num_pages: 304
description: In October 1935 Fascist Italy invaded independent Ethiopia. The Italians had planes high explosive and mustard gas. The Ethiopians had swords and spears. Emperor Haile Selassie needed expert outside help. What he got was a crazy gang of mercenaries who could barely shoot straight and were further to the right than Mussolini. Americans posing as fake French counts Fascist Belgian mercenaries an African-American pilot duo known as the Black Eagle and the Brown Condor (they hated each other) a Cuban veteran of three failed far-right coups an Austrian Nazi doctor Swedish soldiers who preferred fighting communism an alcoholic English dropout. Haile Selassie's international state support was equally disreputable. Hitler backed Selassie as part of a plot to grab back the Rhineland and Japanese secret societies pushed a penniless Tokyo princess into marriage with an Ethiopian prince. Together this bizarre foreign legion tried to save Ethiopia from Fascism. In his own fast-paced style Christopher Othen demonstrates how the invasion of Ethiopia almost turned into a worldwide race war.
language: English
title: Lost Lions of Judah: Haile Selassie's Mongrel Foreign Legion 1935-41
publisher: Amberley Publishing