A complete illustrated study of the varied range of Italian colonial units who served in East and North Africa.Italy only unified as a nation in 1870 and was late, and therefore impatient, in the “scramble” for Africa. An initial foothold in Eritrea/Somalia, north-east Africa, led to a disastrous defeat in Ethiopia in 1896 at the Battle of Adwa, but Italian Somaliland was later consolidated on the west coast of the Red Sea.During 1911, Italy also invaded Libya, securing the coast, however fighting continued throughout World War I and only ended in the early 1930s. A number of native colonial regiments were raised in both Italian East Africa and Libya (in the latter, even a pioneering paratroop unit), of which most fought sturdily for Italy against the Allies in 1940–43. These units had particularly colourful uniforms and insignia. Another small guard unit also served in the Italian concession at Tientsin, China in 1902–1943. After World War II, a remnant unit served on in Somalia under
In the early 1900s, the decaying Ottoman Turkish Empire had lost some of its Balkan territories, but still nominally ruled all of North Africa between British Egypt in the east and French Algeria in t
King Philip's War was the result of over 50 years' tension between the native inhabitants of New England and its colonial settlers, as the two parties competed for land and resources. The Native Ameri
The restoration of the Meiji Imperial dynasty in 1868, after 250 years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, decisively opened Japan to the outside world and the monarchy embraced modernisation, including the cr
A detailed analysis of the organization, uniforms and weapons of the French Imperial Guard created by Napoleon I. The author describes how this large military body evolved from the Consular Guard crea
While the Italian Renaissance saw religion beginning to lose its primary role in society to science and the arts, it was also a period of political and military turmoil. Many regional wars were fought
