Background
The Abyssinia Crisis was an international crisis in 1935 originating in what was called the Walwal incident in the then-ongoing conflict between the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Ethiopia (then commonly known as “Abyssinia”). The League of Nations ruled against Italy and voted for economic sanctions, but they were never fully applied. Italy ignored the sanctions, quit the League, made special deals with Britain and France and ultimately annexed and occupied Abyssinia after defeating it in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The crisis discredited the League and moved Fascist Italy closer to an alliance with Nazi Germany.
Both Ethiopia and Italy pursued a policy of provocation against each other and Italy prepared to invade Ethiopia, described as follows by the League of Nations:
“At places where there is not a single Italian national, a consul establishes himself in an area known as consular territory with a guard of about ninety men, for whom he claims jurisdictional immunity. This is an obvious abuse of consular privileges. The abuse is all the greater that the consul’s duties, apart from the supplying of information of a military character, take the form of assembling stocks of arms, which constitute a threat to the peace of the country, whether from the internal or the international point of view.”
On 3 October 1935, shortly after the league exonerated both parties in the Walwal incident, Italian armed forces from Eritrea invaded Ethiopia without a declaration of war, prompting Ethiopia to declare war on Italy, thus beginning the Second Italo–Abyssinian War.
Haile Selassie was forced into exile on 2 May. All the sanctions that had been put in place by the League were dropped after the Italian capture of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on the 5th of May 1936. Ethiopia was then merged with the other Italian colonies to become Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssinia_Crisis
The Game
Now for something completely different! This game was a big “what if”. Historically, no one came to Ethiopia’s aid in 1935. The war was not resolved until 1941, when the did intervene as part of their efforts to drive the Italians out of Africa. Well, this is wargaming, so we do not have to abide such niceties as history! Instead of the 1941 campaign, we thought we would try something based on the what if the British had come to the aid of the Ethiopians in 1935. It would be a nice test of FOW v4 in the pre-WWII era.
The forces would be one company of British “trained” infantry on board, with a second company in reserve. Each company contained three infantry platoons, an MMG platoon and a mortar platoon. The force was supported by a troop of Vickers MkVIb light tanks.
The Italian forces were all Somalia tribesmen “groups”. The forces came on in random locations around the board, as reserves, with some forces holding the center village.
The British victory conditions were to take the town and exit a force off the far board edge. The Italian victory conditions were to cause disproportionate causality on the British. The result of this battle, would effect the next scenario (this is part one of a linked scenario).
The game went pretty quickly. The British advanced with their first infantry company in a board front, with the armor in support. As the advance came close to the town, the Somalis started to arrive in mass. The British turned out to be too spread out. This allowed the Somalis mass on the separate platoons and cause substantial casualties. As the British began to reel, it was decided to bring the reserves forward as quickly as possible!
The British advance with the second company in a concentrated effort to take the town. This advance was too much for the Somalis, who were cleared out of the center town and killed to the man. They however still held the high ground and the British advance would not get off the board. Since the British took their first objective, but the Somalis did cause heavy losses on the British, the battle was decided as a draw. Next week we will see what this battle result has caused!
- Manteuffel