The Battle of Adowa cost the lives of 289 Italian officers, 2,918 European soldiers and about 2,000 askari. A further 954 European troops were missing, while 470 Italians and 958 askari were wounded. Some 700 Italians and 1,800 askari fell into the hands of the Ethiopian troops. About 70 Italians and 230 askari were tortured to death before Menelik discovered it and put a stop to it. After enduring a terrible forced march back to Addis Ababa through the cold and rain of the highlands, the rest of the captives were held for several months until the Europeans were released in exchange for payment of a 10 million lire ‘reparation’ by the Italian government.

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Some 800 Tigrean askari prisoners did not fare so well; they were subjected to the traditional punishment for disloyalty by having their right hands and left feet amputated. In addition to the human losses, Baratieri’s army lost 11,000 rifles and all of its 56 guns and had to endure attacks by the Tigrean peasantry as it retreated.

For Baratieri, who only months earlier had been lauded by the Italian government, his military career was over. Even before Adowa, the government secretly had decided to relieve him of command and dispatched his replacement. The political consequences of the defeat were even greater. After news of the debacle reached Rome, angry crowds filled the streets of most Italian cities. Humiliated by the utter collapse of his colonial policy, Prime Minister Crispi and his cabinet resigned.

An estimated 7,000 warriors died at Adowa, and 10,000 were wounded. Ethiopia had never before had to pay such a price for victory, and for a while a note of war weariness echoed through the ranks of Menelik’s host. Yet it had been a victory, and a great one at that. Eritrea was Menelik’s for the taking, and he ordered his army to mass on the border of the Italian colony. But he did not give the order to invade.

Historians have long debated why the negus did not exploit his advantage over the Italians at that time–indeed, his nobles were urging him to do so. The thought of further grievous losses, the claimed lack of cavalry horses or the inhospitable wilderness through which his army would have to march to reach the Italians were all factors that may have stayed his hand. Menelik also knew that soon many of his feudal warriors would wish to return to their homes for the annual plowing and sowing of their crops.

The actual motivation may have been more subtle, however. Menelik recognized Italy’s craving for a colonial empire, and Eritrea was the young nation’s most valuable colonial possession. Its loss would compel the Italians to reply with all their resources. Such a war would be one that Menelik could not hope to win. Whatever lay behind his decision, Menelik made two simple demands of the new government in Rome–the abolition of the Treaty of Wichale and the unconditional recognition of Ethiopia’s independence. He was, in effect, asking for a return to the status quo of 1889.

Within months of the Battle of Adowa, European nations rushed to establish diplomatic representation with the negus. Menelik accepted all comers, including the envoys from Rome, balancing in the Byzantine manner of Ethiopian politics each of the suitors against one another. To the French, he secretly offered support for their claims to the upper Nile in return for part of French Somaliland. To the British, he offered assistance against the Mahdists in the Sudan, receiving an agreement to waive duty on goods imported through British Somaliland as his reward. To the Mahdists, he offered a commercial pact.

On October 26, 1896, Rome signed the Treaty of Addis Ababa, sensibly accepting Menelik’s liberal terms to end the war. Thus secure, the negus launched a campaign of conquest against the Kaffa and Galla peoples who lived to the south and, after crushing them, added the looted wealth of those lands to the royal treasury.

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