Except for the German parachute division in Italy and the Japanese in Burma no enemy with whom the British and Indian troops were matched put up a finer fight than those Savoia battalions at Keren (Eritrea).
Out of a total of 256,000 Italian troops serving in Italian East Africa in 1940, about 182,000 were recruited from Italian Eritrea, Italian Somalia and the just recently occupied (1935-36) Ethiopia.