When Italy invaded Ethiopia, the world order lurched again.
Ethiopia took Italy to the League of Nations, but the League had long since become an empty shell and could do nothing.
All it could manage were formal warnings and statements of condemnation.
Britain and France also condemned Italy’s aggression and declared they would impose economic sanctions on Italy, but that, too, was just talk.
The United States, only just beginning to climb out of the slump with the New Deal, was indifferent to Ethiopia. So were the Soviets and the Japanese.
“Italy’s aggression is plainly a criminal act. Germany strongly protests this barbaric Italian invasion and simultaneously demands the immediate withdrawal of Italian forces.”
I joined the bandwagon and issued a condemnation of Italy.
For now I had no intention of provoking Italy more than necessary, so I would keep it to a formal protest.
Of course, that was only “on the surface.”
“I hope our Ethiopian friends fight well.”
“With the weapons and instructors you’ve provided, my Führer, they’ll fight hard, won’t they?”
Goebbels said. He himself didn’t seem particularly interested in Ethiopia.
“But my Führer, the military is grumbling that we’ve showered Ethiopia with more than necessary.”
Himmler spoke. I shook my head.
“They’re always like that. Whatever I do, it’s nothing but complaints. They whined during the Rhineland too, didn’t they.”
The military hadn’t opposed my core idea of sending arms to Ethiopia, but they balked that we’d given away too much matériel.
I’d sent a bit on the heavy side, but not so much as to warrant this noise.
Beck in particular had been openly bad-mouthing me, saying giving weapons to ‘black savages’ was no different from flushing money down the toilet.
That old man has a real knack for getting under my skin.
Let them talk. One day I’ll have them screaming for mercy.
They say a gentleman’s revenge isn’t late even after ten years—so I’ll endure for now.
I cooled my gut with teeth-achingly cold cola and focused on shaping the plan ahead.
For a while, Italy would have no bandwidth for anything but Ethiopia.
While they’re fixated there, we do our work.
***
“Enemy coming!”
At the cry that the Italians were on the way, Ethiopian soldiers who’d scattered to rest sprinted for the trenches.
“All hands, prepare for combat!”
The rifles the Ethiopians carried were Gewehr 98s used by the German Army in the Great War—kept in reserve depots and shipped to Ethiopia on the Führer’s orders.
“When I give the signal, you fire! Anyone who shoots before that, I’ll kill you myself!”
When Sergeant Josef Gangel of the Wehrmacht shouted, his interpreter bellowed it in Amharic.
Gangel, one of the German advisers dispatched to aid the Ethiopians, wore an Ethiopian uniform instead of a Wehrmacht one to fool the Italians.
He was also instructed that if captured, he was to claim he was an Austrian mercenary hired by the Ethiopian government.
Before departing for Ethiopia, Gangel had shaken hands with the Führer.
I shook the hand of each adviser leaving for Ethiopia and wished them luck.
“I feel ridiculous sending them into the meat grinder and telling them not to die. Not much of a thing for a leader to say. Still, I hope they all fight hard.”
“We will, my Führer!”
Gangel hooked his finger on the trigger of his MP 28. The Italians had crept to the edge of effective range.
“Open fire!”
At his signal, sixty muzzles spat flame at once.
Strolling forward as if on a walk, the Italians panicked the instant the Ethiopians opened up.
Even the officers who should have steadied the men and given orders turned tail and ran.
Pathetic bastards. And they call themselves heirs of Rome.
“Primitive tribesmen would fight better than you useless clowns!”
Gangel swapped magazines deftly, one-handed. The precious MG 08s—one per company—also hammered away, mowing down Italians.
The same guns that had blazed in Belgium’s mud against British and French twenty years ago were now blazing on an African plain against Italians.
“Tanks! Tanks!”
When Italian L3 tankettes appeared, the Ethiopians shouted in unison.
Technically “tanks,” but in performance, barely worthy of the name—tankettes. Lacking real armor, the Italians ran them in quantity.
Before the Breda M30s on the L3s could speak, the Ethiopians’ Tankgewehrs spoke first—also supplied by Germany.
Even the thickest part of the L3’s armor was only 12 mm—it pierced like paper.
