First Italo-Ethiopian War in the context of "Pan-Africanism"

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion (Amharic: ጣልያን ወረራ, romanized: Ṭalyan warära; Oromo: Weerara Xaaliyaanii), and in Italy as the Ethiopian War (Italian: Guerra d'Etiopia). It is seen as an example of the expansionist policy that characterized the Axis powers and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations before the outbreak of World War II.

On 3 October 1935, two hundred thousand soldiers of the Italian Army commanded by Marshal Emilio De Bono attacked from Eritrea (then an Italian colonial possession) without prior declaration of war. At the same time a minor force under General Rodolfo Graziani attacked from Italian Somalia. On 6 October, Adwa was conquered, a symbolic place for the Italian army because of the defeat at the Battle of Adwa by the Ethiopian army during the First Italo-Ethiopian War. On 15 October, Italian troops seized Aksum, and an obelisk adorning the city was torn from its site and sent to Rome to be placed symbolically in front of the building of the Ministry of Colonies.

Ras Makonnen Wolde Mikael Wolde Melekot (Amharic: ራስ መኮንን ወልደ ሚካኤል ወልደ መለኮት; 8 May 1852 – 21 March 1906), or simply Ras Makonnen, Horse name: Abba Qagnew (አባ ቃኘው), was an Ethiopian royal from Shewa, a military leader, the governor of Harar, and the father of future Emperor Haile Selassie. Described by Nikolai Gumilev as "one of the greatest leaders of Abyssinia", he served in the First Italo-Ethiopian War, playing a key role at the Battle of Adwa.

The Battle of Adwa (Amharic: የዐድዋ ጦርነት; Tigrinya: ውግእ ዓድዋ; Italian: battaglia di Adua, also spelled Adowa) was the climactic battle of the First Italo-Ethiopian War. It was fought on March 1, 1896, near the town of Adwa between the Ethiopian Empire under Emperor Menelik II and an Italian colonial force led by Oreste Baratieri.

Following a dispute over the interpretation of the Treaty of Wuchale, Italy attempted to force Ethiopia to abide by the Italian version of the treaty and impose a protectorate over Ethiopia. In response, Emperor Menelik II mobilized a massive army, with estimates ranging from 73,000 to over 100,000 men, mostly equipped with modern rifles imported from France and Russia. Facing them was a much smaller Italian colonial force under General Oreste Baratieri, which was unfamiliar with the terrain and hampered by poor reconnaissance.

The Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887–1889 was an undeclared war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ethiopian Empire occurring during the Italian colonization of Eritrea, then a semi-autonomous province of the Ethiopian Empire under the name of Medri Bahri. The conflict ended with the treaty of Wuchale, which delimited the border between Ethiopia and Italian Eritrea. The treaty also contained clauses whose different interpretations led to another Italo-Ethiopian War.

The Emperor Yohannes IV had to face internal resistance from his powerful vassals. King Menelik of Shewa signed a treaty of neutrality with Italy in October 1887. As the Mahdist uprising in Sudan spilled over the frontier, Ethiopia was faced with a two-front war. In early 1888, Yohannes decided to prioritize fighting against the Mahdists. In March 1889, Yohannes died while he was fighting the Mahdists during the Battle of Gallabat. Menelik claimed the throne after the death of Yohannes and signed the Treaty of Wuchale with Italy in May 1889.

The Treaty of Wuchale (also spelled Treaty of Ucciale; Italian: Trattato di Uccialli, Amharic: የውጫሌ ውል) was a treaty signed between the Ethiopian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy. The signing parties were King Menelik II of Shewa, acting as Emperor of Ethiopia, and Count Pietro Antonelli representing Italy, on 2 May 1889, established the treaty after the Italian occupation of Eritrea. It was signed in the small Ethiopian town of Wuchale, from which the treaty got its name. The purpose of the treaty was to promote friendship and trade among the two countries. It was a treaty to maintain a positive long-lasting relationship between the two empires. The treaty has twenty articles written in two languages, Amharic and Italian; however, there were marked differences in the Italian and the Amharic versions of the treaty, which created miscommunications between the two countries. Specifically, Article 17 of the treaty was translated and interpreted differently by Ethiopia and Italy. Italy claimed the article imposed a protectorate over Ethiopia, while Ethiopia claimed the article allowed international diplomacy to be conducted through Italy by choice. When Menelik II denounced the treaty in 1893, Italy attempted to forcefully impose the protectorate over Ethiopia in the First Italo-Ethiopian War, which ended with Italy's defeat at the Battle of Adwa and the resulting Treaty of Addis Ababa.

The 1890s (pronounced "eighteen-nineties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1890, and ended on December 31, 1899. In American popular culture, the decade would later be nostalgically referred to as the "gay nineties" ("gay" meaning carefree or cheerful). In the British Empire, the 1890s epitomised the late Victorian period.

As European powers continued their colonial expansion, the decade saw the defeat of Edi (1890), Siam (1893), Morocco (1894), Dahomey (1894), Arab-Swahili warlords (1894), Lombork (1894), Pahang (1895), Merina (1895), Zanzibar (1896), Khaua and Mbandjeru (1896), Ashanti (1896), Matabeleland (1897), Pedir (1898), Sudan (1899), and various north-west Indian tribes and states. Whereas most colonial campaigns were successful, Italy faced a significant defeat as it failed to conquer Ethiopia, being decisively defeated at Adwa (1896). Furthermore, the second half of the decade saw the final unravelling of Spanish America, which began with insurrections in Cuba (1895) and the Philippines (1896) and ended with the Spaniards' defeat at the hands of the United States in 1898. Following the sale of various Pacific islands to Germany in 1899, the Spanish colonial empire would be restricted to Africa. Further in the east, Japan sought to expand its own empire, waging wars against Donghak (1894–1895), Qing China (1894–1895) and the Republic of Formosa (1895). Other conflicts included the Garza War (1891–1893), the Greco-Turkish War (1897) and internal conflicts in Samoa (1886–1894, 1898–1899), Afghanistan (1888–1893), Argentina (1890), Chile (1891), the Ottoman Empire (1891, 1893, 1894, 1895–96, 1896–1897, 1896), Mexico (1891–1892), Brazil (1893–1894, 1893–1895, 1899–1903), Peru (1894–1895), the South African Republic (1894), northwest China (1895–1896), Bolivia (1898–1899) and Columbia (1899–1902).