Eritrea War (1886-1889)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eritrea War (1886-1889)
date 1886 - 1889
place Eritrea
output Italian success
consequences Annexation of Eritrea
Peace treaty Treaty of Uccialli
Parties to the conflict

Italy 1861Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946) Kingdom of Italy

Ethiopian Pennants.svg Empire of Abyssinia

Commander

Italy 1861Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)Tancredi Saletta Antonio Baldissera Oreste Baratieri
Italy 1861Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)
Italy 1861Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)

Ethiopian Pennants.svg Yohannes IV. Alula Engida Ras Mangascià
Ethiopian Pennants.svg
Ethiopian Pennants.svg

The term Eritreakrieg (1886-1889) or Italian-Ethiopian War denotes a series of military actions carried out without a declaration of war by the Kingdom of Italy , against the Empire of Abyssinia (area of ​​today's states Ethiopia and Eritrea ) that led to the conquest of the area that is today Eritrea corresponds. This war is considered to be the first Italian colonial war . The conflict ended with a friendship treaty that demarcated the border between Ethiopia and Italian Eritrea, but contained clauses whose different interpretations led to another Italian-Ethiopian war.

As the Mahdist uprising in Sudan spread across the border, Ethiopia was faced with a two-front war. Even Emperor Yohannes IV. Was faced with the internal resistance of his powerful vassals. King Menelik of Shewa even signed a neutrality treaty with Italy in October 1887.

While there is general agreement that the war began in January 1887, historians disagree as to when it ended. Some limit the war to 1887, others extend it to the Treaty of Uccialli (Wuchale) in 1889, and others combine it with the Italo -Ethiopian War of 1895-96 and treat a single conflict as occurring from 1887-1896. The naming of the conflict also varies. It can be described as the First Italo-Ethiopian War and the war of 1895–96 as the Second Italo-Ethiopian War , otherwise it can only be identified by the date. In some cases, however, the Italian-Ethiopian War (1895–1896) is referred to as the First Italo-Ethiopian War and the Abyssinia War of 1935–1936 as the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.

Italian historiography tends to summarize all the fights from 1885 to 1896. The original name for the fighting was Guerra d'Africa (African War), which indicates the broad scope of the early Italian colonial ambitions. As the Italian historian Giuseppe Finaldi puts it: "The war is called Guerra d'Africa, not Guerra d'Eritrea or something".

background

The first Italian colony in the later colony of Eritrea was the Bay of Assab , which Giuseppe Sapeto founded on November 15, 1869 on behalf of the Società di Navigazione Rubattino (Rubattino Shipping Company) by the brothers Ibrahim and Hassan Ben Ahmed for an initial 6,000 Maria Theresa Had acquired thalers . The Suez Canal was opened two days later . The deal was later closed for 8,350 thalers and with the Sultan Abd Allah Sahim as a party. On March 11, 1870, Sapeto bought Buia Bay (Buya) from the same brothers and the same sultan. However, between April 15, 1870 and December 1879, Assab was not used by the society. The company offered it to the Italian government, which passed a law on July 5, 1882, making it the first colony in Italy.

The outbreak of the Mahdist uprising changed the political situation in the Horn of Africa. Egypt was unable to maintain its garrison at Massawa and, with British consent, an Italian Corps for Africa (Corpo Speciale per l'Africa) under the command of Colonel Tancredi Saletta occupied the area on February 5, 1885.

Campaigns

Battle of Dogali

The Italian advances into the hinterland of Massawa , which was claimed by Ethiopia, brought their armed forces into conflict with those of Ethiopia, particularly with those of Ras Alula , the governor of Mareb Mellash .

On January 24th and 25th, 1887, Alula attacked the Italian fortress in Sahati . In the skirmish that followed, his troops were repulsed. On January 26, an Ethiopian force of about 15,000 men ambushed an Italian battalion that had been sent to reinforce Sahati and almost completely destroyed it at Dogali , 10 miles west of Massawa. The Battle of Dogali turned out to be one of the most important in the history of modern Ethiopia [16]. The reaction in Italy was immediate. The Italian parliament decided 5,000,000 lire for the reinforcement of troops. An Italian force was dispatched to the inland garrison while Yohannes IV withdrew his forces to avoid confrontation. The Italian troops were ravaged by disease in March 1887 and withdrawn, ending the first phase of the war.

