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Position: Field Marshal of the Italian Army
Position: Field Marshal of the Italian Army
War-Experienced Soldier
Rodolfo Graziani joined the Italian army at the age of 19 , became a commissioned officer, and initially served in Italy's colonial forces in Eritrea and Libya. Graziani fought in the Italo-Turkish War in 1911-12 and was wounded twice in the First World War. By the end of the Great War, Graziani became the youngest colonel in Italy's army. After the war, Graziani joined Mussolini's Fascist Party and tried his hand as a foreign trader. He was unsuccessful in civilian business and rejoined the army.
Soluq (Soluch) concentration camp, which had circa 20,000+ Libyan prisoners by 1931.
The "Pacifier"
With Graziani's reputation as an efficient soldier and experience in the colonies, Mussolini appointed him to the role of colonial governor in Cyrenaica (Eastern Libya) where resistance fighters to Italian rule threatened the Italian colonial families and businesses.
Graziani’s “pacification” of the locals was conducted through the erection of both concentration and slave labor camps that saw the deaths of thousands of overworked African Libyans. To win an unconventional guerrilla war, “livestock was confiscated to reduce the population to starvation and members of the Libyan notable families were deported to the island of Ustica or continental Italy. To the overjoyed Italian colonial populace, he was trumpeted instead as the "Pacifier of Libya" after defeating rebel leader Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi and his followers in open battle. Graziani had Senussi hung publicly as an object lesson.
Upon the conquest of Ethiopia, Graziani proclaimed,
"Il Duce (Mussolini) will have Ethiopia, with or without the Ethiopians!"
The Viceroy of Ethiopia
In 1935-36, Graziani was one of the key commanders in the Italian conquest of Ethiopia. During the military campaign, Graziani had Mussolini’s explicit consent to use mustard gas against the local population, killing thousands and injuring many more. Graziani was thus appointed the Italian governor of the new colony. In 1937, Graziani was wounded but survived an assassination attempt by Ethiopian rebels.
As Graziani was recovering in the hospital from his wounds, the Italian occupiers reacted with indiscriminate slaughter of Ethiopians in several neighborhoods of the capital. After killing hundreds of men, countless women and children were burnt alive in their homes — an episode known today as the "Addis Ababa Massacre." Despite pleas from a wounded Graziani for an end to the violence, an estimated 19,000 Ethiopian lost their lives during the killing spree. Graziani later learned that his would-be assassins were hiding out at the Coptic Debre Libanos Monastery and ordered the execution of hundreds of monks.
The Second World War
Shortly after Italy entered World War II he returned to Libya as the commander of troops in Italian North Africa but resigned after the 1940–41 British offensive routed his forces. Graziani was the only Italian Marshal to remain loyal to Mussolini after the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy in 1943 and continued to fight against the Allies until his capture at the end of the war.
Graziani and other Italians distribute funds to the poor at the captured Royal Plaace in Addis Ababa. Minutes later, two assassins would hurl the grenades that would start the massacre.
Graziani was branded as the “Butcher of Ethiopia” for the horrific executions he oversaw.
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