SAVOIA-AOSTA, A.DI
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Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta (October 21, 1898-March 1942) was the last viceroy during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1936-41), holding office from 1937-41.
PHOTO CAPTION: Savoia- Aosta, SOURCE: EA Library
The son of Prince Emmanuele Filiberto, he was born in Turin. After serving in World War I, he participated in expeditions to Italian Somalia, and subsequently visited South Africa, Tanganyika, and the Belgian Congo before becoming a colonel in charge of “colonial troops” in Libya, from 1927-30.
After the attempt on the life of the Italian viceroy Rodolfo Graziani in Addis Ababa in February 1937, Alessandro Lessona, the Italian Fascist Minister for the Colonies, proposed to the Fascist dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini (in power from 1922-43) that the Duke of Aosta be appointed to this post, and this was done in November 1937. A critic of Graziani’s policy of ruthlessness, the Duke attempted to mitigate some of the worst abuses of the regime and to give it greater stability. But he was responsible, on direct orders from Rome, for the imposition of the policy of racial discrimination that marked his term of office.
Unable to crush the Ethiopian Patriots, who were waging guerrilla warfare, he warned Mussolini of the danger to his African empire of becoming embroiled in war with Britain and France. Mussolini, however, ignored his warning, and declared war on the two powers on June 10, 1940.
After the opening of the Ethiopian liberation campaign in 1940, the Duke of Aosta attempted to halt the Allied advance but, after strenuous resistance, was captured by the British at Amba Alagé on May 16, 1941. He was taken to Kenya as a prisoner, where he died in March 1942. His posthumous Studi Africani was published in Bologna later in that year.
RICHARD PANKHURST