After his victory, Alula kept in touch with the Italians regarding the prisoners. He also subjected Massawa to a land blockade in order to completely cut off trade with the hinterland. This angered the local Muslim traders, whose sympathies shifted to the side of the Italians.

When he attacked Sahati, Alula had acted entirely on her own initiative. Yohannes IV was in Makelle during the Battle of Dogali . When Alula asked for permission to drive the Italians out of Massawa, the emperor is said to have scourged him for waging war without permission: "Who gave you permission to wage war there? These soldiers are not yours, but mine; I'll cut your hand off ". At the end of March, Yohannes called Alula to Makelle, where he was more conciliatory. He promised Ras Alula reinforcements against any Italian counterattack, but prohibited offensive operations.

Italian reinforcements and alliance with Shewa

On June 2, 1887, the Italian parliament passed a further 200,000,000 lire for troops, ammunition and supplies to be sent to Massawa. During the summer, an expeditionary force of 20,000 men was assembled in Italy. She arrived in Massawa in November.

Since Yohannes was weakened, Menelik of Shewa and King Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam entered into an alliance against him. In retaliation, the emperor entered Gojjam at the beginning of August 1887 and devastated it. [16] The following month he ordered Menelik to cut off communication with Assab through Aussa. Thereupon Menelik sent letters to both the emperor and the Italians, in which he offered to mediate, as he had done after Dogali.

At the end of August 1887, Menelik had received the Italian diplomat Pietro Antonelli in Shewa to negotiate an alliance against Yohannes. Italy requested a small piece of inland land to base its troops on during the summer. Antonelli also gave Menelik justification for a punitive expedition to take revenge on Dogali. On September 19, Antonelli proposed a neutrality treaty with Shewa in exchange for ammunition. A draft of this contract has been preserved. Nevertheless, at the beginning of October 1887, Yohannes wrote to Matewos , Bishop of Schewa, who was staying at the Schewan court on Mount Entoto , that he was determined to go to war against Italy.

However, on October 20, Menelik signed a secret treaty with Antonelli in which he guaranteed his neutrality in exchange for weapons. He was to receive 5,000 Remington rifles within six months . In the treaty, Italy renounced any intention of annexing Ethiopian territory.

Ras Alula campaign

In September 1887 Ras Alula Engida invaded Damot with a Tigrayan army . The Tigrayan chiefs contacted the Italians in the absence of their ras. On November 11, 1887, Gerald Portal, the British consul in Cairo, met Alula in Asmara. On December 7th, he met Yohannes, who was camped on Lake Ashangi. He conveyed his government's opinion to the emperor that the attack on the Sahati had been "unjust" and urged that Alula be deposed as governor of Mareb Mellash. Yohannes refused to concede anything to the Italians: "If they cannot live there [in Massawa] without Sahati, then let them go." He also defended Ras Alula, saying that "he did no wrong; the Italians came to the province under his governorship and he fought them, just as you [the British] would fight the Abyssinians [Ethiopians] if they came to England ”.

In January 1888 the Italians had moved two brigades to Dogali. In December 1887, he had ordered Menelik to guard Wollo and Begemder while Ras Mikael was bringing 25,000 Oromo cavalrymen to Tigray. Faced with a Mahdist invasion in the west, Yohannes gave up his campaign in March. Paul Henze suggests that "personal aversion to Islam and a desire to contain the Mahdist rebellion ... weighed in on his decision to prioritize the war against the Mahdists over defense against the Italian incursion Must have "In February – March 1888 Menelik marched on Yohannes' orders with his army to the west as far as Gondar to defend them from the Mahdists.

After Yohannes stopped fighting, Alula retired to Asmara at the beginning of April 1888 and retired to Adwa on April 23. Although Asmara was left undefended, the Italians did not move on. They occupied Keren on February 6, 1889. Dejazmach Dabbab Araya, governor of Akele Guzay, occupied Asmara on February 9, 1889 on his own initiative.

