Modern Italian colonial ambitions into Ethiopia began in the 1880s. This was eventually followed by the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887–1889, in which Italy occupied the Ethiopian territory in present-day Eritrea, founding the colony of Italian Eritrea. Years later, the disputed Treaty of Wuchale led to the First Italo-Ethiopian War between 1894 and 1896, where the Ethiopians (supported by Russia and France) successfully fought off European expansion. The peace of Addis Abeba after the defeat of the Italian troops in Adua in 1896, was the beginning of the Ethiopian independence.