This article follows one published in No. 32 of Battlefields early 2010 and that posted on this blog July 2010, dedicated to the air component of the Ogaden War . I decomposed into three parts for easy reading.
The Ogaden War was primarily a border dispute between Somalia's Siad Barre General Colonel Mengistu of Ethiopia, entered into a revolution in 1974. It stems from old problems concerning the delimitation of boundaries at the time of decolonization. It is also caused by an opportunity Siad Barre's capture, that of chaos and disorganization supposed Ethiopia, shaken by a revolution, and must allow the Somalis to regain the province of Ogaden. It marks above a dramatic reversal of the position of the USSR, which had hitherto supported the regime of Somalia, and Ethiopia will now support assaulted by her neighbor. The Red Army takes advantage of a conflict that has largely initiated by deliveries of arms to both sides, to test new equipment and new military tactics on the battlefield. If the Ogaden war fits in perfectly with the overall size of the cold war, the fact remains that its consequences will be especially important for the two African states concerned.
Initially, a border dispute ...
The Horn of Africa in which this conflict takes place does not have a precise definition: it is more a metaphor than a political reality. It includes Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti, which are sometimes added to other neighboring nations. These territories are a sort of bridge between the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, whose geopolitical influence should not be underestimated. The Horn of Africa is indeed on the side of the oil producing countries of the Arabian peninsula: it controls the straits of Bab El Manded and part of the Gulf of Aden by number of tankers which pass 1.
Map of the Horn of Africa today.
The Ogaden in its regional context.
Russia has long been interested in this region. The first contacts, especially with the Ethiopian kingdom, are taken from the late Middle Ages. In the nineteenth century, to counter British control over Egypt and the Suez Canal, Czarist Russia, also believes the economic potential of Ethiopia, will ships weapons and military advisors, who contribute in part to victory Menelik II 2 on Italy at Adowa in 1896. In 1887 also, Ethiopia annexed the province of Harar, evacuated by the Egyptians and those of the Haud and Ogaden, populated by Somalis and a British protectorate. A new treaty is signed between the borders Ethiopia, Italy and Great Britain in 1897, but without consulting the Somali people in the affected provinces, which has implications on subsequent events.
The Battle of Adowa (March 1, 1896).
Russian-Ethiopian ties are stretched after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, particularly because a number of White Russians found refuge in Ethiopia. It was not until the 30s for trade relations are restored, the Soviet Union also negotiating with the French Somaliland and the Italian colony of Eritrea. In 1935 the USSR condemned the Italian invasion of Ethiopia from Mussolini to the League of Nations, but in front of the inefficiency of the institution responsible for guaranteeing peace, she prefers to protect its trade with the fascist regime. During the Second World War, the image of the Soviet Union in Ethiopia will greatly improve by the German aggression, the dissolution of the Comintern in April 1943 and finally on 4 September of that year, the rehabilitation of the Orthodox Church by Stalin 3 . Diplomatic relations were established between Ethiopia and the USSR 4.
Emperor Haile Selassie then violently opposed to the British after the defeat of the Italians consumed in 1941. They remain in effect control of the Ogaden and Haud, and the tracks leading from the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa to the French Somaliland. The borders with Somaliland are redefined, but the British did not reconnaisssent Ethiopian borders with their land while the Treaty of 1897 leaves in limbo the border between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland. The British installed a military administration in the Italian colonies regained (Somalia, Eritrea), where they allow the development of a nationalist political agitation. In 1944, however they are a gesture in handing back to Ethiopia on railway Franco-Ethiopian and removing their garrisons in the country.
The liberation of Ethiopia in 1941.
... transformed by the challenges of the Cold War (1945-1960)
Ethiopia, increasingly suspicious of British intentions , then turns, in 1944-1945, to the United States. The first concession for oil exploration is thus given to an American company, Sinclair . The United States considers Ethiopia as a bulwark against communism in this part of Africa. Under their pressure, the United Kingdom evacuated the Ogaden in 1948, causing riots in British Somaliland where the Somali Youth League, formed in 1947, promotes the formation of a "Greater Somalia " incorporating the Ogaden. Similarly, the United Nations decided in 1950 that Eritrea will be an autonomous unit federated within the kingdom of Ethiopia. To thank the Americans, Haile Selassie in 1951 sent a battalion of his Guard combat in Korea in May 1953, an agreement grants Americans the installation of a radio communications center Kagnew, near Asmara, Eritrea 5. In exchange, the United States is committed to form three divisions Ethiopian of 6000 men. Shortly after, in 1954, the British withdrew from the last territories they controlled, the Haud and Reserve Area.
