4 - The Italian Occupation 1936-1941

Summary

After their defeat at Adwa in 1896, the Italians had briefly followed a policy of retrenchment with regard to their north-east Africa colonial ambitions. The newly elected prime minister, the Marchese di Rudini, had renounced the policy of expansion so energetically pursued by his predecessor, Francesco Crispi. The colonial budget had been reduced by more than half. The anti-colonialist lobby, which had been forced to lead a somewhat subdued existence before Adwa, was even emboldened to call for total withdrawal from Africa. But all this was in the heat of the moment. Italy's abiding interest in Ethiopia soon reasserted itself. In one of the most amazing twists in Ethiopian diplomatic history, Italy was fully rehabilitated in Ethiopia a year after Adwa, being the first country to be diplomatically represented at the court of Emperor Menilek II. Italy's surprisingly swift diplomatic recovery was partly due to the statesmanship of its minister in Addis Ababa, Federico Ciccodicola. In some measure, however, it was also a result of the love-hate relationship that Menilek had had with the Italians - a pattern which can indeed be said to have been the distinctive mark of Ethio-Italian relations throughout history.

As a colonial power sharing the second longest boundary with independent Ethiopia (that is, after Britain), Italy could scarcely afford to ignore Ethiopia. She soon began to synchronize her actions with the other two neighbouring colonial powers, Britain and France. The Tripartite Agreement of 1906 was the first major outcome of this 150 joint approach towards Ethiopia. The terms of the agreement implicitly sanctioned the primacy of Italian interests in Ethiopia. While the vested interests of Britain and France were defined in precise fashion (the Nile basin and the railway zone, respectively), Italy's interests were defined in a conveniently vague manner to include the hinterland of its colonies, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland - in effect, the whole of northern and south-eastern Ethiopia. It also contained the ominous phrase ‘territorial connection’ between her two colonies and across Ethiopia. It is in this light that one writer called the agreement 'the magna carta of Italian aspirations in Ethiopia* (quoted in Baer, 6).