Italian Eritrea

Italian Eritrea was the first colony of the Kingdom of Italy. It was officially created in 1890.

From 1882 to 1941 Eritrea was ruled by the Kingdom of Italy. In those sixty years Eritrea was populated and developed - mainly in the area of Asmara - by groups of Italian colonists, who moved there from the beginning of the XX century.

The Italians took advantage of disorder in northern Ethiopia following the death of Emperor Yohannes IV in 1889 to occupy the highlands even with general Oreste Baratieri and established their new colony, henceforth known as "Eritrea": they received recognition from Menelik II, Ethiopia's new Emperor.

The Italian possession of maritime areas previously claimed by Abyssinia/Ethiopia was formalized in 1889 with the signing of the Treaty of Wuchale with Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia (r. 1889–1913) after the defeat of Italy's general Baratieri by Ethiopia at the battle of Adua where Italy launched an effort to expand its possessions from Eritrea into the more fertile Abyssinian hinterland. Menelik would later renounce the Wuchale Treaty as he had been tricked by the translators to agree to making the whole of Ethiopia into an Italian protectorate. However, he was forced by circumstance to live by the tenets of Italian sovereignty over Eritrea.

After 1890 the Italian government started to improve the new colony, called Colonia Primogenita, or first and preferred (in comparison to the other new colonies -like Italian Somalia and Italian Libya- being developed by the Italians in Africa).^[1].

Around the turn of the century the Italian government promoted the arrival of a few dozen Italian families, who settled mainly in the area of Asmara and Massawa. The Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II^[2].

The Italians brought to Eritrea a huge development of Catholicism and by the 1940 nearly half the Eritrean population was Catholic, mainly in Asmara where many churches were built.

Italian administration of Eritrea brought improvements in the medical and agricultural sectors of Eritrean society. For the first time in history the Eritrean poor population had access to sanitary and hospital services in the urban areas.

Furthermore, the Italians employed many Eritreans in public service (in particular in the police and public works departments) and oversaw the provision of urban amenities in Asmara and Massawa. In a region marked by cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity, a succession of Italian governors maintained a notable degree of unity and public order. The Italians also built many major infrastructural projects in Eritrea, including the Asmara-Massawa Cableway and the Eritrean Railway.^[3]

After the establishment of new transportation and communication methods in the country, the Italians also started to set up new factories, which in turn made due contribution in enhancing trade activities. The newly opened factories produced buttons, cooking oil, and pasta, construction materials, packing meat, tobacco, hide and other household commodities. In the year 1939, there were around 2,198 factories and most of the employees were Eritrean citizens, some even moved from the villages to work in the factories.The establishment of industries also made an increase in the number of both Italians and Eritreans residing in the cities. The number of Italians residing in the country increased from 4,600 to 75,000 in five years; and with the involvement of Eritreans in the industries, trade and fruit plantation was expanded across the nation, while some of the plantations were owned by Eritreans.^[4]

Benito Mussolini's rise to power in Italy in 1922 brought profound changes to the colonial government in Eritrea. Mussolini established the Italian Empire in May 1936. The fascists imposed harsh rule that stressed the political ideology of colonialism in Eritrea in the name of a "new Roman Empire".

Eritrea was chosen by the Italian government to be the industrial center of the Italian East Africa. ^[5]

The Italian government continued to implement agricultural reforms but primarily on farms owned by Italian colonists (exports of coffee boomed in the thirties). In the area of Asmara there were in 1940 more than 2000 small and medium sized industrial companies, concentrated in the areas of construction, mechanics, textiles, electricity and food processing. Consequently, the living standard of life in Eritrea in 1939 was considered one of the best of Africa for the Italian colonists and for the Eritreans ^[6].

The Mussolini government regarded the colony as a strategic base for future aggrandizement and ruled accordingly, using Eritrea as a base to launch its 1935–1936 campaign to colonize Ethiopia. Even in WWII the Italians used Eritrea to attack Sudan and occupy the Kassala area. Indeed, the best Italian colonial troops were the Eritrean Ascari, as stated by Italian Marshall Rodolfo Graziani and legendary officer Amedeo Guillet ^[7].

The city of Asmara had a population of 98,000, of which 53,000 were Italians according to the Italian census of 1939. This fact made Asmara the main "Italian town" of the Italian empire in Africa. In all Eritrea the Italians were 75,000 in that year.^[8]

Many industrial investments were done by the Italians in the area of Asmara and Massawa, but the beginning of World War II stopped the blossoming industrialization of Eritrea ^[9].

When the British army conquered Eritrea from the Italians in spring 1941, most of the infrastructures and the industrial areas were extremely damaged and the remaining ones (like the Asmara-Massawa Cableway) were successively removed and sent toward India and British Africa as a war booty.^[10]

The following Italian guerrilla war was supported by many Eritrean colonial troops until the Italian armistice in September 1943. Eritrea was placed under British military administration after the Italian surrender in World War II.

