Chapter 140: Two empires. One victorious. One on its knees.

Words : 1204 Updated : Sep 17th, 2025

Chapter 140: Two empires. One victorious. One on its knees.May 5, 1936. The Fall of Addis Ababa The morning was quiet, unnaturally quiet. Captain Arturo Bianchi crouched behind a ruined stone wall, his uniform stained by five months of dust and blood. S~eaʀᴄh the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. The sun was rising over the Ethiopian plateau. Every few minutes, the noise of an reconnaissance plane broke the silence. Bianchi turned to his radio operator. "Any word from forward scouts?" The man shook his head. "No resistance so far. The capital looks...empty." Bianchi exhaled. "That doesn’t make sense. Even rats bite when cornered." Behind him, the column waited. Italian infantry, several tanks with scorched paint, trucks overloaded with supplies, E Eritrean Askaris standing silently with rifles on their backs. General Rodolfo Graziani had radioed the order himself from the southern front. "Advance cautiously. Occupy city perimeter. Await De Bono’s signal from the north." But De Bono had already been replaced in January Mussolini wasn’t patient with slow wars. Marshal Pietro Badoglio now led the northern command. And now, here in the heart of the empire, they were walking into a ghost town. Bianchi gave the hand signal. "Move." The troops moved like ghosts themselves weary, hungry, half-expecting a final ambush. But nothing came. As they entered the city from the south, the roads were lined with bodies. Not fresh. Executed prisoners. Burned-out carts. Ransacked shops. Dogs barking from rooftops. Near a crumbling courtyard, an old woman sat clutching a cracked icon of Saint George. She didn’t speak. She didn’t blink. Just stared. "Where are your soldiers?" Bianchi asked her, in broken Amharic. She didn’t answer. Another soldier, younger, looked around and muttered, "Maybe they’re all dead." Bianchi didn’t like that answer. At the northern gate, Ethiopian Lieutenant Tesfaye held his rifle tight, though there was no ammunition left in it. He stood with twenty men most wounded, some barely standing watching the Italians pour in from the opposite hill. "We can’t stop them," his adjutant whispered. "They’re inside already." Tesfaye nodded. "I know." He looked down at his rifle. "We hold here anyway." "But why?" Tesfaye didn’t reply. Instead, he stepped forward, placed his rifle gently on the ground, and raised his hands. From across the road, an Italian officer raised a hand to his men. "Cease." They stared at each other across twenty meters of cracked pavement. Two empires. One victorious. One on its knees. The Italian officer walked forward. "You speak Italian?" Tesfaye nodded. The officer hesitated, then said simply: "It’s over." Tesfaye replied: "Not for me." He stepped back into the shadows of the gate. The Italians didn’t follow. By 11:00 AM, the tricolor flag of Italy was raised above the Imperial Palace. Graziani’s men found it deserted. Haile Selassie had already fled to Djibouti two days earlier, disguised and exhausted, carrying the Imperial regalia in a hidden crate. There was no formal surrender. No ceremony. Only the slow walk of boots through a dying city. Italian journalists, escorted by military police, were brought in to document the moment. Photos were taken of soldiers saluting the Lion of Judah statue. Of Askaris drinking from marble fountains. Of schoolchildren staring in silence. And then, at 14:00, from a small radio transmitter carried on the back of a truck, came the voice from Rome. "Today, His Majesty King Victor Emmanuel III is proclaimed Emperor of Ethiopia. The Empire is reborn." The men around the truck cheered. One lieutenant cried. Others were silent. Bianchi just stared at the ground. "This... is empire?" he muttered. In a shelter beneath a church in the Arada district, a priest tended to a wounded boy. The child was no older than ten. His legs had been crushed in a mortar blast. "They’ve taken the palace," the priest whispered. The boy didn’t cry. Just stared at the ceiling. "I want to go home." The priest placed a hand on his chest. "So do I." In Rome, that night, Mussolini stood before tens of thousands in Piazza Venezia. He stepped out onto the balcony of Palazzo Venezia and raised his arm in salute. The crowd roared. Flags waved like a sea of fire beneath the floodlit sky. The black-shirted militia stomped their boots in rhythm. Women threw roses. Schoolboys cried with joy. Mussolini stood like a statue for a moment chin high, then began to speak. "Italians! After fifteen years of waiting, the hour of triumph is upon us! Italy, finally, has her Empire! In just seven months of war, fought with heroism and sacrifice, our soldiers, our airmen, our workers, have given birth to a new era. A Fascist era. A Roman era. We have brought civilization where there was none. Discipline where there was chaos. The will of Rome has once again crossed the sea! I declare, before the entire world, that His Majesty King Victor Emmanuel III is now Emperor of Ethiopia! The Lion of Judah is no more. In its place, the Eagle of Rome now soars! To the martyrs of this campaign to the workers who armed us, to the peasants who fed us, to the soldiers who fell for Italy we owe eternal glory. From this day, from this hour, a new Chapter of our destiny begins. The Empire is born in the shadow of our tricolor. And it shall endure under the steel of our will!" The crowd erupted. Cheers rolled through the square like thunder. Cannons fired from the Janiculum Hill in salute. Church bells rang across Rome. Mussolini raised both arms again, basking in it. "This is the day of victory! The day of Empire! May Fascist Italy stand forever! Viva l’Impero! Viva il Duce!" The war, Mussolini declared, was over. In a muddy tent northeast of Paris, Major Étienne Moreau read the wire report. "Addis Ababa has fallen," it said. "Mussolini declares victory. Selassie fled. Italian flag raised." Moreau folded the paper slowly and set it down. Renaud his second-in-command who was missing for months actually went back to his home. His father died because of which he had to take care of many things. He looked at the report and leaned over his shoulder. "So... it’s done?" "No," Moreau replied. "It’s lost." Renaud frowned. "You mean Ethiopia?" "No," Moreau said. "Italy." He stood, lit a cigarette. "You don’t civilize a nation with napalm and gas. You kill it. And you kill part of yourself with it." "They’ll be celebrating tonight," Renaud said. Moreau nodded. "Let them. Fascists always love a parade." He picked up the paper again and looked at the photo of the obelisk being hauled away. "They took their stones. They’ll never carry their shame." He turned back toward the map table. "We move training up by a week. I want PAP drills at dawn." Renaud raised an eyebrow. "In their honor?" "No," Moreau said, crushing out the cigarette. "In ours." That night, beneath the burnt ruins of a monastery near Mekelle, a boy carved a lion into the stone with a pocketknife. His father lay buried there. The boy said nothing. But the lion would remain. Forever.

Chapter 140: Two empires. One victorious. One on its knees.

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