Battle of Adowa
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The Battle of Adowa (also known as Adwa or sometimes by the Italian name Adua) was fought on 1 March, 1896 between Ethiopia and Italy near the town of Adwa, Ethiopia, in Tigray. It was the climactic battle of the First Italo-Abyssinian War.
Background
As the twentieth century approached, Africa had been carved up between the various European powers, with the exception of the tiny republic of Liberia on the west coast of the continent and the ancient, newly landlocked kingdom of Ethiopia in the strategic Horn of Africa. Italy, a relative newcomer to the colonial scramble for Africa, having been left with only two impoverished territories on the Horn, Eritrea and Somalia, sought to increase its influence by conquering Ethiopia and creating a land bridge between its two territories. Italy and Ethiopia faced off in the First Italo-Abyssinian War, with the two armies at a standoff in Tigray.By late February 1896, supplies on both sides were running low. General Oreste Baratieri, commander of the Italian forces, knew the Ethiopian forces had been living off the land, and once the supplies of the local peasants were exhausted, Menlik's army would begin to melt away. However, his government insisted that General Baratieri act, and he met with his brigadiers Matteo Albertone, Giuseppe Arimondi, Vittorio Dabormida, and Giuseppe Ellena on the evening of 29 February. His subordinates argued forcefully for an attack, with Dabormida exclaiming, "Italy would prefer the loss of two or three thousand men to a dishonorable retreat." Baratieri delayed making a decision for a few more hours, claiming that he needed to wait for some last-minute intelligence, but in the end announced that the attack would start the next morning at 9:00.David Levering Lewis, The Race for Fashoda (New York: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1987), p. 116. ISBN 1555840582 Accordingly, his troops began their march to their starting positions shortly after midnight.
The battle
The Italian army comprised four brigades totalling 17,700 troops, with fifty-six artillery pieces.Lewis, Fashoda, pp. 116f. He breaks down their numbers into 10,596 Italian and 7,104 Eritrean officers and soldiers. One brigade under General Albertone was made up of Italian officered askari (native infantry) recruited from Eritrea. The remaining three brigades were Italian units under Brigadiers Dabormida, Ellena and Arimondi. While these included elite Bersaglieri, Alpini and Cacciatori units, a large proportion of the troops were inexperienced conscripts recently drafted from metropoliton regiments in Italy into newly formed battalions for service in Africa (G.E.H. Berkley "The Campaign of Adowa and the rise of Menelik" Constable - London 1901).As Chris Proutky describes:
- They [the Italians] had inadequate maps, old model guns, poor communication equipment and inferior footgear for the rocky ground. (The newer Remingtons were not issued because Baratieri, under constraints to be economical, wanted to use up the old cartirdges.) Morale was terrible as the veterans were homesick and the newcomers too inexperienced to have any espirit de corps. There was a shortage of mules and saddles.Proutky, Empress Taytu and Menilek II (Trenton: The Red Sea Press, 1986), p. 155. ISBN 0932415113
- called for three columns to march in parallel formation to the crests of three mountains -- Dabormida commanding on the right, Albertone on the left, and Arimondi in the center -- with a reserve under Ellena following behind Arimondi. The supporting crossfire each column could give the others made the ... soldiers as deadly as razored shears. Albertone's brigade was to set the pace for the others. He was to position himself on the summit known as Kidane Meret, which would give the Italians the high ground from which to meet the Ethiopians.Lewis, Fashoda, p. 117.
Unknown to General Baratieri, Emperor Menelik knew his troops had exhausted the ability of the local peasants to support them and had planned to break camp the next day (2 March). The Emperor had risen early to begin prayers for divine guidence when spies from Ras Alula, his chief military advisor, brought him news that the Italians were advancing. The Emperor summoned the separate armies of his nobles and with the Empress Taytu beside him, ordered his forces forward. Negus Tekle Haymanot commanded the right wing, Ras Alula the left, and Rasses Makonnen and Mengesha the center, with Ras Mikael at the head of the crack Oromo cavalry; the Emperor and his consort remained with the reserve.Lewis, Fashoda, p. 117. The Ethiopian forces positioned themselves on the hills overlooking the Adowa valley, in perfect position to receive the Italians, who were exposed and vulnerable to crossfire.von Uhlig, ibid.
Albertone's askari brigade was the first to encounter the onrush of Ethiopians at 6:00, near Kidane Meret, where the Ethiopians had managed to set up their mountain artillery. His heavily outnumbered askaris held their position for two hours until Albertone's capture, and under Ethiopian pressure the survivors sought refuge with Arimondi's brigade. Arimondi's brigade beat back the Ethiopians who repeatedly charged the Italian position for three hours with gradually fading strength until Menelik released his reserve of 25,000 Shewans and swamped the Italian defenders. Two companies of Bersaglieri who arrived at the same moment could not help and were annihilated.
