Bands (Italian : Bande) was an Italian military term for irregular forces, composed of natives, with Italian officers and NCOs in command. These units were employed by the Italian Army as auxiliaries to the regular national and colonial military forces. They were also known to the British colonial forces as "armed Bands".
A Banda (singular) was approximatively company sized with 100 - 200 men. An individual member of a "band" was called a "Gregario". [1] The larger unit was the battalion size Gruppo Band (infantry) or Gruppo Squadron (cavalry). The Milizi a regimental unit appeared briefly during the fascist period in the Balkans. The first of these irregular units employed by the Regio Esercito originated from a mercenary Arab force employed by the Ottoman Empire, called Bashi-bazouk (which became "basci buzuk" in Italian), that was created in Eritrea by the Albanian adventurer Sagiak Hassan in the second half of the 19th century. In 1885, the Italian Colonel Tancredi Saletta, commanding officer of the first Italian troops involved in the conquest of Eritrea, enlisted Bashi-bazouks in the service of Italy. As lightly armed irregulars the Banda were able to perform duties for which regular Italian and colonial troops were unsuited and at lower cost.
Locally recruited bands were employed in the conquest of Italian Libya from 1911 to the 1930s. Their Somali counterparts played an important role in Italian Somaliland during the 1920s. [2] In Italian Somaliland, the Italians also employed Dubats; levies that were maintained on a permanent basis and were better trained and equipped than the Banda. During the guerrilla war that continued in Ethiopia after the 1936 Italian invasion, Bande were recruited amongst groups collaborating with the Italian regime. One of the best known of these was the Gruppo Bande irregolari "Uollo Ambassel" in northern Ethiopia.
While most Bande were recruited in the Italian colonies in Africa, many units bearing this designation were also created as auxiliaries during the Second World War in Albania and in the occupied territories of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The other branches of the Italian armed forces and corps created Bande. The Banda n° 9 della Marin, formed of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and local young Italians from Dalmatia, was established in Zara under the control of the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy). These naval auxiliaries fought side by side with a company from the Reggimento San Marco from 1941 to 1943.
After the fall of Asmara the group (reduced to just 176 soldiers) did guerrilla war for many months.
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Italian East Africa was an Italian colony in the Horn of Africa. It was formed in 1936 after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War through the merger of Italian Somalia, Italian Eritrea, and the newly occupied Ethiopian Empire.
A bashi-bazouk was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army, raised in times of war. The army chiefly enlisted Albanians and Circassians as bashi-bazouks, but recruits came from all ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire, including slaves from Europe or Africa. Bashi-bazouks had a reputation for being undisciplined and brutal, notorious for looting and preying on civilians as a result of a lack of regulation and of the expectation that they would support themselves off the land.
Italian Somaliland was a protectorate and later colony of the Kingdom of Italy in present-day Somalia. Ruled in the 19th century by the Somali Sultanates of Hobyo and Majeerteen in the north, and in the south by political entities such as the Hiraab Imamate and Geledi Sultanate.
An askari or ascari was a local soldier serving in the armies of the European colonial powers in Africa, particularly in the African Great Lakes, Northeast Africa and Central Africa. The word is used in this sense in English, as well as in German, Italian, Urdu and Portuguese. In French, the word is used only in reference to native troops outside the French colonial empire. The designation is still in occasional use today to informally describe police, gendarmerie and security guards.
The East African campaign was fought in East Africa during the Second World War by Allies of World War II, mainly from the British Empire, against Italy and its colony of Italian East Africa, between June 1940 and November 1941. The British Middle East Command with troops from the United Kingdom, South Africa, British India, Uganda Protectorate, Kenya, Somaliland, West Africa, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Sudan and Nyasaland participated in the campaign. These were joined by the Allied Force Publique of Belgian Congo, Imperial Ethiopian Arbegnoch and a small unit of Free French.
Irregular military is any non-standard military component that is distinct from a country's national armed forces. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used. An irregular military organization is one which is not part of the regular army organization. Without standard military unit organization, various more general names are often used; such organizations may be called a troop, group, unit, column, band, or force. Irregulars are soldiers or warriors that are members of these organizations, or are members of special military units that employ irregular military tactics. This also applies to irregular infantry and irregular cavalry units.
Baron Amedeo Guillet was an officer of the Italian Army and an Italian Diplomat. Dying at the age of 101, he was one of the last men to have commanded cavalry in war. He was nicknamed Devil Commander and was famous during the Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia in 1941, 1942 and 1943 because of his courage.
Colonial troops or colonial army refers to various military units recruited from, or used as garrison troops in, colonial territories.
The Italian order of battle for the Second Italo-Ethiopian War on 8 October 1935. The Ethiopian order of battle is listed separately.
Zaptié was the designation given to locally raised gendarmerie units in the Italian colonies of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Eritrea and Somaliland between 1889 and 1943.
Dubat ; Arabic:العمائم البيضاء ); ḍubbāṭ: English: White turban) was the designation given to members of the semi-regular armed bands employed by the Italian "Royal Corps of Colonial Troops" in Italian Somaliland from 1924 to 1941. The word dubat was derived from a Somali phrase meaning "white turban".
The Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia was a conflict fought from the summer of 1941 to the autumn of 1943 by remnants of Italian troops in Ethiopia and Somalia, in a short-lived attempt to re-establish Italian East Africa. The guerrilla campaign was fought following the Italian defeat in the East African Campaign of World War II, while the war was still raging in Northern Africa and Europe.
The Italian colonial empire, also known as the Italian Empire between 1936 and 1941, was founded in Africa in the 19th century and it comprised the colonies, protectorates, concessions and dependencies of the Kingdom of Italy. In Africa, the colonial empire included the territories of present-day Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia ; outside Africa, Italy possessed the Dodecanese Islands, Albania and had some concessions in China, including in Tianjin.
The Royal Corps Of Eritrean Colonial Troops were indigenous soldiers from Eritrea, who were enrolled as askaris in the Royal Corps of Colonial Troops of the Royal Italian Army during the period 1889–1941.
The Cacciatori d'Africa were Italian light infantry and mounted infantry units raised for colonial service in Africa. Cacciatori units later served in Somalia, Eritrea, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica for the Italian colonial empire. Partially mechanised in the early 1920s, the Cacciatori d'Africa remained part of the Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali until 1942.
Italian Spahis were light cavalry colonial troops of the Kingdom of Italy, raised in Italian Libya between 1912 and 1942.
The military history of Somalia encompasses the major conventional wars, conflicts and skirmishes involving the historic empires, kingdoms and sultanates in the territory of present-day Somalia, through to modern times. It also covers the martial traditions, military architecture and hardware employed by Somali armies and their opponents.
The Royal Corps of Colonial Troops was a corps of the Italian Royal Army, in which all the Italian colonial troops were grouped until the end of World War II in North Africa campaign.
The Royal Corps of Somali Colonial Troops was the colonial body of the Royal Italian Army based in Italian Somaliland, in present-day northeastern, central and southern Somalia.
The siege of Saati was the first battle of the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887–1889 between Italian colonial forces and Ethiopian forces.
