Very much like all Othen's books, this one is about all weird [and not so weird, aka professional military] types that get drawn to a conflict like moths to fire. Here we follow the group of unlikely mercenaries (some of them being just plain fakes) as they find their way in the Ethiopian conflict - and if there was the most confusing conflict ever on planet Earth this one was it (and this was especially true of the political orientation of mercenaries fighting for Ethiopia).

Ethiopians themselves are a very interesting bunch - rather merciless in combat (not just against the Italians but in general - I loved the way shock was described in the group of Swedish mercenaries when they saw Ethiopians taking prisoners, everybody was like "Oh s**t, this ain't good, they never take prisoners") and working in extremely feudal political framework. Entire Ethiopia seems to be on the verge of apocalyptic collapse at all times and Italian invasion did not help it stabilize.

Italians are .... well Italians I guess, rather operatic and seeking revenge for the battle of Adwa where Ethiopians triumphed and slaughtered almost entire Italian royal army.
I think that level of brutality and overall casualty list Italians inflicted was unsurpassed until Spanish Civil War. Ethiopians died in thousands and especially dangerous was the use of poison gas (mustard gas) by Italians they extensively used when Ethiopian victory started to come up as a possibility. Later when Ethiopian government fell and brigands started roaming the fields everything spiralled to hellish nightmare-like state.

The only issue I had with the book is [extremely] slow start (around 1/3 fo the book) - this part took me considerable effort to finish because it read like Rashomon, the same thing reiterated from the perspective of every new mercenary [true or wanna-be]. But after that, when actual combat with Italians begins, Christopher Othen writes in his fashion that is very familiar to all who read his books on Spanish Civil War and Congo in the 60's.

Highly recommended. ( )

When I was growing up in the 1950s, it was pretty clear who the good guys and the bad guys had been. The Nazis were, of course, the ultimate Bad Guys, with the Italians and Japanese as sort of farm team Bad Guys. The Russians had once been Good Guys but were now Bad Guys (I remember my astonishment as I became aware that some of my college classmates thought the Russians – or more correctly, the Soviets – were still Good Guys, and my horror on discovering that sometimes the Americans had been Bad Guys).

But back in the 1930s the Good Guy/Bad Guy situation had been a lot more complicated. Many people with Good Guy credentials – like George Bernard Shaw – thought Mussolini was a Good Guy and that Fascism was just a variant of Socialism. Christopher Othen’s Lost Lions of Judah illustrates the confusion by documenting various foreign fighters in the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-1936.

After some cursory background on the history of Ethiopia/Italian relations, Othen gives capsule biographies of various mercenaries, military instructors, journalists, and miscellaneous foreigners that turned up in Ethiopia to fight for Haile Selassie (and a few who wanted to fight for Benito Mussolini), interspersed with accounts of the progress of the war. It came as a considerable surprise to find that many of Ethiopia’s western supporters were from the Right rather than the Left – or at least what’s now considered the Right and Left. For example, we now think Hitler and Mussolini had always been bosom buddies now, but back then was before the Pact of Steel and the Rome-Berlin Axis. Mussolini had moved troops up to the Austrian border when Austrian Nazis first attempted to seize control in 1934, and although that coup attempt resulted in the assassination of the Austrian chancellor it otherwise quickly failed; Hitler got some measure of revenge by supporting Ethiopia with weapons in 1935 and used Italy’s distraction there to reoccupy the Rhineland. Othen points out that the demilitarization of the Rhineland was jointly guaranteed by Britain, France and Italy, and that – probably something of a surprise to those who think of Italy of the poor relation in the Axis based on subsequent performance – Italy was by far the largest military power in Europe in 1935. With Italy busy elsewhere, the French and British were unwilling to commit.

Also going against what might be expected, the Soviets quietly supported Italy, violating the League of Nations trade embargoes to sell foodstuffs and fuel. This prompted an angry letter from the American NAACP to the Soviet Foreign Ministry, asking if anti-imperialism didn’t apply any more. There was no answer.

Othen characterizes some of the European political parties supporting Ethiopia as “Fascist” but a more correct description might be “Monarchist” – supporting a monarch, even an African one, against a nominal republic, even though it was actually a Fascist dictatorship. Thus Belgian Blueshirts – apparently every Fascist group had to have its own shirt color and brown and black were already taken – turned up in Addis Ababa, along with ex-Tsarists, Austrian Nazis who had fled after the failed 1934 coup, and miscellaneous others who were more interested in adventure than politics (in fact Othen points out that some of the people he profiles who tried to fight against Fascist Italy in Ethiopia ended up fighting for the Falangist Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War).

Thousands of blacks from the US and the British Empire showed up at Ethiopian embassies and consulates trying to join up, but the Ethiopians, historically suspicious of foreigners regardless of color, turned almost all volunteers down. (Even here loyalties were confused; the famous black dancer Josephine Baker publicly supported Mussolini, noting Ethiopia still allowed slavery).

Othen’s writing style is brisk and easy. However, if you want a history of the war you should look elsewhere; this is almost all personal characterizations of Othen’s subjects interspersed with their military adventures. There are no maps so it’s hard to figure out what’s going on unless you have other sources. There’s also no “feel” for the Ethiopian people and country (for that matter, there isn’t much “feel” for the Italians either). Some generic photographs for illustration. Endnotes and a bibliography, which is almost all personal accounts of wartime experiences. The index is sparse and I couldn’t find several things I wanted to look up. Worth a read, especially to be disabused of previous beliefs about 1930s politics, but you should read a more conventional military history first. ( )