The battle of Adwa of March first of March, 1896 a great victory and pride for Africans at home Diaspora. The victory assured that Ethiopia successfully resists European colonization.<\/p>\n Italy the late comer to the scramble for Africa in the late 19th<\/sup> century \u00a0\u00a0was allocated to Ethiopia but just needed to take control. The Italians and the rest of the European powers present at the Berlin Conference 1880\u2019s wrongly assumed that Ethiopia was made up of rival tribes fighting one another and thought it would be a quick promenade for their 20,000 strong highly trained invasion forces, they never though these what they call \u201ctribal back word savages \u201ccould be united raising a much larger patriotic people\u2019s army to defend their country and even to win an all out war.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [stream provider=youtube flv=http%3A\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch%3Fv%3DzAPoLu4W6TE%26feature%3Drelated img=x:\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/zAPoLu4W6TE\/0.jpg embed=false share=false width=340 height=260 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false playlist=right \/]<\/p>\n The main cause of the Battle being the European colonial ambition it manifested through the deferent treaty the colonial powers used to cheat the Africans. This was highly manifested by Italo Ethiopian Treaty known as the Wechale Treaty. \u00a0\u00a0The colonial manipulation started when Menelik II came to the throne in 1889 the Italians thought that he would surrender sovereignty to them since they had been supplying him with ammunitions. They succeeded to manipulate the king on \u00a0May 2, 1889, to make him \u00a0sign \u00a0the Treaty\u00a0 of Uccialli in the province of Wello, with which Menelik accorded for the \u00a0Italians some land in Tigre to the already concession he has made by letting them to take Eritrea. In this famous once sided treaty, they \u00a0\u00a0tricked Menelik by having two different versions- one in Italian and other in Amharic. The secret of the Italian plan was manifested on \u00a0\u00a0article 17 which read in one in Amharic and other in Italian. \u00a0\u00a0Thus the Italian version read: – When Menelik realized that he had been cheated he immediately rejected the treaty and refused all further offers of gifts from the Italians. Turkey, Russia and France stood to the Ethiopian version of the story. \u00a0Finally Menelik decided to confront the advancing Italian Army which has already occupied Tigre Provence without his contentment.<\/p>\n As a result in September of 1895, Menelik, King of Kings of Ethiopia mobilized the population of Ethiopia to arms. Over 100,000 Ethiopians gathered under his rank to liberate his occupy province by the Italian forces.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [stream provider=youtube flv=http%3A\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch%3Fv%3Did_3pzPjTd0 img=x:\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/id_3pzPjTd0\/0.jpg embed=false share=false width=340 height=260 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false \/]<\/p>\n “God, in his bounty, has struck down my enemies and enlarged my empire and preserved me to this day. 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.” <\/em><\/p>\n Menelik divided his Army under three leaders:-<\/p>\n [stream provider=youtube flv=http%3A\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch%3Fv%3DYdEifBqlcvI img=x:\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/YdEifBqlcvI\/0.jpg embed=false share=false width=340 height=260 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false \/]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the night of 29 February and the early morning of 1 March three Italian brigades advanced separately towards Adwa over narrow mountain tracks, while a fourth remained camped. \u00a0The Italiano Forces<\/strong> were<\/strong> <\/strong>led by:-<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n These invading Italian forces were made up of 18,000 infantry and 56 artillery guns, and with many thousands of \u00a0\u00a0Eritrean militias were prepared to fight against Menelik II on the battle field.<\/p>\n At 6:00 on the 1st<\/sup> of March 1896 the Italian Gen. \u00a0Albertone used the Eritrean askari peasant fighters to face their brother Ethiopian as is always the game to make the enemy to kill one another at a place called Kidane Meret. This was the hill where the Ethiopians had managed to set up their mountain out front. \u00a0On the hill side though outnumbered by the Eritrean askaris, the Ethiopian fighters were able to hold their position for two hours which they broke the rank of the Italians and able to capture General Albertone\u2019s. \u00a0At such heroic fight the Italian and their remaining askaris dispersed leaving the wounded and the dead. \u00a0Seeing the capture of the Albertone Gen\u00a0 Arimondi’s brigade joined the fight at the last minute and start punching the Ethiopians to liberate the captured Italians. The Ethiopians fought courageously\u00a0 and battled the colonizers three \u00a0hours while Menelik himself joined the combat with his \u00a025,000 strong \u00a0Shewans<\/a> people\u2019s army and\u00a0 broke their back bones once for good.\u00a0Brigadier Dabormida now made a fatal error as he retreated from Menelik\u2019s push, he was cornered \u00a0into a narrow hill where he \u00a0was ransacked\u00a0 by Ras Mikael \u2018s Oromo Army . They wiped him \u00a0out, his body was never recovered. The last blow came at noon the next day\u00a0\u00a0 when Negus Tekle Haymonot<\/a> led his \u00a0Gojjam<\/a> forces\u00a0 break the back bone of\u00a0 the remaining\u00a0 Italian brigade. \u00a0This happened when Negus \u00a0was attacked by the last of the invading army which he \u00a0destroyed and by one o\u2019clock the battle was finished with victory to the African Army.<\/p>\n The battle was bloody over 8,000 Italians died and 1500 wounded many captured fighting hard to save the pride of European colonizers, but \u00a0with no avail. Almost the same amount of Ethiopians perished in this decisive war of history in the African heartland after the war of the Zulu in South Africa\u00a0 and Mhadist victory against the Britons in Khartoum led by Mahadi.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Ethiopia, the military genius of Menelik II was in the best tradition of Piankhi, the great ruler of ancient Egypt and Nubia or ancient Ethiopia, who drove out the Italians in 1896 and maintained the liberties of that ancient free empire of Black men.\u201d Huggins and Jackson analyzed the victory not only in terms of its significance to the postcolonial African world, but also in terms of its linkage to the tradition of ancient African glories and victories. \u00a0An Introduction to African Civilizations, <\/em>Huggins and Jackson write<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [stream provider=youtube flv=http%3A\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch%3Fv%3DhfMbs9K8n-c%26feature%3Drelated img=x:\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/hfMbs9K8n-c\/0.jpg embed=false share=false width=340 height=260 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false \/]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The name Adwa divides and unifies Ethiopians today. \u00a0115 years ago the 1st of March 1896 it unified not only Ethiopia but the whole people of African descent and the rest of people under colonial subjugation.\u00a0 Today the name in Ethiopia signifies division dismemberment. It was in 1991 that the son of Adwa Melese Zenawie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,43,56,127,30],"tags":[2835,3729],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Adwa_unifies.jpg\" "\\"Adwa_unifies\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n“The Emperor consents to use the Italian government for all the business he does with all the other Powers or Governments<\/em>“.
\nThe Amharic version reads:-
\n“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.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n
\n