Résumé

Between 1935 and 1940 Italy spent 53 billion current lire for the war and civilian building projects in Ethiopia. Total State expenditure for civilian works in Italian East Africa between 1937 and 1941 amounted to about 10 billion current lire, of which over 8 were spent on roads and about 2 for other building works. The road building plan, directly conceived by Mussolini, met with several of the regime’s aims: a political aim, because the new roads would represent, vis-à-vis the rest of the world, the unmistakable sign of fascism’s new imperial civilisation; a military aim, because roads would open up the whole of the Ethiopian territory to the Italian army; moreover, road-building would also have great social relevance, by facilitating the migration and settlement of Italian colonists; finally, roads would also be economically important, because they would help develop a wider market for both Italian and local wares, and would involve thousands of building and transport firms in the actual construction works, as well as about 200 000 Italian and 100 000 African workers. The planning and building of the new Italian areas in Asmara and Addis Ababa, in which even Le Corbusier tried in vain to take part, was going to be just as important on the economic and symbolic level. Public expenditure for the war and the various building projects promoted economic growth in Eritrea, the region most endowed with infrastructures and productive factors.