An Italian force was sent to garrison the interior, while Yohannes IV withdrew his forces to avoid confrontation. The Italian parliament voted 5,000,000 lire for troops to reinforce Massawa. The response to Dogali in Italy was immediate. Alula did not follow up his victory, preferring to wait for permission from Yohannes to continue. The battle of Dogali turned out to be one of the most important in the history of modern Ethiopia. On 26 January, an Ethiopian force of about 15,000 men ambushed an Italian battalion sent to reinforce Saati and almost annihilated it at Dogali, 10 miles (16 km) west of Massawa. In the ensuing skirmish, his troops were beaten back. On 24 or 25 January 1887, Alula attacked the Italian fort at Saati. Italian moves into the hinterland of Massawa, territory claimed by Ethiopia, brought her forces into conflict with those of Ethiopia, specifically those of Ras Alula, governor of Mareb Mellash. Egypt was unable to maintain its garrison in Massawa and, with British approval, an Italian Corpo Speciale per l'Africa (Special Corps for Africa), commanded by Colonel Tancredi Saletta, occupied it on 5 February 1885. The outbreak of the Mahdist uprising changed the political situation in the Horn of Africa. The company offered it to the Italian government, which on 5 July 1882 passed a law making it Italy's first colony. Between 15 April 1870 and December 1879, however, Assab went unused by the company. On 11 March 1870, Sapeto purchased the Bay of Buya from the same brothers and sultan. The deal was later finalised for 8,350 thalers and with the Sultan Abd Allah Sahim as a party. The first Italian colony in what was to become the colony of Eritrea was Assab Bay, purchased by Giuseppe Sapeto on behalf of the Società di Navigazione Rubattino (Rubattino Shipping Company) on 15 November 1869 from the brothers Ibrahim and Hassan Ben Ahmed for 6,000 Maria Theresa thalers. As the Italian historian Giuseppe Finaldi puts it, "The war is called the Guerra d'Africa, not the Guerra d'Eritrea or such like." Background The original name for the fighting was Guerra d'Africa (African War), a term which indicates the broad perceived scope of early Italian colonial ambitions. Italian historiography tends to group together all the fighting from 1885 until 1896. Otherwise it may be identified solely by date. It may be called the First Italo-Ethiopian War and the war of 1895–1896 as the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Some limit the war to 1887, others extend it down to the Treaty of Wuchale in 1889, and others combine it with the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895–1896 and treat a single conflict as occurring from 1887 until 1896. While there is universal agreement that the war began in January 1887, historians differ about when it ended. King Menelik of Shewa even signed a treaty of neutrality with Italy in October 1887. The Emperor Yohannes IV also had to face internal resistance from his powerful vassals. The conflict ended with a treaty of friendship, which delimited the border between Ethiopia and Italian Eritrea but contained clauses whose different interpretations led to another Italo-Ethiopian war.Īs the Mahdist uprising in the Sudan spilled over the frontier, Ethiopia was faced with a two-front war. The Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887–1889 was an undeclared war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ethiopian Empire occurring during the Italian colonization of Eritrea.
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