765.84/5035: Telegram
The Minister Resident in Ethiopia (Engert) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:45 p.m.]
554. My 551, September 13, 9 a.m. Marshal Graziani sent his principal assistant, Colonel Mazzi, to the Legation this morning with instructions to extend to me the Marshal’s most profound apologies for the occurrence which he deplored more than he could say. The Marshal had no idea where these executions were to take place or he would not have permitted them. He had not only reprimanded the responsible officer but had punished him and he wished to assure me that I should never again have occasion to complain of such lack of consideration.
Even before the Colonel arrived, the Italian military had begun to dig up the bodies which had been buried where they had fallen and whose removal I had very peremptorily demanded in my letter.
So far as I am concerned the incident is closed. Ghastly though it was, I am glad it afforded me an opportunity to tell the Marshal what truly civilized people think of such methods. The Department will [Page 311] see from my letter, a copy of which is being mailed,65 that I did not mince matters and I gather from Mazzi’s conversation the above has had the sobering effect on them all, which I hoped it would have.
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