Observations on the Ethiopian Nation, Its Nationalism, and the Italo-Ethiopian War

Abstract

Although only six years in duration, the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-41 was one of the defining events in the history of Ethiopia. It was an event that swept away old myths and created opportunity for Ethiopians to re- examine the nature and meaning of their state. Unfortunately the opportunity was not fully used, since in the aftermath of the war, Ethiopians ignored many of the war's fundamental lessons and merely replaced old mythology with new. For Ethiopia, the war highlighted a need to move fully into the modern world, while providing an opportunity to do so. The myth of Adwa was shattered; largely feudal levies stood little chance against a modern European army in conventional warfare. Ethiopia lacked the military and industrial technology to fight a modern war, and more importantly the administrative and logistical support to back it.2 Beyond Ethiopia's effort to defeat her external enemy was the struggle taking place within Ethiopia itself. I argue that the Italo-Ethiopian War was, for Ethiopians, as much a civil war as one against foreign aggression, and that in fact, for Ethiopians today, the internal war was more important since it helped define the dynamics of post-war Ethiopian politics. The fact is that the war greatly divided Ethiopians against themselves.3 While some of the factions evident during the war were emerging earlier, the war reinforced and broadened these, and these factions dominated Ethiopian politics in the post-war period. It would be too much to say that the factionalism created among Ethiopians as a result of the war was merely the product of Italian machinations, merely an external effort to destabilize the country both before and during the war. Italian efforts certainly helped to promote and