established by local usage. Europeans are answerable to the Italian
civil code. Penal laws are the same as in Italy, except where modified
by local usages. Appeal to the Rome court of cassation is
admitted against all penal and civil sentences.
Defence.—Defence is entrusted to a corps of colonial troops, partly Italian and partly native; to a militia (milizia mobile) formed by natives who have already served in the colonial corps; and to the chitet or general levy which, in time of war, places all male able-bodied inhabitants under arms. The regional commissioners and political residents have at their disposal some hundreds of irregular paid soldiers under native chiefs. In war time these irregulars form part of the colonial corps, but in time of peace serve as frontier police. The colonial corps, about 5000 strong, garrisons the chief places of strategic importance, such as Asmara, Keren and Saganeiti. The irregular troops, on foot, or mounted on camels, number about 1000 men. The militia consists of 3500 men of all arms, and is intended in time of war to reinforce the various divisions of the colonial corps. The chitet yields between 3000 and 4000 men, to be employed on the lines of communication or in caravan service. All these troops are intended to ward off a first attack, so as to allow time for the arrival of reinforcements from Italy. The customs and political surveillance along the coast is entrusted, afloat, to the Massawa naval station, and, ashore, to a coastguard company 400 strong stationed at Meder, with detachments at Assab, Massawa, Raheita, Edd and Taclai.
History.—Traces of the ancient Eritrean civilization are scarce. During the prosperous periods of ancient Egypt, Egyptian squadrons asserted their rule over the west Red Sea coast, and under the Ptolemies the port of Golden Berenice (Adulis?) was an Egyptian fortress, afterwards abandoned. During the early years of the Roman empire, Eritrea formed part of an important independent state—that of the Axumites (Assamites). At the end of the reign of Nero, and perhaps even earlier, the king of the Axumites ruled over the Red Sea coast from Suakin to the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and traded constantly with Egypt. This potentate called himself “king of kings,” commanded an army and a fleet, coined money, adopted Greek as the official language, and lived on good terms with the Roman empire. The Axumites belonged originally to the Hamitic race, but the immigration of the Himyaritic tribes of southern Arabia speedily imposed a new language and civilization. Therefore the ancient Abyssinian language, Geez, and its living dialects, Amharic and Tigrina, are Semitic, although modified by the influence of the old Hamitic Agau or Agao. Adulis (Adovlis), slightly to the north of Zula (q.v.), was the chief Axumite port. From Adulis started the main road, which led across the high plateau to the capital Axomis (Axum). Along the road are still to be seen vestiges of cities and inscribed monuments, such as the Himyaritic inscriptions on the high plateau of Kohait, the six obelisks with a Saban inscription at Toconda, and an obelisk with an inscription at Amba Sait. Other monuments exist elsewhere, as well as coins of the Axumite period with Greek and Ethiopian inscriptions. After the rise of the Ethiopian empire the history of Eritrea is bound up with that of Ethiopia, but not so entirely as to be completely fused. The documents of the Portuguese expedition of the 16th century and other Ethiopian records show that all the country north of the Mareb enjoyed relative autonomy under a vassal of the Ethiopian emperor.
Michael, counsellor of Solomon, who was king of the country north of the Mareb, usurped the throne of Solomon during the reign of the Emperor Atzié Jasu II. (1729–1753), and, after proclaiming himself ras of Tigré and “protector of the empire,” ceded the North Mareb country to an enemy of the rightful dynasty. Hence a long struggle between the dispossessed family and the occupants of the North Mareb throne. The coast regions had meantime passed from the control of the Abyssinians. In the 16th century the Turks made themselves masters of Zula, Massawa, &c., and these places were never recovered by the Abyssinians. In 1865 Massawa and the neighbouring coast was acquired by Egypt, the khedive Ismail entertaining projects for connecting the port by railway with the Nile. The Egyptians took advantage of civil war in Abyssinia to seize Keren and the Bogos country in 1872[1], an action against which the negus Johannes (King John), newly come to the throne, did not at the time protest. In 1875 and 1876 the Egyptians, who sought to increase their conquests, were defeated by the Abyssinians at Gundet and Gura. Walad Michael, the hereditary ruler of Bogos, fought as ally of King John at Gundet and of the Egyptians at Gura. For two years Walad Michael continued to harass the border, but in December 1878 he submitted to King John, by whose orders he was (Sept. 1879) imprisoned upon an amba, or flat-topped mountain, whence he only succeeded in escaping in 1890. In 1879 his territory was given by King John to Ras Alula, who retained it until, in August 1889, the Italians occupied Asmara (see Abyssinia: History).
