In Isola d’Asti we remember a great Italian soldier, Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta (1898-1942), volunteer in the First World War, who still enjoys the admiration of foreign scholars (who writes, for example, with David Nicolle, historian of the battle of Poitiers, went on a “pilgrimage” to the places of the Duke of Aosta), of soldiers and aeronautics enthusiasts.
The Fourth Wing, fighter unit of the Air Force, based in Grosseto, has a real veneration for the figure of Amedeo, the aviator prince. The Wing, in fact, is named in memory of the pilot general Amedeo d’Aosta. Today it operates in the air defense service with the modern Eurofighter Typhoon and is engaged in Romania to support patrol operations in Ukraine.
Now, to tell the life of the Duke of Aosta, pilot, is the splendid volume by Turin Dino Ramella, published by Priuli & Verlucca, Amedeo Duca d’Aosta, the prince aviator (272 pages).
In Isola d’Asti, with the author there will be Amedeo’s nephew, Martino d’Austria-Este. The Archduke is the son of Prince Robert of Austria-Este (born in Schönbrunn Castle on 8 February 1915, died in Basel on 7 February 1996), third son of Emperor Charles and Empress Zita, and of Princess Margaret of Savoy-Aosta (born in Capodimonte, 7 April 1930, died 10 January 2022), daughter of Amedeo di Savoia, 3rd Duke of Aosta (1898-1942), and of the Princess of France Anne-Hélène Marie d’Orléans (1906-1986). Archduke Martin is therefore the grandson of two illustrious grandfathers: Charles, the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, who died in Madeira, on 1 April 1922, and Amedeo, Viceroy of Ethiopia, who died in Nairobi, on 3 March 1942, after the surrender on Amba Alagi.
Archduke Martin served in the military as an Austrian officer, then went to university, faculty of agriculture, in Munich. Now in Sartirana Lomellina, Martino d’Austria-Este runs an important agricultural company, which his maternal grandfather, Duke of Aosta, had inherited from the last duchesses of Sartirana. He is married to Princess Katharina von Isenburg, with whom he had four children: Bartolomeo, Emanuele, Elena and Luigi.
In Ramella’s book, Archduke Martino observes: «I did not know my grandfather Amedeo except through the stories of my mother and my aunt, the testimonies of those who approached him and the writings of his biographers. This has allowed me, over the years, to build his personality, at least ideally. The result was the figure of a man educated in rigor based on solid human values, in a society
where feelings often mattered little and attention was paid above all to the point. Raised to be a prince together with his inseparable brother Aimone, with whom he had a special bond.”
Ramella’s book is enriched by an unprecedented photographic apparatus. The cover of the volume is embellished with a magnificent shot that portrays Amedeo Duca d’Aosta, in the foreground, on board an IMAM Ro. 1 of the 21st Air Reconnaissance Wing at Gorizia airport, when the prince still held the rank of colonel in the 23rd Artillery Regiment of Trieste.
The volume also contains family photos of Amedeo, a demanding but affectionate father, where for example, as a pilot he is portrayed with his daughter Margherita in an image from the mid-1930s.
Amedeo. Third Duke of Aosta
Amedeo was born in Turin on 21 October 1898 to Emanuele Filiberto, second Duke of Aosta, and Elena of Bourbon-Orléans. As heir to the Duchy of Aosta he received the title of Duke of Puglia. At nine he was sent to the United Kingdom to St. Andrew’s College in London: «He is an exuberant Italian boy closed in the heavy and austere frame of British traditionalism», Sandro Sandri, the journalist who was close to him in the Saharan wars and who he was to die in the Chinese war. Upon returning to Italy he was initiated into a military career at the age of fifteen and enrolled in the Royal College of Nunziatella in Naples.
Amedeo soon came up against the rigid requirements imposed on the other students: no one had to address the prince first, and, if asked, he had to stand at attention and only answer: «Yes royal highness», «No royal highness». Annoyed by such formality, Amedeo allowed his companions to address him in the informal manner and to omit the title of Royal Highness.
In May 1915, with Italy’s entry into the First World War, he volunteered, at just 16 years old, as a private in the Voloire Horse Artillery Regiment. His father Emanuele Filiberto introduced him to General Petitti of Roreto repeating: «No privileges, let him be treated like the others».
Amedeo was immediately assigned to the front line, with the rank of corporal and artillery servant on the Carso, earning the rank of lieutenant on the field for war merit.
At the end of the conflict he obtained permission from his father to follow his uncle Luigi Amedeo, Duke of Abruzzi, to Somalia, where he was busy exploring the Uèbi Scebèli river with the aim of creating a farm for the cultivation of cotton, sugar cane and oilseeds. They built a railway and a village, called Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi. Subsequently Amedeo studied at Eton College and Oxford University, learning the English language perfectly. In 1921 Amedeo left for the Belgian Congo.
Amedeo went to Africa and was hired under a pseudonym as a simple worker in a soap factory in Stanleyville (now Kisangani). On 24 July 1925, having returned to Italy, he obtained his military pilot’s licence. Returning to Africa, Amedeo carried out numerous reconnaissance flights, earning a silver medal for military valor for his daring actions in flight over Cyrenaica.
He subsequently graduated in law at the University of Palermo with a thesis entitled «The informing concepts of the legal relations between modern states and the indigenous populations of the colonies», examining the colonial problem from the moral aspect and arguing that the imposition of sovereignty of a state over the indigenous people is morally justified only by improving the living conditions of the colonized populations.