Entry Base Kagnew.
The USSR did not so much involved in the Horn of Africa, and believes that Ethiopia is now in the Western camp, because of its relationship with the United States. However, with the death of Stalin in 1953 and the Bandung Conference in April 1955, supported by the Emperor of Ethiopia, the Soviets begin to revise their views. Haile Selassie in fact militates in favor of Pan-Africanism which is expressed at the conference of African States in Accra in 1958. Moreover, he is not sorry to expand its relations with the Soviet Union to pressure the United States, especially since the shake disorders since its reincorporation Ogaden to Ethiopia in 1954. Furthermore, it sets its policy towards Eritrea: after suspending the constitution and dissolved the Assembly, he brutally suppressed a general strike organized by trade unions in 1958. Haile Selassie is so obsessed by fear of "encirclement Muslim " of Ethiopia, and considers that the U.S. did little to protect. Therefore, in June 1959, he became the first African head of state to visit USSR. The effect is immediate: the following year, the United States by a secret agreement, undertakes to provide military assistance to train and equip the Ethiopian army of 40 000 men.
The birth of Somalia: the escalation of tensions (1960-1969)
On 1 July 1960 marks a date important in the history of the Horn of Africa: the birth of Somalia meeting of the former British Somaliland and the Italian colony of Somalia. However, this state does not match the aspirations of local nationalism as more than a million Somalis are outside its borders, French Somaliland, northern Kenya and the Ethiopian province of Ogaden. From the outset, Somalia refused to recognize its borders, which means for example, the national flag, adopted by a white five-pointed star, each point representing a segment of Somalia divided by colonial powers .
Thus, clashes between the new government and Ethiopia are growing. In January 1961, after an attempted coup in Addis Ababa, clashes take place at the border éthiopo-Somali Ethiopians whose emerging victorious. In December, an attempted coup took place this time in Somalia, probably strongly supported by neighboring Ethiopia. Somalia realizes she will need to support their claims, a professional army, it remains to develop and train. She turned to the Western camp, but in January 1961, the Kennedy administration rejects the request for military aid from $ 9 million made by Mogadischio. The USSR then proposed to replace the Americans diplomatic relations were established in September 1960. An agreement was signed with the Somali Prime Minister Ali Shermarke, Moscow, June 2, 1961. Between 1961 and 1963, Somalis are in fact the Soviet map to try to obtain Western military assistance. But in November 1963, they finally accept a Soviet proposal more attractive to them than are the American proposals, West German and Italian in particular: education and training of an army from 2 to 10,000 men, delivery more modern equipment (T-34 tanks and MiG fighter planes-15), Somali officer training in the USSR (there will be 600 in 1966), establishing a Soviet military mission Mogadischio (250 military advisors in 1966) 6.
The T-34/85 during the Ogaden War. The Soviet Union engaged in Somalia when she joined the regime of Siad Barre, then it will also deliver to Ethiopia in 1977. The venerable shielded who led the Soviet offensive in 1944-1945 returned to service until well into the Cold War ...
The Soviet strategy of simultaneous implementation in Ethiopia and Somalia is beginning to experience some failures. Ethiopia does not need to brandish the threat of the USSR, since the United States responded to its needs, and even offer to supply a squadron of 12 F-5 fighters. Furthermore, Ethiopia is one of the most prominent states of the Organization of African Unity, a new institution based in Addis Ababa in May 1963. As for Somalia, it continues to negotiate with the West while opening new relations with the PRC, which is no longer on good terms with the USSR. In February 1964 a new armed incident between Ethiopians and Somalis in the Ogaden border, where the first out winners again 7. Renewed fighting between the nomadic Somali and Ethiopian troops between 1964 and 1966. Somalia is also following closely the referendum result in French Somaliland, March 19, 1967, where the population chooses to continue the association with France, a result that Mogadischio immediately denounced as electoral fraud.
