User:Spaceanddeath/Shewareged Gedle

Shewareged Gedle (July 12, 1894 – Feb. 27, 1945) also known as “the lion-hearted woman” and “the Ethiopian Joan of Arc” was a guerrilla fighter and resistance leader during the [Second Italo-Ethiopian War], and was the founder of the Ethiopian Women's Welfare Organization.

Early Life

Gedle was the daughter of a commander, and was said to have trained early to fight with a sword, and trained with soldiers. When the Italo-Ethiopian war broke out, Gedle began raising funds, collecting first aid medication. She also mobilized a league of women patriots under her command, each taking an oath to fight the enemy till death.

She sold the land she inherited from her father and used the money to buy clothes, medicine, rifles and ammunition for her soldiers as well as financial support to both the Red Cross, and villagers struggling under Italian occupation. She was highly involved in the resistance underground in Addis Ababa where she rallied support for the resistance, and distributed foods, medicines, arms and clothes to the network of guerrilla fighters.

With the help of an Ethiopian contact working at the Italian political office, she gathered valuable information on contemporary political and military affairs. She compiled and systemically distributed an intelligence report to local war leaders in the resistance

In 1937, an assassination attempt on Italian Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani’s life by Eritrean students studying in Addis Ababa, resulted in a widespread reprisal massacre known as Yekatit 12 which saw the deaths of 30,000 citizens of the city over three days. In addition, more than fifteen hundred intellectuals, leaders, and influential people were arrested to be either executed or imprisoned. Gedle was among those arrested. She was deported and imprisoned for two years in an Italian prison close to the island of Sardinia. Subjected to torture in prison, she was once reported to have in on instance struck an Italian officer in the face and shouted “You are entitled to imprison me, but not to insult me”. She eventually promised not to engage in subversive activities, and was allowed to return home, where she promptly resumed the patriotic struggle.

She joined an underground organization known as Wust Arbegnoch (inner patriots) who gathered intelligence, funds, ammunition, food, clothes and medication to for the guerrilla fighters. In the summer of 1940 she was involved in a plot to sabotage an Italian ammunition depot in Addis Alem. She surveiled the condition of the depot and its Ethiopian prisoners, and colluded with Jagema Kello, Colonel Zewde Tilahun, Captain Tengesse Kello and others to plan the attack, and she developed contacts with people working in the prison to set it up. In November 1940, the attack was successful, freeing the prisoners and looting the depot. 70 Italian soldiers were killed during the attack, and 2700 rifles and as many grenades were secured for the resistance.

In December 1940, she was captured by the Italians at Kussay. She was beaten, detained at Akaki prison and sentenced to death, but fortunately her life was saved by the triumphant entry of the joint Anglo-Ethiopian army into the capital.