An Ethiopian escapade

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Periodical article

Title:	An Ethiopian escapade
Author:	Aldrick, Judith
Year:	1995
Periodical:	Africa: rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione
Volume:	50
Issue:	3
Pages:	387-398
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Ethiopia Italy
Subjects:	colonialism intelligence services World War II
About person:	Katharine Fannin
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/40761021
Abstract:	Little has been written in English on the brief period of Italian occupation of Ethiopia, when the Duke of Aosta ruled in Addis Ababa as Viceroy of a new 'Roman' Empire in East Africa. Recently, however, papers have turned up in Mombasa which shed new light on this obscure interlude in history. These are the papers of Katharine Fannin, the wife of the then Director of Surveys in Kenya, who made two remarkable journeys through Italian East Africa in 1938 and 1939. Playing the part of a harmless and eccentric private traveller, she was treated as an honoured guest of the Viceroy while in secret she gathered vital information for the Foreign Office in London. She memorized details of military installations, noted the conditions of the roads, wrote dossiers on every official she met and acquired the latest maps. This exercise in intelligence was to prove invaluable in the Abyssinian Campaign of 1941, enabling British troops to gain a speedy and easy victory over the Italians. This article describes Katharine Fannin's journeys and her reports. Notes, ref.