Causes of the Italo-Ethiopian War

The war was caused by two major factors

among others : a revival of Italian imperialism;
and the weakness of the League of Nations - a
weakness that encouraged that imperialism.
The Italian desire to revenge against Ethiopia
In 1896 the Italians were defeated by the then
strong, well-trained, organised and patriotic
Ethiopian forces under Emperor Menelik II.
Italy wanted revenge for Adowa, which had
stamped her as a nation without martial valour.
She had entered the First World War hoping to
restore her military reputation, but again put up
a poor performance on the battlefield and
consequently gained no reward when the
German colonies in Africa were shared out
among the victors at the Treaty of Versailles in
1919.
The coup of 1922, which put Benito Mussolini
and his Fascist Party in power, led to a
transformation of Italy and a revival of Italian
imperial expansion. Fascism was a doctrine
peculiarly suited to colonialism, because it
espoused the principle of the survival of the
fittest in politics, which legitimized the
expansion of stronger races at the expense of
weaker ones.
Italy had come late to the Partition of Africa and
had consequently got little, and even that was
only desert and semi-desert: Eritrea, Somaliland
and Libya. She had long covered Ethiopia, with
its cool climate and rich agricultural soils, and
hoped to link her Eritrean and Somali
possessions by conquering the ancient highland
kingdom and creating a united Italian East
African Empire.
Mussolini just wanted to revenge.
Mussolini was determined to invade Ethiopia,
and spent many years reorganizing and
equipping the Italian army for that task. But it is
doubtful if he would have gone ahead with the
invasion if the League of Nations had made a
serious attempt to stop him.
Britain and France were the major powers of the
League, which was set up after the First World
War to unite the nations of the world and avoid
another world war. But the United States, in a
mood of isolationism, had refused to join, and
Germany, now under the Nazi dictator Adolf
Hitler, had left the League. Britain and France in
1935 were fearful of a rearming Germany under
Hitler, and allowed their fear to dictate their
policy over Ethiopia. They calculated that if
they prevented Italian aggression in Ethiopia.
Mussolini would be driven into the arms of his
fellow right-wing dictator in Germany.
Therefore, the two major West European
democracies decided to appease Italy in order to
keep on good terms with her on the European
continent. This meant they had to ignore their
obligations to the Covenant of the League and
abandon Ethiopia, one of the League's member
states. Britain and France were far more
obsessed with their own endangered security in
Europe than they were with the security of the
Empire of Ethiopia.
Franco-British appeasement of Italy first took
the form of refusal to supply arms to Ethiopia
for its own defence. As Italy steadily massed
troops and stockpiled supplies in Eritrea and
Somaliland in 1934 and early 1935, Haile
Selassie attempted to buy modern weapons from
Europe to resist the coming invasion. Yet
Britain and France responded by placing an
embargo on the sale of arms to both potential
belligerents. This, of course, clearly favoured
Italy (as it was secretly meant to do), since Italy
was quite capable of supplying its own arms
requirements and Ethiopia was not. In effect,
then, the embargo applied only to Ethiopia. This
hypocritical immorality on the part of Britain
and France - the refusal to supply arms to the
victim of an aggressor - ensured that the Italian
invasion would encounter weak resistance.
The second form of appeasement took place
after the invasion began. The League of Nations
imposed sanctions on the aggressor, whereby
member states were forbidden to trade with Italy
in a wide range of products. The sanctions were
predictably half-hearted, and excluded the vital
commodity - oil - which was essential for
modern military operations and for the success
of the Italian invasion. The sanctions did not
halt the Italian advance by as much as a single
day.
The third form of appeasement was
the notorious Hoare-Laval Pact of December
1935, in which the British Foreign Secretary, Sir
Samuel Hoare, and the French Foreign Minister,
Pierre Laval, proposed a plan to halt the war by
partitioning Ethiopia, giving part of the north of
the country to Italy and allowing the Emperor to
keep the south. The Pact was destroyed by the
power of British public opinion, subject to one
of its periodical fits of morality, and Hoare was
forced to resign.1 Yet the Hoare-Laval plan was
proposed while the Ethiopian army was still
intact and Italian victory was not absolutely
certain. Hoare's plan, though immoral, offered
more help to the Ethiopians than the British
public could offer, which was generous but
ineffective moral support.
The British public acquiesced in the fourth form
of appeasement of Italy over Ethiopia: its
government's recognition in 1938 of the Italian
conquest of the whole of Ethiopia. By then the
British public was more concerned with the fate
of the Czechs of Central Europe.
The casu
s belli for
the Italo-
Ethiopian
War
arose out
of
the Wal-
Wal
Incident 
of 1934. An Italian force had occupied the
settlement of Wal-Wal just inside Ethiopia on
the border with Italian Somaliland, in largely
unsurveyed desert. The local Ethiopian
commander attacked the Italian force with his
men, but was driven off. Haile Selassie
suggested international arbitration, but this was
rejected by Italy, which demanded an apology
and a large indemnity, which Ethiopia naturally
refused to pay. Mussolini used this refusal as an
excuse for war.
The renewal of Italian imperialism: In past
years, the glory of Italy had engulfed parts of
Europe, Asia, Middle East and North Africa.
Italy wanted to prove her military worth to
fellow European powers.
Italy had entered the colonial field very late and
had obtained a very small share of the African
continent while her counterparts especially
Britain and France has obtained a lion's share
The unfairness of the 1919 Versailles treaty:
After the 1st world war the victorious powers
shared out the colonies of defeated Germany.
The rise of Benedicto Mussolini and his fascist
party to power in Italy in 1922 also explains the
1935 invasion of Ethiopia.
Italy's desire to civilise Ethiopia: She claimed
that her attack on Ethiopia was aimed at
spreading Christianity, ending the primitive
feudalism in Ethiopia, ending slave trade,
spreading European progress and democracy in
Africa.
Expected help from the
axis power: The axis
pact/alliance between
Mussolini of Italy,
Hitler of Germany and
Hirohito of Japan
(1926-1989) assured
Mussolini of support.
 

