The Treaty of Wuchale was signed, ending the Italo-Ethiopian War, but differences in translation later led to another war.

The Treaty of Wuchale was a treaty signed between the Ethiopian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy. The signing parties were King Menelik II of Shewa, acting as Emperor of Ethiopia, and Count Pietro Antonelli representing Italy, on 2 May 1889, established the treaty after the Italian occupation of Eritrea. It was signed in the small Ethiopian town of Wuchale, from which the treaty got its name. The purpose of the treaty was to promote friendship and trade among the two countries. It was a treaty to maintain a positive long-lasting relationship between the two empires. The treaty has twenty articles written in two languages, Amharic and Italian; however, there were marked differences in the Italian and the Amharic versions of the treaty, which created miscommunications between the two countries. Specifically, Article 17 of the treaty was translated and interpreted differently by Ethiopia and Italy. Italy claimed the article imposed a protectorate over Ethiopia, while Ethiopia claimed the article allowed international diplomacy to be conducted through Italy by choice. When Menelik II denounced the treaty in 1893, Italy attempted to forcefully impose the protectorate over Ethiopia in the First Italo-Ethiopian War, which ended with Italy's defeat at the Battle of Adwa and the resulting Treaty of Addis Ababa.

The Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887–1889 was an undeclared war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ethiopian Empire occurring during the Italian colonization of Eritrea, then a semi-autonomous province of the Ethiopian Empire under the name of Medri Bahri. The conflict ended with the treaty of Wuchale, which delimited the border between Ethiopia and Italian Eritrea. The treaty also contained clauses whose different interpretations led to another Italo-Ethiopian War.

The First Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the First Italo-Abyssinian War, or simply known as the Abyssinian War in Italy, was a military confrontation fought between Italy and Ethiopia from 1895 to 1896. It originated from the disputed Treaty of Wuchale, which the Italians claimed turned Ethiopia into an Italian protectorate, while the Ethiopians claimed that the treaty simply ensured peace between the two powers. Full-scale war broke out in 1895, with Italian troops from Italian Eritrea achieving initial successes against Tigrayan warlords at Coatit, Senafe and Debra Ailà, until they were reinforced by a large Ethiopian army led by Emperor Menelik II. The Italian defeat came about after the Battle of Adwa, where the Ethiopian army dealt the outnumbered Italian soldiers and Eritrean askaris a decisive blow and forced their retreat back into Eritrea. The war concluded with the Treaty of Addis Ababa. Because this was one of the first decisive victories by African forces over a European colonial power, this war became a preeminent symbol of pan-Africanism and secured Ethiopia's sovereignty until the Second Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935–37.