full-scale war broke out in 1895, with italian troops having initial success until ethiopian troops counterattacked italian positions and besieged the italian fort of meqele, forcing its surrender. in april 1895, crispi withdrew part of the italian army from ethiopia to save money. he told general baratieri that if needed more money to just impose more taxes on the ethiopians and "copy napoleon who made war with the money of those he conquered". crispi did not understand that ethiopia was a poor, backward country and the money necessary to sustain a modern army could not possibly be raised from taxing the ethiopians, causing major problems for the italian army in ethiopia. through crispi fought the war against ethiopia on the cheap, he used secretly used public money to bribe journalists to write pro-war articles in the italian newspapers while those foreign journalists who reported critically about the war were expelled from italy. italian newspapers that reported critically about the war with ethiopia were heavily fined by the crispi government with the offending editions of the papers being burned under the grounds that it was "unpatriotic" to criticize the government in wartime.