With Italy’s annexation of Ethiopia its earlier possessions in East Africa being Italian Somaliland and Eritrea were expanded to Africa Orientale Italiana.
The Italian military presence in East Africa was expanded from the regular colonial regiments after the conquest of Abyssinia by new irregular native levy officered by Italians and called “gruppi bande”.
With Italy’s imminent entry into World War II General Frusci, Governor of Eritrea, decided to create one more gruppo bande, a rather special gruppo bande for deep reconnaissance on the instructions of the Viceroy and Amedeo Guillet was directed to form such a unit. This gruppo bande was to be autonomous, not to be responsible to divisional headquarters but to Frusci himself. By then Amedeo Guillet though merely a Lieutenant was a well decorated one with war service in Spain and Abyssinia under his belt.
The force was to be called the Gruppo Bande Amhara a Cavallo (the Amhara Cavalry Group) since it was formed at Gondar, in the Amhara region. Nevertheless eventually there were in the Group Muslims, Copts, Eritreans, Tigreans, Amhara, Yemenis, and even some Arab smugglers from the Sheikh Rasciaid tribe. There would be 100 Eritrean ascari NCOs and for officers half a dozen Italian Lieutenants in their early to mid-twenties. Amedeo’s second-in-command was Lieutenant Renato Togni, the son of his Commanding Officer at the Military Academy at Modena.
Eventually, the Gruppo had 800 horsemen, 400 Yemeni infantrymen and a Camel Corps of 200 animals.
At the beginning of 1941, Italians, far and isolated from Homeland, were going every day weaker and the British stronger.
So the British command decided to attack Eritrea. The British Forces had as their vanguard the Gazelle Force so called because the Force’s main supply of fresh meat came from shooting gazelle. Celebrated names from the Indian Army were amongst the officers, the Force’s Commander was Colonel Frank Messervy, later General Sir Frank Messervy, a cavalryman from the elite Hudson’s Horse. The Force was composed of the 11th Sikhs, Rajputana Rifles, Skinner’s Horse (by then an armoured regiment), British gunners of the 25th Field Regiment, the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry, and a handful of armoured cars from the Sudan Defence Force.
On the 20th January, 1941 General Ugo Fongoli commanding the Italian Forces in the area summoned Amedeo from his encampment to the fort of Keru, 3 Kms away. Keru was in the Eritrean lowlands which give way to the sands of the desert of the Sudan further north. On his arrival Amedeo was immediately received by Fongoli.
The British had headed straight for the oasis of Kassala in the Sudan which had been taken the early year by a force of 12,000 Italian troops.
The enemy was advancing fast with motorized infantry and armour, and their vanguard had the formidable Mathilda ‘I’ tanks. Fongoli indicated that 10,000 Italian troops who had been at Kassala were now on the frontier falling back towards Keru, and they were to be sent further back to Agordat where a new front would be formed. What the General wanted was to get the troops from the frontier on the way to Agordat and then to abandon the fort and get his own men underway.
Having no tanks, no armour of any kind, and just a few trucks, the only mobile troops available were the Gruppo Bande Amhara a Cavallo. The General asked Amedeo, hesitantly, whether he could delay the British advance for just one day. Amedeo with the elan of the cavalryman unhesitatingly said yes.
That night saw the Gazelle Force mustered before Keru, its 25-pounders pointing at the fort, the armoured cars of Skinner’s Horse placed in a protective screen around the guns and Gazelle Force HQ, with the Sikhs and the Rajputana Rifles for the present to the rear.
