Italian East Africa
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Italian East Africa (Italian: Africa Orientale Italiana, AOI) was a short-lived (1936-1941) Italian colony in Africa consisting of Ethiopia (recently occupied after the Second Italo-Abyssinian War) and the colonies of Italian Somaliland and Eritrea held in the name of Victor Emmanuel III of the Kingdom of Italy. In August 1940 British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to the AOI.
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[edit] Territory
In 1936, Italian East Africa covered all of present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea and most of Somalia with the exception of the territory which presently composes the de facto independent Republic of Somaliland. The colony was divided into six provinces: Amara, Eritrea, Galla-Sidamo, Harar, Scioa, Somalia, each run by an Italian governor. The colonial divisions were important in the Fascist regime's attempt to permanently destroy the former Ethiopian state, by granting former Ethiopian land to its rival Muslim neighbours in Italian administered Eritrea and Somalia. Italian East Africa briefly enlarged in 1940, as Italian forces conquered British Somaliland, thereby creating a single Somali provincial entity within Italian control, though this and the colony itself would be broken apart one year later as Italian East Africa was occupied by British forces.
[edit] History
The dominion was formed in 1936 during Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's government in Italy with the defeat of Ethiopia in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
Rule in Italian East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland) was harsh for the native peoples, especially towards Ethiopians as Fascist policy sought to destroy their culture. In February 1937, the AOI's Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani ordered Italian soldiers to pillage native settlements in Addis Ababa, which resulted in hundreds of Ethiopians being killed and their homes left burned to the ground.[1]
In June 1940, at the beginning of Italy's involvement in World War II, the AOI potentially constituted a dangerous menace to British interests in Africa. From one perspective, a successful Italian attack from the AOI through the Sudan and the establishment of a connection to Italian-held Libya would have isolated vital British positions in Egypt and the Suez Canal. However, from a different perspective, the AOI itself was isolated from Italy and surrounded by British forces in the Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland. British forces in Aden could provide critical air and naval support against Italian naval forces operating in the Red Sea. Italian maritime transport was cut off by the British at the Suez Canal. What supplies did arrive in the AOI were generally from the air and in small quantities.
At the beginning of the East African Campaign, the Italian troops amounted to 291,000 men including native troops. Training of the native troops was poor, the Italian garrisons were too spread out, due to the extremely poor state of roads, and were essentially reduced to a static role without enough ammunitions and oil reserves (which allowed the Allies to liberate AOI in 1941).
In 1940, the adjacent protectorate of British Somaliland was occupied by Italian forces and absorbed into Italian East Africa. The conquest was the only victory of Italy, without reinforcement from German troops, during WWII against the Allies. This occupation lasted around one year.
On March 27, 1941 the stronghold of Keren was captured by the British troops after a strenuous defence from general Orlando Lorenzini. After the surrender of Massaua (April 8), Eritrea was lost for Italy. The war was lost on May 1941, when the last stand on Amba Alagi under Viceroy Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta, at Amba Alagi ended honourably in face of overwhelming Allied troops. November 28 of the same year, general Guglielmo Nasi and the last Italian occupants of Gondar surrendered.
Many Italians fought a guerrilla war in the "Africa Orientale Italiana", after the surrender at Gondar of the last regular Italian forces in November 1941. From November 1941 to September 1943 there was an Italian guerrilla force made up of 7000 Italians who had not accepted surrender to the Allies. They were waiting for the possible arrival of the Italo-German army of Rommel from Egypt and the Mediterranean (called in 1942 by Mussolini "the Italian Mare Nostrum"), but after the Battle of El Alamein the momentum of this resistance slowly faded away.
[edit] Sources
- Antonicelli, Franco. Trent'anni di storia italiana 1915 - 1945 (in Italian). Mondadori ed. Torino, 1961.
- Del Boca, Angelo. Italiani in Africa Orientale: La caduta dell'Impero (in Italian). Laterza. Roma-Bari, 1986. ISBN 884202810X
- Mockler, Anthony. Haile Selassie's War: The Italian-Ethiopian Campaign, 1935-1941. Random House. New York, 1984. ISBN 0-394-54222-3
- Sarti, Roland. The Ax Within: Italian Fascism in Action. New Viewpoints. New York. 1974.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Sarti, p191.
[edit] See also
- Colonial heads of Italian East Africa
- Italian Governors of Addis Ababa
- Italian Governors of Amhara
- Italian Governors of Galla-Sidamo
- Italian Governors of Harar
- Italian Governors of Scioa
- Dubats
- Political history of Eastern Africa
- Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia
