East Africa 1940-1941 by Marek Sobski

Length: 465 pages counting appendices

This is the first of the series Mr. Sobski has planned about Italy's WWII campaigns. He starts off with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936 and their efforts at colonizing the land, linking Eritrea and Somaliland by an Imperial Road, and looking ahead to what could be done there in the event of a European war. There was also Italy's attempts to pacify the country with the buying of tribal chiefs loyalty with guns and money. Italy also raised their own colonial troops from the natives.

In June of 1940, Italy joins WWII. They initially think of invading the French enclave at Djibouti, but then make inroads into Sudan and Kenya, which they later abandoned. Italian forces then manage an invasion and conquest of British Somaliland on the Gulf of Aden.

We then get the British response from each direction. Orde Wingate takes his Gideon Force from Sudan with Emperor Haile Selassie into the country and gets him to Addis Ababa. We also read about the conquest of Italian Somaliland with the help of South African troops and aircraft and the King's African Rifles. There is also the campaign to take back British Somaliland, the conquest of Eritrea, the liberation of Addis Ababa, and the breaking of the balance of Italian resistance at Amba Alagi, the Gala and Sidama province and the last stand at Gandor.

The Italian nationals left in country initially try to make a resistance of their own, but are broken up by the British victors and shipped off the prison camps in Kenya.

Sobski does make sure to give the story from both sides, from Italian and British sources, and gives us detailed casualty figures, as well as the part Ethiopian patriots play in the battles. Most of the Italian efforts were on the backs of native troops who would change sides when they found out the emperor was back in the country. It's also very detailed, and needs to be taken in small bits.

On the other side of the ledger, the layout is odd, putting the table of contents at the end. The maps should be in color so those of us with failing eyesight can make out the detail. It does cover a campaign often ignored so it's good for that reason, but just beware of the idiosyncrasies, and the translations from Polish and Italian are literal so it may not make sense initially.

I give this 3 stars out of 5.