The Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1936 Africa's Fight for Independence and the Diaspora's Response
*On October 3, 1935, Italian forces crossed into Ethiopia from Eritrea without a declaration of war. Benito Mussolini wanted revenge for Italy's defeat at Adwa in 1896 and a new Roman empire in Africa. Ethiopia, one of only two African nations never colonized, became the center of a global struggle.*
**Background**
In 1896 Emperor Menelik II's armies crushed an Italian invasion at Adwa, a victory celebrated across Africa and the diaspora as proof that Africans could defeat European powers. Ethiopia joined the League of Nations in 1923. In December 1934 a clash at the Walwal oasis on the border with Italian Somaliland gave Mussolini a pretext for war.
**The Invasion**
Italy sent more than 400,000 troops supported by tanks, artillery and aircraft. Ethiopia's soldiers, led by Emperor Haile Selassie and regional commanders, were often armed with old rifles and spears. Italian forces used mustard gas against soldiers and civilians in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol and bombed Red Cross hospitals. Ethiopian armies fought fiercely in the north, at Tembien and Maychew, but were overwhelmed. Italian troops entered Addis Ababa on May 5, 1936, and Mussolini proclaimed an Italian empire days later.
**The League of Nations Fails**
The League condemned Italy and imposed limited sanctions, but excluded oil, the one embargo that could have stopped the war. On June 30, 1936, Haile Selassie addressed the League in Geneva and warned, "It is us today. It will be you tomorrow." The sanctions were lifted within weeks. Many historians view the League's failure as a step toward the Second World War.
**The Diaspora Rallies**
The invasion electrified Black communities worldwide. In Harlem, tens of thousands marched, and groups such as the Ethiopian World Federation and the Friends of Ethiopia raised money and medical supplies. Black newspapers including the Pittsburgh Courier and Chicago Defender covered the war extensively and sent correspondent J.A. Rogers to the front. Pilots John C. Robinson, the "Brown Condor" of Chicago, and Hubert Julian went to serve Ethiopia. In Britain, C.L.R. James, Amy Ashwood Garvey and George Padmore organized the International African Friends of Ethiopia. In the Caribbean and West Africa, dockworkers, students and workers protested, and the war fueled the anticolonial movements that followed. For many, Ethiopia's cause was the cause of all people of African descent.
**Liberation**
Ethiopian patriots, known as Arbegnoch, kept up resistance throughout the occupation. In 1941 Ethiopian and British Commonwealth forces drove out the Italians, and Haile Selassie returned to Addis Ababa on May 5, 1941, five years to the day after the city fell.
The war remains a landmark in African and diaspora history: a story of aggression and international betrayal, but also of resistance, solidarity and the global Pan-African awakening that helped bring colonial rule to an end.