General Dabormida's Italian brigade had moved to support Albertone but was unable to reach him in time. Cut off from the remainder of the Italian army, Dabormida began a fighting retreat toward Italian positions. However, Dabormida inadvertently marched his command into a narrow valley where the Oromo cavalry slaughtered his brigade shouting Ebalgume! Ebalgume! ("Reap! Reap!"). General Dabormida's remains were never found, although his brother learned from an old woman living in the area that she had given water to a mortally wounded Italian officer, "a chief, a great man with spectacles and a watch, and golden stars".George Fitz-Hardinge Berkeley, Campaign of Adowa (1902), quoted in Lewis, Fashoda, p. 118.
The remaining two brigades under Baratieri himself were outflanked and destroyed piecemeal on the slopes of Mount Belah. By noon, the survivors of the Italian army were in full retreat and the battle was over.
Aftermath
The Italians suffered about 7,000 killed and 1,500 wounded in the battle and subsequent retreat back into Eritrea, with 3,000 taken prisoner, while Ethiopian losses have been estimated around 4,000-5,000, but with 8,000 wounded.von Uhlig, Encyclopaedia, pp. 109.Pankhurst, Richard. The Ethiopians: A History. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 1998, pp.191-2. In their flight to Eritrea, the Italians left behind all of their artillery and 11,000 rifles, as well as most of their transport.Pankhurst, ibid. As Paul B. Henze notes, "Baratieri's army had been completely annihilated while Menelik's was intact as a fighting force and gained thousands of rifles and a great deal of equipment from the fleeing Italians."Henze, Layers of Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p.170. The 3,000 Italian prisoners, who included General Albertone, appear to have been treated as well as could be expected under difficult circumstances, though about 200 died of their wounds in captivity.Chris Proutky notes that Albertone was given into the care of Azaj Zamanel, commander of Empress Taytu's personal army, and "had a tent to himself, a horse and servants". Empress Taytu, pp. 169f. However 800 captured askaris, regarded as traitors by the Ethiopians, had their right hands and left feet amputated. There does not appear to be any foundation for reports that some Italians were castrated and these may reflect confusion with the atrocious treatment of the askari prisoners.Proutky has collected the few documented experiences of these POWs, none of whom claim to have been treated inhumanely (Empress Taytu, pp.170-183). She repeats the opinion of the Italian historian Angelo del Boca, that "the paucity of the record is attributable to the glacial welcome received in Italy by the returning prisoners for having lost a war, and the fact that they were subjected to long interrogations when they debarked, were defrauded of their back pay, had their mementoes confiscated and were ordered not to talk to journalists." (p.170)Baratieri was relieved of his command and later charged with preparing an "inexcusable" plan of attack and for abandoning his troops in the field. He was acquitted on these charges but was descibed by the court martial judges as being "entirely unfitted" for his command. The Crispi government fell, and was replaced by a new administration with a policy of avoiding further colonial adventures.
One question much asked -- both then and long afterwards -- is why did Emperor Menelik fail to follow up his victory and drive the routed Italians out of their colony? Many answers have been offered. At the moment, Menelik claimed a shortage of cavalry horses to harry the fleeing soldiers with. Chris Proutky observes that "a failure of nerve on the part of Menilek has been alleged by both Italian and Ethiopian sources."Proutky, Empress Taytu, p. 161. Lewis believes that it "was his farsighted certainty that total annihilation of Baratieri and a sweep into Eritrea would force the Italian people to turn a bungled colonial war into a national crusade"Lewis, Fashoda, p. 120. that stayed his hand.
As a direct result of the battle, Italy signed the Treaty of Addis Ababa, recognizing Ethiopia as an independent state. The humiliation remained with Italy for almost forty years, until 1935, when during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War Italy commenced a short-lived conquest of Ethiopia.
Significance
"The confrontation between Italy and Ethiopia at Adwa was a fundamental turning point in Ethiopian history," writes Henze, who compares this victory to Japan's naval victory over Russia at Tsushima. "Though apparent to very few historians at the time, these defeats were the beginning of the decline of Europe as the center of world politics."Henze, Layers of Layers of Time, p.180.On a similar note, the Ethiopian historian Bahru Zewde observed that "few events in the modern period have brought Ethiopia to the attention of the world as has the victory at Adwa." However, Bahru Zewde puts his emphasis on other elements of this triumph: "The racial dimension was what lent Adwa particular significance. It was a victory of blacks over whites. Adwa thus anticipated by almost a decade the equally shattering experience to the whites of the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905."Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia (London: James Currey, 1991), p. 81.
This defeat of a colonial power and the ensuing recognition of African sovereignty became rallying points for later African nationalists during their struggle for decolonization.
Notes and references
Films
- Adwa (1999). Directed by Haile Gerima.
External links
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