How did Italy lose against Ethiopia? First Italo-Ethiopian War

[TheDarkKnight]

So this video popped up on my Youtube recommended and I watched it.

So I knew about the one in the 30's where the Italian fascists bravely violated the sovereignty of Ethiopia by invading & using modern weapons against a nation that barely had any modern technology and still took a year to defeat them. But I had never heard about the first war in the final years of the 19th century that the Italians lost.

After watching the video, I have a couple questions;

1) What led to the Italians being so poor in their military as to be the first (and only?) European country to lose a war in the Scramble for Africa. Like, I guess I don't understand...were the Italians just pathetic in training, in leadership, supplies, etc...or was there more to it?

2) How were the Ethiopians so adept (how did they get better weapons than a European country, etc)

3) What were the reactions in Europe towards one of the supposedly "superior" European countries failing so miserably in a campaign against "inferior" Africans?

Anything else you can think of. More information on this is much appreciated. The Scramble for Africa is kind of interesting to read about so learning about such a fantastic failure on the part of the Italians is super interesting.

[Sar1n]

From what I understand, it was a number of factors. Probably main was that it was quite a few years into the scramble, so colonial powers were already stepping on each other's toes, writing up treaties and spheres of influence, and those local leaders that survived to this point were already wary of Europeans. And Ethiopia had strategic importance as source of the Nile.

As a result, there was massive interference from France and Russia, providing weapons and training to Ethiopians, and local rulers united and prevented the usual "divide and conquer" strategy. Italy wasn't prepared to that.

[TheDarkKnight]

Any particular reason France and Russia in particular would help someone fight against the Italians? Were the Italians unpopular during this period?

Also were the Italians still kinda staggering forward as a result of recently getting unified? It could explain the ludicrously poor performance even against an "inferior" culture if they themselves were not fully "unified" yet.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

In short: The Italian army splitted up in 3 columns for a overnight march to get in position for an attack on the next morning, but they get separated during the night and got spreaded out in difficult terrain at dawn, so that the ethiopian forces, which outnumbered 4-6 time the italian army (at least 73000 Ethiopians versus 17000 Italians) and were equipped with italian rifles because of the previous Mahdi revolt, could beaten the three columns one by one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adwa

It were the same mistakes, which led the 7. US Cavalry in their extinction at Little Big Horn: Splitting the forces in separate columns without knowing exactly the enemy strength and position.

[TheDarkKnight]

That part I understood.

My question was more broad.

Also the Little Bighorn Battle didn't stop the US. Why did Adwa stop Italy? Was it really THAT devastating to lose so thoroughly to "inferior" Africans?

[athanaric]

Any particular reason France and Russia in particular would help someone fight against the Italians? Were the Italians unpopular during this period?

France has always had colonial ambitions... in Italy.

[Abdülmecid I]

The main issue was the Kingdom of Italy barely met the requirements of the elitist "Great Powers" club. Italy could have been stronger than Portugal or Bulgaria, but she could never hope to compete, in financial, industrial and military terms, with the likes of France, Germany or the United Kingdom. These weaknesses were clearly reflected upon the efficiency of her armed forces, from an extremely fragile system of logistics to sloppily trained soldiers and an amateurish officer corps, completely unable to instill a vigorous filling of solidarity inside the regiments and to launch fruitful strategic and tactical operations. Superficially, the Italian army may have seem superior to the Hapsburg navy in Lissa or the Ethiopian army in Adoua, but reality proved otherwise. Even in neighboring Libya, the Italians effectively controlled only the coastline inside the artillery range of their fleet, while the skeleton Ottoman garrison and the Libyan irregulars demonstrated their flexibility in Tobruk and Sciara Sciat. In 1935, fascist Italy benefited a lot from technological advancement, unlike her adversary, which is why the conquest of the country and the expulsion of its royal dynasty became much easier. Lethal gas, especially, was particularly effective, as it decimated the men, destroyed their morale and disrupted their formations. In that case, Italy piously copied the methods of the Spanish during their struggle against the Rif Republic in Morocco.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia was an organised empire, with a long tradition of statehood, while also possessing a central authority (according to African standards), capable of mobilizing several institutions, in order to defeat various invaders. The Empire could deploy a numerous army, reinforced with modern weaponry and able to execute a demanding campaign and complex manoeuvres in the battlefield. Of course, it remained feeble, when compared to the possibilities of an industrialised power, while "feudalism" was far from being eradicated, but when all these factors are explained, as well as Oreste Baratieri's obvious mistake of dividing his forces, the disaster of Adua can be explained somewhat convincingly. In any case, the Ethiopian achievement should be recognized as great and remarkable, as, in contrast to Isandlwana, it involved a decisive victory of the entire European force and not the neutralisation of just a detachment.

France has always had colonial ambitions... in Italy.

Well, that's not correct, at least not for the relevant period. In fact, the opposite was true, as Italian nationalism was marked by a particularly aggressive spirit against France, despite the crucial role the Second Empire played at unifying the peninsula, contrary to the wishes of the Hapsburg monarchy, the Bourbon dynasty and the Papal domination. To be more specific, the Italians were furious (Tunisian bombshell) at the establishment of a French protectorate in Tunisia (which they bizarrely considered as Italy's "rightful territory), while some extremists (Garibaldi included) even advocated for the conquest of Corsica and Savoy. All this ideological "imperialism" was partially fueled by a remarkably jingoist press, whose influence on the electorate was so strong that it could determine foreign policy and the careers of ambitious politicians.

Any particular reason France and Russia in particular would help someone fight against the Italians? Were the Italians unpopular during this period?

