THE BATTLE OF ADWA

1896

                                                         Emperor Menelik II 

Close to the end of the 19th century, the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia remained one of the few country's within the continent of Africa that had not fallen to European colonialism. 

Compared to the other great powers of Europe, Italy was late in its efforts to colonize and possessed only the small acquisitions of Eritrea and Somalia. Italy therefore sought to increase its dominance over the region by conquering Ethiopia and creating a land bridge between its two provinces. 

On the evening of February 29th under the cover of darkness, the military governor of Eritrea, General Oreste Baratieri with an army of 18,000 men and 55 artillery pieces crossed the Ethiopian border and occupied the villages of Makalle and Adigrat. 

Menelik was outraged by this blatant invasion of Ethiopian soil and summoned all his tribal chiefs to Addis Ababa for a consul of war. Once assembled, Menelik's large army consisted of 100,000 men. Although the bulk of Menelik's force consisted of spear and shield armed infantry, 30,000 men were armed with modern rifles. 

Ethiopian Warriors

On March 2nd, Menelik marched his army from Addis Ababa occupying the village of Adowa and the surrounding area. Now aware of the position of the Ethiopian army , General Baratieri called his brigade commanders to a meeting to discuss the upcoming battle. 

Baratieri revealed he planed to divide his army into four brigades with each marching along separate routes with the goal of arriving at their pre determined objectives before dawn. Once completed, the maneuver would effectively occupy the high ground and completely surround the Ethiopian forces encamped at Adowa. 

Although Baratieri's plan was tactically sound, it began to unravel almost from the outset. The Italian's soon found themselves struggling to keep cohesion with their flank's due to the hostile terrain and outdated maps of the area.

At 6:00am, Major General Albertone reached his objective at Mount Kidane Meret overlooking the Ethiopian encampment, he then assumed the other three brigades were also in position and gave the order for his men to advance.

 

 

                          Baratieri                                             Albertone

Menelik's scouts had given the Emperor reports on the enemy's movements the previous night and his army was in position and prepared for the Italian's once they arrived. Albertone's brigade of 4,500 men was immediately confronted by a superior Ethiopian force numbering 15,000 warriors under Ras Tekla Haymanot.

General Baratieri now also began to receive reports of increasing contacts to Major General Armondi's front and that Albertone's brigade was heavily engaged and requesting reinforcements. At 7:45am, Baratieri ordered Major General Dabormida to move his brigade from the right wing and pull back to support the army's center. 

For some unknown reason Dabormida moved his brigade towards the extreme right, away from the army at the same moment Menelik ordered Ras Mikael Makonnen and the 25,000 strong Royal Guard to support Haymanot against Albertone. 

After fighting for over two hours, Albertone's exhausted troops could no longer hold back the massive Ethiopian assault and the brigade simply disintegrated and melted away, with Albertone himself being captured.

Haymanot                                           Makonnen

With the Italian left flank now completely destroyed, Ras Makonnen and the Royal Guard now swept down from mount Kidane Meret on Major General Arimondi's central brigade. 

Arimondi's lone brigade of 5,000 men now found themselves facing assaults to their front and both flanks. Although all seemed hopeless, the Italian brigade was fortunate in that they did possess the bulk of the Italian artillery. 

Arimondi quickly placed his artillery surrounding the brigade in a rough semi circle, he then ordered the infantry to take up positions between each piece. As the Ethiopians came within rifle range Arimondi finally gave the order to open fire. 

The withering barrage decimated the oncoming Ethiopian charge killing hundreds with each repeated salvo. After suffering incredible casualties, the Ethiopian’s finally reached the Italian positions. 

Arimondi’s troops now found themselves engaged in bitter hand to hand fighting. However this did not last long as the Ethiopian warriors poured over and through the Italian lines massacring the brigade to a man. 

  

At 9:15am Baratieri arrived on the scene with the reserve brigade. The General was in disbelief with the situation before him, off to his left in the distance and below in the valley he could see the corpses of two of his brigade's littering the ground, and there was no sign of Dabromida's brigade.

A horrified Baratieri had seen enough, he was not going to commit his last brigade to an already lost battle and ordered an immeadiate retreat back to Sauria. Unknown to the General as he pulled back, Major General Dabromida's brigade was still intact and had halted in a canyon just out of view to get there bearings a few miles from his position.  

Emperor Menelik now decided to finish off the last remnants of the Italian army, ordering Ras Mikail and 20,000 warriors supported by 8,000 cavalry to move on the lone Italian brigade and destroy it before it could escape.

Dabromida was caught completely by surprise at the sight of large numbers of Ethiopian forces converging on his position from all directions. As the pressure on his brigade intensified, Dabromida ordered a fighting withdrawal which soon turned into a complete route. Within half an hour the third and final Italian brigade on the battle field, numbering 4,500 men had been annihilated.

 

The battle of Adowa was now over and had ended in complete victory for Emperor Menelik, but at a high cost. Ethiopian casualties numbered 30,000 warriors dead and 8,000 wounded compared to Italian losses of 14,000 dead 

In the wake of the catastrophe, Italian prime minister Crispi and his entire cabinet were forced to resign and Italy had lost its place among the other European nations as a military power.

On October 26th 1896, Rome signed the treaty of Addis Ababa, recognizing Ethiopia as a sovereign and independent state.