Ethiopian forces under the leadership of Emperor Menelik II surprised the world by defeating an Italian Army sent to conquer the Empire.
The battle of Adwa was a stunning victory for Ethiopia but a rout and a disaster for Italy. Adwa – the story of Africans seeing to their own freedom – played out against a background of almost unrelenting European expansion into Africa. The success of Ethiopia’s forces assured that Ethiopia would be the only African country to successfully to resist European colonization during the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It also resonated powerfully in post-Emancipation America where hierarchies of race and ethnicity were only beginning a process of challenge and renegotiation.
This happened in 1896, when the “colonial era” was well advanced on the African continent, and Ethiopia served notice that Africa was not just there “for the taking” by European powers. More than this, it marked the entry of Ethiopia into the modern community of nations: Menelik’s victory over the Italians caused the other major European states, and Italy itself, to recognize Ethiopia as a sovereign, independent state in the context of modern statecraft.
This culminated in the famous Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, where African countries were shared among the Europeans to possess colonies. Ethiopia was no exception to these colonial battles. But the Ethiopians taught lions to hunt down enemy soldiers and fought with cheetahs and bees. This helped them win colonization battles and become one of two African countries that have never been colonized.
At the Battle of Adwa, a group of Ethiopian swordsmen called “Shotel” beat the Italian forces that were occupying the area. The First Italo-Ethiopian War or Battle of Adwa served as its decisive confrontation. On March 1, 1896, an Italian invasion force was stopped by Ethiopian troops near the town of Adwa. The resounding victory stopped the Kingdom of Italy from trying to make the Horn of Africa part of its colonial empire.
Ethiopia became one of the two countries in Africa that were never colonized after the victory at Adwa (Liberia was the other country). Adwa transformed Ethiopia into an international icon of black liberation. A report by The Conversation says that this event also led to the formation of a new government in Italy.
The Conversation says that at the Berlin Conference, it was decided that Italy would be able to colonize Ethiopia in the future. Before the Conference, Europeans reigned over just around 10% of Africa, while the remaining 90% was under the power of traditional and indigenous leaders. Beginning in 1882, Italy held colonial sway over the port of Assab.
The actual battle which took place on March 1 and 2, 1896, at Adwa, the principal market town of the North of Ethiopia, had been precipitated by the great rush of the European powers to colonize Africa. Italy and Germany had lagged behind other European powers — most notably France and Britain — in seizing large parcels of the Continent to colonize. Thus, the Conference of Berlin was convened in 1884-85 to “divide up” the remainder of Africa among the other European powers, anxious to obtain their own African colonies to satisfy the urge for imperial expansion and economic gain. Italy was “awarded” Ethiopia; all that remained was for Italian troops to take possession.
Significantly, until this time, Ethiopia had been left alone by the European powers. Its coastal littoral was well-known to traders, but the heartland in the highlands was peopled by nations notoriously unwilling to accept and embrace external contact and influence. But the Ethiopian nations had been known in the past to be fractious and divided, and from all accounts, Italy’s leaders expected a rapid conquest of the individual national leaders. Britain had, in 1868, waged a successful war against Emperor Téwodros II (Theodore), leading to his death. The Italians, however, failed to recognize that Emperor Menelik II had re-shaped Ethiopia since he came to power in 1889, uniting its various kings and leaders, and creating in the process a substantial army, outnumbering and outperforming the invading Italian professional army of 17,000 to 20,000 men.
That the Battle of Adwa is still fresh in the minds of Ethiopians became apparent when, on July 5, 1998, Ethiopian volunteers were cheered off to battle against invading Eritrean forces. As a Reuters report noted: “Residents from the city’s [Addis Ababa’s] 265 neighbourhood associations danced and sang songs recalling the Battle of Adwa where Ethiopia defeated the invading Italian army in 1896.”
With even less intelligence on which to base its actions, Italy could only draw on the British victory at Magdàla and the commonly held European belief that no African forces were a match for disciplined and well-equipped European military formations.
Stay tuned to our website www.globalafricantimes.com for the continuation of this African History Discovery Series on the Ethiopians and the Battle of Adwa
Additional Sources: The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire, Emmanuel Kwarteng – Face2Face Africa, Reuters, Brittanica
