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Chapter Four: Colonial Addition
Chapter Four: Colonial Addition

With an aerial attack beginning at midnight, the night sky over Addis Ababa lit up like a thunderstorm rapid-firing bolts of lightning, finally, when after what felt like an eternity, the thunder of exploding bombs finally ceased, and a bugle cut through the deadly silence of darkness signalling the ground attack. Commencing in the waking hours of April, 7th 1936, the Battle for Addis Ababa was initiated. While early reports signalled favourable results with the 18a Divisione di Fanteria reporting they had secured the northern portion of the Ethiopian capital by 07:00 hours, the other assaulting divisions of the Italian Fourth saw themselves locked in close-quarter combat in other parts of the city.


What was hoped to have been a quick siege and capture quickly became a stalled offensive with Italian troops resorted to clearing the city, street by street, and house by house lest they be shot in the back for advancing to fast. Lasting nine days, the Italian Fourth having painstakingly cleared the city of enemy soldiers took to raiding the Menelik Palace (also commonly known as the Imperial Palace, this was the official residence of the Emperor of Ethiopia), although the Emperor of Ethiopia was seemingly amiss from the palace, the most likely being that he fled upon the news of the incoming Italian Fourth, General Pietro Gazzera ordered the Ethiopian flag flying over the palace be taken down at once and replaced with the national flag of Italy.

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On the 17th of April, Field Marshal Graziani -in boast of his Army Group's accomplishment- moved his headquarters from the port city of Alamara in Italian-Eritrea to Addis Ababa so he could more closely monitor the war. However, despite the capture of the capital, the wildly believed thought that the Ethiopians would capitulate soon thereafter its fall never came, instead, their defiance to an Italian victory was said to have grown tenfold, albeit less organized. While Emperor Selassie was said to have slipped into British territory to evade apprehension, he continued to order his countrymen to remain firm and continue the fight in his absence, it was almost a fruitless venture, however, given most of the Ethiopian commanders had fled as well with little regard for relaying orders to their subordinates, in the chaos caused by taking the capital, the Italian Fourth Army pressed the advantage and successfully cut off and cornered several Ethiopian divisions in the nearby provinces that surrounded Addis Ababa.

In the weeks to follow the fall of Addis Ababa, Field Marshal Graziani made it an imperative focus for General Gazzera to capture the scant amount of Ethiopian military-grade production factories that sat unprotected throughout the central lands of the now wartorn country, with these factories under Italian control it was considered the Ethiopian holdouts would then be placed on borrowed time before their logistical supplies ran dry and were forced to admit defeat. Though these successes in early April greatly assisted in the domino effect that would eventually lead to the Ethiopians surrender, we are not to get ahead of history, and shall turn instead to Mogadishu where the 27th continued to defend against the besiegement of Ethiopian forces. On April 20th, almost four weeks from when the attack had started, the 29a Divisione di Fanteria had at long last arrived in support of the 27th and immediately set forth in repulsing the attack on Mogadishu.

Considerably fresh even after miles of straight marching, the 29a put the Ethiopian's to rout when they flanked them from the side, so effective were they in dislodging the Ethiopians from their positions, the commanding officer of the 29th requested General Gariboldi's approval to pursue them when they retreated from Mogadishu's city limits. Gariboldi in turn who was caught up in a state of angst after having been resorted to watching his corps sit idly by in defence since the start of the war, and bear constant witness to the glory claimed by the Italian Fourth appealed to Field Marshal Graziani to permit him to mount an all-out attack. In response, Graziani didn't hesitate in granting the approval, after all, it wasn't foolish to think a pincer strategy could be the death blow needed to squeeze the last of the Ethiopian forces into surrender, as such, the Field Marshal for Army Group East-Africa approved Gariboldi's request and on April 24th, 1936 the final push of the Second Italo-Ethiopian war was set to take place with the Italian Fifth launching a counter-attack while the Fourth Army continued to press their unhindered advance from the northwest.

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As the conflict in East-Africa looked to be entering into its final phase, back in Italy, results in the country's research endeavours began to show. Starting with 'Electronic Mechanical Engineering' and closely followed by 'Basic Machine Tools', these two research projects greatly helped in increasing the productivity within Italy's factories, within a matter of days, foremen operating in the province of Abruzzo began disclosing end day numbers had almost doubled for several produced materials, the most significant increase of these produced goods could be seen in the production of the Carano rifle.

Encouraged by the payoffs of the recent research efforts, Mussolini gathered his Ministers to discuss future projects, among the leading nominations in which to invest research into, the proposal for concentrating a select industry into district areas seemed to be the most popular. While factories producing military-grade goods were located all throughout the Italian mainland in no set location, the idea of concentrating factories that produced the same goods into select industrial districts gained the support of many of Mussolini's advisors and Ministers on the belief this could potentially have beneficial impacts on expanding the effectiveness of factory output. With resources delivered to one area rather than split resources and ship all across the mainland, it was considered this could greatly reduce the price of shipping materials. Having piqued the Duce's interest with the positives associated with such research, the supreme leader of the Italian state approved research into 'Concentrated Industry I'.

