It is a rather complicated subject. At first, the Italians tried to picture themselves as liberators, and dropped propaganda from aircrafts stating that they were fighting for the true Emperor, Iyasu V, which had been deposed by the nobility in September 1916 upon allegations that he had converted to become a muslim and intended to ally with the Ottoman Empire in world war 1. This strategy proved less than effective, and bribery of the feudal leadership of Ethiopia proved much more effective.

The Galla nomads, mostly muslim, were rather easily swayed by the Italian bribes and betrayed the Emperor at the battle of Mai Ceu on the 31st of March 1936. Their betrayal spelled the defeat of the Emperor's best army, including his western-trained Kebur Zabagna Imperial Guard and meant that the road to Addis Ababa was open to the Italians.

As a sidenote here, Ethiopia had its own currency, the Birr, but despite being decently well handled (no hyperinflation) it was hardly usable outside the captiol of Ethiopia. The de facto currency of Ethiopia was - strangely enough - Austrian 18th century Maria Theresia Thalers, a silver coin minted in about 245 million coins, of which about 20% ended up in Ethiopia one way or another.

The British exchanged their Shillings for Thalers before Field Marshal Napier led his punishment expedition against Emperor Thewodros II in 1868 to buy supplies and bribe local leaders.

The Austrians had charged the Italians heft sums to mint 23 million Thalers for them for their expeditions into East Africa 1892-1897 and Mussolini did not want to pay such amounts again. There were minting equipment in Milan and Venice (since both were Austrian provinces at the time) and Mussolini used his considerable influence with the Austrians (since he had protected them from German annexation in 1934) during 1934 to get concessions to use those mints. The Italians minted another 19,5 million Thalers 1934-35 to use for bribes during their Ethiopian campaign.

As a side note, for their 1941 East African campaign, the British consctructed a copy of one of the Austrian mints in Bombay and minted another 18 million Thalers.

The Italians quickly found that even though they had forced the Emperor out and had taken Addis Ababa, they could not control the country. In July 1936, fedual levies from the southwest of Ethiopia gathered outside Addis Ababa and tried to retake the capitol, two months after the Emperor had fled.

The Abernyotch, or patriots, the Ehtiopian resistance, was strong and bold enough to wov to not cut their hair until the Emperor had returned. See this image for an example. It made them easy to spot. Still, by early 1937, the Italians had to travel between towns and larger villages in armed columns, protected either by air support or armoured cars. The Italians tried to brutally surpress the insurgency, but largely failed. There are accounts of the Italians using poison gas against civilians during this time, but I have been unable to confirm it. It has been confirmed that they used mustard gas against Ethiopian troops during the war though.

1937 the Abernyotch were able to take over Shoa, one of the strongest and largest of the Kingdoms that made up the traditional Empire of Ethiopia and repelled the Italian attempt to recapture it.

When the British forced the Italians to surrented at Amba Alagi in May 1941, they had the support of around 16 000 Abernyotch. However, the Italians also had the support of 2 000 native Ethiopians in their colonial brigades.