Agenore Frangipani
Agenore Frangipani | |
|---|---|
| Born | 4 December 1876 |
| Died | 6 April 1941 (aged 64) |
| Allegiance | Kingdom of Italy |
| Branch | Royal Italian Army |
| Rank | Major General |
| Conflicts | |
| Awards | |
Agenore Frangipani (Benevento, 4 December 1876 – Addis Ababa, 6 April 1941) was an Italian general and colonial official, and the last Italian governor of Addis Ababa and Scioa.
Biography
Frangipani was born in 1876 to an aristocratic family, the second son of the Marquis of Mileta. He initially enlisted in the Royal Italian Navy, attending the Naval Academy of Livorno for some time, but moved to the Royal Italian Army after some time, attending the Nunziatella Military College in Naples and graduating in 1899 as lieutenant of the Corazzieri.
In 1906 he was promoted to captain, and on the following year he married Countess Cristina Agazzi, member of a noble Lombard family. In 1911 Frangipani fought in Libya during the Italo-Turkish War, and during World War I he fought on the Karst Plateau, being promoted to major in 1917 and to colonel in 1919. In 1923 he joined the National Fascist Party; in the following years he worked for the Ministry of War and served as military attaché in Berlin and Paris until 1930. He also served as official in the colonial administrator in Italy's East African colonies for many years (in 1922 he signed a treaty with Arthur Wallace Skrine, British deputy governor of Kassala province, rectifying the border between Eritrea and Sudan), as well as consul in Ethiopia.[1][2][3][4]
During the second half of the 1930s he fought in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, being promoted to major general in 1936, then in the Spanish Civil War and finally in the conquest of Albania. At the outbreak of World War II he was in Italian East Africa, and on 3 April 1941 he replaced Giuseppe Daodice as governor of Addis Ababa and the Scioa Governorate. He was ordered by the Duke of Aosta, Viceroy of Italian East Africa, to surrender Addis Ababa to the advancing British forces without fighting, in order to spare the civilian population.
He found himself having to counter the Allied advance without any hope: he was forced to give the Ethiopia's capital to the British on 6 April 1941. Indeed, the Italian Viceroy Amedeo d'Aosta ordered him (the Italian governor of Addis Abeba), to surrender the city to the British commanders without any fight, in order to forestall the massacre of Italian civilians. The Viceroy decided to allow British troops to enter the Ethiopian city to prevent from happening again the atrocities similar to those committed a few days before at Dire Dawa and other Ethiopian cities against Italian civilians. The first British troops entered the town at dawn on April 5, a month before Negus Haile Selassie returned there escorted by British troops. Frangipani-who was prepared for a defensive battle- accepted reluctantly the order to surrender. Roberto Biagioni
Frangipani reluctantly carried out this order on 6 April 1941[5], but later on the same day, feeling dishonored, he committed suicide.
His family honored his old-aristocracy feelings about not accepting surrender without combat.
Awards
Some of the Awards (and Medals) received by Agenore Frangipani were:
| Grand'Ufficiale dell'Ordine della Corona d'Italia | |
| Grand'Ufficiale dell'Ordine dei Santi Maurizio e Lazzaro | |
| Commendatore dell'Ordine militare di Savoia | |
| Commendatore dell'Ordine coloniale della stella d'Italia | |
References
- ^ VV, AA (Oct 26, 2010). Fascismi periferici. Nuove ricerche. L'Annale Irsifar: Nuove ricerche. L'Annale Irsifar. FrancoAngeli. ISBN 9788856829020. Retrieved Aug 24, 2021 – via Google Books.
- ^ Boca, Angelo Del (Mar 11, 2015). La nostra Africa. Neri Pozza Editore. ISBN 9788854509894. Retrieved Aug 24, 2021 – via Google Books.
- ^ Brownlie, Ian; Burns, Ian R. (Aug 24, 1979). African Boundaries: A Legal and Diplomatic Encyclopaedia. C. Hurst. ISBN 9780903983877. Retrieved Aug 24, 2021 – via Google Books.
- ^ "United Nations - Office of Legal Affairs" (PDF). legal.un.org. Retrieved Aug 24, 2021.
- ^ Video of the surrender, showing Agenore Frangipani going out of the building where was done the surrender: [1]
Bibliography
- Goffredo Orlandi Contucci, A.O.I.- AFRICA ORIENTALE ITALIANA - La conquista dell'Impero nel ricordo del tenente Goffredo Orlandi Contucci - Edizioni MyLife, Monte Colombo/Coriano, 2009 ISBN 978-88-6285-100-8