17
‘Our country is going to be occupied by a heathen enemy!’
Orthodox clergy, Gojjam, 1937
Gojjam and Begémdir
The reign of terror prescribed by Mussolini led to yet another series of atrocities, this time by residente Captain Corvo, based in the lakeside town of Bahir Dar, Gojjam, in 1937. Matteo Dominioni reminds us that such excesses were not just the initiative of individuals; they reflected Italian policy as established by Mussolini and conveyed down the hierarchy to the lower levels of the Italian military—a claim that is undoubtedly correct, given the number of surviving documents instructing subordinates to commit atrocities. A case in point was the drowning of several community leaders suspected of being opposed to the Italian occupation, whom Corvo had unceremoniously thrown alive into Lake Tana with heavy boulders tied to their necks.1
Graziani’s concurrence with such actions is exemplified by his response to Corvo’s superior—the governor of Gojjam, General Pirzio-Biroli—following the public hanging in Bahir Dar in July 1937 of twenty people suspected of aiding the resistance. The fact that four Orthodox priests were also shot in the process delighted the viceroy, who made a point of commending Pirzio-Biroli, stating that the governor ‘had done well to follow the example of [the massacre of] Debre Libanos’, which for the Shewan clergy ‘had been very healthy’.2 It must be said that this was not the only occasion on which Graziani and his commanders used this turn of phrase, reminiscent of medieval crusaders presenting themselves not as persecutors, but, as Jonathan Kirsch puts it, ‘a loving mother unwillingly inflicting wholesome chastisement on her unruly children’.3
The atrocities in Shewa and Gojjam, together with the massacre of Debre Libanos itself, which, as Anthony Mockler writes, was so shocking that at first the news was scarcely believed, contributed to a rapid escalation in the resistance. Italian garrisons and military camps across Gojjam and beyond became increasingly besieged.4 Thus by July 1937 the resistance in Gojjam was becoming more coordinated, and was beginning to increase beyond the earlier levels. In the process, the Ethiopian Church once again became a target, but not by chance; as Paolo Borruso explains, by early August Graziani was more determined than ever to destroy the Ethiopian Church and its clergy.5
Mikre-Sellassie refers to the destruction of many churches in the dioceses of both Gojjam and Begémdir, remarking that these were examples of ‘Italian actions of terrorism against the Orthodox Church designed to weaken its influence upon the people’.6
The capital of Begémdir was the ancient city of Gondar, which had also served as Ethiopia’s capital in the 17th and 18th centuries. On 5 August, despite the emerging new policy towards the Ethiopian Church, ecclesiastical scholars of Gondar—of which there were many, given the number of churches and church schools in that city—were rounded up by the Italians ‘and half of them were killed and the other half imprisoned’. Church historian Kefyalew Mehari comments, ‘All these were the victims of the Romans, and the memory is still fresh in mind.’7
It is not known exactly how many churches in Gojjam were destroyed, but it was certainly a significant proportion of the total.8 In one district alone—Yilmana Dénsa, which accounts for no more than five per cent of highland Gojjam—60 churches were burned down by the Italians or demolished by the Regia Aeronautica. One of the monasteries razed to the ground by aerial bombardment was the Saviour of the World at Adét, the capital of the district, some 35 km south-south-east of Bahir Dar. It was destroyed on 4 September. In the massacre that ensued, the religious administrator of the monastery church, Father Kassa Wasé, was martyred. And at the nearby monastery of Debre Mewi St Mary, a historic church where Emperor Menelik’s wife, Empress Taytu, had been educated, the senior priest, Liqetebebt Boyale Gétahun, was among those slaughtered.9
By the time of Graziani’s commendation to Pirzio-Biroli in Gojjam for following the ‘very healthy’ example of the massacre of Debre Libanos, it was finally becoming clear to the Ethiopian clergy that the Italian Church had sacralised the invasion and that they were suffering the consequences. Michael Lentakis, a notable member of the Greek community in Ethiopia, recalled in his memoirs that it was believed in Ethiopia at the time that the massacre of Debre Libanos was intended to ‘break the spirit of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and at the same time the Fascist Party would ingratiate itself with the Vatican’.10
The Backlash
The realisation that the Italians were intent on destroying the Ethiopian Church, together with the appalling lesson of the massacres of Addis Ababa, Debre Libanos and Zéna Marqos—that Italian brutality and disrespect for the Church knew no bounds—convinced the Christian highlanders that they were being besieged by a diabolical force, an evil comparable to the 16th-century jihad of Ahmed Grañ. The reaction in Gojjam was dramatic. In effect, the Church in that province proclaimed holy war against the invaders, an action which of course strengthened the national solidarity of the Patriots and stiffened the resistance even further.
A powerful directive from senior Ethiopian Church leaders to the Patriots of both Gojjam and Begémdir addressed the fighters as ‘Sons of Gojjam and Welette Israél!’—Welette Israél being a prominent member of the 18th-century Gondarine aristocracy who had acquired legendary status. The proclamation exhorted the resistance ‘to fight for your souls, your property, your children, your livestock and your religion … With the prayer of Christians and the will of God, we are fighting and winning for the freedom of our country and our religion.’11 It is not altogether surprising that the last few months of 1937 saw some of the heaviest blows inflicted upon the Italians since the beginning of the war. Graziani marshalled thousands of soldiers to relieve Italian garrisons that were effectively under siege and, when that attempt failed, in October he brought up two more columns of another 5,500 men to face the Ethiopians. The upshot was that two of the Italian battalions were completely annihilated and some of the troops would remain under siege until January 1938.12
Thus, the campaign of terror against the Ethiopian Church provoked a massive backlash that helped to escalate the resistance. Rome’s charges of heresy had finally recoiled, for the spectre of Catholic supremacy also evoked shadows from the past. The Ethiopian clergy—particularly in Gojjam—now increasingly urged their communities to fight the Italians not just because they were illegal invaders, but because ‘the enemy … has come to shed Christian blood, to alter our Christianity and to make us Catholic’. In a resurgence of the ancient role of the intellectual Orthodox guarding the true faith against European barbarians, the Ethiopian clerics cried, ‘One who alters your religion has come; combat him!’ and ‘He [the enemy] has come from beyond the sea to detach you from your religion’. Some declared, ‘He is heathen; his religion is different; our country is going to be occupied by a heathen enemy!’ Yet others were moved to quote the Bible as they exhorted the public to resist the invaders: ‘As David killed Goliath, go and strike him!’13
Thus late 1937 saw the inevitable outcome of Italy’s holy war: it eventually forced the Ethiopian clergy to play an active, rather than a passive, role in the resistance. While originally they had been willing to greet the invading forces with civility, and limit their activities to providing succour to the defence forces, praying, and burying the dead, the savagery of the attacks against the Church eventually drew them directly into the war. Remaining in their churches as sitting targets was clearly an invitation to martyrdom, and so, with the very survival of the Ethiopian Church now threatened, they had nothing to lose by joining the Patriots. Thus it was that several clerics in Gojjam and Begémdir became important and influential resistance fighters. The Italians had—albeit unwittingly—managed to recruit the Ethiopian clergy in two of the country’s most important provinces into the resistance; the holy war had come full circle.14