During the 1800's many European nations began to colonize Africa. The Italians had many reasons to colonize Africa. One main reason for Italy colonizing Africa was economics. By expanding Italy's control to Libya, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland, Italy gain the natural resources in the country. Another reason the Italians needed to colonize was the need to keep up politically with the other European nations. If Italy did not control territory in Africa, it would be politically inferior to other European nations, thus more susceptible to being taken advantage of by other nations. A third reason why Italy needed to colonize Africa was for security purposes. If Italy did not have territory in Africa then their military influence would not be as effective, since they would have much less influence with world affairs.
Another reason for a country to expand is the pride in being powerful. Imperialistic times are typically times of great nationalist pride. By conquering a country it gives the people of a nation a sense of superiority over a people. An example of this is when the fascists took over Ethiopia in 1936; the reason for the invasion was so Italy could feel as if like one of the more powerful nations, Britain and France.
Francisco Crispi knew that in order to secure the political status of Italy he needed to follow the trend of European nations and colonize into Africa. Politically, if a country had control of a colony, it was considered stronger, and more influential because the nations political decisions would influence a greater area. It was very important for nations back then to stay politically parallel with each other, because if
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