The Italians in Eritrea started to move away from the country after the defeat of the Kingdom of Italy by the Allies, and Asmara in the British census of 1949 already had only 17,183 Italian Eritreans on a total population of 127,579. Most Italian settlers left for Italy, with others to United States, Middle East, and Australia.

The British maintained initially the Italian administration of Eritrea, but the country soon started to be involved in a violent process of independence (from the British in the late forties and after 1952 from the Ethiopians, who annexed Eritrea in that year).

During the last years of World War II some Italian Eritreans like Dr. Vincenzo Di Meglio defended politically the presence of Italians in Eritrea and successively promoted the independence of Eritrea.^[11]

After the war Di Meglio was named Director of the "Commitato Rappresentativo Italiani dell' Eritrea" (CRIE). In 1947 he supported the creation of the "Associazione Italo-Eritrei" and the "Associazione Veterani Ascari", in order to get alliance with the Eritreans favorable to Italy in Eritrea ^[12]. As a result of these creations, he cofounded the "Partito Eritrea Pro Italia" (Party of Shara Italy) in September 1947, an Eritrean political Party favorable to the Italian presence in Eritrea that obtained more than 200,000 inscriptions of membership in one single month.

Indeed the Italian Eritreans strongly rejected the Ethiopian annexation of Eritrea after the war: the Party of Shara Italy was established in Asmara in 1947 and the majority of the members were former Italian soldiers with many Eritrean Ascari (the organization was even backed up by the government of Italy). The main objective of this party was Eritrea freedom, but they had a pre-condition that stated that before independence the country should be governed by Italy for at least 15 years (like happened with Italian Somalia).

With the Peace Treaty of 1947 Italy officially accepted the end of the colony.

• Antonio Baldissera from February 1896 to December 1897
• Ferdinando Martini from February 1897 to March 1907
• Giuseppe Salvago Raggi from March 1907 to August 1915
• Giovanni Cerrina Feroni from August 1915 to September 1916

Giacomo De Martino dal 16 settembre 1916 al 20 luglio 1919 Camillo De Camillis dal 20 luglio 1919 al 20 novembre 1920 Ludovico Pollera dal 20 novembre 1920 al 14 aprile 1921 Giovanni Cerrina Feroni dal 14 aprile 1921 al 1º giugno 1923 (seconda volta) Jacopo Gasparini dal 1º giugno 1923 al 1º giugno 1928 Corrado Zoli dal 1º giugno 1928 all'11 luglio 1930 Riccardo Di Lucchesi[1] dall' 11 luglio 1930 al 15 gennaio 1935 Ottone Gabelli dal 15 al 18 gennaio 1935 Emilio De Bono dal 18 gennaio 1935 al 22 novembre 1935 Pietro Badoglio dal 22 novembre 1935 al 9 maggio 1936 Governatori (come parte dell'AOI):

Pietro Badoglio dal 9 al 22 maggio 1936 Alfredo Guzzoni dal 22 maggio 1936 al 1º aprile 1937 Vincenzo De Feo dal 1º aprile 1937 al 15 dicembre 1937 Giuseppe Daodiace dal 15 dicembre 1937 al 2 giugno 1940 Luigi Frusci dal 2 giugno 1940 al 19 maggio 1941

• Bandini, Franco. Gli italiani in Africa, storia delle guerre coloniali 1882-1943. Longanesi. Milano, 1971.
• Bereketeab, R. Eritrea: The making of a Nation. Uppsala University. Uppsala, 2000.
• Lowe, C.J. Italian Foreign Policy 1870-1940. Routledge. 2002.
• Maravigna, Pietro. Come abbiamo perduto la guerra in Africa. Le nostre prime colonie in Africa. Il conflitto mondiale e le operazioni in Africa Orientale e in Libia. Testimonianze e ricordi. Tipografia L'Airone. Roma, 1949.
• Negash, Tekeste. Italian colonialism in Eritrea 1882-1941 (Politics, Praxis and Impact). Uppsala University. Uppsala, 1987.

• Italian Eritreans
• Asmara
• Cinema Impero
• Asmara President's Office
• Fiat Tagliero Building
• Vincenzo Di Meglio
• Eritrean Ascari

• Old photos of Italian Eritrea
• Website with photos of Italian Asmara
• Postcards of Italian Asmara
• Website with documents, maps and photos of the Italians in Eritrea (in Italian)
• Detailed map of Eritrea in 1936 (click on the sections to enlarge)
• "1941-1951 The difficult years" (in Italian), showing the end of Italian Eritrea