Battle of Adwa

A night march that came apart

During the night of 29 February–1 March 1896, General Oreste Baratieri advanced an Italian colonial army in separate columns through mountainous ground toward Emperor Menelik II's army near Adwa. Faulty maps, poor reconnaissance and misunderstood orders left the columns separated.

Ethiopian advance posts detected the movement early enough for Menelik's commanders to prepare before daybreak. Baratieri had moved under pressure from Rome, deteriorating supplies and his own brigadiers' demands for action.

Defeated one formation at a time

At dawn Ethiopian forces engaged Matteo Albertone's isolated column and kept the other Italian formations from joining it. Albertone's left was routed by midmorning, the centre and reserve around noon, and Vittorio Dabormida's right by about 4 p.m.

Albertone was captured; Dabormida and Giuseppe Arimondi were killed. Regional forces under Ras Mengesha Yohannes, Ras Alula, Ras Makonnen, Ras Mikael, Tekle Haymanot and Fitawrari Gebeyehu did the fighting, and Empress Taytu Betul accompanied the campaign with her own following, contributing to mobilization, provisions, intelligence and morale.

What was left on the field

By nightfall the battlefield was in Ethiopian hands and Baratieri's survivors were retreating north toward Eritrea. The Ethiopians captured all 56 Italian artillery pieces and about 11,000 rifles, along with between 2,865 and 4,000 prisoners.

Casualty figures vary widely by source. George Berkeley's accounting gives 6,133 killed and 1,428 wounded from the roughly 17,700-strong Italian and Eritrean force; reported Ethiopian dead range from roughly 3,867 to 10,000.

Eritrean askari formed a substantial part of that army and suffered heavily. Francesco Crispi resigned on 5 March, four days after the battle.