The First Victory

by Andrew Stewart

  There was, however, some disagreement about how best to proceed. Dickinson was more interested in launching an offensive east of Lake Rudolf and also indicated that he wanted to split the South African forces now under his command and use them only for defensive operations. In so doing he had made a fatal miscalculation as to Smuts’ level of authority and the growing relationship that existed between him and his British counterpart.47 One Whitehall official remarked that the ‘personal ties between the two leaders . . . were so strong that there was no thought of contention’, while the English prime minister’s own private secretary believed that ‘Churchill could find no fault in Smuts, who represented so much that he approved’.48 Churchill’s physician went even further, writing after the war that the South African was seen as his most trusted overseas’ adviser and one of only two men to whom he ever really listened.49

  Dickinson’s position was further weakened as, despite having achieved some success in developing his military forces, he had also managed to make himself extremely unpopular amongst sections of the local community in Nairobi.50 In part this was due to his outspoken comments about some of the former members of the Kenya Regiment who had been drafted in to his staff at the outset of the war, but Fowkes, who was well placed to comment, was not alone amongst his subordinates in having little confidence in his general’s abilities as a commander.51 It is not entirely clear who made the actual decision to relieve him of his command but Wavell delivered the news. He appeared to feel some sympathy for Dickinson, although he accepted that he had not been good enough for the job in Kenya and the independent opportunities for command and leadership it required. Nonetheless, Wavell wrote back to Dill asking that his now former subordinate be given another role, arguing that ‘he is worth a division, with someone above him close at hand’.52

  The replacement as commander of British and Commonwealth forces in East Africa was General Sir Alan Cunningham, the brother of one of Wavell’s most senior colleagues, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Station. Dill had originally intended to send General Francis Nosworthy out to Nairobi from Britain, having watched him throughout the summer command IV Corps, which had been given the critical role of acting as a mobile counter-attack force if the Germans had invaded. Having been offered the post, within twenty-four hours the unfortunate Nosworthy was informed that he required a relatively minor operation and, as this would delay his departure, Cunningham was selected in his place.53 He was another professional soldier who had been commissioned in 1906 through Woolwich, not Sandhurst, and fought throughout the First World War with the Royal Horse Artillery, being mentioned in dispatches five times and awarded both a Distinguished Service Order and the Military Cross.54 He was considered one of the two most educated officers in the inter-war British Army – the other being Arthur Percival, who later led the disastrous defence of Singapore – having attended courses at Camberley, Greenwich and the Imperial Defence College. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed to command three territorial divisions in turn, the last of which was in Scotland, where he took charge of the 51st (Highland) Division.55 Prior to Cunningham’s arrival in Kenya, the governor, Sir Henry Moore, had been told by Lord Lloyd, Secretary of State for the Colonies, that he was easy to get along with and well thought of by Dill.56 Within a few weeks it was confirmed to London that Cunningham had been well received and that everybody who met him, including Smuts and South Africa’s senior military officer General Pierre van Ryneveld, was ‘most favourably impressed’.57

  The period that followed on the southern front came to be marked by intense activity, with the strengthening and continued preparation of the British and Commonwealth forces for the battle ahead. Moore had also been told in late October that he could anticipate ‘a move on – at last’ as there was no longer any fear within the British government of annoying Italy.58 Cunningham unfortunately contracted both malaria and dysentery shortly after his arrival and it took him ten days to recover. This meant a slight extension to the inaction, but by the first week of December he had already gained a good idea of the task facing him and was now well enough to fly to Cairo, where he conferred in person for the first time with his immediate superior.59 According to his own post-war account, at this stage Wavell still did not really anticipate anything more than harassing the Italians with whatever forces he had available and, despite the suggestions from London, there was no thought of attempting a large-scale invasion of Italian East Africa.60 Cunningham had in fact been similarly briefed by Dill before he departed and, as he later wrote, ‘his attitude was that I might be able to do something towards Kismayu. But it was quite clear to me that he was doubtful as to its feasibility.’61 He nonetheless set off determined that if the opportunity presented itself he would ‘have a crack’, but on arrival in Nairobi found what he concluded were still very limited resources – less than two divisions of trained troops, including the West African units that were not acclimatised and had their training to complete. There were no troop carriers to move these forces, though a locally produced version was being made in the workshops which continued to be so important in equipping the region’s military forces. It was also clear that there had been little training in the basic movement of motor transport and there were not nearly enough drivers for the numbers of trucks that would be required to move the men and their supplies around.62 Despite Dickinson’s alleged preparations, Cunningham could find no evidence of planning for how an advance could be conducted and therefore had to start arrangements for the dumping of stores and ammunition and even the – potentially critical – construction of water points.

