Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1928

By bringing joint pressure upon Ras Tafari, the Italians planned to exploit a railway, and the British hoped to construct a mighty water works for irrigating the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

Tafari yielded momentarily but made a protest to the League of Nations that was so potent that British public opinion turned against the water works scheme, and it was cancelled.

[3] Rather than giving up his own plans, the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, enlisted the aid of King Victor Emmanuel's cousin, Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi.

In 1928, with pomp and panoply, the Duke and a following of royal proportions crossed the Mediterranean, sailed down the eastern coast of Africa and then struck inland to Ethiopia and its remote capital, Addis Ababa.

The Duke thawed the suspicious Tafari's reservations by giving him a large Isotta Fraschini limousine, a luxurious Italian product that then sold in the United States for some $18,000 (equivalent to US$319,000 in 2023), along with many other gifts.

Addis Ababa, Aug. 2, 1928, Ambassador Giuliano Cora (fourth from right in front row) and a few staff members on the steps of Villa Italia, with Ethiopian Regent Ras Tafari (center front row), at the signing of the Treaty of Bilateral Friendship, after the official breakfast. The plaque commemorates the recently completed renovations. (from "Diplomatic Imagery" by Stefano Baldi )