Battle of Adwa

Battle of Adwa
Part of the First Italo-Ethiopian War
British illustration of "Dabormida's last rally"
Date 1 March 1896; 128 years ago (1896-03-01) Location Adwa, Tigray Province, Ethiopia 14°1′8″N 38°58′24″E / 14.01889°N 38.97333°E / 14.01889; 38.97333 (Battle of Adwa) Result Ethiopian victory
Belligerents
Ethiopia	Italy
Commanders and leaders
Menelik II Taytu Betul Ras Makonnen Ras Mikael Ras Mengesha Tekle Haymanot Ras Alula	Oreste Baratieri Vittorio Dabormida † Giuseppe Arimondi † Matteo Albertone  (POW)
Strength
73,000–100,000	14,519–17,770[1][2]
Casualties and losses
3,886–7,000 killed	~6,000 killed 3,865 captured
class=notpageimage| Location within Ethiopia

The Battle of Adwa (Amharic: የዐድዋ ጦርነት; Tigrinya: ውግእ ዓድዋ; Italian: battaglia di Adua, also spelled Adowa) was the climactic battle of the First Italo-Ethiopian War. The Ethiopian army managed to defeat the heavily outnumbered invading Italian and Eritrean force led by Oreste Baratieri on March 1, 1896, near the town of Adwa. The decisive victory thwarted the campaign of the Kingdom of Italy to expand its colonial empire in the Horn of Africa.^[3] By the end of the 19th century, European powers had carved up almost all of Africa after the Berlin Conference; Ethiopia was among the few countries to still maintain their independence.^[4] Adwa became a pre-eminent symbol of pan-Africanism and secured Ethiopian sovereignty until the Second Italo-Ethiopian War forty years later.^[5]