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With enough available resources and funds to conduct one other research project, it was by the advocation of the Regio Esercito Italiano who nominated research begin at once into providing the Army with more accurate, modern artillery pieces, or at the very least, modifications to the current artillery that would serve as an interwar patch job until a formal artillery piece could be obtained. Attributing the dire need of acquiring better artillery as apart of the abundance of revelations uncovered through the Second Italo-Ethiopian War so far, these revealing limitations regarded only certain branches of the Italian military (precisely the Esercito and Aeronautica who up until this point played the most relevant roles in the East-African centred war). Considered to be low cost as far as a military procurement was concerned given that the intended research was to develop modifications that could be added to preexisting artillery pieces, the Comando Supremo approved research into 'Interwar Artillery' which was slated to begin as early as May 2nd, 1936.

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With April coming to a close with further advancements made into the field of research, Italians and citizens of the world alike turned their attention to Ethiopia where on the 6th of May, Field Marshal Graziani declared the war had concluded with the last of Ethiopia's willing defenders laying down their arms in surrender to the men of the Italian Fifth Army. In the ensuing days to follow, a peace conference was held in Addis Ababa at the Imperial Palace between Field Marshal Rodolfo Graziani and a group of individuals from the former Ethiopian Government as Emperor Haile Selassie had gone into self-imposed exile and refused to participate in negotiations. As for Haile Selassie himself, the once Emperor of Ethiopia turned runaway statesmen having accepted an offer of sanctuary from the United Kingdom was smuggled through the lands of British-Somaliland to a waiting Royal Navy ship destined for Jerusalem, from there he was scheduled to address the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland before taking up protected residence in the U.K.

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As previously remarked, with Selassie's absence from the official proceedings of the Addis Ababa peace conference, Field Marshal Graziani had little option other than to prop up several low-level deputies of Selassie's former Government as the new representative head-of-states for Ethiopia. Meak men with little heart for further confrontation with those they viewed as the Italian oppressor, it took little more than a day for Field Marshal Graziani to garner a signature formally providing the unconditional surrender of Ethiopia. On May 11th 1936, the Treaty of Addis Ababa was signed and the Second Italo-Ethiopian War officially over.


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Well, that ends the war in Ethiopia. There is a lot of work to do still to bring Italy up to being formidable, and having seen the dev diary for the next DLC regarding Spain... Well, I'm kinda glad I will be knocking the Spanish war off before that gets released any time soon. Thanks for checking this out!
 
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On your thing about the Spain tree... I"m totally doing a Carlist playthrough sometime!!

As for this AAR -- congrats on the win. How much industry does Ethiopia give you now that you integrated it?
 
So Ethiopia is done - but is it worth it?
 
On your thing about the Spain tree... I"m totally doing a Carlist playthrough sometime!!

As for this AAR -- congrats on the win. How much industry does Ethiopia give you now that you integrated it?
I will definitely check out the AAR once it gets released, there seems to be a lot of options and routes in there in which you can take, so it would be for sure entertaining! I'm still catching up on the Mexico AAR you have ongoing, you've really done your research there, its very captivating thus far.

As for Ethiopia, the industry I got was abysmal lol. It was three military, and I can't recall civilian off the top of my head but will check. Usually, I puppet them in previous playthroughs but it often makes the African campaign less hectic in the long run cause they just mass spam divisions.

So Ethiopia is done - but is it worth it?
Nope, definitely not worth it. Lines are thinned and I am now going to get hit hard by attrition i feel. Goodness, why am I trying to do a historical aar again? lol
do not really think it was IOTL either
I agree
 
Chapter Five: A Crisis Unfolding
Chapter Five: A Crisis Unfolding

With the war in Ethiopia having come to a close and the Italian people celebrated the savoury taste of victory yet again, the reprieve from conflict was short-lived. Just a mere five days after the Treaty of Addis Ababa was signed, a new conflict emerged on the global stage, this time, however, it wasn't nearly as far from home as East Africa was, instead, just a short dash from where Corsica and Sardinia sat within the Mediterranean there lay the Iberian Peninsula to which the troubled nation of Spain found itself once again as it had several times before, torn in two by civil war.


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While many Italians would figure the Spanish conflict would not have warranted their involvement, they couldn't have been more wrong from the reality that was to come. On May 19th 1936, a diplomatic delegation representing Nationalist Spain arrived in Rome to treat with the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the subsequent talks that took place, a deal was struck granting the Nationalists docking rights for their ships at Italian ports in which they could resupply as well as conduct maintenance and repairs should the need to do so arise. Although some advisors who held Mussolini's ear were steadfast to warn the Duce of forming bonds with a rebellious faction and not the legitimate government of the nation in which diplomatic relations were extended, Mussolini paid them no mind, with the Second Italo-Ethiopian War having made Italy more disgruntled foes than friends in the international community, the Duce was inclined to support the rise of another fascist nation in Europe.

Although Mussolini's granting of docking rights to Nationalist Spain was a token gesture at the time, this in reality was but the first exchange in Italy-Spanish relations that would build itself into a snowball effect that would see Italy's contribution to the rogue Iberian state grow and grow. Before Italy could provide any further aid, however, Mussolini chose to relish his most recent victory and declared a great national effort for the 'Triumph in Africa' to which celebrations and events of splendour were to take place across the mainland.