Came the predawn of the 21st January, 1941 when Amedeo’s cavalry now in extended line quietly slipped through the sparse trees and out of them jumped into full gallop for their objective, the infantry bivouac a scant 100 yards away beyond which were the Skinner’s, the Gazelle Force HQ, and the 25-pounders pointing towards Keru. The wave of horse lobbing grenades, firing carbines, and slashing with scimitars went through the Sikhs and Rajputana Rifles with very little resistance and was suddenly gone, then skirting the Skinner’s the horsemen galloped for the gun batteries reaching the gunlines of two troops of 390 Battery of the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry. Cries of ‘Tank alert!’ ‘Tank alert!’ rent the air. Gunners flung themselves on to their 25-pounders and started turning them 180 degrees. They thought tanks were charging them and loading with armour-piercing shells fired over open sights at the line of horse in front. No one had imagined that they were facing a horse cavalry charge until it was almost on top of them. Shells flew over the ground at a height of 2-3 feet. The furious cannonade was passing through the enemy horsemen in extended line and falling on the British lines to the rear. In an earlier era it was accepted that cannon balls were not much more effective than musket balls at cavalry charging in extended line. For dealing with such grapeshot was indicated. In the present circumstances armour-piercing shell was not of much use. Shrapnel was indicated. Flat in a shallow trench 600 yards away Captain Douglas Gray at first thought the falling shells were of an Italian barrage. Had the shells been filled with high explosives rather being armour-piercing ones Gazelle Force would have suffered more severely from its own guns. Incidentally, Captain Gray was the Regiment’s champion pig-sticker who had also ridden in the 1938 Grand National. Captain Philip Tower of the 25th Field Regiment RA was more worried by the shells fired by his own gunners than he was worried by the horsemen – “I fancy they did not do much damage to the enemy but it was a splendid noise and very frightening for a short time.”
All was over in a few minutes and the Gruppo wheeling to the left reached the safety of the dry riverbed of the Washamoia.
Amedeo’s and Togni’s squadrons regrouped in the wadi before the other squadrons. The two men wryly smiled. Togni was presently going to sacrifice his life. Amedeo ordered Togni to get the Yemeni infantry in position and start firing, while he was to defend the Gruppo Bande’s right with his squadron. About that time Leutnant Battizzocco in full view of the Gazelle Force was manoeuvring his camels on a hillside. More shots and grenades exploding accompanied the arrival of the squadrons of Cara and Lucarelli. Gazelle Force was forced to postpone the attack on Keru. The Gruppo Bande’s objective to delay the attack on Keru by one day had succeeded.
Gazelle Force sent three Mathilda ‘I’ tanks forward. Togni was the first to notice the tanks working their way round far to the right of the Gruppo Bande who were now two or three kilometres away from their first charge. Once the British realized the flimsiness of the Italian attack their fast British armoured cars would follow. The tanks had to be at least delayed. Togni separated 30 of his horsemen and ordered the rest of them and the Yemenis on foot to fall back and rejoin the Comandante. He sent a note through Dr. Call, the Veterinary Surgeon, to Amedeo that he would charge with 30 of “my marshals” to hold up the Mathildas and give time for the Gruppo Bande to withdraw and re-form.
When the tanks reached the wadi and tipped over the edge their guns pointed down, Togni charged. British officers through fieldglasses saw the amazing sight of horsemen attacking their huge Mathilda ‘I’s, hurling grenades on to the armour which deafened and confused the crews. Clearing the wadi the tank machine-guns came into play and of the gallant 31 who charged but two returned to the Italian lines. Togni galloping high above a tank along the wadi bank and launching handgrenades was brought down with his horse by a burst of machine-gun fire, the lifeless bodies of man and horse rolling off the bank on to the roof of a Mathilda ‘I’. The memory of Togni was awarded with a gold medal.
Fantastic as it may be, the British kept close to their guns. Around midday the infantry and light armoured cars with great caution went forward in a strung out 600 to 700 mtrs frontline across the plain. The armoured cars of Skinner’s Horse were on the right, on the left were other armoured vehicles of the Sudanese Force, while in the middle were the 4/11th Sikhs.
Amedeo got his squadron ready, then up and out of the wadi he bounded, behind him an ascaro carrying his horsetail banner with the tricolour and Cross of Savoy and his squadron in line doing likewise and as he shouted “Savoia” they were racing straight at the enemy infantry. The Sikhs fired a few shots, broke and ran to the cover of the armoured cars. The armour on either side could not fire due to their own men being mixed up with the charging horsemen. Once through the infantry the Gruppo Bande with Amedeo at its head, twenty riderless horses amongst them, galloped on. Above the pounding of the horses’ hooves could be heard the roar of the pursuing armour and the rat-tat-tat of the machine-guns. Suddenly the muzzles of some Indian artillery were facing them. They wheeled and the guns fired harmlessly. Then Amadeo and his men entered the woods in front and found safety.
That day the Gruppo Bande Ahmara suffered 176 casualties, and 100 horses dead, plus 260 WIAs safetly turned home.