Ethiopia's Decisive Victory at Adowa
Italian General Oreste Baratieri knew he was outnumbered. But he
seriously underestimated his Ethiopian opponents--and
overestimated the merits of his own battle plan.
by Greg Blake
Of
all the African powers, only the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia remained
completely free from European domination by the end of the 19th
century. This was no accident of history; Ethiopia secured its
sovereignty by inflicting a decisive and humiliating defeat upon the
Italian invaders at Adowa (or Adwa) on March 1, 1896. The battle at
Adowa was, at the time, the greatest defeat inflicted upon a European
army by an African army since the time of Hannibal, and its
consequences were felt well into the 20th century. As an example of
colonial warfare on an epic scale, it cannot be surpassed. As an
example of the twin follies of arrogance and underestimation of one's
enemies, it should never be forgotten.
Ethiopia
has existed as a political entity since biblical times. The ancient
Greeks gave the name "burnt face" to the peoples who inhabited the
little known regions south of Egypt, and it is from the Greek that the
name Ethiopia is derived. Bisected by the great Rift Valley that runs
the length of the African continent, Ethiopia encompasses fertile
mountainous highlands of moderate climate and unbearably hot lowlands
that fall below sea level in some places.
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Christianity
came to the Ethiopians in the 4th century AD and was adopted with a
fanatical passion. A rich, sophisticated and thriving culture developed
among the Ethiopians, producing among its many treasures beautiful
illuminated Bibles in the ancient language of Geez, the only written
language native to Africa. The advent and aggressive spread of Islam,
however, drove the Ethiopians deeper into their isolated mountainous
highlands, and there they remained for the next 1,200 years.
In
1868 the outside world encroached upon the mountain kingdom in the form
of 5,000 British and Indian troops sent to chastise the negus, or
emperor, Tewodros II for his detention of a number of European envoys
and missionaries. On April 13, "Mad King Theodore," as the British
press soon dubbed the ill-fated negus, ended the affair by shooting
himself, after being abandoned by his own nobles and decisively
defeated at Magdala by the superior weaponry of the British. The
British then departed, leaving behind a power vacuum that led to a
four-year struggle for power among the feudal nobility.
The
eventual victory went to Kassai, the ras, or lord, of Tigre, who had
used his gift of surplus British rifles and ammunition to good effect.
Negus Yohannes IV, as he proclaimed himself, next had to contend with
growing pressures from a variety of external sources. During the 1870s,
Ethiopia repelled repeated attacks from the Egyptian armies of Ismael
Pasha, whose dreams of empire had led him to occupy the Red Sea port of
Massawa, thus blocking Ethiopia's only significant access to the
outside world. Yohannes' armies inflicted terrible defeats upon the
Egyptians, most notably at Gura on March 7-9, 1876, when 20,000
well-equipped Egyptians, led by European and American mercenaries, were
routed.
In
1885, another foreign power occupied Massawa. Italy had been trading
along the Red Sea coast for some time, but under the government of
Prime Minister Francesco Crispi, Italian ambitions turned toward the
acquisition of a colonial empire like those of Britain and France. With
the consent of the British government, with whom Crispi had fostered
friendly relations, Italy garrisoned Massawa. The Ethiopians found this
foreign occupation intolerable, and Yohannes encouraged his Tigrean
subjects to harass any Italian forces attempting to move out from
Massawa into Eritrea.
The
Italians steadily expanded into the hinterland of Eritrea after
occupying Massawa, leading to a number of clashes, some of which verged
upon the comic. During a fight at Sabarguma in March 1885, the
appearance of balloons released by the Italians was enough to panic the
attacking force of Ethiopians. In another incident, electric spotlights
so terrified a Tigrean force attacking at night that the men froze,
petrified, then fled, while the Italians laughed at their foes. Matters
took a more serious turn, however, on January 26, 1887, when a column
of 550 Italians, moving to relieve the garrison at Saati, was trapped
in a narrow valley and overrun, leaving 430 dead and 82 wounded. That
incident was decried in Italy as "The Dogali Massacre."
