ABSTRACT
Italy's presence in the Red Sea, signalled with her acquisition of the port of Assab as a trading post in 1882 and confirmed with the appearance of a military force at Massowah on 5 February 1885, had much to do with the collapse of Egypt's hold over the Sudan in the face of the Mahdia which broke out in 1881. Italian ambitions were fuelled no less by the prospect of carving out a sphere of influence in East Mrica, with British consent and at the cost of a weakened Egypt, than they were by the hope that assisting London in a time of difficulty would lead to a partnership which would safeguard Italy's interests in the Mediterranean. From these beginnings, an Italian colonial policy of expansion on to the alto piano of Eritrea developed which brought Italy into collision with the most powerful native forces in Mrica. Abyssinia had already shown its military teeth: in the face of an expansionist policy begun by Khedive Ismail in 1871, Emperor Johannes IV had smashed two military expeditions against him at the battle of Gundet in 1875 and then at the battle of Gura in 1876.1 However, the tempting opportunity which the Italians mistakenly thought they perceived in the currents of Abyssinian tribal politics was reinforced by the fact that the Abyssinian Empire was intermittently under dervish attack. Likewise, military successes against the dervishes encouraged the Italians to believe that they could master the Abyssinian forces. The outcome of Italy's military adventuring, her disastrous defeat at Adowa on 1 March 1896, was to see the entire relationship with London turned on its head and, in the process, launch Kitchener's reconquest of the Sudan.