Riddled by 13.2 mm rounds, an L3 ground to a halt.
Its crew ended the day as mangled corpses, limbs torn off.
“Good work! Keep firing!”
Gangel’s words were swallowed by the din, but the Ethiopians quietly did their job. Another L3 took a front-plate punch-through and went dead.
Like other Europeans, Gangel had balked at the idea of commanding “inferior blacks” at first.
He’d come on the Führer’s orders, but hadn’t expected much from their training.
Now his mind had shifted a little. Given the short training time, the Ethiopians were fighting far better than expected.
Battered by fierce resistance, the Italians called for help from the main body.
Moments later they pulled back in a hurry, leaving corpses and wrecked vehicles.
Certain of victory, the Ethiopians cheered—only for Italian shells to fall before the cheers ended.
These shells were different. They didn’t explode; a yellowish gas billowed out.
“Damn it—gas!”
Realizing what it was, Gangel cursed and yanked out his mask.
“Everyone on masks!”
German-made gas masks saved Ethiopian lives. Without them, it would’ve been a massacre. Gangel’s skin crawled.
Twenty minutes later, the Italians attacked again. What met them wasn’t Ethiopian bodies, but Ethiopian bullets.
“What? Those bastards aren’t dead!?”
“Fuck, they’re wearing gas masks too! Look!”
Under a hail of lead, Italian screams rose.
***
“Incredible. How could this happen…”
Marshal Rodolfo Graziani—Governor of Italian Somaliland and overall commander in southeastern Ethiopia—sweated as he read the situation report.
That “savages” could repeatedly repel the assaults of Italy, heirs of Rome.
Even gas did little; the Ethiopians had masks. Enraged, Graziani slammed the table.
“How the hell do those negras have gas masks!?”
The mystery didn’t last. Italian troops searching Ethiopian dead brought captured masks to his desk.
“These aren’t British or French.”
A chemical-warfare officer examined the trophies.
“Then what are they?”
“German, sir.”
“German? Why the hell are they using German masks?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Of course he didn’t. If the marshal didn’t know, how would a junior officer?
There was something else. Among captured Ethiopian weapons, an unusually large share were German.
German rifles, grenades, machine guns, gas masks. All signs pointed one way.
“German bastards’ handiwork.”
“Yes, sir. It’s them, no doubt.”
“I’ll alert Rome at once.”
Graziani was dumbfounded. However poor relations with Germany might be, helping ‘black savages’ just to spite Italy? Were those Germans not even white?
General Emilio De Bono, commander on the Eritrean front, sent the same report to Rome:
the Ethiopians were using German weapons and gas masks.
***
“My Führer, a protest note from Italy has arrived…”
“Obviously about our weapons turning up in Ethiopia. Give them something noncommittal.”
As expected, Mussolini protested that Ethiopians were using German kit. Our strategy was to play dumb.
Yes, the equipment in question was German-made, but Ethiopia had initiated purchase and paid fair price; beyond that, Germany had nothing to do with it.
“Will the Italians believe that?”
“What if they don’t? Even if we sold arms openly, they couldn’t do a thing—unless they want a war. Leave it.”
“Well, that’s true. Understood, my Führer.”
Goebbels relaxed with an audible sigh.
“Whatever the pasta-eaters do in Ethiopia, we stick to our work. Has Dollfuss replied?”
“Yes. He’s delighted by your proposal and wants to meet as soon as possible.”
“Good. Very good.”
Engelbert Dollfuss, Austria’s chancellor and would-be dictator, should have been assassinated on July 25, 1934, in the original timeline.
His killers were Austrian Nazis; their anger at his opposition to Anschluss and the outlawing of Nazi activity boiled over and they shot him.
In this history, he’s still alive. Once I became Führer, I ordered the Austrian Nazis to fully cooperate with their government, and they obeyed.
Thanks to that, Dollfuss wasn’t assassinated, and relations between him and the Party are smooth.
I proposed a summit to discuss German–Austrian cooperation, and Dollfuss sent back a positive answer.
At this meeting, we’ll speak plainly and build something real.
Everything is unfolding exactly to plan.