Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia - Societa italiana di storia ...

106 Richard Pankhurst
The Foreign Office thus at last openly committed itself to Ethiopia’s exclusion.
The issue of Italian war crimes in Ethiopia could not, however, be so easily
suppressed.
First Talks in Addis Ababa
The question of Italian war crimes was raised six weeks later in a brief conversation,
in mid-January 1944, between Robert Howe, the British Minister in
Addis Ababa, and the Ethiopian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ato Ambay
Wäldä Maryam. No minutes of the conversation seem extant, but their differences
were so great that the matter was “allowed to drop.” 34
The Fall of Badoglio
British opposition to Ethiopian membership of the commission owed much,
as we have seen, to fear that the Ethiopian Government would bring charges
against Badoglio, whom the British Government desired to retain as Italian
Prime Minister. This consideration lost much of its weight in the summer of
1944, as a result of events in Italy itself. On 4 June, Rome fell to the British and
Americans, and Badoglio, whose influence had been decreasing, resigned five
days later. He was replaced by Ivanoe Bonomi, an elderly socialist.
Despite the fall of Badoglio, the British continued to afford him unreserved
support. When it seemed for example that the Bonomi Government was to
arrest him, Prime Minister Churchill despatched a “Personal and Top Secret”
telegram, on 8 December 1944, to Sir Noel Charles, the British Ambassador in
Rome. It declared:
You are responsible for the Marshal’s safety and sanctuary in the British
Embassy or in some equally safe place to which he can be re m oved. It must
be re m e m b e red that he has signed a treaty with General Eisenhower and
also documents with Ad m i ral Cunningham which invo l ve the honour of
the British Government. A man who has signed such documents could
only be brought to trial by the conquered Italians with the approval of the
United States and United Kingdom Governments . . . you are not to let him
go into any danger or pass out of our safeguarding hands until we have
g i ven full directions on the matter . . . military honour is also invo l ved on