The Italian colonial empire (Italian: Impero coloniale italiano), sometimes known as the Italian Empire (Impero italiano), was a colonial empire that existed between 1882 and 1943; an Italian colony was revived in 1950 as a UN trust territory under Italy's administration and lasted until 1960. The empire comprised the colonies, protectorates, concessions and dependencies of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries. At its peak, between 1936 and 1941, the colonial possessions in Africa included the territories of present-day Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia (the latter three officially grouped under the name Africa Orientale Italiana, AOI). Outside Africa, Italy controlled the Dodecanese Islands, Albania, and territories in China (only their concession in Tianjin was under full control in their Chinese territories). During World War II, the empire exercised control over four puppet states and occupied several additional territories, although these were not formally annexed.
The Fascist government that came to power under the leadership of the dictator Benito Mussolini after 1922 sought to increase the size of the Italian empire and it also sought to satisfy the claims of Italian irredentists. Systematic "demographic colonization" was encouraged by the government, and by 1939, Italian settlers numbered 120,000–150,000 in Italian Libya and 165,000 in Italian East Africa.
During World War II, Italy allied itself with Nazi Germany in 1940 and it also occupied British Somaliland, western Egypt, much of Yugoslavia, parts of south-eastern France and most of Greece; however, it then lost those conquests and its African colonies to the invading Allied forces by 1943. In 1947, Italy officially relinquished claims on its former colonies. In 1950, former Italian Somaliland, then under British administration, was turned into the Italian Trust Territory of Somaliland until it became independent in 1960.
History
Background and pre-unification era
Imperialism in Italy dates back to ancient Rome, and the Latin notion of mare nostrum ("Our Sea", referring to the Mediterranean) has historically been the basis for Italian imperialism, especially during the fascist era. During the Middle Ages and the modern period, the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa controlled networks of "colonies" in the Mediterranean region known as the Venetian Empire and the Genoese Empire respectively. Between the 15th and 16th centuries, Italian explorers contributed to the colonial enterprises of other European countries in the Americas: Cristopher Columbus from Genoa served Spain, Amerigo Vespucci from Florence served Portugal, the Cabot brothers from Venice served England, and Giovanni da Verrazzano from Florence served France.
However, no Italian power took an active role in the scramble for the Americas, with the notable exception of the Pope who acted as an arbiter between European colonial powers during the Renaissance. The geographical position of Italy, located in the center of an internal sea, without an open free access to the ocean, contributed to this purely Mediterranean policy. There was, nonetheless, some interest in the Americas and colonial trade. The Spanish crown often contracted out the slave trade to the Genoese, who were especially active in the port of Panama. Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, made the only Italian attempt to create a colony in the Americas, in what is now French Guiana, organizing in 1608 an expedition to explore the north of Brazil and the Amazon River in 1608 under the command of the English captain Robert Thornton. However, Thornton, on his return from the preparatory expedition in 1609, found Ferdinand I dead and his successor, Cosimo II, was not interested in the project. In 1651, Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, an Italian nobleman and Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller of Malta (at the time a vassal state of the Kingdom of Sicily), possessed four Caribbean islands: Saint Christopher, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Croix, which were colonized from 1651 until 1665. No other colonial attempt in the ocean was made and, by 1797, the Venetian and Genoese possessions in the Mediterranean were lost.
Scramble for an empire
East Africa
Once unified as a nation-state in the late 19th century, Italy intended to compete with the other European powers for the new age of European colonial expansion. It saw its interests in the Mediterranean and in the Horn of Africa, a region yet to be colonized and with access to the ocean. Italy had arrived late to the colonial race and its status as the least of the Great Powers, a position of relative weakness in international affairs, meant that it was dependent on the acquiescence of Britain, France and Germany towards its empire-building.
Italy had long considered the Ottoman province of Tunisia, where a large community of Tunisian Italians lived, within its economic sphere of influence. It did not consider annexing it until 1879, when it became apparent that Britain and Germany were encouraging France to add it to its colonial holdings in North Africa. A last-minute offer by Italy to share Tunisia between the two countries was refused, and France, confident in German support, ordered its troops in from French Algeria, imposing a protectorate over Tunisia in May 1881 under the Treaty of Bardo. The shock of the "Slap of Tunis", as it was referred to in the Italian press, and the sense of Italy's isolation in Europe, led it into signing the Triple Alliance in 1882 with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
While attempts were made to buy the Nicobar Islands from Denmark in 1864 and 1865, the genesis of the Italian colonial empire was the purchase in 1869 of Assab Bay on the Red Sea by an Italian navigation company which intended to establish a coaling station at the time the Suez Canal was being opened to navigation. This was taken over by the Italian government in 1882, becoming modern Italy's first overseas territory.
Italy's search for colonies continued until February 1885, when, by secret agreement with Britain, it annexed the port of Massawa in Eritrea on the Red Sea from the crumbling Egyptian Empire. Italian annexation of Massawa denied the Ethiopian Empire of Yohannes IV an outlet to the sea. This led Ras Alula to unsuccessfully besiege the Italian possession of Saati. He then ambushed and killed five hundred Italian troops at the Battle of Dogali. This caused the Italian government to send reinforcements, which occupied the Eritrean Highlands, including Keren and Asmara in 1889. The Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi, who coveted Ethiopia itself, signed the Treaty of Wuchale in 1889 with Menelik II, the new emperor. This treaty ceded Ethiopian territory around Massawa to Italy to form the colony of Italian Eritrea, and – at least, according to the Italian version of the treaty – made Ethiopia an Italian protectorate. Relations between Italy and Menelik deteriorated over the next few years until the First Italo-Ethiopian War broke out in 1895, when Crispi ordered Italian troops into the country. Vastly outnumbered and poorly equipped, the result was a decisive defeat for Italy at the hands of Ethiopian forces at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. On Italy's side, the death toll was 6,889, including 4,133 Italians. The Ethiopians suffered at least 4,000 dead and 10,000 wounded.