An Egyptian garrison remained at Keren in the Bogos country until 1884, when in consequence of the revolt of the Mahdi it was withdrawn, Bogos being occupied by Abyssinia on the 12th of September of that year. On the 5th of February 1885 an Italian force, with the approval of Great Britain, occupied Massawa, the Egyptian garrison returning to Egypt. This occupation led to wars with Abyssinia and finally to the establishment of the colony in its present limits. The history of the Italian-Abyssinian relations is fully told in the articles Italy and Abyssinia (history sections).
It was not, however, at Massawa that Italy first obtained a foothold in eastern Africa. The completion of the Suez Canal led Italy as well as Great Britain and France to seek territorial rights on the Red Sea coasts. The purchase of Assab and the neighbouring region for £1880, from the sultan Berehan of Raheita for use as a coaling station by the Italian Rubattino Steamship Company, in March 1870, formed the nucleus of Italy’s colonial possessions. This purchase was protested against by Egypt, Turkey and Great Britain; the last named power being willing to recognize an Italian commercial settlement, but nothing more. (The Indian government viewed the establishment of the Italians on the new highway to the East with a good deal of ill-humour.) Eventually, the British opposition being overcome and that of Egypt and Turkey disregarded, Assab, by a decree of the 5th of July 1882, was declared an Italian colony. Between 1883 and 1888 various treaties were concluded with the sultan of Aussa ceding the Danakil coast to Italy and recognizing an Italian protectorate over the whole of his country—through which passes the trade route from Assab Bay to Shoa.
On the 1st of January 1890 the various Italian possessions on the coast of the Red Sea were united by royal decree into one province under the title of the Colony of Eritrea—so named after the Erythraeum Mare of the Romans. At first the government of the colony was purely military, but after the defeat of the Italians by the Abyssinians at Adowa, the administration was placed upon a civil basis (1898–1900). The frontiers were further defined by a French-Italian convention (24th of January 1900) fixing the frontier between French Somaliland and the Italian possessions at Raheita, and also by various agreements with Great Britain and Abyssinia. A tripartite agreement between Italy, Abyssinia and Great Britain, dated the 15th of May 1902, placed the territory of the Kanama tribe, on the north bank of the Setit, within Eritrea. A convention of the 16th of May 1908 settled the Abyssinian-Eritrean frontier in the Afar country, the boundary being fixed at 60 kilometres from the coast. The task of reconstructing the administration on a civil basis and of developing the commerce of the colony was entrusted to Signor F. Martini, who was governor for nine years (1898–1906). Under civil rule the colony made steady though somewhat slow progress.
Authorities.—See B. Melli, La Colonia Eritrea dalle sue origini al anno 1901 (Parma, 1901); G. B. Penne, Per l’Italia Africana. Studio critico (Rome, 1906); R. Perini, Di qua dal Marèb (Florence, 1905), a monograph on the Asmara zone; F. Martini, Nell’ Africa Italiana (3rd ed., Milan, 1891); A. B. Wylde, Modern Abyssinia, chaps. v.-ix. (London, 1901); E. D. Schoenfeld, Erythräa und der ägyptische Sudân, chaps. i.-xii. (Berlin, 1904); Luigi Chiala, La Spedizione di Massana (Turin, 1888); Abyssinian Green Books published at intervals in 1895 and 1896, covering the period from 1870 to the end of the Italo-Abyssinian War; Vico Mantegazza, La Guerra in Africa (Florence, 1896); General Baratieri, Memorie d’Africa (Rome, 1898); C. de la Jonquière, Les Italiens en Érythrée (Paris, 1897); G. F. H. Berkeley, The Campaign of Adowa (London, 1902). For orography and geology see an article by P. Verri in Boll. Soc. geog. italiana,
- ↑ During the Second Empire unsuccessful efforts were made by France to obtain a Red Sea port and a foothold in northern Abyssinia. (See Somaliland: French.)
