Schematic plan · Italo-Ethiopian War

Battle of Adwa

1 March 1896
Ethiopia
Victory for Ethiopia

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

Ethiopia (Eth Army, 120,000 men under Menelik II) attacked Italy (It Army, 20,251 men under Baratieri) in Ethiopia. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 7 km, a double envelopment against hasty defense, and that Ethiopia won. Losses: Ethiopia 17,000 (14%), Italy 9,678 (48%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Ethiopia

Menelik II

Unit	Arm	Men
Ethiopia left wing	Infantry	24,569
Ethiopia centre	Infantry	32,758
Ethiopia right wing	Infantry	24,569
Ethiopia reserve	Infantry	20,474
Ethiopia cavalry of the left	Cavalry	8,500
Ethiopia cavalry of the right	Cavalry	8,500
Ethiopia artillery (42 guns)	Artillery	630
Menelik II	Commander	—
In this plan		120,000

Italy

Baratieri

Unit	Arm	Men
Italy left wing	Infantry	4,630
Italy centre	Infantry	6,173
Italy right wing	Infantry	4,630
Italy reserve	Infantry	3,858
Italy artillery (64 guns)	Artillery	960
Baratieri	Commander	—
In this plan		20,251

What the sources report

	Ethiopia	Italy
Strength, this plan	120,000	20,251
Losses, this plan	17,000	9,678

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 235, “Adowa”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 12 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Tropical
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 7 km (attacker), 14 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Ethiopiaattacker	120,000	17,000	17,000	42	Double envelopment; Breakthrough; Pursued
Italydefender	20,251	9,678	0	64	Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · logistics +1 · intelligence +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 235 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Adwa · CC-BY-SA-4.0

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.