Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE The Rule Of Chibpi. Colonial Expansion. The Abyssinian During the first lustrum of the Triple Alliance Italy derived little tangible profit from her new position. The Italians soon realised that they could only reap a benefit from the alliance commensurate with their own strength. They at once set about, to the limit of their resources, to imitate the Prussian military system by introducing sweeping reforms throughout then- armies and bringing their cadres up to full strength. The old dream of a colonial domain in Africa was again revived, and a motion was passed in the Chamber sanctioning the project of establishing an Italian colony along the shores of the Red Sea. Partly to wipe out the memory of the humiliations endured as a result of her thwarted ambitions in Tunis, partly because the Italians realised that unless they took immediate action all available territory suitable for colonial expansion would be occupied by other States, the Italian Government fitted out a small expedition to take possession of Massua, the centre of the district later known as Eritrea, on the southwestern shores of the Red Sea, previously opened up by Italian explorers and in a measure exploited by Italian merchants. The region selected for this enterprise was not propitious. The coastland along this section of the Red Sea is a sun-scorched waste of sand, inhabited by wild nomad tribes and of value as a colony only in so far as it gives access to the rich and fertile high plateau of Abyssinia. This latter region, well suited for European colonisation, formed part of the Christian Kingdom of Abyssinia, the only strong independent State of Africa possessing an army worthy of the name, marshalled along European lines and armed with modern weapons. Whether the It... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.