Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa Africa Orientale Italiana
Colony of the Kingdom of Italy
←   ←   ←   ← 1936–1941 ↓
Flag Royal Coat of arms
Motto Foedere et Religione Tenemur "We are bound by Treaty and by Religion"
Anthem Marcia Reale d'Ordinanza "Royal March of Ordinance"
Italian East Africa in 1936.   Italian East Africa   Conquered in 1940   Possessions and occupied territories   Kingdom of Italy
Capital		Addis Ababa
Languages		Italian, Amharic, Somali
Political structure		Colony
Emperor
-	1936–1941	Victor Emmanuel III
Viceroya
-	1936	Pietro Badoglio
-	1936–1937	Rodolfo Graziani
-	1937–1941	Amedeo Umberto
-	1941	Pietro Gazzera
-	1941	Guglielmo Nasi
Historical era		Interwar period / World War II
-	Established	9 May 1936
-	Disestablished	27 November 1941
Area
-	1936	1,750,000 km² (675,679 sq mi)
Population
-	1936 est.	10,000,000
Density		5.7 /km²  (14.8 /sq mi)
Currency		Italian East African lira
Preceded by Succeeded by Italian Eritrea Italian Somaliland Ethiopian Empire British Somaliland Trust Territory of Somalia Eritrea British Somaliland Ethiopian Empire French Somaliland
Today part of		Ethiopia Djibouti Somalia Eritrea
a. Full title was "Viceroy and Governor-General of Italian East Africa".

Italian East Africa (Italian: Africa Orientale Italiana) was an Italian colony established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea.

In August 1940, during the Second World War, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa, which itself was conquered by British-led forces in the course of 1941. The Ethiopian Empire and British Somaliland were then re-established, while Italian Somaliland and Eritrea both came under British administration. In 1949 Italian Somaliland was reconstituted as the Trust Territory of Somalia, which was administered by Italy from 1949 until its independence in 1960. In 1952 Eritrea was annexed by Ethiopia.

Territory

The six governatories of Italian East Africa.

When established in 1936, Italian East Africa covered the former Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and the recently conquered Ethiopia. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy consequently adopted the title of "Emperor of Ethiopia". The colony was divided into the six governorates of Italian East Africa: Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, plus four provinces of Ethiopia (Amhara, Galla-Sidamo, Scioa, Harar) each under the authority of an Italian governor, answerable to the Italian viceroy, who represented the Emperor Victor Emmanuel.

Italian East Africa was briefly enlarged in 1940, as Italian forces conquered British Somaliland, thereby bringing all Somali territories under Italian administration. However, the enlarged colony was dismembered only a year later, when in the course of the British-led East African Campaign of June 1940 to November 1941 Italian East Africa was conquered.

The other Italian colony in Africa was Italian North Africa (Africa Settentrionale Italiana, or ASI).

History

East Africa Campaign northern front: Allied advances in 1941.

The dominion was formed in 1936 during Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's government in Italy with the defeat of Haile Selassie's Ethiopia in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.

In February 1937, following an assassination attempt on Italian East Africa's Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, Graziani ordered Italian soldiers to raid the famous Ethiopian monastery Debre Libanos, where the would-be assassins had briefly taken refuge and had the monks and nuns in the monastery executed. Afterwards, Italian soldiers destroyed native settlements in Addis Ababa, which resulted in 30,000 Ethiopians being killed and their homes left burned to the ground.

Fascist colonial policy in Italian East Africa had a divide and conquer characteristic. In order to weaken the Orthodox Christian Amhara people who had run Ethiopia in the past, territory claimed by Eritrean Tigray-Tigrinyas and Somalis was given to the Eritrea Governorate and Somalia Governorate. Reconstruction efforts after the war in 1936 were partially focused on benefiting the Muslim peoples in the colony at the expense of the Amhara to strengthen support by Muslims for the Italian colony.

Italy's Fascist regime encouraged Italian peasants to colonize the colony by creating agriculture and small industries there. However few Italians came to the Ethiopian colony, with most going to Eritrea. By 1940, only 3200 farmers had arrived to Ethiopia, less than ten percent of the Fascist regime's goal.

Italian East African 100-lire banknote.

Continued insurgency by native Ethiopians, lack of resources, rough terrain, and uncertainty of political and military conditions discouraged development and settlement in the countryside However, Italian Eritrea enjoyed a huge development, supported by nearly 80,000 Italian colonists.

The colony proved to be extremely expensive to maintain the budget in 1936-37 requested from Italy 19.136 billion lire to create the necessary infrastructure for the colony. At the time Italy's entire revenue that year was only 18.581 billion lire.

There was an urbanistic project for the enlargement of Addis Ababa, in order to become the state-of-the-art capital of the Africa Orientale italiana, but these architectural plans -like all the other developments- were stopped by World War II.

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 World War II against the Allies. This occupation lasted around one year.

Viceroy and Governor-Generals of Italian East Africa

Main article: List of viceroys of Italian East Africa

Bibliography

• Antonicelli, Franco (1961) Trent'anni di storia italiana 1915 - 1945, Saggi series 295, Torino : Einaudi, 387 p. [in Italian]
• Cannistraro, Philip V. (1982) Historical Dictionary of Fascist Italy, Westport, Conn.; London : Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-21317-8
• Del Boca, Angelo (1986) Italiani in Africa Orientale: La caduta dell'Impero, Biblioteca universale Laterza 186, Roma : Laterza, ISBN 88-420-2810-X [in Italian]
• Mockler, Anthony (1984). Haile Selassie's War: The Italian-Ethiopian Campaign, 1935-1941, New York : Random House, ISBN 0-394-54222-3
• Sarti, Roland (1974) The Ax Within: Italian fascism in action, New York : New Viewpoints, ISBN 0-531-06498-0
• Mauri, Arnaldo (1967). Il mercato del credito in Etiopia, Milano, Giuffrè, pp. XVI, 504 [in Italian].
• Calchi Novati, Gian Carlo (2011).L'Africa d'Italia, Carrocci, Roma. [in Italian]
• Tuccimei, Ercole (1999). La Banca d'Italia in Africa, Presentazione di Arnaldo Mauri, Laterza, Bari, ISBN 88-420-5686-3 [in Italian]

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
• Italians of Ethiopia
• Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia
• Italian Africa Police
• Italian East African lira
• Augusto Turati

External links

• Italian East African Armed Forces, 10 June 1940
• 1940 Colonial Brigade, 10 June 1940
• Italian East Africa Air Command, 10 June 1940
• Ascari: I Leoni di Eritrea/Ascari: The Eritrean Lions. Second Italo-abyssinian war. Eritrea colonial history, Eritrean ascari pictures/photos galleries and videos, historical atlas...
• Geographic map of Italian business community in Africa (December 2012) , established using applied onomastics.