Emperor in Exile
Economic consideration made Italy to invade
Ethiopia in 1935. Firstly the Ethiopian
highlands were fertile and conducive for the
white man's settlement and agriculture.
Secondly Italy had been adversely affected by
the 1929-32 world depression, which brought
about unemployment, scarcity inflation and
raising of taxes. Mussolini hoped to solve these
problems and restore his personal popularity by
colonising Ethiopia.
Desire to control port of Massawa: Since time
immemorial, this Red Sea port had played a
leading role in the profitable trade between
Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The failure to drive the Italians out of Eritrea
also led to the crisis. After the 1896 Adowa
victory, the Italians took refugee in Eritrea,
which was by then a province of Ethiopia.
The Italian fear that Ethiopia intended to expel
Italians out of Eritrea and Somali land
contributed to its invasion in 1935.
The desire to create a United Italian East
African Empire led to the invasion of Ethiopia.
The Divisions prevailing in Ethiopia encouraged
the Italians to invade Ethiopia. The unity, which
had characterised Ethiopia at the time of the
1896 Adowa war, had vanished.
The Anglo-French conspiracy against Ethiopia
also led to the invasion. The British and Fresh
were aware that Italy was re-arming but didn't
want her to test her poisonous weapons on
European soil.
The example of Japanese imperialism in China
in 1931 and 1933 catalysed Italy's plans to
invade Ethiopia. In September 1931 Japan
attacked China and occupied Manchuria
province.
The unfair arms-embargo imposed by Britain
and France. In the early years of the 1930s, it
became clear that relations between Ethiopia
and Italy were diminishing.
Ethiopia attacked out of envy. It is true that
Ethiopia had survived the 19th Century
European colonialism and that Africans
regarded Ethiopia as a pride of Africa.
The upsurge of African nationalism all over
Africa and in the Diaspora also explains the
crisis.
Mussolini had full support from the Italian
public opinion.
Mussolini wanted to divert the attention of
Italians from his failures at home.
 

1 Jomo Kenyatta was one of the speakers at a big rally held in Trafalgar Square, London, to condemn the
Hoare-Laval plan. During his speech he satirized Hoare in devastating fashion: 'Sir Samuel Hoare . . .You
wonder about him? Well, what else can you expect from a whore. A whore'-s a whore. He will buy anything, sell
anything.' (See Ras Makonnen, Pan-Africanism from Within, Oxford University Press, 1973.)

