Witness History
Witness History
The Battle of Gondar
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July 20, 2021
10 minutes
Available for over a year
In 1941, Italian colonial rule in East Africa ended when Mussolini’s soldiers made a dramatic final stand in the northern Ethiopian town of Gondar. After a bloody battle, General Guglielmo Nasi surrendered to troops from the British empire and Ethiopian fighters loyal to Emperor Haile Selassie. Simon Watts listens to an account in the BBC archive from Rene Cutforth, who was then a British army officer and later became a distinguished BBC war correspondent.
PHOTO: Italian soldiers surrendering in the build-up to the Battle of Gondar (Getty Images)