In May 1888, the Italian expeditionary force withdrew to the north because it was no longer making any progress on the coast.

Treaty of Uccialli (Wuchale)

In the vacuum created after the death of Yohannes IV in the battle of Gallabat against the Mahdists in 1889, General Oreste Baratieri occupied the highlands along the Eritrean coast and Italy proclaimed the establishment of the new colony of Italian Eritrea . Italian ownership of marine areas previously claimed by Ethiopia was formalized on May 2, 1889, with the signing of the Uccialli Treaty with the new Emperor Menelik II of Shewa. It was a compromise: while Ethiopia had succeeded in the area, the Italians had managed to occupy the area and withdraw in an orderly fashion. Menelik recognized the Italian occupation of the lands of his rivals Bogos, Hamasia, Akkele Guzay and Serae in exchange for guarantees of financial support and continued access to European weapons and ammunition.

Victim

Both sides suffered great losses. Sources of Italian casualties reported 430 deaths in Dogali and 1,000 in other battles, while Ethiopians lost 1,071 in Dogali and 400 in other battles. In total, the Italians lost around 1,430 people and the Ethiopians around 1,471 dead.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede (2004). "A Revised List of Wars between and within Independent States, 1816-2002". International Interactions, pp. 231-262.
  2. ↑ a b c Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures (4th ed.). McFarland, p. 202
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Caulk, Richard Alan (2002). "Between the Jaws of Hyenas": A Diplomatic History of Ethiopia, 1876-1896. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 77-79
  4. ↑ a b Phillips, Charles; Axelrod, Alan (2005). Encyclopedia of Wars. New York: Facts on File, p. 619
  5. ^ Kohn, George Childs (2007) [1986]. Dictionary of Wars (3rd ed.). New York: Facts on File, p. 263
  6. ↑ Jaques, Tony (2007). Battles and Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity through the Twenty-First Century. Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
  7. ↑ Singer, J. David; Small, Melvin (1994). [1] Correlates of War Project: International and Civil War Data, 1816–1992 (PDF). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Sarkees, Meredith Reid; Wayman, Frank Whelon (2010). Resort to War: A Data Guide to Inter-State, Extra-state, Intra-State, and Non-State Wars, 1816-2007. Washington, DC: CQ Press, pp. 261-62
  9. ↑ Piccinini, Giuseppe (1887-88). Guerra d'Africa. [2] 4 vols. Rome: Perino.
  10. ↑ Gorra, Oreste (1895). Guerra d'Africa, 1895. Rome: Perino.
  11. ^ Battaglia, Roberto (1958). La prima guerra d'Africa. Milan.
  12. ^ Finaldi, Giuseppe Maria (2009). Italian National Identity in the Scramble for Africa: Italy's African Wars in the Era of Nation-Building, 1870-1900. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 297–298
  13. ↑ a b c Tripodi, Paolo (1999). "An Historical Perspective on Italian Colonialism". The Colonial Legacy in Somalia. Rome and Mogadishu: From Colonial Administration to Operation Restore Hope. Macmillan and St. Martin's Press., P. 9-48.
  14. ↑ Shinn, David H .; Ofcansky, Thomas P. (2013). Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Scarecrow Press. P. 361
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Henze, Paul B. (2000). Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia. New York: Palgrave, pp. 157-159
  16. ↑ a b Gabre-Selassie, Zewde (2005). "Continuity and Discontinuity in Menelik's Foreign Policy". In Paulos Milkias; Getachew Metaferia (eds.). The Battle of Adwa: Reflections on Ethiopia's Historic Victory Against European Colonialism. New York: Algora, p. 96
  17. ↑ a b c d Caulk, Richard Alan (2002). "Between the Jaws of Hyenas": A Diplomatic History of Ethiopia, 1876-1896. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, p. 33
  18. ↑ Henze, Paul B. (2000). Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia. New York: Palgrave, p. 159
  19. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abyssinia" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press, pp. 93-94.
  20. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abyssinia" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press, pp. 93-94.
  21. ^ [3] Riccardo Affinati: Le battaglie più crudeli della storia