The Italians then began to cultivate Yohannes’ eldest son, Ras Mangasha, as Menelik’s rival to the throne and made moves to assist Mangasha in establishing a base of support in Tigre. But Tigre had been devastated by famine and war, and the promised Italian aid failed to appear. Mangasha made his peace with Menelik in June 1894, and later in the year many other lords followed Mangasha’s lead. Menelik’s power grew until he truly became negusa nagast, the ‘king of kings’–the first such Ethiopian leader in centuries.

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Menelik now felt that the time had come to confront the Italians directly. ‘God, in his bounty, has struck down my enemies and enlarged my empire and preserved me to this day,’ he declared. ‘I have reigned by the grace of God….Enemies have come who would ruin our country and change our religion. They have passed beyond the sea which God gave us as our frontier….These enemies have advanced, burrowing into the country like moles. With God’s help I will get rid of them.’

Rome, however, was unimpressed. The Italian governor of Eritrea, General Oreste Baratieri, moved quickly to crush a premature uprising in Tigre and pursued Mangasha’s army across the Ethiopian frontier, capturing Adigrat, Adowa and Makalle. Returning to Italy, Baratieri was hailed as a hero and received an ovation from the national parliament. He subsequently secured a substantial increase in the financial subsidy paid by Rome to its colony in Eritrea. Inspired by Crispi’s description of the Ethiopians as ‘barbarians whose material progress and spiritual salvation cried out for the high ministry of Roman civilization,’ Baratieri promised to bring Menelik back in a cage.

While Baratieri was basking in the adulation of the Italian government and people, Menelik had summoned his feudal host to gather at Addis Ababa. When the army had assembled, 196,000 men–more than half armed with modern rifles–were available to the negus, including 34,000 absolutely loyal Shoan royal troops.

Against that army, Baratieri could bring a force of 25,000 men–a well-equipped but mixed bag of Eritrean askari (native troops), European conscripts and elite bersaglieri and alpini. Baratieri knew nothing of the disparity in numbers until December 7, 1895, when a force of 1,300 askari, under the command of Major Pietro Toselli, was annihilated by some 30,000 Ethiopians in a narrow pass on the mountain of Amba Alagi. Shortly after that, another horde of Ethiopian warriors besieged Makalle.

Originally one of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s ‘Thousand Redshirts’ who invaded Sicily in 1860, Baratieri had enough experience in warfare to realize that a dangerous situation was developing. He withdrew his forces to Adigrat and dug in, resolved to watch and wait. Unable to be relieved, the 1,200-man Italian garrison at Makalle endured a 45-day siege until Menelik allowed the garrison safe conduct and offered to negotiate with Rome. Outraged by the perceived insult to the honor of the army and nation, the Crispi government ignored the negus’ entreaties and dispatched reinforcements to Massawa. It also allocated a further 20 million lire to pursue the war against Menelik.

In Adigrat, Baratieri still waited. As he saw it, the Ethiopians were little more than an undisciplined horde of savages who were no match for the rifles and artillery he could deploy against them. That would be especially so if the Ethiopians could be lured into an assault upon the strong defensive positions he had constructed. The enemy did not oblige him, however. Instead, Menelik’s army occupied Adowa in a move that threatened to outflank Adigrat. The Italians dug a fresh line of defenses at Sauria and posted 20,000 troops and 56 guns there to block any Ethiopian advance from Adowa. Still, Menelik did not come. The waiting game continued through February 1896.

Supplies in both camps began to run short. Menelik had planned his war well and ordered that gibbir, or ‘the king’s feeding of his men,’ depots be established along his route of march. The negus had provided for his army so well that after two months in the field his soldiers had still not touched their sinq, the Ethiopian soldier’s campaign ration, consisting of two weeks’ worth of grain, dried meat and other foods. Yet even Menelik had not anticipated the long months of indecisive activity, and the food supplies for his army were rapidly running out. In late February, the negus reluctantly conceded that if the Italians remained behind their fortifications, he would be obliged to break up his army and retreat.

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