They were able to occupy Eritrea in 1887-89, although they failed in the occupation of the remaining Ethiopian territory in the First Italo-Ethiopian War.
Italians felt that the battle of Dogali was an insult to be avenged, and then started to attack Ethiopia in order to get revenge. Nearly all were killed, except for eighty wounded men who were able to escape, unnoticed by the Ethiopians.Īlthough Dogali was only a small victory for the Ethiopians, Haggai Erlich notes that this incident encouraged the Italians to plot with Yohanne's rival Menelik, the ruler of Shewa, to encourage his insubordination towards the Emperor. Although the Italians were well-armed with modern rifles, cannon, and machine guns, they were outnumbered 14 to 1 they fought back against the Ethiopians and held out for hours, but they eventually exhausted all their ammunition. The ras learned of their departure from spies, and before they could arrive at the fortification they had erected, he attacked them at Dogali and entirely defeated them. On 26 January, a battalion of roughly 550 men (mostly Italians, including 22 officers, and a few Eritrean Askari) under Colonel Tommaso De Cristoforis, were sent to reinforce the Italian garrison at Sahati. The besieged Italians, however, needed more ammunition and requested supplies. Hundreds of his men were slaughtered by cannon and rifle fire, while only four Italians were injured, forcing Ras Alula to pull his men back. On his own initiative, Ras Alula attacked Sahati. By 25 January, the fort at Sahati was held by 167 Italians and 1,000 native troops. The Italians responded by strengthening their redoubt and reinforcing their garrison. On hearing the news of the Italian advance, he returned to Asmara and informed the Italian officials that they were violating the treaty between Abyssinia, Egypt, and Britain, and that any further movement of troops toward Sahati – the fortification of which could only be directed against Abyssinia – would be considered a hostile action and be treated accordingly. Ras Alula Engida the governor under Emperor Yohannes IV had at the time left Asmara, his headquarters, for the Basen country, in order to punish the Dervishes for raiding the Dembala provinces. Their occupation of coastal Eritrea brought Italian interests into direct conflict with those of Ethiopia (Abyssinia).Īs soon as the Italians considered they were strong enough to advance into Abyssinia, they seized the villages of Ua-à and Zula along with the town of Sahati, in modern-day Eritrea and erected a small redoubt on the heights commanding the water supply for the caravans. The Italians, after their unification in 1861, wanted to establish a colonial empire to cement their great power status. The Battle of Dogali was fought on 26 January 1887 between Italy and Ethiopia in Dogali near Massawa, in present-day Eritrea. As such he fought in the battle of Adwa and met lis death a year later.Monument in Rome to the Italian soldiers killed in Dogali Monument in Dogali Thus, in 1894, Alula fully recognised Menilek's hegemony just to return to the position of a 'King's man'. The Tigrean nobles never forgot his humble origin and the Italians could not forgive him for Dogali. His policy, however, based on uniting the Tigrean elite under Mangasha and attracting the Italians in Eritrea to join hands against the em-peror was unsuccessful. Thus, as the counsellor of Yohannes's heir, Ras Mangasha, Alula became throughout the period of 1889-1893 the most persistent fighter for a Tegre independent of the Shoan Emperor Menilek II. Back in Tagre after the death of Yohannes in 1889, Alula's only way to avoid returning to the lower rungs of the feudal ladder was to preserve the Tigrean hegemony.
His activities during those years culminated in military victories (at Kurit against the Mahdists and at Dogali against the Italians) but resulted in the collapse of his dual basis of power: Eritrea and the Tigrean emperor. Alula's power, based on his imperial rank and provincial function, was at its height during the period of 1884-1887. External threats to this province made him a key figure in Ethiopia's relations with its African neighbours and with European powers. As such, he helped his master to consolidate Tigrean hegemony in Ethiopia and was appointed as the governor of the problematic frontier province of the future Eritrea. This son of a peasant managed to avoid the local social scale by becoming the best general of the Tigrean Emperor Yohannes. Ras Alula played a significant role in the political history of northern Ethiopia during the period between the Egyptian invasion of 1875 and the Italian defeat at Adwa in 1896.
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