GRAZIANI, RUDOLFO

Rudolfo Graziani (August 11, 1882-January 11, 1955) was an Italian general and colonial administrator. He was popularly known as the “hyena of Libya’ and the “butcher of Addis Ababa.” Beginning his military career as a soldier in Eritrea in 1908, he served in the Italian occupation of Libya in 1912. In World War I, he served in Macedonia and Tripolitania. He was subsequently appointed commander-in-chief of the Italian forces in Libya from 1930-34, and in this period became notorious for his savage repression.

PHOTO CAPTION: Graziani Ruldofo. SORCE: EA Library

In March 1935, shortly before the invasion of Ethiopia by the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (ruled 1922-43), he was appointed governor of Italian Somalia, preparatory to becoming commander of the Italian army attacking Ethiopia from the south. In June 1936, some six weeks after the Italian seizure of Addis Ababa, he was nominated to succeed Marshal Pietro Badoglio as viceroy of Ethiopia, and was responsible for Italian efforts to complete the occupation of the country, and to check the then increasing strength of the Ethiopian Patriots.

Though a ruthless ruler, he was convinced of the necessity for some support among the local population, and resisted orders from Mussolini and his Minister for the Colonies, A Lessona, for the summary execution of the Ethiopian intelligentsia. But he was guilty of other acts of repression. In February 1937, he was wounded when hand grenades were thrown at him during a reception at the palace in Addis Ababa. This event provoked the famous “Graziani massacre.”

On returning from hospital, Graziani decided on revenge, and was responsible for mass executions, including the shooting of wandering minstrels, the monks of the monastery of Dabra Libanos, 45 mi (72 km) north of Addis Ababa, and Patriots who had surrendered to him. Thus within three days local Fascists slaughtered thousands of defenseless Ethiopians. Having failed to crush Patriot resistance, and having incurred the personal animosity of Lessona, he was replaced in November 1937 by the Duke of Aosta, Amedeo di Savoia, who inaugurated a somewhat milder military regime. Mussolini admitted to his son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903/44) that Graziani had “governed badly,” but nevertheless gave him the honorofic title of Marquis of Neghelli (Nagalle).

After Mussolini’s entry in the European war in 1940, Graziani commanded Italian forces in Libya, then fighting with the British in Egypt. Defeated by the British general Sir Archibald Wavell in 1941, however, he resigned. In 1943, when the King of Italy dismissed Mussolini from office, Graziani sided with the Nazis, and became Defense Minister in Mussolini’s German-backed Italian Republic. He was later imprisoned by the post-war Italian government, which sentenced him to 19 years imprisonment in 1950, but he was pardoned a few months later.

He subsequently became president of the neo-Fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano, and died in Rome in 1955.

RICHARD PANKHURST