The colonizing claims of Italy in relation to Ethiopia date back to the nineteenth century. Recently unified, the European country belatedly entered the dispute with other powers of the continent by the colonization of Africa and made of the Ethiopian Empire, one of the few African territories that had not been dominated by the Europeans, one of its targets. In 1896, backed by the British, Italian troops tried to subdue the Ethiopians, but were defeated by a navel army with about 7,000 men in the so-called Battle of Dogali.
