Qualla: Battle of Gondar

Battle of Gondar: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I.S.O. Playfair, Public domain. The last Italian airplane in East Africa flew its final mission on 22 November 1941. Sergente Giuseppe Mottet took off in his Fiat CR.42 biplane, strafed British artillery at Kulkaber, killed the British Commander Royal Artillery, and then landed at Gondar and destroyed his own aircraft before picking up a rifle and joining the ground troops. It was, by any measure, a gesture. The Regia Aeronautica was gone from Africa. What remained was 40,000 Italian troops under General Guglielmo Nasi, sealed into a highland town 7,000 feet above Lake Tana, waiting for the British to come up the road.

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Image: I.S.O. Playfair | Public domain

Battle of Gondar: The Road up the Escarpment

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lt. H. J. Clements, No. 1 Army Film and Photographic Unit, U.K., Public domain. Gondar was always defined by the road that reached it. At Wolchefit, seventy miles out, the road chicaned up a 4,000-foot escarpment cut in places into the vertical cliff face. From there it traced the rim of the highlands through Dabat and Amba Giorgis before descending to Gonda...

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Image: Lt. H. J. Clements, No. 1 Army Film and Photographic Unit, U.K. | Public domain

Battle of Gondar: Patriots of the Arbegnoch

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I.S.O. Playfair, Public domain. The Ethiopian forces closing on Gondar were not auxiliaries. The arbegnoch - literally patriots - had been fighting the Italian occupation since the day Mussolini's troops marched into Addis Ababa in 1936. They had spent five years in the bush, feuding with Italian garrisons, pro...

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Image: I.S.O. Playfair | Public domain

Battle of Gondar: The Passes Fall

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I.S.O. Playfair, Public domain. On 13 November Major-General Charles Fowkes sent the 12th African Division at Kulkaber with Ethiopian irregular support, and was repelled. The second attack on 21 November broke through. By the end of that day Italian sources recorded 1,003 killed, 804 wounded, and 1,900 taken pr...

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Image: I.S.O. Playfair | Public domain

Battle of Gondar: Fasilides' Castle, 27 November

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A.Savin, FAL. The final assault began at 5:30 in the morning on 27 November. The Azozo airfield fell by midday. Hours later, Commonwealth troops stood at Fasilides' Castle - the 17th-century stone keep of Emperor Fasilides, the man who had made Gondar the permanent capital of Ethiopia in 1636 ...

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Image: A.Savin | FAL

Battle of Gondar: What 'Last Stand' Meant

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A.Savin, FAL. The phrase 'last stand' obscures what the battle actually ended. Mussolini's African Empire, proclaimed in 1936 to unite Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland, was extinguished at Gondar after just over five years. For Haile Selassie, restored to his throne in Addis Ababa in ...

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Image: A.Savin | FAL