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However Ethiopia and Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI) proved to be extremely expensive to maintain, as the budget for the fiscal year 1936-37 had been set at 19.136 billion lira to create the necessary infrastructure for the colony. [18]: 5 At the time, Italy's entire yearly revenue was only 18.581 billion lira. [18]: 5
Ethiopia presented a bill to the Economic Commission for Italy of £184,746,023 for damages inflicted during the course of the Italian occupation. The list included the destruction of 2,000 churches, 535,000 houses, the slaughter or theft of 5,000,000 cattle, 7,000,000 sheep and goats, 1,000,000 horses and mules and 700,000 camels.
Italy and Ethiopia signed a provisional treaty of peace on 26 October 1896. [3] Conflicts between the two countries resulted in the Battle of Adwa in 1896, whereby the Ethiopians defeated Italy and remained independent, under the rule of Menelik II. At the time, Italy had only been unified fon to expand the African colonial possessions of Italy ...
Italy eventually lost its colonies in the region. Following years of local resistance and the intervention of British troops during the East African Campaign of World War II, scattered Italian forces continued to fight in a guerrilla war, until the final surrender in 1943. [7] Ethiopia regained its independence from Italy in 1947. [8]
Italy's search for colonies continued until February 1885, when, by secret agreement with Britain, it annexed the port of Massawa in Eritrea on the Red Sea from the crumbling Egyptian Empire. Italian annexation of Massawa denied the Ethiopian Empire of Yohannes IV an outlet to the sea. [17]
In 1935, Italy launched a second invasion, which ended in 1937 with an Italian victory and the annexation of Ethiopia to Italian East Africa. Ethiopia was occupied by Italy until the Italians were driven out in 1941 by the Ethiopian Arbegnoch, patriots with assistance from the British Empire during World War II. [61] [62]
After the defeat of Italy, Ethiopia underwent a short period of British military administration, and full sovereignty was restored in 1944, although some regions remained under British control for more years. Eritrea became an autonomous part of Ethiopia in 1952, until its war of independence.
Later, after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Benito Mussolini's Italian Empire occupied Ethiopia and established Italian East Africa, merging it with neighboring Eritrea and the Italian Somaliland colonies to the south-east. During World War II, the Italians were driven out of Ethiopia with the help of the British army.