The Course of the War

Emperor Haile Sellasie in full Combat
The Italian invasion of Ethiopia began on 3
October 1935. It met immediate resistance in the
form of massive frontal attacks by the 250, 000-
strong Ethiopian army, which demonstrated its
traditional bravery but suffered very heavy
casualties. Haile Selassie favoured organized
retreat and guerilla warfare, but he was ignored
by his Rases. (Each provincial governor-
minister and high official, many of whom
doubled as generals, had the title of ‘Ras'.) The
proud feudal Rases generally felt that guerilla
warfare was degrading, and fit "only for bandits.
Several Ethiopian generals, like Betwoded
Makonnen, Governor of Wallega, and Ras
Mulugeta, the Minister of War and a veteran of
Adowa, died in combat rather than direct
operations from the rear, which they were
untrained to do. Their deaths indicate their great
bravery and their heroism, but also the lack of
tactics and lack of organization of the Ethiopian
army.
The Ethiopian army, in fact, had made hardly
any changes since the time of Menelik. It had
sufficient manpower: in 1935 it was able to
mobilize 250 000 men, but they were not
trained, and there was no time to train them. The
tactics of frontal assault that were so successful
at Adowa against the careless and inefficient
Italian army of the 1890s were quite unsuitable
against the reorganized, highly mobile,
armoured Italian army of 1935, that was capable
of breaking up frontal attacks with artillery fire,
with machine guns, and with bombing and
strafing from aero planes.
Co-ordination was non-existent.
The Rases gathered men, usually illiterate
peasants, under their individual leadership and
attacked the enemy separately. They were too
proud to ask for help from each other. No
adequate central command organization had
been developed, and a coordinated strategy was
impossible. Many of the peasant levy soldiers,
having fought a battle, went home, as was
traditional in Ethiopian warfare. They did not
consider themselves as 'deserters'.
Inadequate weapons
But the primary cause of Ethiopia's defeat in
1935-6 was inadequate weapons. The armed
forces had 11 slow and unarmed aero planes,
three of which could not leave the ground and
one of which was given to the Red Cross. The
air force had only 371 bombs. There were only
13 anti-aircraft guns. A third of the rifles would
not fire; they were carried for display. Above
all, there was a severe lack of ammunition.
Ethiopia produced no arms or ammunition and
was unable to buy enough when war threatened,
because of the Anglo-French arms embargo and
the lack of money in the imperial treasury. The
faulty tactics and lack of modern weapons of the
Ethiopians are well illustrated in this account of
a battle by the Italian commander, Marshal
Badoglio:. . . against the organized fire of our
defending troops, the Ethiopian) soldiers, many
of them armed only with cold steel, attacked
again and again in compact phalanxes, pushing
right up to our wire entanglements which they
tried to beat down with their curved scimitars.
The disparity in weapons between the two sides
was most marked in the air. The Italians used
aerial photography to reveal daily the massed
Ethiopian positions, which were then heavily
bombed with high explosive and poison gas, or
strafed with cannon fire. This was, in fact, the
first war in which Europeans used either
aeroplanes or gas against Africans. To this
extent it was a new-Style aggression. The
Ethiopians were well aware of their deficiencies
in weapons. At one stage a peasant levy force
which was expected to provide its own rifles
and equipment staged a riot against the
comparatively well-armed Imperial Guard, out
of protest at the situation.
Brigadier-General Mengistu Neway, a young
officer in 1935-6, at his trial after the abortive
I960 coup, said, as part of his evidence against
Haile Selassie's regime; 'I ruminated over why
the Ethiopian armed forces were so easily
broken by the forces of the enemy and I realized
that it was fundamentally because of our
backwardness.' He did not blame international
factors for the defeat of his country.
The country was not united in resisting the
invader. The Ethiopian army lived off the
country and thus forfeited the support of the
peasant masses, who became uninterested in the
war. Many local chiefs who opposed Haile
Selassie's claim to the throne, or had simpler
and more mercenary motives, accepted Italian
bribes even before the war broke out.
The Italians were also able to play upon ethnic
rivalries within Ethiopia, especially between the
Amhara and the Wello Galla, who lived about
half-way between Addis Ababa and Eritrea.
Many of the Galla chiefs were bribed by the
Italians not to mobilize for Haile Selassie when
the war broke out. Early in the war a leading
Tigrean noble, Haile Selassie Gugsa, was bribed
