1940: Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa, the most important part of the Italian colonial empire, resulted from the Italo-Ethiopian war, after which the two former Italian colonies of Eritrea, with its capital in Asmar, and Italian Somaliland, with its capital in Mogadiscio, were combined with the former empire of Ethiopia. The whole territory was divided into six provinces, the four new provinces having their respective capitals in Addis Ababa, Gondar, Jimma and Harrar, with a Viceroy at the head of the whole administration. The present Viceroy is Duke Amedeo of Aosta.

The Fascist conquerors have begun to settle Italians in the most fertile parts of Ethiopia, but at the beginning of 1940 the number of settlers and their families amounted only to a very few thousand, while the total Italian population of Italian East Africa, consisting mostly of soldiers, officials and townspeople, numbered more than 200,000. For strategic reasons and to keep the country (where the sentiments of revolt were still smouldering) under control, the Italian authorities started to build a network of good highways, and at the beginning of 1940, 4,410 miles of highway were either completed or under construction. There were about 60,000 Italian workers employed on the building of the roads, organized into formations of a military character known as Labor Legions ('legioni lavoratori') and equipped with uniforms. The road system was supplemented by a network of airlines.

Italy's entrance into the war in June 1940 not only interrupted the development of Italian East Africa, but cut this colony entirely off from Italy. Hopes for an early victory through a collapse of British sea power in the Mediterranean were not realized. The former Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, left Great Britain in July and went into the Egyptian Soudan in the hope of organizing resistance against Italy among his former subjects. On July 12 the British Government recognized Ethiopia officially as an ally in the war against Germany and Italy, and promised to free the country from Italian domination at the end of the war. Thus Great Britain reversed its action of 1938, when in conformity with the policy of appeasing the Fascist dictators Great Britain had officially recognized Italy's conquest of Ethiopia.

The Italian army scored in East Africa its only success during the first six months of her participation in the war. The Italians with highly superior forces succeeded in August 1940, in invading British Somaliland, where the English had no more than about 5,000 soldiers, British and native, and only a few airplanes. After a campaign of a few weeks three brigades of Italian troops, supported by aircraft and tanks, forced the British defense forces at Hargeisa to withdraw, so that the Italians were able to push forward to the pass of Tug Argen, which protected the access to the capital of British Somaliland, Berbera. Since there was no hope of British reinforcements, and since the British experienced a lack of ammunition and food, the British decided to evacuate Somaliland and succeeded in doing so without great losses, thanks to the cooperation of the British navy.

After the downfall of France the Italians were also able to occupy French Somaliland with the important port of Djibouti, from which the railway in Italian East Africa runs to the capital, Addis Ababa. The fighting on the other fronts, against the Anglo-Egyptian Soudan and British Kenya, remained sporadic and inconclusive throughout 1940.