Italians of Ethiopia are the colonists from Italy who moved to colonize Ethiopia in the XX century, and their descendants.

History

The 1880s were marked by the Scramble for Africa in Ethiopia and Eastern Africa, when the Italians began to vie with the British and French for influence in the area. Asseb, a port near the southern entrance of the Red Sea, was bought by in March 1870 from the local Afar sultan, vassal to the Ethiopian Emperor, by an Italian company, which by 1890 led to the Italian colony of Eritrea. Since then the Kingdom of Italy started to try to take control of Ethiopia.

Conflicts between the two countries resulted in the Battle of Adwa in 1896, whereby the Ethiopians defeated Italy and remained independent, under the rule of Menelik II. Italy and Ethiopia signed a provisional treaty of peace on 26 October 1896, but in the next years Italians started to pursue the "avenge of Adua" as a matter of national honor.

The avenge indeed came when Benito Mussolini started to expand the African colonial possessions of Italy in the 1930s.

In October 1935, Mussolini launched the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and invaded Ethiopia. Emperor Haile Selassie fled the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on 2 May 1936 and the Italians entered the city on 5 May, after bloody battles.

The war was full of cruelty: the Ethiopians used Dum-dum bullets (the Hague Convention of 1899, Declaration III, prohibited the use in international warfare of bullets called "Dum-dum", which easily expand or flatten in the body) against the Italians from the start of the war, and this provoked the retaliation of the Italians, who used gas against the Ethiopians in the last months of the war.

Victory was announced on 9 May 1936 and Mussolini declared the creation of the "Italian Empire". The Italians merged Eritrea, Italian Somalia, and newly captured Ethiopia into Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, A.O.I.).

The Italian King Victor Emmanuel III added Emperor of Ethiopia to his titles.

Mussolini dreamed of sending millions of Italian settlers to Italian East Africa, and Italians had high hopes of turning the area into an economic asset: huge investments were done in the creation of needed infrastructures (roads, airports, hospitals, etc..).

From 1936 to the start of World War II Mussolini controlled much of Ethiopia, but a guerrilla war raged in some areas of Ethiopia still controlled by clans linked to Selassie (who was exiled in Great Britain). One of the main steps done by Mussolini in order to "pacify" the country and gain the sympathy of the Ethiopians was to decree the abolition of slavery inside Ethiopia in October 1935.

In the first months of 1941 the Allies conquered the Italian East Africa Empire and for the Italian Ethiopians started a period of harassment that led to their nearly disappearance after World War II.

Italian Ethiopia: 1936-1941

The Italian community in Ethiopia was very small in 1935, before the Italian invasion: only 200 Italians lived in Ethiopia, nearly all of them in the capital Addis Ababa.

But in 1940, just five years after Mussolini's conquest of this African country, the Italians residents in Etiopia were nearly 40,000. The Italo-Ethiopians were concentrated in the capital area, and in some cases were related to military and administrators just arrived from Italy.

To these colonists there was to be added the Italian labourers, who came temporarily to work (usually only for some months) in the construction of the Etiopian infrastructures, calculated in nearly 200,000 in five years.

The 40,000 were to be followed -according to the projects of the Fascism of Mussolini - by nearly two millions Italians in the next ten years, who were to be added to the 10 millions of Ethiopians living in the country in 1940.

According to official statistics of the Italian government, in October 1939 the Italian Ethiopians were 35.441, of whom 30.232 male (85,3%) and 5209 female (14,7%), most of them living in urban areas.

Only 3,200 Italian farmers moved to colonize farm areas, mainly because of the danger of Ethiopian guerrilla (that in 1940 was still controlling nearly 1/4 of Ethiopia highlands).

Ethiopia (divided in the administrative provinces of Scioa, Galla-Sidamo, Harar and Amara) as part of the Italian Empire (1936-1941)The Italians did huge and expensive infrastructures, that drained the Italian economy but reduced in those years the unemployment in the Kingdom of Italy. They did of new roads asphaltated: in 1940 Addis Ababa was connected by state-of-the-art roads to Asmara and Mogadishu.

Furthermore, of railways were reconstructed or initiated (like the railway between Addis Abeba and Assab), dams and hydroelectric plants were built, and many public and private companies were established in the underdeveloped country. The most important were: "Compagnie per il cotone d'Etiopia" (Cotton industry); "Compagnia etiopica del latte e derivati" (Milk industry); "Cementerie d'Etiopia" (Cement industry); "Compagnia etiopica mineraria" (Minerals industry); "Imprese elettriche d'Etiopia" (Electricity industry); "Compagnia etiopica degli esplosivi" (Armament industry); "Industria per la birra dell'AOI" (Beer industry); "Trasporti automobilistici (Citao)" (Mechanic & Transport industry).

