Battle of Dogali The Battle of Dogali was fought on 26 January 1887 between Italy and Ethiopia in Dogali near Massawa , in present - day Eritrea . History . The Italians ( after their unification in 1861 ) wanted to create their own colonies in Africa and started to occupy coastal Eritrea . Soon they were at war with the Ethiopians in 1885 . On his own initiative , " Ras " Alula Engida , then governor under Emperor Yohannes IV , attacked the Italian - controlled town of Sahati on the day prior . Hundreds of his men were slaughtered by cannon and rifle fire , while only four Italians were injured , forcing Ras Alula to pull his men back . The besieged Italians needed ammunitions and requested supplies . On January 26 , a battalion of 500 men ( mostly Italians and a few Eritrean " Askari " ) under Colonel Tommaso De Cristofori , sent to reinforce the Italian garrison at Sahati , were attacked while in march by Ras Alula ' s men at Dogali . Although the 500 Italians fought back bravely against 7 , 000 Ethiopians , holding out for hours until they exhausted all ammunition , nearly all were then killed , except for eighty wounded men who were able to escape notice by the Ethiopians and be successfully rescued . Although a small victory for the Ethiopians , Haggai Erlich notes that this incident only encouraged the Italians to intrigue with Yohannes ' rival , Menelik II , then ruler only of Shewa , and encourage his insubordination towards his Emperor . Italians felt that the battle of Dogali was an insult to be avenged , and then started to attack Ethiopia in the following years in order to get revenge . This would later lead to the First Italo - Ethiopian War which ended in their defeat at Adwa . In 1936 , they finally obtained their revenge with the Second Italo - Ethiopian War with a brief occupation only to be defeated by a joint British and Ethiopian liberation force . Actual Ethiopian celebrations . This battle was celebrated under the Derg regime , and Mengistu Haile Mariam commemorated the centennial with much attention , including the erection of a monument topped with a red star on the battlefield . Following Eritrean independence , the monument was removed . Paul B . Henze diplomatically notes in a footnote , " When I crossed the battlefield in 1996 , I could detect no trace of the monument . " Erlich provides more information : when Eritrean troops gained control of the area in 1989 , " a prominent commander of the Eritrean People ' s Liberation Front , and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs , Petros Solomon himself was delighted to blast Mengistu ' s monument of Ras Alula . " This could be attributed to the fact that while Alula was an administrator appointed by Yohannes IV over small parts of the Eritrean highlands , he committed many atrocities against the local biher - Tigrinya population , sowing seeds of discord . Observers , including Erlich and others , attribute this to Eritrean Tigrinya views of their own relationship with Ethiopia as a whole . Since Alula fought for the Empire and not for Medri Bahri , he is viewed as a traitor on the Eritrean side of the border , a hero on the Ethiopian side . Tributes . The huge square in Rome in front of Termini railway station is called " Piazza dei Cinquecento " , in honor of the 500 Italian soldiers killed in the Battle of Dogali . Near the square is also a monument to those soldiers .