Royal Corps of Colonial Troops

The Royal Corps of Colonial Troops (Italian: Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali or RCTC) was a corps of the Italian armed forces, in which all the Italian colonial troops were grouped until the end of World War II in Africa. About 60,000 eritreans askaris fought for the italians

Since the beginning of the colonial conquest the Kingdom of Italy created military units with colonial soldiers. The main units included as parts of the RCTC were:

All these military units underwent a reorganization in the 1930s, but remained active until 1943, when Italy was defeated in WWII.

The Italian Army started to modernize the colonial units in the mid-1930s. During the conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 and at the beginning of World War II, it also created some Infantry Divisions manned by colonial troops:

In those years, there were also special units composed mainly of colonial troops such as the Maletti Group, the Libyan paratroopers (Ascari del Cielo Paratroops) and the Italian Africa Police.

These troops were deployed on all fronts in Africa from the First Italo-Ethiopian War, the Italian-Turkish war, the conquest of Ethiopia, until World War II. The colonial soldiers always showed courage and in some cases (like the Eritrean Ascari) fought with heroism.

Except for the German parachute division in Italy and the Japanese in Burma no enemy with whom the British and Indian troops were matched put up a finer fight than those Savoia battalions at Keren (Eritrea). Moreover, the Colonial troops, until they cracked at the very end, fought with valour and resolution, and their staunchness was a testimony to the excellence of the Italian administration and military training in Eritrea

The colonial troops were commanded by Italian officers and NCOs, while soldiers were drawn from the Italian colonial territories (and to a smaller extent also from neighboring Yemen).

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