Page 569 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

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gathering activities, it is written “inside the colony carabinieri and zaptié were the
“source of a continuous flow of Italian money to pay the secret job and delation of
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local collaborators” , while it is possible to observe that there was a preventive activity
(even if with limited results) in order to limit the human trafficking: “the most lucrative
commerce in the Assab territory always remains, in spite of the surveillance of warrant
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officer Cavedagna and the sailors of the stationary ship, the slaves commerce” .
It is important to underline that till this moment the research led in the archives had
the opportunity to find only few documents about the dusty and the tasks led by the
Assab Carabinieri Station personnel. There a little bit more papers for the period from
1885 when, the “Section command was assigned to lieutenant Amari di Sant’Adriano
Nobile Antonio, arrived in Massawa on 7th March 1885, that was promoted to the rank
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of captain on 11th October of the same year” . It can gather that, after two years from
the foundation of the first Carabinieri station in Africa, it needed institute an unit led
by an officer, clear evidence of the obvious widening of activities led by Carabinieri
according with the increasing of the territory. The tasks accomplished in Assab had
been organised directly by the War Ministry, led by Ferrero and by his secretary general.
Pelloux, synthetically explained in: “few men, few local or diplomatic problems and
from the first phase a guarantee of supremacy of the military element on civilian one” .
39
Till now the research permitted to find only two reports written by Cavedagni of two
decades of January and February 1885.
So we have a general idea of the activities led in colony by the Carabinieri . First
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of all, it is important to say the Assab Carabinieri commander sent the reports directly
to the Carabinieri General commander. This point is very interesting because of the
chain of command: from a side the royal civil governor for the daily activities led in
colony and from another side the Carabinieri General Headquarters ho inform it about
what is going on in Assab and, finally, from the Naples legion for some administrative
and logistic aspects. The relationship between Assab station and General Headquarters
is very important because in metropolitan territory the station command (led by a
NCO) cannot write directly to the General Headquarters but should follow the chain of
command from the section led by a lieutenant, till the legion, led by a full colonel.
So, it is important to underline the political value of the activities led by Assab
station. That means that the prestige of the warrant officer Cavedagni was very high
because he had the opportunity to write directly, for duty reason, to the Carabinieri

36 Ibid., p. 196. this phrase must be verified because of there are non evidences about regarding the first
phase of Italian colonisation, at the moment.
37 a. del boca, Gli Italiani in Africa Orientale, vol. 1. cit., p. 167.
38 carabinieri reali – comando della sezione d’africa, Memorie Storiche, Asmara, A. A. & F. Cicero,
1923, p. 5. On the topic, see minisTero della guerra – comando del corPo di sTaTo maggiore – uf-
ficio sTorico, Storia militare della Colonia Eritrea, 3 voll., vol I (1869-1894), p. 279.
39 n. labanca, In Marcia cit., p. 88.
40 AUSSME, L-7 – Eritrea, b. 57, fasc. 24 “Studio prima spedizione in Africa anno 1885”, report n. 3 dated
31st January 1885, subject: Terza relazione del mese di Gennaio 1885 and report n. 6 dated 28th Febru-
ary 1885, subject: 3 Relazione del mese di Febbraio. Both the reports are signed warrant officer Enrico
a
Cavedagni.