The First Italo-Ethiopian War was fought from 1895 to 1896 between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ethiopian Empire, arising from a dispute over the Treaty of Wuchale of 1889, whose Italian-language text Italy read as establishing a protectorate over Ethiopia while the Amharic text granted Ethiopia only a more limited relationship, a discrepancy Emperor Menelik II formally repudiated in 1893. After early Italian victories against local Tigrayan forces, Menelik mobilized a large national army, reported at well over one hundred thousand troops, and met the invading Italian force at the Battle of Adwa on March 1, 1896, inflicting a decisive defeat that routed the Italian army. The Italian government sued for peace, and the resulting Treaty of Addis Ababa forced Italy to recognize Ethiopia's independence without reservation, leaving Ethiopia one of the only African states to successfully repel European colonial conquest during the Scramble for Africa. The victory at Adwa became a lasting symbol of African resistance to colonialism, still commemorated as a foundational moment of pan-African pride.
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