A trio of Ethiopian F-5 seen in the U.S. prior to delivery to Addis Ababa.
USSR indirectly supports the main guerrilla movement was born in Eritrea in 1961: the Front for the Liberation of Eritrea (ELF). Syria feeds the movement of arms and ammunition: between 1964 and 1967, guerrillas from a few hundreds of men ill-equipped to 2000 fighters equipped with modern weapons (AK-47s, mortars and rocket launchers Chinese). GQ organization is located in Damascus: Syria supports Baathist, in fact, an Arab liberation movement fighting a pro-Israeli. But the Soviet Union agrees, because on the one hand, the weapons come mainly from Czechoslovakia, and, secondly, Moscow wants to fend off the support to the movement by China, the enemy of the socialist camp. Haile Selassie denounced publicly the assistance provided by the Soviets in the Eritrean rebellion in 1966. At this point, it is certain that the USSR values its relationship with the greater Somalia, preferred to Ethiopia.
On late 60s, however, the position of the USSR in the Cold War itself has changed. Having achieved some parity with the United States in the field of nuclear weapons, the Soviets tend to want to assert their presence in what is commonly called then the "Third World" 8 through political and military, without necessarily encouraging, at the outset, a system of socialist inspiration. Thus the USSR militarily supported the Sudan since 1968 (delivery of tanks T-34 and T-54, MiG-21), and even more after the military coup of General Numeiry in May 1969. The Sudanese army, thanks to Soviet deliveries, from 30 to 50,000 men. The Soviet Union also moved to South Yemen, where the British withdrew in November 1967 to make way for the Democratic People's Republic of Yemen (PDRY). This even though the Soviets are withdrawing in North Yemen, where they supported the republican regime against monarchists, alongside Egyptians directly employed on site, and also withdrew at the end of 1967 9. Moreover, the Soviet Navy began to regularly send a number of its buildings cruise in the Indian Ocean. The USSR thus seeks to counter the threat of a U.S. nuclear strike from the ocean, and the acquisition by the United States in December 1966, the base of Diego Garcia 10.
The Soviets, however, involved less in the Horn of Africa. Employed to reconstruct the Egyptian military aircraft destroyed in 1967 during the Six Day War while leading the War of Attrition 11, drawn through the openings in the Sudan or Yemen, the Soviet Union reduced its aid FLE and deliveries weapons to Somalia for fear of an escalation into a regional conflict. Result: the ELF loses ground against Ethiopia launched a major offensive in September 1967, while in the Ogaden Somali guerrillas also recede. Somalia while trying to negotiate with Ethiopia on the issue of the Ogaden, while restoring diplomatic ties with the United Kingdom in 1967, alarming the USSR. The Soviets then relaunch the arms shipments to the ELF, which won several successes against the Ethiopian army in 1969 while beginning a policy of bombings and hijackings around the world to know its cause.
The arrival in power of Siad Barre: an opportunity seized by the USSR (1969-1974)
While the position of the USSR the Horn of Africa is the lowest, 15 October 1969, Somali President Ali Shermarke is assassinated by his bodyguards. Before the political authorities could intervene, a Supreme Revolutionary Council was created by the army led by General Mohammed Siad Barre, commander of the Somali forces. Prime Minister Egal was arrested, and many politicians, while the constitution was suspended, parliament dissolved, all political parties outlawed. The country is renamed Democratic Republic of Somalia. Siad Barre then began a dramatic shift within the country: it expels military advisers and members of the U.S. embassy in December 1969 and nationalized in May 1970 a large part of the economy (banks, oil companies, etc. ). The coup was welcomed as a boon by the Soviets, who welcomed the Somali revolution while saving her from the presence of a portion of their fleet to Mogadischio, a first tenative coup. End of 1970, there are already more than 900 Soviet advisers in Somalia. If the USSR did not directly organized the military coup, she was careful not to interfere: it must be said that Somalia was suffering from defects of an electoral system too complex, while negotiations Ethiopia with the Somali military deprived of their raison d'etre-the irredentism and national recovery of the provinces inhabited by Somalis in neighboring countries.
dictator Siad Barre (left), who took power in Somalia in 1969, shakes hands with Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (right).
