Page 570 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

1210 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

General Commander.
Specifically, the reports deal with the main events happened in Assab colony and
some details activities led by carabinieri, inside and outside the colony. There were
written the arrival and the departure of the steamboats between Assab and, Italy and
other ports like Massawa, Aden and the movements of the Navy ships. For instance,
the arrival on 16th January 1885 of the Castelfidardo battleship and of the Messaggero
corvette.
There are also indicated some movements of caravans like the departure for Aussa of
41
“a caravan of 200 camels, with 100 danakils” arrived in Assab on 31st December 1884.
About the last month of the same year, the station commander, as told Cavedagni to
general Boella, was chosen for some intelligence mission. With a Navy ship he went to
Aden, Jeddah and Suez with the excuse to buy food and equipment for a big number
of military personnel and he revealed the false news that the Italian contingent had the
task to reinforce the Assab garrison while the colonel Tancredi Saletta troops landed in
Massawa where he won easily the small Egyptian garrison. Saletta decided to employ
Cavedagni in Massawa together with two guards trained by the warrant officer as
interpreters. “And the first zaptié were taken from basci-bozuk already employed as port
42
policemen before the Italian landing” .
The carabinieri accomplished other tasks besides area patrols. For instance, a caravan
started for Aussa on 20th January 1885 under the order of the local governor “for service
reason” and was under the escort of twelve danakils “Anfari soldiers trained by warrant
officer Cavedagni how use in a better way guns” .
43
On 22nd January the warrant officer went to Beilul with an escort of eight danakil
“for duty reason”. After four days, Carabiniere Edoardo Piazza with four Danakil went
to Beilul “with an express paper from the Civil governor”, coming back on 28th. The
next day, the schooner “Vedetta” came from Beilul to Assab with Cavedagni and two
Italians (Arturo Tarchi e Umberto Danesi) who walked with some risks on 25th January
in spite of some warnings “without knowledge of the langue, of the route, with a boy as
a guide”.
The increase of the Italian colony (in that period) with the occupation and the formal
possession of Beilul explains the presence of the warrant officer, of the civil governor
together with one hundred sailors that admiral Caimi disembarked from Castelfidardo
battleship, with a military expansion of the colonial borders in a formal perspective .
44
On 31st January, warrant officer Cavedagni with a Danakil went to Raheita to verify
some news about the shipwreck in which would have been involved “a big English ship
in the waters of (Ras) Sauthiar Cape”.
In another report Cavedagni wrote exactly all the event in which the main actor was

41 In the papers searched the population is called as dancali, dankali e danakil.
42 g. boella, Ricordi d’Africa cit., p. 265. Boella underlined that the first unit of native police forces, later
called corpo degli zaptié, was organised under the initiative of Cavedagni.
43 AUSSME, L-7 – Eritrea, b. 57, fasc. 24, report n. 3 cit., pp. 2-3.
44 a. del boca, Gli Italiani in Africa Orientale, vol. 1. cit., p. 185. About landing, Le fanteria di marina
italiane, Roma, Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, 1998, pp. 11-12.