While
fending off Italian incursions, Yohannes also had to deal with his
African neighbors. The rise of the Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed in Sudan led to
conflict between the Mahdist and Ethiopian forces. On March 12, 1889,
they clashed at Gallabat in southern Sudan, both sides invoking their
own God to grant them victory. In a battle more reminiscent of the
medieval Crusades than the later part of the 19th century, Yohannes was
killed and his army fled. Within months, Ras Menelik of Shoa, Yohannes'
great rival, was proclaimed negus.
Crowned
as Menelik II (the first Menelik had been the son of King Solomon of
Israel and the queen of Sheba), Sahle Miriam, Ras Menelik of Shoa, was
intelligent, shrewd and ruthless, all virtues which had helped him to
prosper in the cutthroat world of Ethiopia's feudal politics. As a
young man, Menelik had been held hostage by Tewodros, and during his
captivity he had absorbed a good deal of Tewodros' fascination with the
technology of the outside world. He had also seen with his own eyes the
effects of disunity upon the empire and the rout of the negus' armies
by the British. Menelik realized that Ethiopia's continued sovereignty
would rely upon national unity and military strength. Since the most
dangerous enemies would more than likely be European, Menelik decided
that the procurement of modern weaponry was essential.
With
funds from the sale of ivory, gold, silver, musk and slaves as well as
from taxes, the negus embarked upon a major effort to import modern
rifles and artillery via the French-controlled port of Djibouti, along
with whatever he could cajole out of the Italians in Massawa. Over the
next few years, tens of thousands of magazine-loading rifles, millions
of rounds of ammunition and dozens of modern rifled artillery guns were
brought by caravan on a tortuous route from the coastal lowlands to
Menelik's new capital at Addis Ababa. By the mid-1890s, Menelik was
able to field an army in which the majority of his warriors were armed
with the best weapons that Europe and the United States could offer.
The
Italians had been cultivating friendship with Menelik for years by
supplying him with rifles. When he came to the throne, their support
seemed to have payed off--surely, Rome reasoned, this new negus would
compliantly surrender sovereignty to his former sponsors. On May 2,
1889, Menelik signed the Treaty of Wichale (or Uccialli), in which he
ceded to the Italians part of Yohannes' native province of Tigre and
some of the adjacent highlands.
In
a Machiavellian subterfuge, the Italian government touted the Treaty of
Wichale as legal proof that Menelik had ceded sovereignty to Rome. The
trick was eminently simple, the kind that had been played on native
rulers by European traders and settlers for centuries. As far as Rome
was concerned, Menelik was little more than an unsophisticated
barbarian.
Article
XVII of the treaty, concerning Ethiopia's diplomatic representation
outside of Africa, had been presented for signing as two documents, one
written in Italian and one written in Amharic. The Italian version of
Article XVII stated, "The Emperor consents to use the Italian
government for all the business he does with all the other Powers or
Governments." Article XVII of the Amharic version read somewhat
differently: "The Emperor has the option to communicate with the help
of the Italian government for all matters that he wants with the kings
of Europe." Needless to say, the Italian negotiators failed to inform
the Ethiopian court of the none-too-subtle differences between the two
versions of the treaty.
Menelik,
however, was at heart a nationalist, and subservience to any power was
anathema to him. When he discovered the subterfuge in the treaty,
Menelik rejected it. Despite a belated attempt by the Italians to buy
him off with a gift of 2 million cartridges, he continued to
characterize the Italians as cheats. The European powers remained deaf
to his complaints, however, and all but Turkey, Russia and France
accepted the Italian version of affairs.
The
Italians then began to cultivate Yohannes' eldest son, Ras Mangasha, as
Menelik's rival to the throne and made moves to assist Mangasha in
establishing a base of support in Tigre. But Tigre had been devastated
by famine and war, and the promised Italian aid failed to appear.
Mangasha made his peace with Menelik in June 1894, and later in the
year many other lords followed Mangasha's lead. Menelik's power grew
until he truly became negusa nagast, the "king of kings"--the first such Ethiopian leader in centuries.
Menelik
now felt that the time had come to confront the Italians directly.
"God, in his bounty, has struck down my enemies and enlarged my empire
and preserved me to this day," he declared. "I have reigned by the
grace of God....Enemies have come who would ruin our country and change
our religion. They have passed beyond the sea which God gave us as our
frontier....These enemies have advanced, burrowing into the country
like moles. With God's help I will get rid of them."
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