The regime of Siad Barre also immediately raise the tension on the border with Ethiopia. Clashes had taken place in the summer of 1969, in the months preceding the coup. In 1970 appears to light a new organization, which exists in reality for several years: the Front for the Liberation of Western Somalia (WSLF), supported by Mogadischio. These events are not without concern Ethiopia, which faces the increased activity of the ELF in Eritrea: a district governor and the commander of the 2nd Division Ethiopian were killed in 1970. In December, Eritrea was placed under martial law, while the army multiplies the destructive air raids on the province. However, the first divisions are emerging within the ELF, with two moves that break off this year. Moreover, the Emperor, recognizing China as the sole Popular Chinese State December 2, 1971, removes one source of supply for the guerrillas. On paper, at this point, the Ethiopian armed forces still have the edge over their counterparts in Somalia: First they have the numerical superiority (3 cons 1, even if 15 to 20 000 Ethiopian soldiers have committed in Eritrea), and one of the best equipped air forces and the best trained in sub-Saharan Africa, unparalleled Somali side. Ethiopia, however, can no longer rely as much on American support, while the U.S. is bogged down in Vietnam and delegate, with Kissinger, the responsibility to defend itself against communism to local actors. The reuse of the "Soviet card " with the visit of the Emperor in Moscow in 1970, does not cause reaction on the American side: and more so that Ethiopia has become less attractive since the acquisition of the base of Diego Garcia and the development of satellite communications technologies, which remove the usefulness of the database communications Kagnew 12.
comparison between military forces of Ethiopia and Somalia, 1969-1970
| | Ethiopia | Somalia |
| Total enrollment | 41 000 | 10 000 |
| Tanks | Approximately 50 (M-41 and M-24 U.S.). | Approximately 150 (Soviet T-34). |
| Armoured | Approximately 40 (plus a few reconnaissance vehicles). | Approximately 60 (including Soviet BTR-152, plus some reconnaissance vehicles). |
| Combat Ships | 12 (a training ship, 5 patrol 2 torpedo boats, four landing ships). | 6 patrol. |
| Appliances combat | 43 (6 Canberra B-2, 12 F-86F, 8 SAAB-17, 8 F-5A, 6 T-28 and 3 T-33). | 18 (MiG-15 and MiG-17). |
| Other Devices | 57 (6 C-47, 2 C-54, 3 Doves, 1 Il-14, 15 SAAB 19 Safir, 8 T-28, Alouette 3 helicopters). | At least 27 (20 Yak-11, 6 MiG-15/17 UTI, C-45, C-47 and an An-24 transport). |
Source: Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union In The Horn of Africa. The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement , Soviet and East European Studies 71, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Between 1971 and 1974, the Soviet Union is increasingly involved in more sides of the young Somali regime. Deliveries of weapons including accelerating the shipment of tanks and MiG-54 T, and many other heavy equipment. The Soviets get an important naval base at Berbera and access to airfields in Somalia. In 1974, the year of signing an important treaty of friendship and cooperation between the two countries, there are 1,600 Soviet military advisers in Somalia. At that time, the USSR lost the ties she had with the Sudan Numeiry (1971), even as President Sadat in Egypt expelled Soviet military advisers (1972). In 1972, the USSR chose therefore to strengthen the military potential of Somalia: it sends MiG-15 and MiG-17, Il-28 bombers, the Yak drive, Antonov transport tanks T-34 and T-54 , vehicles, armored troop carriers, the torpedo boats P-5 and quantities of artillery equipment. With these deliveries Soviet military potential Somali increases by half. The USSR also built a first-class naval station at Berbera: a floating pier with three sections, a pipeline linking the port to a military airfield, one floating repair shop fed from Vladivostok, a communication station, long range a handling facility missiles, track 5000 m long to take off bombers Tu-95 Bear or Il-38 May for anti-submarine on the Indian Ocean.
profi A color of a MiG-15UTI (Training) in Somalia, in 1969.
