At 9:15, Baratieri galloped up from his position with the reserve brigade to see the situation for himself. He still had no idea of Dabormida’s actual location and assumed that the general and his brigade were still complying with the orders he had issued earlier to move to support Arimondi. Meanwhile, growing numbers of Ethiopians charged Arimondi’s brigade in waves, the frontmost warriors armed with rifles while those behind brandished traditional swords and spears. The Italians fired with deadly effect, mowing down hundreds of warriors, but they could not break the Ethiopian attacks. By about 10 o’clock, the high ground on the spur of Mount Bellah had fallen to hordes of Shoan warriors, and the situation for Arimondi’s brigade was becoming critical. Two companies of bersaglieri failed to drive the Shoans off Mount Bellah, and at about 10:15, Lt. Col. Galliano’s 3rd Native Battalion, holding part of the left of the brigade’s line, gave way. Caught amid a sea of screaming enemy warriors and subjected to a storm of shot and occasional shell, the Italians continued to resist for about an hour and a half. Then, with their position becoming more precarious with each passing minute, Baratieri ordered a retreat. Arimondi and Galliano were among the thousands who did not survive.

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Withdrawal in the face of a relentless enemy is a dangerous maneuver, requiring steady nerves, discipline and, above all, good tactical leadership. In the debacle that followed Baratieri’s order to retire, none of those virtues were obvious. Within minutes the central brigade had dissolved into a rabble that fled back toward Sauria, abandoning its wounded, artillery and most weapons. Shouting ‘Viva l’Italia,’ Baratieri managed to rally a few alpini and bersaglieri behind the protection of a walled enclosure, but he could do nothing to stem the panic. By just after midday, Menelik’s warriors had completely destroyed two of the three Italian brigades that had advanced against him.

When General Baratieri had proposed retreating as one option open to his army at the officers’ council on February 28, Dabormida had cried, ‘Retire? Never!’ In the hours that followed the destruction of Albertone’s and Arimondi’s brigades, Dabormida would suffer the bitter consequences of his ill-considered bravado.

About two miles to the northwest of Mount Bellah lay the valley of Mariam Shavitu, about 800 yards wide and two miles long. Since about 10 a.m., Dabromida’s brigade had been in the valley, engaged in a firefight with increasing numbers of Ethiopians. By 2 p.m., as the slopes above Miriam Sahvitu seethed with Ethiopians, he began to wonder what had happened to the rest of the army. There had been no word from Baratieri since earlier that morning, and Dabormida paced about, openly commenting on what seemed to be the disappearance of headquarters. As the enemy numbers grew and the pressure on his brigade intensified, Dabormida decided to withdraw along a track leading to the north from Miriam Shavitu. In contrast to the rout at Mount Bellah, Dabormida’s soldiers conducted a well-ordered withdrawal. Fighting from behind rocks and boulders and from trenches they had dug that morning, Dabormida’s soldiers contested every yard of the Ethiopian’s advance. The gunners defended their pieces to the end, falling beneath the hacking swords and stabbing spears of the Ethiopians, and the infantry rear guards stood their ground until annihilated.

It was a battle with no quarter. Since time immemorial, the Ethiopian armies had fought war with the object of utterly destroying their enemies. The Oromo horsemen of Ras Mikail swept in and through the ranks of Italians, slashing and stabbing at the soldiers, while wave after wave of foot warriors rushed forward. Dabormida, wounded and by then no doubt realizing the disaster that had befallen his command, dragged himself to a small village and asked a local woman for a drink of water. No record exists of where and how the general met his death, but months later his remains were found lying among those of thousands of his soldiers scattered along the valley.

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