ABYSSINIA. 



good faith, would opon the campaign. The po- 

 litical authorities were more confident, and in 

 Signor t'rispi obtained the assent 

 of Si"tior Bertol&Viale, the Minister of War, 

 to a noonnoitering expedition, which was sus- 

 pended to oonwquence of ramorsof a reconcil- 

 ,v,,.,i M.-nelck and Johannis. Doubt 

 and Mi>i>icion continued to deter the allies till 



, mi's w;n killed in hat tie with the dervishes 

 on Man-h 11. lss>. Then Menelek raised his 

 gtan : ;peror of Ethiopia, and was ac- 



kn..w!-,L'.-d i.vall the provinces except Tigre. 

 Still (n-n. Baldissera di \Vglio and the Ministry 

 of \V .injections to the immediate oc- 



cupation <.f K.-ivii and Asmara, and it was not 

 till the end of the summer that the Italian 

 Premier saw hi- desire fulfilled and the coveted 



:i Italian possession. 



\:..iila. MTjuigascia, Debeb, and Balamba- 

 ras Kafel contended among themselves for su- 

 premacy in Tigre, and Menelek hesitated long 



re entering the province and engaging in a 

 fierce conflict with Aloula and the other military 

 chiefs who disputed his sovereignty, although the 

 Kthiopian crown would rest verv insecurely on 

 his head unless he could compel their submis- 



. Gen. Baldissera held the opinion that the 

 Italian colony would flourish and expand under 

 more favorable conditions if the neighboring 



n were divided among independent petty 

 chiefs, who would serve as buffers between the 



MI possessions and the Abyssinian power. 

 This policy was disapproved by the home au- 

 thorities, who recalled the coramander-in-chief 

 and sent out Gen. Orero, with instructions to 



MOe int<> Tigre and co-operate with Mene- 

 lek. The presence of Italian troops was ex- 

 pected to impress Menelek with the necessity of 

 holding to his engagements and respecting the 

 treaty of protection by operating on his fears as 

 well as on his sense of gratitude. The question- 

 able loyalty of Tekla Aimanot, King of Godjam, 

 and the danger of a revolt of the Wollo Gallas 

 compelled Menelek to remain long in the south 

 after assuming' the sovereignty. After his coro- 

 nation, on Nov. 18, 1889, he set out on his march 

 for Tigre with an army of 150,000 horse and 

 foot. Mangascia, the son of the late Negus, who 

 connoted tin; succession with Menelek with the 

 aid of lias Aloula., had beaten the King's adher- 



i Tiirr.' and held Degiac Seyum closely be- 



1 in Vo-.-rat. Yet when Menelek, who had 



,'.irded the treaty in notifyingthe European 



powers directly of his coronation, became con- 



vinc"d that an Italian force would join him at 



Adua. lie suddenly changed his purpose, N and in- 



Ivancing to annihilate his foes, whose 



it was cut off by the Italians, he made a 



. acknowledging Mangascia tributary 



King of Tiu'iv on the sole condition that he 



should conform to the Italian treaty and should 



' the frontier. On that, with his huge 



army, he returned to the south, refusing to be 



,'usti in A dim, 



' -ro set out mi Jan. 10, 1890, with 6,000 

 Italian regulars, Bathi-Bazooks, and native allies, 

 advancing in three columns from Asmara, Godo- 

 ud Gundet. On the 26th he reached 

 Ados, encountering no resistance. The clergy 

 and notables met him ceremoniously at the en- 

 trance of the town. It was supposed in Eu- 



rope that the occupation of Adua foreshadowed 

 the annexation of the province of Tigre. En- 

 glish susceptibilities were aroused because a for- 

 ward movement of the Italians in the north of 

 Abyssinia might lead to the extension of their 

 influence into the Soudan. Geri. Orero calmed 

 the fears of the Abyssinians by assuring them 

 that he had not come to Adua to subjugate the 

 Tigre province to Italy, but to inquire into and 

 to satisfy their claims. When that was done he 

 would return to the Italian possessions on the 

 other side of the Mareb. In Europe it was ex- 

 plained that the expedition was intended merely 

 as a military demonstration in favor of Mene- 

 lek. Signor Crispi told the Chamber that, while 

 endeavoring to develop commerce, even in the 

 direction of Kassala, the Italian Government 

 would always proceed in accord with Great Brit- 

 ain, more especially as Italian and English in- 

 terests are identical in that quarter. Leaving a 

 detachment of native levies in Adua, the Italian 

 commander returned to the Mareb. 



After the Italians had re-entered their own 

 territory King Menelek again set his army in 

 motion, and advanced by slow stages, entering 

 Adua in March. Mangascia and Ras Aloula had 

 already received Count Pietro Antonelli, the 

 negotiator of the treaty with Menelek, and Count 

 Salimbeni, accredited as envoy extraordinary to 

 the Negus, whom Aloula had cruelly compelled 

 as a prisoner in chains to witness from a neigh- 

 boring height the massacre of his countrymen 

 at Dogali in January, 1887. Menelek reached 

 Adua in March, and nominated Degiac Mesci- 

 ascia governor of the province. He appointed 

 two of his officers to act with Col. Cossato and 

 Capt. Toselli in fixing the boundary line between 

 the Italian possessions and Tigre. The new com- 

 mander-in-chief placed as little reliance as his 

 predecessor on the fidelity of Menelek, and for 

 strategical reasons he desired, not to withdraw 

 to the line favored by Gen. Baldissera, but to 

 secure a defensible frontier by taking possession 

 of Gura. Debaroa, and Godofelassi, making the 

 boundary line correspond very nearly with the 

 course of the Mareb and Belesa rivers. A sup- 

 plementary convention that was signed by Signor 

 Crispi and* Degiac Makonnen at Naples on Oct. 

 1, 1889, was ratified by the Emperor Menelek at 

 Makalle, where Count Antonelli met him on 

 Feb. 25. The Russian Government alone ob- 

 jected to the establishment of an Italian pro- 

 tectorate in Abyssinia, France refusing to join 

 in the protest. Conflicts arose in the spring be- 

 tween the Anglo-Egyptian authorities at Suakin 

 and the Italians at Massowah, whom the English 

 accused of subsidizing a tribe of Hadendowas, of 

 exercising supervision over a part of the coast 

 beyond their understood limits, and of extend- 

 ing their activity in the Bogos country also 

 beyond their proper sphere. The law of June 

 5, 1882, which first established Italian sover- 

 eignty on the shores of the Red Sea in the Assab 

 Bay territory was extended to Asmara and the 

 other newly acquired territories by the vote of 

 the Italian Legislature. 



Conspiracy against the Italians. While 

 General Orero was absent in Tigre with all the 

 white troops except two or three hundred, a 

 plot was concocted to exterminate the Italians 

 in East Africa. The chief conspirators were 