by the Italians and betrayed the centre of the
Ethiopian line by' leading his forces over to the
Italians in a vital stage of the defence of the
northern frontier. Mussolini appointed Gugsa
the puppet governor of the province of Tigre
under the Italian regime.
Haile Selassie also had to face rebellions in
Gojjam province in the rear of the resistance to
the Italian advance. Therefore the Italians were
able successfully to re-employ the old
techniques, used to such effect by European
powers during the Scramble for Africa in the
nineteenth century, of divide and conquer
followed by divide and rule. Many Somalis
from Italian Somaliland fought in the Italian
army which invaded Ethiopia. So once again, as
in the Scramble, imperialism succeeded in
setting African brother to fight brother. The
policy saved many Italian lives.
As the Italians, in the early months of 1936,
advanced on Addis Ababa, Haile Selassie had to
consider three possibilities.
One was to continue the retreat south of the
capital, into the territory of the hostile (anti-
Amhara) southern Galla.
The second was to continue resistance in the
heart of the country, by guerilla warfare, which
contained the serious risk that the Emperor
might be captured by the Italians.
The third was flight out of the country. Haile
Selassie, supported by the great majority of his
councilors, decided on the third alternative, and
on 2 May 1936 the Emperor and his party left
Addis Ababa by train for Djibouti in French
Somaliland and the safety of a British warship.
Ethiopia was economically weak and couldn't
win a war. Haille Sellasie had not yet started
developing the economy when the war broke
out.
Emperor Haille Sellasie's escape to England on
2nd May 1936 demoralised his forces.
The delay of support from African states led to
Ethiopian defeat.
The Italian techniques of divide and conquer
and later divide and rule led them to victory.
The over whelming support at home enable
Mussolini to succeed.
Mussolini's careful planning enabled him win he
war.
Support from Eritrea and Somalia: Mussolini
had a large, strong, well-trained and equipped
army.
The weakness of the League of Nations
The weakness of the League of Nations led to
the defeat of Ethiopia as follows:
When the war broke out, it imposed sanctions
on Italy but these excluded the trade in oil and
coal, since this were very essential for Italy's
war efforts, the sanctions were as good useless.
The League of Nations failed to stop Italy from
stockpiling arms in Eritrea and Somalia. This
enabled her to defeat Ethiopia.
The League of Nations didn't have a standby
army to check the Italian aggression against
Ethiopia.
The League of Nations lacked proper funding
and a permanent Headquarter from where to
conduct its affairs.
The League of Nations lacked clear principles
for example it allowed free entry and exit of
member states. Hence slightly before crisis,
Italy left the organisation.
League members allowed arms to flow to the
Italians via the Suez Canal,. Hence they were
hypocritical.
The most powerful league members, namely
Britain and France proposed the partition of
Ethiopia as a solution. This was very unfair and
showed the conspiracy of the whites against the
blacks.
USA, which had proposed the formation of the
league, isolated itself completely from its
affairs.
Britain and France were comfortable with
appeasing Italy so as to keep European peace
rather than protecting weak member states.
They didn't want Italy to test her weapons on
European soils and indirectly encouraged her to
do so in Ethiopia.
On 5 May the Italians occupied Addis Ababa,
and on 9 May Ethiopia was officially annexed to
Italy. However, many individual armies
remained in the field under their local
commanders, and turned to guerilla resistance,
which lasted as long as the Italian occupation.
The Flight of Haile Selassie
Haile Selassie's flight to Britain, where he spent
several years in exile, has been criticized on two
grounds, one emotional and one practical. First
the emotional argument: some Ethiopian
generals, when they heard of the Emperor's
decision to flee, planned to assassinate him to
save his honour. Never before in the proud
history of the Ethiopian people, had their
Emperor, 'the Elect of God' and 'the King of -
Kings', deserted the chosen people for foreign
asylum.
Marcus Garvey, the great West Indian Black
nationalist, castigated Haile Selassie as a
coward who, instead of slinking away to
England, should have died on the battlefield in
the tradition of Ethiopian leaders like Tewodros
and Yohannes IV. Yet Garvey surely was
wrong. If Haile Selassie had fought on he might
have been captured, and then killed in a
shameful way, by execution, or kept alive and
used by the Italians.
The practical criticism has more weight, and
concerns the Emperor's inadequate grasp of the
