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Africa Orientale Italiana Italian East Africa Colony of Italy ←   ←   ← 1936 – 1941 →   →   → Flag Capital Addis Ababa Government Colony Viceroy and Governor-General  - 1936 Pietro Badoglio  - 1936-1937 Rodolfo Graziani  - 1937-1941 Amedeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta  - 1941 Pietro Gazzera  - 1941 Guglielmo Nasi (acting) History  - Established 1936  - Disestablished 1941

Italian East Africa (Italian: Africa Orientale Italiana, AOI) was a short-lived (1936-1941) Italian colony in Africa consisting of Ethiopia (recently occupied after the Second Italo-Abyssinian War) and the colonies of Italian Somaliland and Eritrea. In August 1940 British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to the AOI. Occasionally Libya (at the time another Italian colony in Africa) was referred to as being part of Italian East Africa, but this was uncommon and perhaps misleading.

The dominion was formed in 1936 during Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's government in Italy with the defeat of Ethiopia in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and lost at the end of the East African Campaign of World War II. After the Italian occupation of 1936, the two separate colonies of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland were merged with Ethiopia to create Italian East Africa, with Addis Ababa as the capital, an Italian viceroy as head of government, and the King of Italy as head of state.

In June 1940, at the beginning of Italy's involvement in World War II, the AOI potentially constituted a dangerous menace to British interests in Africa. From one perspective, a successful Italian attack from the AOI through the Sudan and the establishment of a connection to Italian-held Libya would have isolated vital British positions in Egypt and the Suez Canal. However, from a different perspective, the AOI itself was isolated from Italy and surrounded by British forces in the Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland. British forces in Aden could provide critical air and naval support against Italian naval forces operating in the Red Sea. Italian maritime transport was cut off by the British at the Suez Canal. What supplies did arrive in the AOI were generally from the air and in small quantities.

At the beginning of the East African Campaign, the Italian troops amounted to 91,000 men of all Arms, plus some 200,000 Askari (native troops). Training of the native troops was poor, the Italian garrisons were too spread out, due to the extremely poor state of roads, and were essentially reduced to a static role without enough ammunitions and oil reserves (which allowed the British to conquer AOI in 1941).

East Africa Campaign northern front: Allied advances in 1941

In 1940, the adjacent colony of British Somaliland was occupied by Italian forces and absorbed into Italian East Africa. The conquest was the only victory of Italy, without reinforcement from German troops, during WWII against the Allies. This occupation lasted around one year.

On March 27, 1941 the stronghold of Cheren was captured by the British troops after a strenuous defence from general Orlando Lorenzini. After the surrender of Massaua (April 8), Eritrea was lost for Italy. The war was lost on May 1941, when the last stand on Amba Alagi under Viceroy Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta, at Amba Alagi ended honourably in face of overwhelming Allied troops. November 28 of the same year, general Guglielmo Nasi and the last Italian occupants of Gondar surrendered.

Many Italians fought a guerrilla war in the "Africa Orientale Italiana", after the surrender at Gondar of the last regular Italian forces in November 1941. From November 1941 to September 1943 there was an Italian guerrilla force made up of 7000 Italians who had not accepted surrender to the Allies. They were waiting for the possible arrival of the Italo-German army of Rommel from Egypt and the Mediterranean (called in 1942 by Mussolini "the Italian Mare Nostrum"), but after the Battle of El Alamein the momentum of this resistance slowly faded away.

• Antonicelli, Franco. Trent'anni di storia italiana 1915 - 1945 (in Italian). Mondadori ed. Torino, 1961.
• Del Boca, Angelo. Italiani in Africa Orientale: La caduta dell'Impero (in Italian). Laterza. Roma-Bari, 1986. ISBN 884202810X
• Mockler, Anthony. Haile Selassie's War: The Italian-Ethiopian Campaign, 1935-1941. Random House. New York, 1984. ISBN 0-394-54222-3

• Colonial heads of Italian East Africa
• Italian Governors of Addis Ababa
• Italian Governors of Amhara
• Italian Governors of Galla-Sidama
• Italian Governors of Harar
• Italian Governors of Showa
• Dubats
• Political history of Eastern Africa
• Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia

• Italian East African Armed Forces, 10 June 1940
• 1940 Colonial Brigade, 10 June 1940
• Italian East Africa Air Command, 10 June 1940