italian officers passing in their
luxurious cars through the blood-drenched streets, stopping at some point whence they could have a
better panorama of the murdering and the burning, accompanied by their wives whom I am very
reluctant to call women."

According to another eyewitness account made public by the Ethiopian Legation in London,

"The streets were strewn with dead bodies… No one dared venture out. From that time began a
method which was followed thoroughly during the three long days… The method consisted of setting
fire to the houses, waiting for the inhabitants to be driven out by the fire and massacring them without
distinction, with daggers, bayonets, hand grenades, cudgels, stones and, at times, with guns. One
could see groups of Fascists chaining the lorries and amusing themselves by dragging along poor
men from one part of the town to the other until their bodies fell to pieces… In certain quarters the
corpses entirely covered the streets and the squares. In St. George’s Square, already robbed of the
equestrian statue of Menelik II, the dead bodies formed a veritable pile. Now the appearance of the
city is like a field of battle after the fighting is over.”

A MISSIONARY ACCOUNT

The American missionaries Herbert and Della Hanson later verified the illustration above. When they
returned to the city soon after the massacre, they "discovered enormous sections burned that had been
covered with living homes," according to their account. Even around the hospital walls, where there
had been many huts, all was burnt wreckage. When we discovered that many of the huts had been set
on fire while their occupants were still inside, it made us sick to our stomachs to witness the
destruction.

FRENCH AND BRITISH REPORTS

Shortly after the massacre a special correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian” reported that the
French Minister in Addis Ababa had stated that 6,000 Ethiopians had been “murdered in three days,”
and that the British Consulate “knew over 2,000 names of the killed.”

SUBSEQUENT STATEMENTS ON OATH

Later, on oath, several witnesses corroborate the aforementioned accounts. Thus, Edouard
Garabedian, an Armenian businessman, recalled that on the first day of the slaughter, he overheard
Italians "saying they were waiting orders for reprisals," and that "at about five o'clock, I witnessed
them with my own eyes, beating every Ethiopian they could locate. These Italians were everyday
people. Anything they could locate was being used as cudgels, etc. Several of the Italians told me they
had been given orders to set fire to various Ethiopian neighborhoods. The entire night they burned
down houses. The following morning, I learned that numerous Ethiopians had perished during the
nighttime house fires set by the Italians.

NOT AN ACCIDENTAL FIRE

Ethiopian firefighter Captain Toka Binegid later testified that when the first signs of the fire were
noticed, his commanding officer, an Italian, sent them to the Sidist Kilo neighborhood of the town to
put out a purported accidental conflagration. However, "when we arrived there, we saw the Italians
burning the houses intentionally, so our officer ordered us not to put out the fire, saying he understood
what it was all about. While we were still standing there, we witnessed numerous individuals being
slain by Italians as they attempted to flee burning homes.

Another observer of these events, Blatta Dawit Ogbazgi, who was arrested on the Friday and detained
with "about a thousand people" in a police station near Ras Makonnen Bridge, later testified that "the
same day people were brought in lorries; they were taken without distinction and most of them were
bleeding from hits. These used to be thrown down by fascists from vehicles. The Italians shot some of
them in front of us because they were thrown from the lorries and rolled down to the river. The tukuls
and homes that were in front of us were all on fire.

THE DEATH TOLL AMONG THE FOREIGN EDUCATED

Many foreign-educated Ethiopians were killed by the fascists during the massacre, particularly those
who had studied in Britain or the United States. The six sons of the Ethiopian Minister in London,
Tsege Marqos Wolde Tekle, Gabre Medhen Awoqe, Ayenna Birru, Yohannes Boru, Yosuf and
Benjamin Martin, as well as Besha Worrid Hapte Wold and Makonnen Haile, two Americans who
had studied abroad, and Kifle Nassibu, a French-educated person, were all among those who perished.

CONSEQUENCES FOR THE PATRIOTIC MOVEMENT

It is generally acknowledged that this awful massacre had a significant impact on Ethiopian thought
and gave the resistance movement fresh energy. The "New Times and Ethiopia News" correspondent
in Djibouti reported shortly afterwards, on 11 March, that Addis Ababa was "almost empty of
Abyssinians," and added that as a result of the incident "the Abyssinians know there is nothing left for
them but to fight, and the world will presently hear that they are everywhere attacking anew. Those
who left Addis are prepared for Italy, and they will battle once more.

Remembering Yekatit 12 Italy’s Deadly Attack on

Ethiopians
As we saw, the Addis Abeba fascists launched a three-day massacre in response to an assault
on the life of the Italian Viceroy, Graziani, on February 19, 1937. This massacre had a
significant negative effect on the Ethiopian Patriotic movement. The massacre was so
significant that more explanation is needed for its recording.