nature of international diplomacy. Haile Selassie
seems genuinely to have believed that if he went
to Europe to appeal in person at the League of
Nations to the principle of collective security
against aggression, he would internationalize the
conflict and secure Great Power assistance in
getting the Italians out of his country. He clearly
failed to understand the motives of Britain and
France, who were appeasing Mussolini for the
sake of security against Hitler.
Yet by going to England, and by making a
dramatic appeal for the rights of small nations
against aggression at the General Assembly of
the League of Nations in Geneva, Haile Selassie
succeeded in publicizing the conflict in a way
that would have been impossible if he had
remained in his country. And he gained
recognition in ways that he had not foreseen. He
said at Geneva: 'I was defending the cause of all
small people who are threatened by aggression.'
He internationalized a vital moral issue. He set
himself up, though not intentionally, as the
symbol of the black man's resistance to
imperialism, and evoked a deep-seated and
widespread response from Africans and black
Americans.
And for Ethiopia he gained something too by
going to Europe. Had he not become the living
and uncaptured symbol of Ethiopia's
independence and unity, the country would at
least have been mandated and even possibly
partitioned after the Second World War.
Richard Greenfield expressed this point most
succinctly when he wrote; 'Haile Selassie's
decision to go into exile may have been hasty
but it proved politically correct.'2
Ethiopian Resistance to Italian Occupation,
1936-41
At no time did the Italians 'pacify' Ethiopia.
Guerilla resistance went on unabated throughout
the five years of Italian rule. The guerilla
fighters, or Patriots, were generally the remnants
of the old feudal armies destroyed in 1935-6.
But a new type of guerilla force grew up, the
'Black Lions', formed largely of graduates, with
a more modern and democratic concept of
organization and leadership than the old army
had. They were led by Ras Imru (who became
prime minister during the abortive I960 coup),
who seemed to be adept at overcoming ethnic
and cultural conflicts among his men, and at
getting Ethiopians and Eritreans to co-operate
with one another as real comrades. Imru was
eventually captured, but the struggle went on
under other leaders. In 1937 a Committee of
Union was set up, as a unified organization for
all Patriot leaders, and to co-ordinate resistance.
Italian methods of rule ensured that the Patriots
would have plenty of mass support. The Italians
are often credited with achieving a great public
works building programme in Ethiopia. But the
great new roads they constructed were built by
forced labour, and the new hospitals, schools
and municipal buildings were for the use only of
Italians.
The Italians were persistently brutal towards the
Ethiopian people. Thousands of Ethiopian
soldiers who surrendered when promised safe
conducts were executed and buried in mass
graves. The Graziani massacre of 1937 is
without parallel in the crimes of colonialist
Africa.
It occurred when Marshal Graziani, the Italian
Viceroy, announced he would distribute gifts to
the poor after the manner of the Emperor,
outside the palace, and some resistance fighters
in the crowd that gathered threw grenades at
Graziani, who was wounded. Italian troops then
opened fire on the unarmed thousands in the
crowd, many of them women and children.
There were three days of terror in the capital
when the Italians killed countless numbers of
defenceless Ethiopians and burnt down many
homes and massacred many Ethiopian prisoners
of war into the bargain. At least 10 000 and
possibly 30 000 were killed in this episode.
The patriotic Ethiopian Church played a full
part in the resistance: many priests died for their
country and their faith. In 1938 Bishop Petros
was publicly executed in the Addis Ababa
square where his statue stands today, for
refusing to broadcast against the Patriots. At the
ancient monastery of Debra Libanos, 350 monks
were killed when the Italians discovered a store
of guns there.
Many Italian punitive expeditions against the
Patriots left large tracts of land devastated or
depopulated. This effectively turned many of
the peasants, hitherto indifferent to who ruled in
Addis Ababa, against the Italians.
Ethiopian resistance was even carried into Italy
itself. In 1937 an imperial ceremony was held in
Rome to commemorate the anniversary of the
occupation of Addis Ababa. An Ethiopian youth
named Zeral Deress was sent to Rome to present
some captured Ethiopian trophies, including a
sword, to high Italian officials in the presence of
Mussolini and the King of Italy.
Richard Greenfield, Ethiopia: a New Political History, Pall Mall Press, London, 1965.