During the 1930s, Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, resided at the Miramare Castle, in Trieste, while commanding the Fourth Fighter Wing of Gorizia, then moving on to command the Air Brigade and finally the Aquila Air Division. In that period he was also honorary president of the Unione Sportiva Triestina Calcio. In 1935, at the outbreak of the Ethiopian War, he asked to go to the front, but the King refused, motivating it with his position in the order of succession to the throne.
Meanwhile there was also talk of proposals and agreements to make Amedeo king of some European nation. At the end of the Spanish civil war, in 1939, it was decided to give him the throne of Spain, vacated by the Bourbons.
Subsequently there were meetings between high-ranking Hungarian and Italian political leaders so that Amedeo could crown the Hungarian crown, which had remained vacant after the defeat of the Habsburgs at the end of the First World War.
Amedeo viceroy of Ethiopia and hero of Amba Alagi
Following the death of his father Emanuele Filiberto in 1931, Amedeo assumed the title of Duke of Aosta. In 1932 he entered the Royal Air Force and became, after the Italian conquest of 1936, Viceroy of Ethiopia. After the second Italian-Abyssinian war, on 21 October 1937 Amedeo of Savoy was appointed governor general (and therefore commander in chief) of Italian East Africa and Viceroy of Ethiopia. In 1941, faced with the overwhelming advance of the British in Italian East Africa, the few remaining Italian troops under his command withdrew to organize their last resistance in the Ethiopian mountains. Amedeo barricaded himself from 17 April to 17 May 1941 on Amba Alagi with 7,000 men, a force made up of carabinieri, airmen, sailors from the Assab base, 500 health soldiers and around 3,000 soldiers from the local troops.
The Italian deployment was soon besieged by General Cunningham’s forces (39,000 men). The Italian soldiers, inferior both in numbers and resources, showed great valor, but, exhausted by the cold and the lack of ammunition, water and wood, they had to surrender to the British. On May 14, Amedeo obtained authorization from Mussolini to surrender and designated General Volpini as negotiator, who, however, was massacred with his escort by the Ethiopian rebels who surrounded the Italian lines. Shortly before the surrender Amedeo authorized the natives of his troop to return to their villages (and he authorized his officers to do the same), but, as can be seen from the 1941 SIM bulletins, the abandonments did not exceed fifteen cases, testifying to the profound bond that had been established between himself, his younger officers and their deputies. At midday on 17 May the conditions of surrender were agreed upon by generals Trezzani and Cordero di Montezemolo on the Italian side and by Colonel Dudley Russel on the British side.
On May 19, 1941, at the entrance to the command cave, Amedeo d’Aosta, viceroy of Ethiopia, appeared in his official tie, wire gloves and khaki boots. From Fort Toselli the Duke set off descending with rapid steps, while to his left the English general Maine marched, escorted by a South African non-commissioned officer. The soldiers of the garrison followed them in two columns, loaded with light weapons, backpacks, cardboard suitcases tied with string, guitars and bundles. Many were crying. Everyone, on Amedeo’s orders, had shaved their beards and cut their hair. Even further behind, in disarray, the surviving askaris of the Abyssinian battalions. Amedeo d’Aosta saluted the guard of honor and the lowering of the Italian flag.
From 20 May 1941 is the famous photographic shot which remains in the annals of Italian military history: on the Amba Alagi the Duke of Aosta parades in front of a deployed English company which grants the Honor of Arms.
The soldiers of His British Majesty, not only in homage to the enemy commander belonging to the best European nobility, but also as a sign of admiration for the firmness shown by them, paid the honors of arms to the survivors, making the officers keep the service pistol .
However, the British did not fully comply with the terms of their proposed surrender conditions. After the Honor of Arms ceremony, in fact, the Italian soldiers were left at the mercy of the indigenous troops, who plundered them of everything. The general staff was not allowed to follow the Duke as planned.
Amedeo, prisoner of war number 11590, was transferred to Kenya by plane. During the flight the controls were handed over to him for a few moments, so as to allow him to pilot for the last time. Once he arrived in Kenya he was held prisoner by the English near Dònyo Sàbouk, an unhealthy and malaria-infested place 70 kilometers from Nairobi. Although Amedeo interceded with the English authorities to improve the conditions of the Italian soldiers and for the repatriation of civilians, the British command did not allow him to receive anyone or visit the other prisoners.
In November 1941 he began to suffer from some illnesses. In December a high fever forced him to bed. Three weeks later the British command allowed Amedeo to go and visit the Italian prisoners (it would have been his last outing), but they prevented him from greeting them personally.
On January 26, 1942, he was diagnosed with malaria and tuberculosis. Amedeo died on 3 March 1942 in the military hospital in Nairobi where he was last admitted. At his funeral the British generals also wore mourning on his arm. By his express wish he is buried at the Italian military memorial in Nyeri, Kenya, together with 676 of his soldiers. The Shrine is located near the mission of the Consolata Fathers of Turin. The entire project was entrusted to the Turin architect Mario Rabaglino, a former prisoner of war, who, like other compatriots, wanted to stay in Kenya. Since Amedeo had two daughters, his brother Aimone succeeded him in the ducal title.
Dino Ramella writes: «With Amedeo d’Aosta, the ideal candidate for negotiations with the Allies most likely disappears. He who, due to his wisdom, acumen, linguistic mastery, similar mentality and, last but not least, authority, could have represented the ferryman towards the new Italy. The experience gained as viceroy, combined with the skills of a commander, would have been very useful for the transition first and then for the reconstruction of a country dragged into a huge catastrophe”.