Well, in addition to what I mentioned in my reply to Athanaric, Italy belonged to the Triple Alliance (together with Germany and Austria-Hungary), which was diplomatically hostile to the French-Russian alliance (the predecessor of the Entente in WWI). In what concerns East Africa, Russia's attitude was pure indifference (a small private colony named "New Moscow" had already been dismantled), but France certainly preferred an independent Ethiopia to an encirclement of the French dominion of Djibouti by the Italian colonies of Somaliland and Eritrea. However, that being said, I doubt global geopolitics played any significant role to the Ethiopian army being equipped by French and Russians. Such initiatives were very low priority, while their goals were generally defined as economic, opportunistic and comparatively short-term, namely the growth of the domestic arms industry, the increase of foreign political influence inside Ethiopia, the encouragement of investment and the opening of a new market for the industries of France and Russia. The consequent misfortune for Italy was essentially a coincidental byproduct (albeit not necessarily an unwelcome one), but it had nothing to do with the original objective.

[Roma_Victrix]

2) How were the Ethiopians so adept (how did they get better weapons than a European country, etc)

Ethiopia was a third rate power compared to the biggest European empires (being soundly defeated by the British Expedition to Abyssinia in 1868, for instance), but they were on par with many other countries in terms of their military strength and organization.

As Abdulmecid hints, the Ethiopian Empire was also unlike many other African states encountered by European powers, in that it had a long tradition of empire building and honing its armed forces. As explained in one of my more recent threads here in the VV, Ethiopia even allied with the Portuguese Empire in the 16th century to fight Islamic sultanates in East Africa and their allies, the Ottoman Empire. Their contacts with medieval Europe and for that matter the Eastern Roman Empire also preceded that alliance (to say nothing of their conversion to Christianity in the 4th century AD under King Ezana of Aksum, not long after the conversion of Roman emperor Constantine I the Great and Tiridates III the Great of Armenia). Despite Ethiopia being incredibly poor today, historically it was enriched by Indian Ocean trade that even saw trade ships from China arriving to its shores from the Tang dynasty onward.

To put it simply, Ethiopia was not some pushover state and weren't a loose confederation of tribes to be bullied by more technologically or economically advanced European colonial powers. They weren't as well equipped, obviously, but they were capable of mustering armies and fighting organized pitched battles in a terrain that they were intimately familiar with, unlike the Italians who clearly blundered their way into a military disaster. Fascist Italy was able to conquer Ethiopia in the 1930s only because they were better prepared, were in a more economically sound position, and took the threat more seriously than with their previous misadventure.

[Diocle]

Adua, Amba Alagi, Dogali .. a tragic epopee, good old times.

[Cyclops]

Russia and France probably opposed Italian expansion in Africa in the 1890's for a number of reasons.

In 1894 (a year prior to this debacle) the Tsar had joined hands with his old enemy the French Republic after being brushed off by Kaiser Wilhelm II (idiot), and as mentioned above they may have opposed a member of the Triple Alliance on principle. Just as likely the French were angling to enter the region, they already had substantial interests in the Suez canal as well as commercial interests in Egypt (where Britain held the whip hand).

While the British and French might block one another's attempts to colonise the whole of Africa, and concessional interlopers might take a little slice (Belgian Congo, German SW Africa, Liberia) generally the two big dogs sat in this manger.

Russia OTOH had no African colonies, but positioned itself as the head of Orthodox Christendom and may well have justified interfering in Italian ventures on that basis.

[Turk]

The history of Ethiopia is linked to the one of Egypt and the Middle East (including constant warfare). This influence resulted in improvements in various fields, including the military, which led the Ethiopian Empire being, in military terms, superior most Sub-Saharan political entities. This also meant that they were less exposed to colonialism and could pose a threat to Italian colonial ambitions.

[RandomPerson2000]

1) What led to the Italians being so poor in their military as to be the first (and only?) European country to lose a war in the Scramble for Africa. Like, I guess I don't understand...were the Italians just pathetic in training, in leadership, supplies, etc...or was there more to it?

If you consider the Scramble for Africa had already started before the 1884 Berlin Conference, then the British surprisingly could be considered the first European country to lose not one but two wars or conflicts during the very start of the Scramble for Africa, the First Boer War and the Basotho Gun War. In the First Boer War (1880-1881), the Boers of the Transvaal had managed to defeat the British after inflicting several humiliating defeats on them including the rather infamous Battle of Majuba Hill where the British had suffered over 280 casualties while Boer casualties were largely insignificant despite both sides being somewhat evenly matched in numbers. As a result the Pretoria Convention in 1881, the South African Republic regained self governance under nominal British sovereignty after its initial annexation in 1877. For the latter, in 1880 some of the Basotho had risen in up in revolt against the authorities of the Cape Colony after they attempted to disarm the Basotho and doubled the hut tax. After Basotho rebels had managed to ambush a column of Cape soldiers killing and wounding 39 of them, peace was made between the Basotho and the Cape Colony in April 1881 where the former were allowed to keep their firearms although they had to pay an annual gun tax. This tax was later rescinded just 3 years after widespread evasion and a series of unsuccessful attempts to enforce it. In the same year the Basutoland Protectorate was transferred to the control of the British becoming a crown colony and later the country of Lesotho.

Also an interesting thing to note is that even at the start of the 2nd Italo Ethiopian War, it may have seemed like the Italians had once again botched up their second attempt at conquering Ethiopia, with the latter launching the Christmas Offensive in December 1935, managing to initially force the Italians beyond the Tembeze River after 3000 Ethiopians had encircled and destroyed a 1000 strong Eritrean column and at least 9 L3 tankettes at Dembeguina pass only for the counterattack to be halted by the use of chemical weapons and reinforcements of 2 corps arriving in Eritrea in January.