The Battle of Mekelle, sometimes known as the siege of Mekelle, took place in January 1896 during the First Italo-Ethiopian War. Italian forces surrendered a partially completed fort at Mekelle, a city in the northern Tigray Region of Ethiopia which they had occupied since 1895, to Ethiopian forces. The Italians numbered 20 officers, 13 non-commissioned officers, and 150 privates, they were supported by 1,000 Askari and two mountain guns. The Ethiopian army numbered around 27,000 men. After two weeks of bombardment by Ethiopian artillery - which possessed a longer reach than that of the Italians - the Ethiopians managed to cut off the fort's water supply, prompting the defenders' surrender.[3]
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- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Caulk, Richard (2002). "Between the Jaws of Hyenas": A Diplomatic History of Ethiopia (1876-1896). Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden. pp. 519, 522.
- ↑ Richard Caulk, "Between the Jaws of Hyenas": A Diplomatic History of Ethiopia (1876-1896), p. 519
- ↑ McLachlan, Sean (2011-09-20) (in en). Armies of the Adowa Campaign 1896: The Italian Disaster in Ethiopia. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781849089388. https://books.google.com/books?id=hVbDCwAAQBAJ&q=casualties+mekele+1896&pg=PT16.
The original article can be found at Battle of Mekelle (1896) and the edit history here.