  These omissions highlighted why Wavell had shown his reluctance to commit to an early offensive when pressed by London. During his pre-war lectures on leadership he had made specific reference to the huge importance logistics could have on the willingness of soldiers to fight.63 Cunningham also recognised the vital need to maintain sufficient supplies for his forces, especially over the long distances that they would need to advance, and, having seen the lack of preparations, he requested a delay. Indeed he went so far as to stress within days of his arrival that no offensive against Kismayu would be possible in February unless there was the ‘gravest strategical necessity’. Once again it was the South Africans who took a leading role in helping to overcome the challenge of providing drinking water, and their arrival with water-boring equipment proved crucial.64 Efforts were made to improve existing supplies such as at Marsabit, where by December 1940 the 1st South African Division was well established, and specialist engineers drilled new wells drawing upon the lake which formed part of the nearby extinct volcano. As one senior South African based in London put it, this location was ‘as far north of Capetown as Canada is from the United Kingdom’, but it was far less hospitable.65 An intelligence report written two months earlier confirmed that in this region a little over thirty-two inches of rain fell annually, of which nearly half came between October and December.66 The engineers helped increase the amount of water available from 6,000 to 52,000 gallons a day; without this work, any attempt at an advance towards Kismayu would have carried enormous risk.

  This concern was not overly exaggerated, and weather and the heat were key considerations both during the campaign’s planning and operational phases.67 In the Sudan and Eritrea the rainy season tended to last from April to October but it was erratic and difficult to predict and could peak at any point up to August. On the coast in Italian Somaliland there were dry seasons punctuated by spring and autumn rains, but these tended to be very localised and heavy and could delay motor transport for a day or two, after which no further rain might fall for two or three weeks. With the brief rains came a rapid abundance of camelthorn bushes, the sharp thorns of which cut the men leaving scratches that often became septic. At other times the conditions became more jungle-like than desert, but the elephant grass was generally tinder dry and easily set alight by burning fragments, whether from shells or cartridges,
or even discarded cigarettes (although there were not many of these to be had during the campaign). The previous year had seen even less rain, and large numbers of locusts, as a result of which the harvests had largely failed, leading to extreme local food shortages.68 This all added to the extreme physical challenges facing the British and Commonwealth forces, whether they were operating on the northern or southern fronts of the campaign.

  All this notwithstanding, political pressure for action continued to grow. In a message to Churchill in the first week of November, Smuts once again urged that the focus of initial operations should be on Kismayu. He expanded on his initial argument and warned that its capture would be necessary to allow for movement north into ‘the forbidding desert’ which lay between the coast and Addis Ababa.69 He also advised that he had visited Cunningham’s headquarters almost immediately following his appointment and found the men’s morale to be good, although he worried about the level of inactivity. To show his expanding support for the campaign he also informed his British counterpart that he would be sending another infantry brigade as soon as he had ships to move it, with additional transport for water and supplies. This, he argued, was worth doing as there was serious unrest in parts of Ethiopia and with ‘an attack both from the south and north, the Italians may crack in the summer and considerable forces may thus be released for the more important theatre farther north’. This, of course, was exactly the kind of assessment that the British leader wanted to hear and Cunningham was consequently left with only ten days to organise his plans.70 The first draft of Operation ‘Canvas’ was being distributed within two weeks of his arrival in Kenya and Kismayu was referenced prominently as a priority to be captured early in any attack. Ideally the general in Nairobi wanted this to take place as early as January 1941 but the shortages of transport meant he feared it could be delayed until May. This led Smuts to intervene once again to say how disappointed he was that offensive operations might now be postponed despite the reinforcements he had provided.71 Wavell believed that the continuing focus on the port was ‘not very satisfactory’ but was astute enough to recognise the political imperative.72 He agreed that no other method could produce quicker results and endorsed the need for rapid action.

