Fighting for Italy, not for Mussolini

When Mussolini invaded Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in October 1935, Italians were filled with jingoist triumphalism. Oilcloth maps went up in schools to show the dictator's rapid African conquests. Puffed up with pride, Mussolini appeared on his balcony in Rome to herald the annexation of the promised sub-Saharan land. He seemed transfigured. "He's like a god," marvelled one Fascist. "Like a god?" returned another. "No, no, he

Amedeo Guillet was an Italian officer in charge of 2,000 cavalry in Abyssinia and the star of Italy's Olympic riding team. As an upper-class Piedmontese, he regarded Fascism as the successor to Italy's patriotic Risorgimento movement, which had instituted national unity in 1861. When Britain imposed unexpectedly harsh sanctions on Italy for its Abyssinia aggression, Amedeo was duly indignant: Britain was La Perfida Albione, a sworn enemy. But the longer he remained in Africa, the more he saw of Fascism's ugly face. In conquered Abyssinia, laws were introduced to separate whites from blacks. Abyssinians were not even worthy of the Fascist castor-oil treatment; they were only half-human.

From this racialism in Africa, it was just a short step to advocating racial supremacy at home. In the summer of 1938, Mussolini issued his murderous legislation against Italy's Jews. Amedeo's old-fashioned liberal spirit flinched at the outrage.

Sebastian O'Kelly's true story of love and death in Abyssinia, Amedeo, is based on interviews with the 92-year-old Guillet, who now lives in Ireland. It combines action-packed war scenes with a Boy's Own adventure. Romance is provided by a feisty, pistol-toting Abyssinian vamp, Khadija, who bewitches Amedeo. Keeping a black mistress - madamismo, as it was termed - was strictly prohibited by the Fascist race laws. Yet Amedeo ignored the injunction. Mussolini's African empire, meanwhile, was collapsing. Britain's desert army roundly trounced the Fascists at Tobruk and Benghazi. Then, in the heaviest blow to Italian morale, Addis Ababa fell in 1941.

Motivated more by patriotism than Fascism, Amedeo fled to the hills to organise an anti-British resistance. He looted Allied convoys and derailed their trains. Though he never converted to Islam, he took to wearing Arab fancy dress of headcloth, gorgeous flowing robes and cartridge belt. As a notorious fugitive, in 1943 Amedeo eventually ended up in Yemen, where he lived among the sand-dwelling locals and taught the imam's daughter how to eat with a knife and fork. Still on the British "wanted" list, by the time Amedeo returned to Italy in autumn 1943, bearded and filthy, the Germans had occupied the country north of Naples and put Mussolini in charge of a brutal puppet state. Amedeo did not join the anti-Nazi resistance. Instead, he lay low until the Allies liberated Italy. This attendismo - "wait-and-see attitude" - was typical of most Italians under the occupation. After the war, he became a distinguished diplomat, rubbing shoulders with King Hussein of Jordan and Pope Paul VI. Today, he rides to hounds in Co Meath and listens to Italian opera.

Sebastian O'Kelly's fast-paced romance is not without clichés ("stifling cell", "subterranean gloom"), but it is superbly researched and always engaging to read. Amedeo Guillet, a hero to many older Italians, has been lifted out of his exotic obscurity and celebrated in a ripping yarn.

Fascist-era espresso machines, meanwhile, are the only pieces of equipment in modern Ethiopia that never break down. If Mussolini failed to establish a millennial Fascist empire in Africa, at least he introduced his sub-Saharan subjects to a decent caffé nero.