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1870–1902] lent by Italy to the British proposal at the London conference on the Egyptian question (July 1884). About the same time Mancini was informed by the Italian agent in Cairo that Great Britain would be well disposed towards an extension of Italian influence on the Red Sea coast. Having sounded Lord Granville, Mancini received encouragement to seize Beilul and Massawa, in view of the projected restriction of the Egyptian zone of military occupation consequent on the Mahdist rising in the Sudan. Lord Granville further inquired whether Italy would co-operate in pacifying the Sudan, and received an affirmative reply. Italian action was hastened by news that, in December 1884, an exploring party under Signor Bianchi, royal commissioner for Assab, had been massacred in the Aussa (Danakil) country, an event which aroused in Italy a desire to punish the assassins and to obtain satisfaction for the still unpunished massacre of Signor Giulietti and his companions. Partly to satisfy public opinion, partly in order to profit by the favourable disposition of the British government, and partly in the hope of remedying the error committed in 1882 by refusal to co-operate with Great Britain in Egypt, the Italian government in January 1885 despatched an expedition under Admiral Caimi and Colonel Saletta to occupy Massawa and Beilul. The occupation, effected on the 5th of February, was accelerated by fear lest Italy might be forestalled by France or Russia, both of which powers were suspected of desiring to establish themselves firmly on the Red Sea and to exercise a protectorate over Abyssinia. News of the occupation reached Europe simultaneously with the tidings of the fall of Khartum, an event which disappointed Italian hopes of military co-operation with Great Britain in the Sudan. The resignation of the Gladstone-Granville cabinet further precluded the projected Italian occupation of Suakin, and the Italians, wisely refraining from an independent attempt to succour Kassala, then besieged by the Mahdists, bent their efforts to the increase of their zone of occupation around Massawa. The extension of the Italian zone excited the suspicions of John, negus of Abyssinia, whose apprehensions were assiduously fomented by Alula, ras of Tigré, and by French and Greek adventurers. Measures, apparently successful, were taken to reassure the negus, but shortly afterwards protection inopportunely accorded by Italy to enemies of Ras Alula, induced the Abyssinians to enter upon hostilities. In January 1886 Ras Alula raided the village of Wa, to the west of Zula, but towards the end of the year (23rd November) Wa was occupied by the irregular troops of General Gené, who had superseded Colonel Saletta at Massawa. Angered by this step, Ras Alula took prisoners the members of an Italian exploring party commanded by Count Salimbeni, and held them as hostages for the evacuation of Wa. General Gené nevertheless reinforced Wa and pushed forward a detachment to Saati. On the 25th of January 1887 Ras Alula attacked Saati, but was repulsed with loss. On the following day, however, the Abyssinians succeeded in surprising, near the village of Dogali, an Italian force of 524 officers and men under Colonel De Cristoforis,

who were convoying provisions to the garrison of Saati. The Abyssinians, 20,000 strong, speedily overwhelmed the small Italian force, which, after exhausting its ammunition, was destroyed where it stood. One man only escaped. Four hundred and seven men and twenty-three officers were killed outright, and one officer and eighty-one men wounded. Dead and wounded alike were horribly mutilated by order of Alula. Fearing a new attack, General Gené withdrew his forces from Saati, Wa and Arafali; but the losses of the Abyssinians at Saati and Dogali had been so heavy as to dissuade Alula from further hostilities.

In Italy the disaster of Dogali produced consternation, and caused the fall of the Depretis-Robilant cabinet. The Chamber, eager for revenge, voted a credit of £200,000, and sanctioned the despatch of reinforcements. Meanwhile Signor Crispi, who, though averse from colonial adventure,

desired to vindicate Italian honour, entered the Depretis cabinet as minister of the interior, and obtained from parliament a new credit of £800,000. In November 1887 a strong expedition under General di San Marzano raised the strength of the Massawa garrison to nearly 20,000 men. The British government, desirous of preventing an Italo-Abyssinian conflict, which could but strengthen the position of the Mahdists, despatched Mr (afterwards Sir) Gerald Portal from Massawa on the 29th of October to mediate with the negus. The mission proved fruitless. Portal returned to Massawa on the 25th of December 1887, and warned the Italians that John was preparing to attack them in the following spring with an army of 100,000 men. On the 28th of March 1888 the negus indeed descended from the Abyssinian high plateau in the direction of Saati, but finding the Italian position too strong to be carried by assault, temporized and opened negotiations for peace. His tactics failed to entice the Italians from their position, and on the 3rd of April sickness among his men compelled John to withdraw the Abyssinian army. The negus next marched against Menelek, king of Shoa, whose neutrality Italy had purchased with 5000 Remington rifles and a supply of ammunition, but found him with 80,000 men too strongly entrenched to be successfully attacked. Tidings of a new Mahdist incursion into Abyssinian territory reaching the negus induced him to postpone the settlement of his quarrel with Menelek until the dervishes had been chastised. Marching towards the Blue Nile, he joined battle with the Mahdists, but on the 10th of March 1889 was killed, in the hour of victory, near Gallabat. His death gave rise to an Abyssinian war of succession between Mangashà, natural son of John, and Menelek, grandson of the Negus Sella-Sellassié. Menelek, by means of Count Antonelli, resident in the Shoa country, requested Italy to execute a diversion in his favour by occupying Asmarà and other points on the high plateau. Antonelli profited by the situation to obtain Menelek’s signature to a treaty fixing the frontiers of the Italian

colony and defining Italo-Abyssinian relations. The treaty, signed at Uccialli on the 2nd of May 1899, arranged for regular intercourse between Italy and Abyssinia and conceded to Italy a portion of the high plateau, with the positions of Halai, Saganeiti and Asmarà. The main point of the treaty, however, lay in clause 17:—

“His Majesty the king of kings of Ethiopia consents to make use of the government of His Majesty the king of Italy for the treatment of all questions concerning other powers and governments.”

Upon this clause Italy founded her claim to a protectorate over Abyssinia. In September 1889 the treaty of Uccialli was ratified in Italy by Menelek’s lieutenant, the Ras Makonnen. Makonnen further concluded with the Italian premier, Crispi, a convention whereby Italy recognized Menelek as emperor of Ethiopia, Menelek recognized the Italian colony, and arranged for a special Italo-Abyssinian currency and for a loan. On the 11th of October Italy communicated article 17 of the treaty of Uccialli to the European powers, interpreting it as a valid title to an Italian protectorate over Abyssinia. Russia alone neglected to take note of the communication, and persisted in the hostile attitude she had assumed at the moment of the occupation of Massawa. Meanwhile the Italian mint coined thalers bearing the portrait of King Humbert, with an inscription referring to the Italian protectorate, and on the 1st of January 1890 a royal decree conferred upon the colony the name of “Eritrea.”

In the colony itself General Baldissera, who had replaced General Saletta, delayed the movement against Mangashà desired by Menelek. The Italian general would have preferred to wait until his intervention was requested by both pretenders to the Abyssinian throne. Pressed

by the home government, he, however, instructed a native ally to occupy the important positions of Keren and Asmarà, and prepared himself to take the offensive against Mangashà and Ras Alula. The latter retreated south of the river Mareb, leaving the whole of the cis-Mareb territory, including the provinces of Hamasen, Agameh, Seraè and Okulè-Kusai, in Italian hands. General Orero, successor of Baldissera, pushed offensive action more vigorously, and on the 26th of January 1890 entered Adowa, a city considerably to the south of the Mareb—an imprudent step which aroused Menelek’s suspicions, and had hurriedly to be retraced. Mangashà, seeing further resistance to be useless, submitted to Menelek, who at the end