My ancestry is from the Ethiopia and somalia bordering villages. African historians was Ethiopia really unconquered during ww2?If so what made them able to fight off countries that wanted to use their land as a post?

As /u/Boogada42 and /u/Inkshooter have already said, Italy did conquer Ethiopia in 1936, and occupied the country until 1942, when British forces from Sudan and British East Africa (Kenya) defeated the Italians in the East Africa Campaign.

However, during the period from 1870-1934, Ethiopia was notable for being the only state or society in Africa to avoid colonizaton. During this period, (in 1868 actually, but close enough) there was a British expedition to rescue British hostages and punish the Emperor Tewedros II. However, this expedition of 13,000 fighting men was not intended as an occupying force. Still, this small war is interesting because it demonstrates the logistical challenge of maintaining a supply train in the Ethiopian highlands for a Victorian era European Army.

A little later, in 1890 Italy seized control of Eritrea, particularly the region around the port of Massawa. Historically, that region of the coast had only recently been freed from the influence of the nascent Egyptian empire which had taken control of the coast of the southern Red Sea in the 1840s.

Following the establishment of Italian Eritrea colony, Italy negotiated the treaty of Wuchale with Emperor Menelik II. However, the wording of the treaty in Italian was different from its wording in Amharic, and the Italian leadership used the treaty to claim Italian "protection" of Ethiopia and control of Ethiopian foreign policy.

This was intolerable to Emperor Menelik, because he and his predecessors had relied upon European missionaries as a way of access to Western military technology, as well as being a humiliating sign of submission to Italy.

Menelik declared war on Italy, and defeated the Italian army in Eritrea at the battle of Adwa in 1896. When news of this crushing defeat reached Italy, it was followed by widespread riots, and the fall of the Crispi government, and a subsequent restraint in "foreign adventures".

Another effect of this war was European powers quickly began to scramble for influence in Ethiopia through diplomatic delegations. Menelik was an adroit diplomat, and he was able to play these competing European diplomatic efforts off of each other while securing Western technical services and preserving the independence of Ethiopia.

So, to answer your question (as I interpret it), it was a combination of geography, successful adoption of western arms, and subsequent clever political calculations that allowed Ethiopia to preserve its independence until 1936.

Conversely, the events of 1936 demonstrated a shift in these factors. The Italian army utilized new technology like tanks, trucks, and airplanes to overcome the geographic challenges of Ethiopian terrain. Additionally, the Ethiopian army of 1896 was armed comparably to their Italian and Eritrean adversaries (or, they had 100,000 men with rifles, and 20,000 auxiliaries with spears, and something like 40 cannon against 17,000 Italian and Eritrean soldiers and 50 more modern cannon).

In 1935/36, the Ethiopian army was not able to procure the modern trucks, tanks and aircraft to counter the modern weapons of war of Italy. Additionally, the Italian and colonial forces had approximately 100,000 men mobilized against roughly 330,000 mobilized Ethiopian soldiers, a much smaller disparity in numbers than at Adwa.

Diplomatically, this war was preceded by a League of Nations vote that banned arms sales to both Italy and Ethiopia until they could resolve their border dispute. This vote harmed Ethiopia much more than Italy, which had the capacity to manufacture their own arms.

Additionally, France and Italy made a diplomatic agreement in 1935 not to interfere with each other's colonial possessions, which effectively meant an end to French support for Ethiopia. The French reasons for this agreement was to improve relations with Italy and sway Mussolini away from alliance with Germany. Of course, this was not successful, Germany and Italy would sign an agreement in October 1936 that is seen as the beginning of the "Rome-Berlin Axis".

sources

The Battle of Adwa: African victory in the Age of Empire is an excellent book that explores the social and diplomatic forces both before and after the victory at Adwa.

A History of Ethiopia by Harold Marcus is now 20 years old, but I still recommend it for its accessible style.

The History of Ethiopia by Saheed Adejumobi is more recent, and also covers the period from 1870-1930 extensively in his book.