  Whilst equipment might still have been limited, the British commanders did have a distinct advantage over their opponents as the quality and quantity of available intelligence had increased dramatically, and this greatly aided the planning process. In November 1940 the Italian High Command ciphers had been broken by the analysts working in the Combined Middle East Bureau, the Bletchley Park outstation in Cairo. Wavell could now read all the wireless traffic between Aosta and his senior commanders.73 Prior to this he and his senior commanders had to rely on RAF aerial photography, information gathered from Italian Air Force ciphers and the results of interrogations of prisoners captured during the campaign’s opening encounters. Plans and appreciations were now available and read almost as soon as they were issued, leading it to be described by the official historian as ‘the perfect (if rather miniature) example of the cryptographers’ war’.74 Although the source was protected, the intelligence was distributed to all of Wavell’s commanders, who were thus afforded every opportunity to surprise the enemy. Crucially, it revealed that the Italians were aware of the British and Commonwealth weakness on their southern flank but the majority of their army and air forces were still being kept in the north against what was perceived to be the main threat from the Sudan.75

  The reference to the northern front was significant as here the British and Commonwealth forces had just suffered another humiliating reverse. After Kassala and Gallabat had been given up during the first week of July, the Italians had made no attempt to advance beyond these points. Meanwhile the defenders’ official policy had been that their remaining small mobile units, if attacked by superior forces, would fight a delaying action rather than abandon their positions.76 Little else happened and a relative calm prevailed along the 100-mile frontier. It was not until the autumn of 1940, and the arrival of reinforcements from the 5th Indian Division, that Platt was ordered to prepare a minor offensive directed at Gallabat. The objective was ‘a pretty little place in wooded country with a mud fort and a customs house’ which had become a strongly fortified village surrounded by barbed wire, stone and machine gun posts. Its loss a few months earlier had caused embarrassment back in London,77 and the object of the operation, according to one of the senior British officers present, was to ‘regain the initiative, raise our prestige and lower the enemy’s morale and, also, to encourage the rebellion’.78 Along with troops from the SDF, the task was given to the 10th Indian Infantry Brigade, supported by a squadron of eight tanks from the 6th Royal Tank Regiment which had been sent to the Sudan in September when it appeared that the Italians were poised to resume their advance. This Indian unit had only recently been formed and after eleven months spent at home completing basic training it had been sent to the Sudan. Now, just three months later, it was given the responsibility for launching the British Empire’s first offensive of the war.

  The attack began in the early hours of 6 November and, as the supporting artillery ranged its guns, the area was bombed from the air.79 The Italians had not realised that the SDF had managed to infiltrate troops and guns up to the edges of their positions and they were completely surprised as the artillery fired 500 shells in the first thirty minutes, after which the supporting tanks were sent forward. Some of the Italians remained well dug in and a number of machine-gunners continued to fire for the next two hours. Colonial troops then launched a counter-attack but nearly half of them were killed and the remainder broke and ran. When the Sudanese and Indian troops occupied the position they found it to be a shambles. They recovered large quantities of supplies and ammunition, Italian money and even some anti-tank rifles, which had been taken from the Black Watch after their evacuation from British Somaliland. The most valuable items were the eighty or so mules, which were quickly incorporated into the SDF’s ranks.

