Just yesterday, a relative of mine talked with an Eritrean refugee in Italy, who told him that many people in the country view the pre-Fascist Italian colonial government of Eritrea in a favourable light, and some people even has nostalgia of Fascist rule, if compared to the current situation of the country. Still today, the Asmara region retains an European flavor in its architecture, and Italian is widely understood and used in commerce. I remember someone discussing about an Italian Libya after WW2 here in the forums a while ago, and i think that an Italian Eritrea would be more probable, or at least less ASB. What events could lead Eritrea into being more or less integrated into Italy, in the form of a full annexation or a "commonwealth" status, to the present day?
Eritrea integrated into Italy after WW2?
- Thread starter Neoteros
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yourworstnightmare
Banned
Well, nobody cared what the Eritreans wanted, the UK had promised the region to Ethiopia, and that was that.
It is quite nice that someone is bringing this up as I am thinking about having Italy keep Eritrea for some time if not until the present day in my TL.
From my own research this definitely seems doable, provided that the UK firmly decides to let Italy keep it. This could in my opinion happen if Italy switches side earlier for example.
From my own research this definitely seems doable, provided that the UK firmly decides to let Italy keep it. This could in my opinion happen if Italy switches side earlier for example.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Italy needs to stay out of World War II and remain neutral at best. They could during that time (instead of fighting) send Italian immigrants to the area to build schools and infrastructure for the local population and also assimilate them.
This could be but Italians can't subdue the native population in Eritrea and it is less profitable than Libya, so Italians would be just 10% of the population had Italy stayed out of WWII by 1960. Majority Italian population in Eritrea is a plain ASB.
Actually Italians were already around 11% of the population in 1940. There were around 80,000 Italians living in Eritrea that year. In Asmara there were around 53,000 Italians in 1939, comprising 54% of the population of the city. The growth in the number of Italians was amazing considering there were fewer than 5,000 in the colony in 1931.
I think it would not have been implausible to have 250-300,000 living in Eritrea by 1960. This would have meant they could have been around 15-17% of the total population.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
It isn't to overwhelm the native population. It was to culturally assimilate them into them becoming Italian culturally while remaining ethnic Eritreans
Two points. One, the Italian emigration was a Mussolini thing, and only in the last years right before the war. Starting around 1935, and then accelerating rapidly, Fascist Italy started pushing Italians into the colonies. So, you need to have a Fascist Italy.
Two, while some colonists dated back to the 1890s, most came in that post-1935 wave. So at decolonization, most had only been there a decade or less; they didn't have deep roots, and were perfectly willing to go home. And even if Italy stays out of WWII, come 1960 most Italian settlers would still be first-generation.
If you're trying to keep a large Italian population in Eritrea, the better trick might be to get a steady flow of Italian immigration starting early. For instance, if you can get 1000 Italians per year from 1900 to 1915, then 2,000 per year from 1920 to 1940, natural increase will give you around 100,000 during the war years.
This would require a consistency in Italian colonial policy that might be a bit on the improbable side. Doesn't seem out of the question, though.
Doug M.
In a surviving Fascist Italy you could have Eritrea remain in Italian control for longer. Getting the demographics in Italian favor will be very difficult, particularly when the colony has to "compete" with Libya, Somalia, and Ehtiopia for settlers. Libya, being now a part of "Metropolitan" Italy thanks to Balbo, will get the most the soonest.
Instead I'd see it like this:
Italy Neutral in WW2.
After the war, oil found in Libya gives Italy the raw cash they need to keep up their wasteful, mismanaged colonization efforts.
Money is sunk into the colonies (roads, ports, schools, buildings). Settlers continue to arrive, though never break 20% in the horn. Lives are lost fighting insurgencies in Ethiopia, primarily Eritrean, Libyan, and Somali lives.
Despite official rules against "fraternizing" with the locals, Facetta Nera remains a popular song for a reason. A growing mullatto class expands in the Horn, becoming a de facto middle class of merchants.
Over the next generation Ethiopia proves an expensive quagmire and the Amharan heartland and west are "given" independence as a rump Ethiopia. Ethiopian Italians, Ethiopian collaborators, and the growing Ethiopian Mullatto class move to Somalia and Eritrea.
As the 80s go by the exterior horn is indellibly linked economically to Italy, but nationalist and ethnic pressures remain. Demographically very diverse, but with Italian as the lingua franca and the various African and mixed groups as much at odds with each other as the Italians.
Doubtful it'll be enough to merge the region into "Italy" as full provinces...they're having a hard enough time with that in Libya where they're actually approaching ethnic parity with the locals at the coast.
Instead eventually Eritrea and Somalia gain what we might call "Union" status, and eventually are part of...call it an Italian "Commonwealth".
Instead I'd see it like this:
Italy Neutral in WW2.
After the war, oil found in Libya gives Italy the raw cash they need to keep up their wasteful, mismanaged colonization efforts.
Money is sunk into the colonies (roads, ports, schools, buildings). Settlers continue to arrive, though never break 20% in the horn. Lives are lost fighting insurgencies in Ethiopia, primarily Eritrean, Libyan, and Somali lives.
Despite official rules against "fraternizing" with the locals, Facetta Nera remains a popular song for a reason. A growing mullatto class expands in the Horn, becoming a de facto middle class of merchants.
Over the next generation Ethiopia proves an expensive quagmire and the Amharan heartland and west are "given" independence as a rump Ethiopia. Ethiopian Italians, Ethiopian collaborators, and the growing Ethiopian Mullatto class move to Somalia and Eritrea.
As the 80s go by the exterior horn is indellibly linked economically to Italy, but nationalist and ethnic pressures remain. Demographically very diverse, but with Italian as the lingua franca and the various African and mixed groups as much at odds with each other as the Italians.
Doubtful it'll be enough to merge the region into "Italy" as full provinces...they're having a hard enough time with that in Libya where they're actually approaching ethnic parity with the locals at the coast.
Instead eventually Eritrea and Somalia gain what we might call "Union" status, and eventually are part of...call it an Italian "Commonwealth".
yourworstnightmare
Banned
I suspect Italy would keep Tigre as annexed to Eritrea, and Ogaden as annexed to Italian Somaliland. Even possible that all southern Ethiopia remain Italian, and the new Ethiopian state get only the Highlands. It'd probably be easier to force the Italian language upon the Eritrean than the Somalians.
Pretty much my thoughts. Here's the OTL map of the "provinces" of AOI:
Some of northern Amara might get absorbed into Eritrea, but otherwise probably Amara, Scioa, and Galla-Sidamo are the core of rump-Ethiopia. The fate of Harrar will depend on the specific events, I think, though the "city" is probably linked to Eritrea or Somalia.
The one certainty is that all roads to the ocean go through Italian-held territory as a way to help keep Ethiopia too crippled economically to threaten Italian holdings.
I'd always asumed that the Brits might sell all or part of their half of Somaliland to the Italians as well to raise cash. If Egypt goes independent I'd assume that'd be very probable.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
I think that Eritea and Somalia are best left to become loosely associated in an Italian commonwealth while using Italian as the official language of those countries. I can only see Libya (and even that, only the coast) becoming fully intergrated with the kingdom of Italy while a rump state is established in the Fezzan. Not all that since you make Italian a lot more useful to learn.