Treaty of Wuchale

The Treaty of Wuchale was a treaty signed between the Ethiopian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy by King Menelik II of Shewa, acting as Emperor of Ethiopia, and Count Pietro Antonelli representing Italy, on 2 May 1889, following the Italian occupation of Eritrea. It was signed in the small Ethiopian town of Wuchale, from which it took its name, and was intended to promote friendship and trade between the two countries. Its twenty articles were written in Amharic and Italian, and the two language versions differed markedly, especially in Article 17, which Italy read as imposing a protectorate over Ethiopia while Ethiopia read it as allowing Ethiopia to conduct international diplomacy through Italy by choice. When Menelik II denounced the treaty in 1893, Italy tried to force the protectorate through the First Italo-Ethiopian War, which ended in Italy's defeat at the Battle of Adwa and the resulting Treaty of Addis Ababa.