Battle of Debra Ailà

Battle of Debra Ailà

Part of: Italo-Ethiopian War (1895-1896)

Contemporary heroization in an Italian magazine

date	October 9, 1895
place	Debra Ailà (Debre Hale), south of Antalò (Hentalo), Tigray , Abyssinia
output	Italian victory
consequences	Advance of the Italians to Amba Alagi, entry of the Abyssinian emperor into the war

Parties to the conflict
Tigray	Italy
Commander
Mengesha Yohannes	Giuseppe Arimondi Giovanni Ameglio
Troop strength
1300 men	1 battalion Italians, 1 battalion Askari
losses
about 20 dead, several wounded, some prisoners	11 dead Askari, about 30 wounded

In the Battle of Debra Ailà (Debre Ailat) on October 9, 1895, Italian colonial troops defeated the rearguard of the Tigrin army, which had withdrawn from Tigray's capital Mek'ele . Especially by Italian historians, the battle of Debra Ailà (together with the battles of Coatit and Senafe ) is not assigned to the beginning of the Italian-Ethiopian War , but to the end of the previous Eritrea War .

Starting position

The plan of the Ethiopian governor of Tigray , Ras Mengesha Yohannes , to forestall an Italian invasion by launching a pre-emptive attack on Italian Eritrea had failed in the battles of Coatit and Senafe in January 1895. In a counter-attack, Italian troops had occupied Adua , Adigrat and Tigray's capital Mek'ele before they had to interrupt their advance with the onset of the rainy season in April 1895 and establish themselves in Mek'ele. In the meantime Ras Mengesha had set up a new army of 12,000 men together with Ras Alula Engida and initially camped a few kilometers south of the city in Antalò (Hentalo). At the end of the rainy season, the Italians also received new reinforcements and resumed their advance in September 1895. Their goal was no longer a punitive expedition , but the complete and permanent occupation and submission of Tigray.

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  Ras Mengesha (left) on the march back ( L'Illustrazione Italiana )

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  Italian advance on Mek'ele ( L'Illustrazione Italiana )

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  Oreste Baratieri on the advance on Mek'ele ( Il Secolo Illustrato )

Battle of retreat

Ras Mengesha then hurriedly retreated further south, which at least offered him the opportunity to lure the Italians pursuing him further away from their supply bases and deeper into enemy territory. This should make it more difficult for the Italians to protect their longer supply lines from increasing Tigrin and Ethiopian partisan actions. Again (as with Senafe), Ras Mengesha had to leave his camp to the Italians, who burned it. Only a small rearguard should cover Ras Mengesha's retreat.

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  Ras Mengesha

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  Giuseppe Arimondi

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  Giovanni Ameglio

On October 9, two battalions of Italian colonial troops under General Giuseppe Arimondis and Major Giovanni Ameglio's command, a total of six companies, met Mengesha's rearguard at Debra Ailà (near Antalò). With the help of their superior artillery, the Italians forced the breakthrough through the pass. The losses remained relatively small on both sides and - in contrast to the previous battles - were even relatively balanced.

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  Depiction of the battle in Il Secolo Illustrato

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  Depiction of the battle in L'Illustrazione Italiana

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  Depiction of the battle in Il Valore Italiano

Effects

Few Tigrinians were taken prisoner at Debra Ailà. Some prisoners were wounded and taken to the Adigrat hospital (1895)

The Battle of Debra Ailà did not bring the Italian invaders any military advantage. Although the defeat at Debra Ailà meant another setback for Ras Mengesha, the Italians had not succeeded in destroying the Tigrin army or at least weakening it decisively. It was to be the last victory of the Italians in this colonial war, the course of which changed fundamentally after the intervention of the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II .

Although the way was clear for another Italian advance southwards after the battle and Italian advance detachments actually occupied the strategically important mountain Amba Alagi only a few days later , their lines of communication were repeatedly disrupted and interrupted by troops guarding nearby Ras Mengeshas. Soon the Italians were cut off and trapped on the mountain. The Italian advance in Ethiopia had come to a standstill. The intervention of the Ethiopian emperor led to a united action of all peoples of the country against the invaders. While the Italian commander-in-chief, Oreste Baratieri , allowed the subjugated Tigray to pay homage in Mek'ele in mid-October 1895 and appointed his deputy Arimondi as the new military governor of Tigray, Menelik gathered a large army south of the Amba Alagi, in Dese .

The Italians and Askari who broke through at Debra Ailà to Amba Alagi also included the department of Major Pietro Toselli. Barely two months after the victory at Debra Ailà, she was attacked and defeated by Menelik's and Ras Mengesha's troops on the Amba Alagi , Toselli fell in battle. The actual “winner” of Debra Ailà, General Arimondi, only survived a few months. After the Italians were defeated at Amba Alagi in December 1895 and expelled from Mek'ele in January 1896 , Arimondi was finally killed in the decisive battle of Adua in early March 1896 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Gazzetta ufficiale del regno d'Italia from October 1895, part 4, pages 5379, 5412, 5552 and 6566f. Rome 1895
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Andrzej Bartnicki , Joanna Mantel-Niećko : History of Ethiopia - From the beginnings to the present , translation Waldemar Hein, part 1, pages 330–343. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1978 (Polish 1971)
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Wilhelm Müller, Karl Wippermann : Political History of the Present - XXIX, The year 1895 , page 315ff. Springer-Verlag, Berlin 1896
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Enciclopedia Italiana (1933): Italo-Abissina, Guerra
5. ↑ Dan Connell, Tom Killion: Historical Dictionary of Eritrea , p. 498. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2010
6. ↑ David Hamilton Shinn: Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia , pp. 71f and 274f, Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2013