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As the people of Italy celebrated alongside their leader. Mussolini having avenged Italy's tarnished reputation from its loss in the First italo-Ethiopian War aspired to be of greater importance to the nation than he already was. In attribute to what he saw as his military prowess and strategic genius, Mussolini created a new rank within the Royal Italian Forces, the rank of First Marshal of the Italian Empire to which only he and King Emmanuel III received, effectively placing Mussolini upon the same pedestal as the King of Italy himself.

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With his ego stroked with all the pomp and fuss a man of his stature had become accustomed too, Mussolini was knocked from his high point and back into reality upon learning the two recently built refineries in Libya were far from meeting the Italian Military's need for oil and fuel. While they were still able to keep operating in limited functions, it was now apparent that the current process of refining oil was still in its infancy and failing miserably to produce enough to make a surplus reserve. By the calculations of logistics officers in the Comando Supremo, it was suggested it would take the two Libyan refineries approximately five years to stockpile a sufficient enough reserve to keep the Italian Military afloat, but even then these calculations did not include the operation of all branches but just the Esercito. Should all branches be included in the calculations, it was widely agreed a stockpiled reserve would be depleted in a matter of months should they not be able to find ulterior means of increasing production of oil-based goods.

As the ruling fascists searched to find an answer to the military's woes, a form of possible salvation came when the research project of 'Construction I' was completed. Selected to replace it was the lengthy, but hopefully rewarding research into synthetic oil, if refining the small deposits of oil found in Libya would not suffice, it was by Mussolini's declaration that it was to be solely by Italian innovation and ingenuity that a new source of oil be found, whether it be a natural resource or artificially made one mattered not, only the result mattered in the end. To bolster this, Il Duce agreed to enlist a hundred of Italy's best scientists and engineers to take part in the undertaking of research to which was to be titled 'Synthetic Oil Experiments', and expected to take upwards of nine months to complete.

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Stumped in the developing oil crisis the nation seemed to be teetering on, Mussolini busied himself with the ongoing dealing with Spain, for despite Spanish General Franco and the Duce differing on some aspects of fascism -to which Mussolini was credited with being the creating founder of- none of these differences were significant enough to cause a rift between them to end their cooperation with one another. Instead, the budding relationship formed through the permittance of Nationalist naval vessels in Italian Shipyards and ports would essentially bind the two nations continually closer until Mussolini found himself gradually increasing Italy's aid to the Franco regime. On May 22nd, after having observed almost a week of deadlock on the Spanish fronts, Italy took a step forward in lending more support to Franco's regime by accepting the man's request to assist in transporting troops from Spain's foreign lands as most of the Spanish navy had aligned themselves with the Republicans.

In seeing the Nationalist war effort having a likelier chance of victory with the addition of Franco loyalists in the Iberian Theater, Mussolini agreed to have the Regia Marina ferry Franco's men to the Spanish mainland. With this influx of fresh troops, small regions on the Spanish front finally looked to fluctuate with some small advances being made. With the deadlock on the fronts appearing to be broken at last, whatever pushes and gains that should have been made by the Nationalists with the thousands of extra manpower Italy had brought them were surprisingly halted against Spanish Republican Forces. It wasn't until Nationalist spies uncovered a lend-lease program between the Republicans and the Soviet Union for arms and munitions did the realization of how the Republicans had been able to repluse the attack come to be known.

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On the 3rd of June, when further reports made it to Rome detailing the observations of Russian troops appearing on the front lines of Spain's battlefronts did Mussolini extend further aid to General Franco. For Il Duce, a man who had once fought to push the communist plague out of Italy when he returned from service in the Great War, he was hardly going to sit by and allow Spain to fall in line with the Comintern. Calling together the General Staff of the Esercito, Mussolini ordered a special Corps be formed and sent to bolster the Spanish Nationalists pending General Franco approved of the participatory force, hardly a day later Mussolini received the answer he hoped for and Italy's involvement in the Spanish Civil War was henceforth cemented.
 
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I feel like that early investment in oil tech will help you a lot down the line in keeping the Reggio Marina up to par.
I hope so, i'm still unfamiliar with the fuel in man the guns so maybe i'm being over cautious with the oil, but i dont know for sure lol. Any pointers you have are welcome. Also quite true about the military factories, i am on far better shape than your mexico campaign so i shouldnt be complaining hahah
Italy is strong on their own indeed, but Italy could be even stronger with more friends, and you should befriend more nations after you helped Franco.
Perhaps you mean romania and the others, cause I certainly hope they do lol
 
I also mean Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece. But the bad news is, I don't know if you can do that while being in Hitler's Axis.

I think you mean the New Rome sort of faction that Italy can solo-create apart from Hitler?
 
Good story. I agree that oil and rubber techs are important, but I think you should have placed the refineries in Italy.
 
How do you take such nice screenshots and format the AAR? Thinking of starting one on the UK. Also, how did you do that image of the field marshall and the 2 generals under him? That was super cool.