ABSTRACT
African peoples who took the path of armed resistance to European invasion in the years 1880-98 faced daunting technological disadvantages. The great victory of Ethiopian arms over an Italian invasion force at the battle of Adowa in 1896 not only spared Ethiopia the fate of most of the rest of Africa, writes Ethiopian historian Bahru Zewde, but represented a counter-current to the sweeping tide of colonial domination in Africa. To begin with, as Ismat Zulfo has convincingly argued, the Mahdist strategy for the second day of the battle of Omdurman was not as mindless as it has been made to appear. The Congo Arab war was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the whole era of imperial conquest. The battle of Adowa was the climax of a 250 km penetration into Ethiopia by an Italian army under the command of General Oreste Baratieri, the governor of the Italian colony of Eritrea.
