Battle of Adwa
Ethiopia destroyed an Italian army at Adwa on 1 March 1896 and remained the only African state to defeat a European invasion and keep its independence. The war came out of a translation. The Treaty of Wuchale of 1889 had a clause that in Amharic said Ethiopia could use Italy for its foreign dealings and in Italian said it must, which Italy presented to the powers as a protectorate. Menelik II repudiated the article when he found out and denounced the treaty in 1893. Menelik had spent years buying rifles from France, Russia and Italy itself, and had perhaps 100,000 men with some 80,000 firearms and a few dozen guns, drawn from every province — Tigray, Shewa, Wollo, Gojjam, Oromo cavalry — assembled by a monarch who had made himself the centre of a genuine coalition. His wife Taytu Betul commanded troops in person and had earlier cut the water supply to an Italian fort. General Baratieri had about 17,000 including Eritrean askari, was short of supplies, and was being told from Rome that his caution was politically intolerable. He advanced at night in four columns over unmapped mountains on inaccurate maps; the columns lost contact, one marched into a gap, and the Ethiopians attacked at dawn and destroyed them in detail. Some 7,000 Italians died and 3,000 were captured. The Italian government fell within days, and Italy recognised Ethiopian independence in October. Adwa became a reference point for Black nationalists and anti-colonial movements everywhere. Italy returned in 1935 with aircraft and gas.
- Year: 1896 CE
- Category: Military
