(Alternative link.)

There is nothing remarkable in tin cans and bottles turning up in military sites. What is more strange is them appearing in the specific contexts that I am studying.

An enormous logistical effort had to be made to bring supplies to this isolated outpost: The Eritrean ports were situated well over a thousand kilometers away and were only communicated by roads, most of them dirt tracks. What surprises most is not the logistical effort as its pointlessness from a practical point of view.

Only a handful of Italians lived in Gubba and Afodo. The colonial presence was overwhelmingly represented by Ethiopians and Eritreans. They would have been very glad to keep on with their customary eating and drinking habits. Yet they were provided with European foods and drinks at an enormous cost.

Actually, neither colonial nor Italian soldiers consumed local foods except in cases of starvation. Eritrean veterans interviewed by Alessandnro Volterra noted that, by the end of the war in 1941 and during a siege, they were so hungry that they all, including the Italians, ended up eating the Ethiopian fermented pancake: ïnjära (Volterra 2005, p. 119).

Whereas one explanation to the logistical deployment could be the rigid bureaucratic system of the [Regio Esercito] and administration, another likely explanation is that food and drink, especially wine, were being used to “civilize” the natives.

It was also a strategy to underpin the difference between colonial troops and the rest of the population, to foster the dependence of colonial servants from the colonizers, and to create a[n] [e]sprit de corps among the alienated indigenous soldiers. This was reinforced by the use of white ware, dishes and coffee cups, related to European consumption habits.

(Emphasis added.)