Italian colonial troops - overview

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As an addendum to the current threads dealing with specific Italian colonial units recruited in Somalia, the attached colour plate may be of some interest. It shows representative units from all three Italian African territories held in 1928 - prior to the conquest and brief occupation of Ethiopia.

The first three figures are Eritrean, the next four (in shorts) Somali, and the remainder Libyan. The plate also includes additional Libyan and Saharan troops but Photobucket unfortunately trimmed these out of the picture. The figures show the simple but effective system used by the Italian Army to distinguish between its various native units. Essentially each infantry battalion, cavalry squadron and technical branch was allocated a distinctive colour or combination of colours - which then appeared in the waist sashes, fez tassels, unit banners and the sleeveless full-dress jackets (farmulas) worn by the North African units comprising the Royal Corps of Libyan Troops.

This web page http://www.collezioni-f.it/militaria_f.html has links to a number of interesting pages including http://www.collezioni-f.it/militaria_f/asc_car.html
I managed to find the link again more by luck than anything else.
Regards
WF

There were some excellent propaganda cards made by the Italians. Here is a general one showing the cummerbund colours of some of their Eritrean colonial units.
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