The East African Campaign began on 13 June 1940 with an Italian air raid on a British air base at Wajir in Kenya. To mount their counterattack, the Allies assembled a largely multi-African force that included Ethiopians, Eritreans, soldiers from Britain's African colonies and from India, and soldiers of the Congolese Force Publique fighting for Free Belgium. The campaign continued until Italian forces had been pushed back from Kenya and Sudan, through Somaliland, Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1940 and early 1941. The bulk of the Italian forces still in the colony surrendered after the Battle of Gondar in November 1941, but small groups kept fighting a guerrilla war in Ethiopia until the Armistice of Cassibile in September 1943. The East African Campaign was the first Allied strategic victory in the war.