Somaliland/Djibouti
Photo collection from the research division of AGIP looking for oil in Italian Somaliland in 1936 in the Dolo and Bulo-Burti areas of the new province created by the union of Italian Somaliland with the Somali – speaking area of Ethiopia. 32 photos in all. M
Price: $400.00
Note: AGIP (Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli) was established in 1926 by royal decree to conduct all activities relating to industry and the commerce of petroleum; It experienced difficulties after the crisis of 1929, but began to flourish in the 1930s. In 1933, a new law was issued in the field of protectionist refineries and AGIP could operate with greater ease in this area. However, because of the costs of supporting colonial campaigns, AGIP had to cancel some foreign investments, in particular it had to abandon their exploration campaigns in Iraq. The mission to Somaliland in 1936 was hoping to find oil and in so doing help pay for the enormous cost of Italys colonies in East Africa.
Collection of 6 patriotic postcards showing Somali women. Most are used by a soldier fighting on the Southern Front April 18-23, 1936. He writes V.V. Gratziani and V.V. Badoglio (the two supreme Italian commanders on the Southern and Northern fronts respectively) in the upper left and lower right corners on some of the postcards. Content on back. B
Price: $150.00
Two photos of the grave of the Duca Abruzzi. (Note: Prince Luigi Amedeo Giuseppe Maria Ferdinando Francesco of Savoy-Aosta (1873 - 1933 ), Duke of the Abruzzi, was an Italian nobleman, mountaineer and explorer of the royal House of Savoy. He was an admiral in World War 1. The Duke assisted Mussolini with the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1928. He traveled to Addis Ababa with gifts, one of which was a Fiat 3000 tank, which ended up playing a role in crushing the abortive coup d'état of 1928. In the later years of his life, the Duke married a young Somali woman named Faduma Ali. He died on 18 March 1933, at Jowhar some ninety kilometres north of Mogadishu, Italian Somaliland. In 1920, he had founded here the "Village of the Duke of Abruzzi" (Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi or Villabruzzi). It was an agricultural settlement experimenting new cultivation techniques. By 1926, the colony comprised 16 villages, with 3,000 Somali and 200 Italian inhabitants, Italian Somalians. M
Price: $80.00
