Desta Damtew

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Ras Desta Damtew (circa 1898 - February 24, 1937) was an Ethiopian noble and one of the sons-in-law of Emperor Haile Sellassie. Born at the village of Maskan (in the contemporary Gurage Zone), he married the Emperor's oldest daughter Princess Tenagnework in 1924. They had four daughters and two sons.^[1]

Anthony Mockler describes Ras Desta as "something of an eccentric among Ethiopian nobles", who had run away in his twenties to become a monk at Debre Libanos, as well as having a reputation "as an entrepreneur and an enfant terrible." Mockler continues that Ras Desta "had as little taste as the young progressives of inferior birth for the traditional amusements of the Amhara aristocracy, the feasting, the horsemanship, the boasting and the drunkenness."^[2]

Emperor Haile Selassie appointed Ras Desta governor of Sidamo in 1930, succeeding Birru Wolde Gabriel. The Ras commanded troops along the southern border of Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, where he was defeated by the Italian General Rodolfo Graziani at the Battle of Ganale Dorya in January, 1936. He retreated back to his administrative center at Irgalem, where with the help of Dejazmach Gabremariam he reorganized his survivors to resist the Italian advance,^[3] and continued to resist the Italians after Emperor Haile Selassie left the country.^[4]

After the end of the rainy season, General Geloso advanced from the north to dislodge Ras Desta and the Dejazmach, but by the end of October Geloso had no advanced very far or effectively. It was not until a month later when a second Italian column advanced from the south through the Wadara Forest that Ras Desta at last left Irgalem, which was occupied 1 December. With Dejazmach Gabremariam, Dejazmach Beine Merid, governor of Bale and a dwindling number of soldiers, Ras Desta eluded the Italians until they were trapped near Lake Shala in the Battle of Gogetti and annihilated. Wounded, Ras Desta managed to escape, only to be caught and executed near his birthplace.^[5]

[edit] Notes

^ Anthony Mockler, Haile Selassie's War (New York: Olive Branch, 2003), p. 390
^ Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, p. 90
^ Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, p. 95
^ According to Bahru Zewde, Desta Damtew vacillated between surrender and continuing the struggle, but a group of Eritreans who deserted the Italians to join him forced him "to stick it out." (A History of Modern Ethiopia, second edition [London: James Currey, 2001], p. 169)
^ Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, pp. 172f