First Eritrean Ascari Recruited

Eritrean Ascari in the Italian Colonial Army

The first Eritrean soldiers in the regular Italian colonial army known as Ascari were recruited. More than 130,000 Ascari would serve in the Italian army by the time the Italians were defeated in Eritrean by the British in 1941.

The recruitment of Eritrean men into the army removed about 10% of the active male labor force from their communities, mainly from farming and pastoralism. This in turn injected large amounts of cash into the colonial economy.

The other major outcome of the recruitment was the detribalization of the population as they moved away from their local communities ending up serving with diverse groups of men virtually from the entire colony; Muslims and Christians, Lowlanders and Highlanders, all the different traditionally recognized regions. This fostered a growing sense of Eritrean identity that eventually became the foundation of the nationalist movement.