Around the same time, Italy occupied territory on the south side of the horn of Africa, forming what would become Italian Somaliland. Italy gradually secured much of this territory in the 1880s through a series of protection treaties over the Sultanate of Hobyo and the Majeerteen Sultanate in the north, and by the Hiraab Imamate and the Geledi Sultanate in the south. Starting in the 1890s, the Bimaal and Wa'dan revolts near Merca marked the beginning of Banadir resistance to Italian expansion, coinciding with the rise of the Dervish movement in the north calling for independence from the British and Italian colonisers and for the defeat of Ethiopian forces.
Italy fought in the Mahdist War, and in 1890 it defeated Mahdist troops in the Battle of Serobeti and the First Battle of Agordat. In December 1893, Italian colonial troops and Mahdists fought again in the Second Battle of Agordat; Ahmed Ali campaigned against the Italian forces in eastern Sudan and led about 10–12,000 men east from Kassala, encountering 2,400 Italians and their Eritrean Ascaris commanded by Colonel Arimondi. The Italians won again, and the outcome of the battle constituted "the first decisive victory yet won by Europeans against the Sudanese revolutionaries". A year later, Italian colonial forces seized Kassala after the successful Battle of Kassala; Italy returned the city to the British at the end of the war three years later.
Forts and concessions in China
In 1898, in the wake of the acquisition of leased territories by Germany, Russia, Britain and France in China earlier that year, the Italian government, as a matter of national prestige and to assert Italy's great power status, demanded the cession of Sanmen Bay to serve as a coaling station. Aware that Italy did not have sufficient naval power in Asian waters to back up its demand, the Chinese imperial government rejected the ultimatum and all subsequent requests, arguing that Italy had no real political or economic interests in China. Italy's main newspaper considered this a national humiliation and claimed it made the country appear "like a third or fourth-rate power", provoking the fall of the Italian government. This prompted Italy to take part in the international expedition in Beijing at the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion on 18 October 1899, and resulted in the acquisition of a concession in Tianjin in September 1901, the only example of Italian colonialism in Asia, and other minor concessions, these not administrated by the Italian government. The concession was administered by the Italian consul in Tianjin.
North Africa and Dodecanese
A wave of nationalism that swept Italy at the turn of the 20th century led to the founding of the Italian Nationalist Association, which pressed for the expansion of Italy's empire. Newspapers were filled with talk of revenge for the humiliations suffered in Ethiopia at the end of the previous century, and of nostalgia for the Roman era.
Libya, it was suggested, as an ex-Roman colony, should be "taken back" to provide a solution to the problems of Southern Italy's population growth. Fearful of being excluded altogether from North Africa by Britain and France, and mindful of public opinion, Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti ordered the declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire, of which Libya was part, in October 1911.
As a result of the Italo-Turkish War, Italy gained Libya (then divided in the colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica) and the Dodecanese Islands from the Ottoman Empire.
The 1912 Libya desert war featured the first use of an armoured fighting vehicle in military history and marked the first significant employment of air power in warfare.
A significant number of Italian settlers moved to Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and Italian presence was still felt long after the decolonisation process began. Although native resistance to the Italian colonisers was less prevalent in Tripolitania than Cyrenaica (which waged significant guerilla warfare), a resistance group did form the short-lived Tripolitanian Republic in 1918. Although it didn't succeed in setting up a republic, it demonstrated attempts to resist colonial control. The Italian colonisers set up various infrastructure projects, most notably roads and railways, and the settlement of Italians in the colonies resulted in the development of a distinct Italian colonial architecture. Archaeology was another important feature of the Italian presence in Tripolitania, as they focused efforts in excavations in old Roman cities.
World War I and its aftermath
In 1914 Italy remained neutral and did not join its ally Germany in World War I. The Allies made promises and in 1915 Italy joined them. It was promised territorial spoils mainly from Austria and Turkey.
Prior to direct intervention in World War I, in December 1914, Italy occupied the Albanian port of Vlorë and the Sazan Island in front of it. From 1916 to 1918, Italians conducted a campaign in Albania against Austrian forces (who had occupied Northern and Central Albania in pursuing the forces of Serbia and Montenegro). In the fall of 1916, Italy started to occupy southern Albania. In 1916, Italian forces recruited Albanian irregulars to serve alongside them. Italy, with permission of the Allied command, occupied Northern Epirus on 23 August 1916, forcing the neutralist Greek Army to withdraw its occupation forces from there. In June 1917, general Giacinto Ferrero proclaimed the Italian-controlled territory in Albania to be independent under Italian protection. By 31 October 1918, French and Italian forces expelled the Austro-Hungarian Army from Albania. However, in 1920, an Albanian rebellion led the Italians to agree to return the occupied bay of Vlorë to Albania, while they annexed Sazan Island to the Italian kingdom.