Qualla: Italian Eritrea

Italian Eritrea: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit meg and rahul, CC BY 2.0. The Italians called it 'Colonia Primogenita' - First-Born Colony - as if it were a child they had raised from nothing. Italian Eritrea existed for fifty-one years, from the official proclamation of the colony in 1890 to the final surrender of Italian forces in 1941. In that time, Italy built Asmara into one of the architectural marvels of 20th-century Africa, conscripted tens of thousands of Eritreans into the Ascari colonial regiments, imposed racial laws that fractured families, launched an invasion of Ethiopia from Eritrean territory, and eventually lost everything. The contradictions ran deep. Most still do.

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Image: meg and rahul | CC BY 2.0

Italian Eritrea: How It Began

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit OldEritreanboy, CC BY-SA 3.0. Giuseppe Sapeto, a former Italian monk who had done missionary work in Abyssinia in the 1830s, became the advocate for an Italian foothold on the Red Sea. With the Suez Canal opening, a coaling station along the shipping route to India seemed strategically essential. In autumn 18...

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Image: OldEritreanboy | CC BY-SA 3.0

Italian Eritrea: Asmara, the Italian City

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0. The story of Italian Eritrea is largely the story of Asmara. By the 1939 Italian census, the city had 98,000 residents of whom 53,000 - 54 percent - were Italians. The total Italian population in all of Eritrea reached 75,000 that year. Asmara's architecture reflected the fascist...

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Image: sailko | CC BY-SA 3.0

Italian Eritrea: The Ascari and the Racial Laws

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, CC0. Italy depended heavily on Eritrean soldiers. The Ascari - native colonial troops who had fought for Italy since the 1880s - were considered the best units in the Italian colonial army. Marshal Rodolfo Graziani said so explicitly. Legendary Italian officer Amedeo Guillet led Ascar...

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Image: Unknown author | CC0

Italian Eritrea: A Colony as a Military Staging Ground

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I.S.O. Playfair, Public domain. Mussolini saw Eritrea as a base. The 1935-36 invasion of Ethiopia staged from Eritrean territory, using the railway completed from Massawa to Asmara in 1911 and the Asmara-Massawa Cableway, at its time the longest aerial tramway in the world. During World War II, Italian forces b...

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Image: I.S.O. Playfair | Public domain

Italian Eritrea: The Italians Who Stayed, and the Ones Who Left

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit meg and rahul, CC BY 2.0. After 1941, Eritrea came under British military administration. Some 70,000 Italian settlers remained at the end of World War II. A few, like Vincenzo Di Meglio, advocated continued Italian influence and helped found the Partito Nuova Eritrea Pro Italia in September 1947, which b...

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Image: meg and rahul | CC BY 2.0