The Battle of Adwa (Tigrinya: ዓድዋ; Amharic: አድዋ; Italian Adua) was the climactic battle of the First Italo-Ethiopian War. Led by Emperor Menelik II, Ethiopian forces, with the aid of Russia and France, defeated an invading Italian force on 1 March 1896, near the town of Adwa in Tigray. The decisive victory thwarted the Kingdom of Italy's campaign to expand its colonial empire in the Horn of Africa and secured the Ethiopian Empire's sovereignty for another forty years. As the only African nation to successfully resist European conquest during the scramble for Africa, Ethiopia became a pre-eminent symbol of the pan-African movement and international opposition to colonialism, although Ethiopia was atypical. amongst African nations by being both Christian and possessing a written culture several centuries old by the time of the Italian invasion
By the end of the 19th century, European powers had carved up almost all of Africa after the Berlin Conference. Only Ethiopia, then still commonly known as Abyssinia and the Republic of Liberia still maintained their independence (Liberia being a settler nation supported by the United States). The newly unified Kingdom of Italy was a relative newcomer to the imperialist scramble for Africa. Two of its recently obtained African territories, Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, bordered Ethiopia on the Horn of Africa. Italy sought to improve its position in Africa by conquering Ethiopia and joining it with its two territories. Menelik successfully pitted Italy against its European rivals while stockpiling advanced weapons to defend his empire against the Italians and British.
For this reason, both the United States and Confederate States enacted conscription in 1862. The Confederacy was the first to enact compulsory military service. A draft was necessary due to the poor planning on the part of the Confederate government.
The outcome of the Battle of Gettysburg affected morale on both sides by convincing the North that was possible and the South that defeat was inevitable.
