The Franco-Ethiopian Railway and Its History
The idea of constructing a railway to link the Ethiopian capital with the coast appears to have been first conceived by Menelik’s Swiss adviser, Alfred Ilg, who had first arrived in Ethiopia in 1877. Having on that occasion taken no less than seven months to make the 700 kilometre journey from the coast to the then capital of Ankober he was fully aware of the inconvenience of mule transport, the high costs of which greatly hindered trade in low priced commodities, such as coffee, skins and wax, which constituted the bulk of Ethiopia’s exports. Traders at this time often took about six weeks on the journey which was almost inevitably accompanied by considerable stealing as it was very difficult adequately to supervise the muleteers.
Read More...On the Eve of the Battle
The following poem was written in Ge’ez by Aleka Gabre Medhen before the battle and was sung in Addis Ababa while the fighting was in progress and its outcome still in suspense.
Read More...Menelik's Proclamation on Mobilising His Forces for the Battle of Adowa
” God by his goodness in hurling down my enemies
and extending my empire has preserved me until this
day. Until now I have ruled by the grace of God. As
we all must die I shall not be distressed if I am killed.
Nevertheless the Almighty has never yet forsaken me
and I am confident that he will not forsake me in the
future.
The Ethiopian Song
Italian nineteenth century adventures in Africa were long opposed by large sections of the Italian population at home as can be seen by a glance at the files of old Italian newspapers, such as for example, the socialist Avanti or Critica Sociale.
Read More...The Cost to the Victor
The cost to the Ethiopians of defeating the Italian invaders at Adowa was heavy and was paid by thousands of Ethiopian families from all parts of the country. The full extent, of Ethiopia’s loss may be judged from an account of Augustus B. Wylde, sometime British consul for the Red Sea, who reached Massawa six weeks after the battle, having been sent by the Manchester Guardian to investigate the causes of the Italian defeat. In his book Modern Abyssina he relates that during his tour of Northern Ethiopia he was first visited
at Adi Caieh by Ethiopians who gave him terrible accounts of the famine and cholera that had devastated the country as a result of the human carnage. As he approached the site of the battle, he found the familiar countryside tragically transformed.
How the News was received in England
The English “man in the street,” who until then had been profoundly unaware of Italian diplomatic manoeuvres to annex Ethiopia, opened his newspaper sixty years ago to learn that, for the first time since the Carthagian Hannibal marched into the Valley of the Po some two thousand years earlier, an army from
Africa had decisively defeated a large and well equipped European force. It is interesting to examine how these events were presented to the British public by The Times, and how that semi-official newspaper explained what it considered to be the interest of the British Government.
The Battle
The campaign of Adowa may be said to have opened between January 24 and 30, 1896, when the Emperor Menelik, taking advantage of Ras Makonnen’s victories at Amba Alagi and Makaile, proceeded to march forward to Hausen and thence to Adowa. This advance out-manoeuvred the Italian commander, General Baratieri, whose communications with his base were threatened,
the Ethiopians having advanced nearer to Asmara than he was himself. Accordingly, on February 1, the Italian commander moved back the bulk of his army from Edagahamus to Mai Gabeta, and two days later concentrated his forces between Mai Gabeta and Entichio.
Menelik’s armies had meanwhile taken up positions on the hills to the north-east of Adowa, only some five miles away. The two armies, which had once faced each other looking north and south respectively, thus faced east and west and were in close enough proximity to open hostilities.
Read More...Diplomatic Relations with Europe, 1861â€â€1896
The first (excluding the interesting plan of the Belgian, Eduard
Blondeel) colonial threat to Ethiopia’s age-old
independence in modern times came from the French
dictator Napoleon III, who had seized power in 1852
and was destined to remain in sole charge of his country’s
foreign policy till the debacle of the Franco-Prussian
war of 1870. Napoleon the Little, as he was called,
hoped to obtain a foothold on the northern coast of
Ethiopia through the influence of the French Consul
and two Italian priests, Giuseppe Sapeto and Monsignor
De Jacobis, then in bitter conflict with their
Protestant rivals who themselves had begun activities
in the country in 1829. The Ethiopian attitude can be
seen by the reaction of the head of the Ethiopian Church,
Abuna Salama, who, when asked by a British Consul to
support tolerance for all Christian sects, replied that
tolerance towards the Roman Catholic Mission had been
unfortunate; the Mission, he said, had ” introduced
Frenchmen and firearms ” in support of a rebel called
Negussie, who was then waging war against the Imperial
forces. The Abuna further complained that ” the
country was thrown into disorder by large bands of
marauders, who adopted the Roman Catholic cause in
the hope of finding their profit in the future collision of
the two faiths.”
1896
The year 1896 was a significant date both in the
history of Ethiopia and in the world. By their historic
victory at Adowa the Ethiopian troops showed that their
age-old Empire could resist the military impact of nine-
teenth century European imperialism and made it pos-
sible for their Emperor Menelik to begin the modernisa-
tion of the countryâ€â€a process which was to be con-
tinued and brought to greater fruition by the Emperor
Haile Sellassie.
Malaku E. Bayen: Ethiopian Emissary to Black America
By William R. Scott
Although it is not generally known, a considerable amount of the public interest, sympathy, and condemna- tion generated throughout the world by Italy’s blatant act of aggression against Ethiopia in October 1935 emanated from black communities in the United States. As the distinguished black historian, John Hope Frank- lin, has indicated, ” When Italy invaded Ethiopia, they (Afro-Americans) protested with all the means at their command. Almost overnight even the most provincial among the American Negroes became international- minded. Ethiopia was (regarded as) a Negro nation, and its destruction would symbolise the final victory of the white man over the Negro.”1
Content original to tezeta.net is licensed under a Creative Commons License