A secret agreement with the British Empire gave it a presence in the Horn of Africa, leading to Italy’s control of Eritrea and Somalia. Along with the Horn of Africa and Albania, also seized from the crumbling Ottoman Empire, these three areas constituted the expanse of Italy’s imperial holdings at the start of WWI. Fascist Italy’s imperial dreams led to an invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, essentially bringing an end to the ineffective League of Nations. It was also an important part of the formal creation of the Italian Empire that same year. First, Italy’s imperial experience is not one that is celebrated or entrenched through instruments of institutional memory.

Source: Libya Today May 24, 2021 09:00 UTC