There was an urbanistic project for the enlargement of Addis Ababa, but these architectural plans -like all the other developments- were stopped by World War II.

Italians of Ethiopia under British and Ethiopian rule

With the Italian defeat in eastern Africa in spring 1941, the Italians of Ethiopia started to face a period of huge difficulties.

Some Italian civilians even partecipated in the Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia until 1943, like Rosa Dainelli. This Italian doctor was a woman who became an active member of the Fronte di Resistenza (Front of Resistance), an Italian organization which fought the Allies in a guerrilla war from December 1941 until summer of 1943.

In August 1942 she managed to enter inside the main ammunition depot of the British Army in Addis Ababa and blow it up, somehow surviving the huge explosion. This act of sabotage destroyed the ammunition for the new British sten machine gun and delayed the deployment of this "state-of-the-art" weapon for many months.

Doctor Dainelli, even if less known than lieutenant Amedeo Guillet, was famous as one of the few Italian woman who participated actively in the Italian guerrilla operations against the British troops after the East African Campaign . She was nominated, after the end of the war, for the Italian medal of honor called "croce di ferro".

After World War II the Italian Ethiopians were forced to return to Italy, mainly after the fall of the Negus in 1974. Nearly 22,000 Italo-ethiopians took refuge in Italy during the 1970s. Their main organization in Italy is the Associazione Italiana Profughi dall'Etiopia ed Eritrea (A.I.P.E.E.).

In the 2000s many Italian companies are back to work in Ethiopia and now there it is a community of 1256 Italian technicians and managers with their families living mainly in Addis Ababa .

Only 80 original Italian colonists remain alive in 2007. Actually there are nearly 2000 illegitimate descendants of Italian colonists and Ethiopian women.

Language and Religion

The remaining 80 original Italian Ethiopians colonists speak Italian, but their descendants speak even Amharic.

The 1256 recently moved to Ethiopia Italian technicians and managers (with their families living mainly in Addis Ababa) use the Italian and English language (but have some knowledge of Amharic for their work).

In religion, nearly all are Roman Catholic Christians.

Famous Italians of Ethiopia

• Luciano Violante, judge and politician.
• Mauro Losi, football player

See also

• Italian Empire
• Second Italo-Abyssinian War
• Italian East Africa
• Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia
• History of Italy

References

1. Franco Antonicelli. Trent'anni di storia italiana 1915 - 1945 p. 84
2. Nicola Labanca. Oltremare. Storia dell'espansione coloniale italiana p.129
3. Ethiopia: pag. 69
4. Italian Emigration in Etiopia (in Italian)
5. Addis Abeba 1939 Urbanistic and Architectural Plan
6. Rosa Dainelli and the Italian guerrilla
7. Amedeo Guillet
8. Photo and article of Italo-ethiopians residents in Italy as refugees (in Italian)
9. Italian Refugee association (in Italian)
10. Official Statistics
11. Addis Abeba: Visit of Italy's President in 1997

Bibliography

• Antonicelli, Franco. Trent'anni di storia italiana 1915 - 1945. Mondadori ed. Torino, 1961
• Barker, A.J. Rape of Ethiopia, 1936. Ballantine Books. London, 1971. ISBN 978-0345024626
• Blitzer, Wolf. Century of War. Friedman/Fairfax Publishers. New York, 2001 ISBN 1-58663-342-2
• Del Boca, Angelo. Italiani in Africa Orientale: La conquista dell'Impero, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1985. ISBN 8842027154
• Del Boca, Angelo. Italiani in Africa Orientale: La caduta dell'Impero, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1986. ISBN 884202810X
• Labanca, Nicola. Oltremare. Storia dell'espansione coloniale italiana. Il Mulino. Bologna, 2007. ISBN 8815120386
• 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
• Mockler, Antony. Haile Selassie's War: The Italian-Ethiopian Campaign, 1935-1941. Random House. New York, 1984. ISBN 0394542223
• Rosselli, Alberto. Storie Segrete. Operazioni sconosciute o dimenticate della seconda guerra mondiale. Iuculano Editore. Pavia, 2007.
• Sbiacchi, Alberto. Hailé Selassié and the Italians, 1941-43. African Studies Review, vol.XXII, n.1, April 1979.

External links

• Italian association of refugees from Ethiopia and Eritrea (AIPEE)
• Detailed map of Italian Ethiopia (click to enlarge)
• Investments in Italian Ethiopia (in Italian)
• Website with photos of the Italians of Ethiopia