  It was at this point that the problems began. Gallabat marked the first time Brigadier William Slim, who would later achieve considerable success as the commander of the Fourteenth Army fighting in Burma, had been given overall command at this level. Following the initial success he now went to a forward position with his artillery commander to get a better view of Metemma, which lay beyond him. This was a much more strongly fortified position with a garrison of two African battalions, some artillery, a machine gun battalion from the Savoia Grenadiers and a platoon of light guns. With its commanding position it was clear to the brigadier that the attack could not be continued. The terrain formed natural barriers which would hamper his armour, three light and five cruiser tanks, which he had placed in support of his Indian infantry during the initial advance. Whilst they had played an important role ‘firing and inflicting casualties as they went’, Slim knew they had already suffered mechanically on the rocky ground that they had crossed.80 Along with the damage from landmines hidden by the Italians, this had taken a heavy toll on their tracks. Adding to the difficulties, the lorry carrying the fitters and the spare parts to repair the disabled vehicles was bombed, and so, by early evening, only two of the tanks could still be used. There was also an issue with the infantry. Major-General Heath, commanding the Indian division, had insisted on substituting one Indian battalion in each brigade with a British equivalent, one of which was the 1st Essex, which had never trained as part of this formation.81 The harsh terrain made it difficult for the men, who relieved the original attacking troops that same morning, to dig in, and when Italian aircraft launched a heavy attack soon after, they were exposed to showers of anti-personnel bombs which proved devastating. An hour later another air raid destroyed a number of the artillery pieces, and there was a further attack that afternoon.

  Little more happened during the night but at first light another air attack began; it was later discovered that the Italians had hastily collected all the aircraft they could from their bases
across Ethiopia. Throughout the day bombers attacked in waves and news was received that as many as three battalions were advancing from Gondar. The British infantry were ‘pulverised’ and at least some of the men fled from the battlefield. This was one of only four instances in the entire war when officers lost control of their troops, and only twice did this happen in battle: here, and just before the island fortress of Singapore fell to the advancing Japanese.82 Slim was left with no option other than to order a general evacuation, and the captured supplies that could not be removed were destroyed along with two of the tanks which had still not been repaired.

  The British and Commonwealth troops had lost 200 men killed or wounded, but the Italian 27th Colonial Battalion had been largely destroyed, its losses estimated as 600 men killed or wounded.83 Troops from the SDF continued to conduct active patrols, while Metemma and its defences were largely reduced; Platt could consider this all to be a positive outcome. As he later argued, although it was a tactical failure there had still been strategic success as considerable forces had been assembled without the Italians discovering what was going on, leaving them nervous about what the future might hold.84 Both sides now seemed prepared to agree that their respective positions were too strong to capture and, at this stage, neither made any further serious attempt to attack the other. Despite the Kaid’s optimism, it had, however, been another example of British-led forces failing to secure any form of meaningful military advantage and was a further case for embarrassment.

  With this failure in their thoughts, and growing doubts about whether the efforts made to initiate a popular uprising would have any effect, another conference was convened by the senior commanders in early December to once more discuss plans for a general attack.85 Based on his enhanced intelligence picture, Wavell had designed a three-pronged drive which aimed to contain and divide the large Italian forces at as many points as possible and confront them with overwhelming challenges. It was intended to begin in February with Platt’s forces attacking from the Sudan. Operations on the frontier would secure the important railway hub and go some way to recover morale that had been weakened by the action at Gallabat. Concurrently, the irregular forces already operating in Ethiopia were to harass the Italians in the west, allowing Cunningham to move progressively from a defensive to an offensive role. The limiting factor was that, once the flanks had been secured by recapturing Kassala and attacking Kismayu, Wavell feared he would probably have to withdraw as many troops as he could to fight in the Western Desert. This assessment was not changed by confirmation from the War Office that, ‘as far as we can see the time has come when risks may be accepted in order to undertake the most energetic operations against the Italians in all quarters’.86