An effort to assassinate Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, marchese di Neghelli, Viceroy of Italian

East Africa, on February 19, 1937, or Yekatit 12 in the Ethiopian calendar, resulted in the
construction of the Yekatit 12 monument in Addis Abeba, which honours those killed in
Italian retaliation. It is situated in the middle of Sidist Kilo Square, also known as "Yekatit 12
square" (Amharic for "Six Kilometre Square '').

The massacre on Yekatit 12 was one of many crimes committed against the Ethiopian people
by their occupiers during this time. Although time has passed, the wounds caused by this
moment in history are still open and unhealed. The Addis Ababa Massacre, also known as the
Yekatit 12 Massacre, was the worst single crime carried out during the Italian occupation of
Ethiopia. In retaliation for the attempted assassination of Rodolfo Graziani, also known as
"the Butcher of Fezzan," Viceroy of Italian East Africa, fascist troops killed more than
30,000 Ethiopians in a three-day massacre on February 19, 1937. Yekatit 12 is a day in the
Ethiopian calendar that is frequently used to refer to the mare. It is equivalent to February 19
in the Gregorian calendar.

The deaths in Yekatit 12 were between 30,000 and 40,000, according to Italian and British
troops. However, that figure might be much higher given that the Italian government kept the
identities of the majority of its important players a secret during the Nuremberg Trials.
Yekatit 12 left an indelible mark on Ethiopia, and those effects can still be felt today. Despite
the passage of time, Italy has yet to truly apologise to Ethiopia for occupying Yekatit 12 or
make restitution. Ethiopia continues to subtly support the exiled Monarch Haile Selassie and
oppose Italian rule.

The indiscriminate violence and devastation that took place during this period left Ethiopia
with a permanent scar, and the memory of those who perished on Yekatit 12 continues to
haunt the nation.

Ethiopians commemorate the Italian occupation of Addis Ababa, the nation's capital, on
February 19, 1937, with the national holiday known as yekatit 12.It also honors the beginning
of a broad rebellion against colonial control, as well as the Emperor's exhortation to his
people to struggle for independence from foreign rule.All around Ethiopia, prayers and
activities are done to commemorate the day.In remembrance of those who lost their lives
fighting the occupation and for independence, flags are flown at half-staff.

Conclusion

The Graziani Massacre occurred in Ethiopia during the Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941
and was named after the Italian general who ordered it. Thousands of Ethiopians were killed
when Italian troops opened fire on a large gathering in Addis Ababa. This atrocity was part of
a broader campaign of violence and oppression designed to assert Italian control over the
country and break the will of the Ethiopian people.

In response to the occupation and the brutality that came with it, a Patriotic movement
emerged in Ethiopia. Led by Emperor Haile Selassie and other Ethiopian patriots, the
movement used various strategies such as armed resistance, diplomacy, and propaganda to
resist Italian rule and assert Ethiopian sovereignty. Guerrilla warfare was waged against
Italian forces, while diplomatic initiatives aimed to gain international support for the
Ethiopian cause. Propaganda campaigns were used to rally the population behind the
resistance.

Despite significant damage and loss of life during the occupation, the Patriotic movement
was ultimately successful in driving the Italians out of Ethiopia in 1941. The movement was a
powerful expression of Ethiopian nationalism and the resilience of the Ethiopian people in
the face of colonialism and oppression.

Reference
Wikipidia.org, Yekatit 12
ENA.et, The martyrdom of Yekatit 12 (February 19)

Wikipedia.org, Second Italo-Ethiopian War

Anthony, Mockler (2003). "Chapter 12: The Attack on Addis Ababa". In Portwood, Nigel;
Richardson, Louise; Patten, Christopher Francis (eds.). Haile Selassie's War. Signal Bks (3rd
ed.).

Richard Pankhurst, "Events during the Fascist Occupation: in February 1937: Who Was the
Third Man?", Addis Ababa Tribune, published 27 February 2004

Bekele, Yilma (14 January 2018). Kifle, Elias; Wondimu, Elias (eds.). "My brother Abebe and
his WMD". Ethiopian Review. Hailu Indashaw and Elias Kifle.

"Yekatit 12 square" Briggs, Philip (2009). Guide to Ethiopia (fifth ed.). Old Saybrook: Globe Pequot
Press. p. 171

"Spomenik Žrtvama fašizma u Addis Abebi, Yekatit 12 Square (Augustinčić u prvom planu)".
Croatian Cultural Heritage. 12 January 2011. Retrieved 21 March 2

05. The Graziani Massacre and Consequences WWW.linkethiopia.org