3 Zerai Deress, seriously wounded, was taken to hospital, and recovered. Some years later he died in an
Italian prison. His statue now stands in Addis Ababa, and the first ship of the Ethiopian navy was named after
him.

Characteristics[edit]
Since 1 June 1936 Italian Ethiopia was part of the newly created Italian East Africa, and was
administratively composed of four governorates: Amhara, Harar, Galla-Sidamo and Scioa. The Scioa
Governorate was originally known as the Addis Abeba Governorate, but enlarged in November 1938
with parts of the neighboring governorates of Harar, Galla-Sidamo, and Amhara. Each Governorate
was under the authority of an Italian governor, answerable to the Italian viceroy, who represented
the Emperor Victor Emmanuel III.
Italian Ethiopia had an area of 790,000 square kilometres (305,000 sq mi) and a population of
9,450,000 inhabitants, resulting in a density of 12 inhabitants per square kilometre (31/sq mi)[12]
 Governorate Capital Total population Italians[13] Car Tag Coat of Arms

Amhara Governorate Gondar 2,000,000 11,103 AM

Harrar Governorate Harar 1,600,000 10,035 HA

Galla-Sidamo
Jimma 4,000,000 11,823 GS
Governorate

Scioa Governorate Addis Ababa 1,850,000 40,698 SC

Some territories of the defeated Kingdom of Ethiopia were added to Italian Eritrea and Italian
Somalia inside the AOI. This was not just since they were mainly populated by Eritreans and
Somalis respectively, but also as a reward for their colonial soldiers who fought in the Italian Army
against the Negus troops).[citation needed]
The currency used was the Italian East African lira: the Lira AOI were special banknotes of 50 lire
and 100 lire circulating in AOI between 1938 [14] and 1941:

Fascist Rule and Patriotic Resistance 1936-41

The Italian invasion of Ethiopia and Italian control over Addis Ababa on 5 may,
1936 marked the beginning of the fascist Italian invasion of Ethiopia in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia was then merged with the other Italian colonies, Eritrea and
Somaliland. In 1936, Italy declared the establishment of Italian East Africa, by
putting the three territories together and began to administrator them as one
colonial unit. The Italian victory was selected to be in charge of the
administration of the Italian East Africa.

The prime fascist governor was Badoglio, but he was soon replaced by the
commander of the southern front, Grazziani in May 1936. The latter ruled up
until the unsuccessful attempt of his life in Addis Ababa in February 1937. The
last Italian victory was Amadeo Umberto, whose administration is said to be
relatively liberal. The Italian east African empire had six administrative divisions.
These administrative divisions ruled from the towns of different parts of
urbanized areas, which were made capitals of their respective administrative
divisions.

The fascist Italian Invasion of Ethiopia was a military rule, racist and violent. Its
officials were highly corrupt, most of them inefficient and irresponsible.  Italian
effective control, in most cases, was limited to towns due to a nationwide patriotic
confrontation.  Italian rule caused great human and material destruction of
Ethiopia; hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians lost their lives during the
invasion, as well as in subsequent patriotic movements against the Italians.

Italian Invasion of Ethiopia And the Patriotic Resistance

Movements
The Italians faced nation-wide opposition from the very beginning of their Italian
Invasion of Ethiopia. It has already been stated that few notables who had
grudges with the emperor became collaborators.  There were also some ordinary
individuals that served the Italian for small pay. Aside from this fascist rule had
triggered protests and large-scale opposition virtually in all parts of the country
all the way through the five years of Italian Invasion of Ethiopia. The peoples of
Ethiopia were not willing to surrender the independence of their country and
thus paid immense sacrifices to defend it.

There were 2 stages of the patriotic resistance against Italian rule. The first was a
continuity of the major war that lasted up to early 1937. It was led by members of
the upper mobility in command of their respective troops.  One of them was Ras
Imiru Haile Sillase, designated viceroy of the emperor, in exile after 1936. Imiru
was in the gore town of Illubabor when members of the black lion organization
invited him to become their leader. 

This organization was formed in 1936 and it consisted of graduates of Holeta

military academy and some other civilians. The black lion team engaged in
fighting the Italians around Naqamte, in Wollega. Ras Imiru accepted the
invitation and became the head of the black lion organization. He led the Patriots
on the first planned attempt to liberate Addis Ababa in 1936. However, the forces
under the Ras were defeated near river Gojeb in Kaffa by an Italian army before
they reached Addis Ababa, Ras Imiru was caught and deported to Italy. Some
other participants were detained.