Italy’s colourful postcard maps of colonial Eritrea and the Horn of Africa

Italy’s colourful postcard maps of colonial Eritrea and the Horn of Africa

Eritrea was a colony of Eritrea from 1882–1936. The Italians under the Fascist ruler, Benito Mussolini, saw Eritrea as a part of a wider African empire including Somalia, Libya and Ethiopia. These plans finally came to nothing when Britain and troops from across the British Empire marched into Addis Ababa, returning the Emperor Haile Selassie to his throne. But Italy left behind some fascinating maps – some as postcards which served a propaganda…