On November 22, 1934, Italian forces marched fifty miles into Ethiopia and clashed with Ethiopian troops at Wal Wal, leaving one hundred and fifty Ethiopians and two Italians dead.
The initial conflict that sparked the war took place at Wal Wal, an oasis in the Ogaden Desert in 1934. Taking Ethiopia would have also completed the Italian domination over the Horn of Africa. He sought Ethiopia for its resources but also to salvage the pride of the only European nation defeated by an African country. The prospect of war increased dramatically after the fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, took control of Italy in 1922. Italian colonial forces however still remained in neighboring Eritrea and Somalia, and it was only a matter of time before the two nations would clash again.
Italy was defeated in its first attempt at conquest at the battle of Adwa in 1896, allowing Ethiopia to become the only African nation to remain free of European control. The Second Italo-Abyssinian War was Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia, a process it began after the 1885 Partition of Africa.