Barre strengthens cooperation with the USSR is modeled more closely on the socialist model. This does not to say that Somalia is becoming a Soviet satellite simple: on the contrary, the general-dictator is also in respect of national applications and claims on the Ogaden-traditional, for example-not necessarily supported by the USSR. But are emerging in 1972 the Pioneers of Victory, an organization inspired Soviet Komsomol, the National Security Service, headed by the political police in-law of Siad Barre, Colonel Ahmed Suleiman Abdulle is formed with the help of KGB advisers to the GDR. Meanwhile, Siad Barre sought to obtain the maximum foreign support in its struggle for territorial reconquest of Ethiopia. He takes up the cause of the Arab countries during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and strengthens military ties with Egypt. Relations with Ethiopia remain quite cordial until 1972, Siad Barre cutting food even during a time WSLF. But at the end of that year, an American oil company claims to have found substantial natural gas resources in the Bale, a part of the province of Ogaden. Tensions resumed at the border at a time when Somalia began to catch up on the Ethiopian military. In 1973, Somalis line up more than 17 000 men as they had only 12 000 in 1970. Ethiopian forces they stagnated around 45,000 men. More importantly, in terms of hardware, many Somalis have acquired Soviet fighters, MiG-15, MiG-17 and MiG-19, without consideration for the Ethiopian side.
At the same time, the USSR began to realize the weakness of the imperial regime in Ethiopia. In 1970, a devastating drought destroys crops in Tigray and Wollo, then spread to the entire country. The famine that killed following several hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian farmers. In addition, the rebellion in Eritrea intensifies, the two main movements, the ELF and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Eritrea (EPLF), fight, but are also harsh blows to the Ethiopian army, supported yet by Israeli military advisers specializing in the insurgency-cons. Syria and Iraq maintain the FFL while Libya's Colonel Gaddafi supported the EPLF. Before his difficulties, the Emperor flew to Washington in May 1973 to request additional military assistance the United States. But the Nixon administration concedes that some additional F-5, M-60 tanks, patrol boats, and not the air-ground missiles requested by Haile Selassie. The Americans close also based Kagnew in October 1973, reducing its military aid and leave a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) of 107 men, to provide instruction at the center of parachute Dabre Zeit as well as Harar Military Academy. The Emperor then close again to the USSR, which begins to think that Ethiopia is ripe for revolution, looking strangely like elsewhere in Tsarist Russia in 1917 in its configuration socioeconomic 13 .
1 Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union In The Horn of Africa. The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement, Soviet and East European Studies 71, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.25.
2 Menelik II heads the kingdom of Ethiopia from 1889 to 1913.
3 The majority of Ethiopians follow the Orthodox religion. Christianity was introduced to Ethiopia at the end of antiquity.
4 Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union In The Horn of Africa. The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement, Soviet and East European Studies 71, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.33.
5 An American website is dedicated to station Kagnew: http://www.kagnewstation.com/
6 Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union In The Horn of Africa. The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement, Soviet and East European Studies 71, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.49.
7 It also considers these clashes, in some sources as the first war in the Ogaden.
8 A term coined in 1952 by French demographer Alfred Sauvy inspired by the Third State of the French Revolution. The word means, so the less developed states of the planet that do not belong to the Western camp, or the socialist camp.
9 See my article on Historicoblog (3) : "The misfortunes of Arabia Felix-The war in North Yemen, 1962-1970: the" Vietnam Egyptian "- (2 / 3), http://historicoblog3.blogspot.com/2010/11/les-malheurs-de-larabie-heureuse-la.html
10 Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union In The Horn of Africa. The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement, Soviet and East European Studies 71, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.82-85.
11 name given to the period following the Six Day War (1967-1970), who sees Egypt supported by the USSR to face Israel in a limited way.
12 Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union In The Horn of Africa. The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement, Soviet and East European Studies 71, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.107-108.
13 Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union In The Horn of Africa. The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement, Soviet and East European Studies 71, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.136-143.
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