The beginnings of Ethiopia’s modernisation

1 The beginnings of Ethiopia’s modernisation

The last decades of Menilek’s (1889-1913) reign marked the beginning of Ethiopia’s modernisation, which had been delayed, among other reasons by almost a century of internal or external warfare. An unprecedented period of peace after the battle of Adwa, the opening up of foreign contacts in the aftermath of the Italian defeat, and the advent of increasing numbers of foreign craftsmen, created an entirely new climate for economic and technological development. This owed much also to the Emperor’s almost child-like interest in innovations of all kinds, and to the ability of his trusted Swiss engineer Alfred Ilg. All these factors contributed to the founding at this time of a modern state.

The Founding of Addis Ababa One of the earliest developments in the field of modernisation had its origin in 1881, when Menilek, then only king of Shawa, abandoned the old Shawan capital, Ankobar, and established his headquarters further south, on the mountain of Entoto. Later, in 1886, his consort Queen Taytu, and her courtiers, moved down to the nearby plain, the site of thermal waters. There they set up a new place of abode. Taytu named it Addis Ababa, literally New Flower. Five years later it became the capital of the Ethiopian realm, The settlement, which rapidly acquired the character of a boon town, had by 1910 an estimated population of around 70,000 permanent and 30,000 to 50,000 temporary inhabitants. The town became the site of many of the country’s principal innovations, and, because of its sizeable population, enabled a degree of specialisation of labour scarcely known elsewhere in the land.

Enter the Russians

The growth of Addis Ababa, which was particularly rapid after the battle of Adwa, was accompanied by the construction of some of the country’s earliest modern bridges. They were important in that the land in and around the capital was broken up by deep ravines, which were filled during the rainy season by unfordable torrents. One of the first Addis Ababa bridges was erected by a group of Russians after one of their number was drowned on the way to or from the then nearby Russian Legation. Other bridges were built over the Awash river on the trade route to the Gulf of Aden coast, and in Gojjam. Its local ruler, King Takla Haymanot, obtained the bridge-building services of an enterprising Italian, Count Salimbeni.

Where Tewodros had Failed

Partly in view of the impending conflict with the Italians, Menilek subsequently reorganised the system of taxation. He instituted a tithe for the upkeep of the army, in 1892. This marked an important step, which Emperor Tewodros had attempted, but for lack of resources had failed to take, towards terminating the old, but iniquitous system, whereby the soldiers lived by looting from the peasantry.

New Money

The need to assert Ethiopian sovereignty in the face of Italy’s Protectorate claim may well also have helped to prompt Menilek to issue the country’s first national currency in 1894. This, according to the Ethio-Italian Additional Convention of 1889 was to have been struck in Italy, but Menilek, after denuncing the Italo-Ethiopian Wechale treaty, of 1889, had it minted in Paris instead. The at least partially political motive for instituting the new currency was revealed in an official proclamation. It declared that this money was introduced “in order that our country may increase in honour and our commerce prosper”. The new money bore the then politically relevant Biblical motto: “Ethiopia stretches forth her hands to God”, as well as effigies of Menilek and the Lion of Judah. The currency was based on a silver dollar, of the same weight and value as the old Austrian Maria Theresa dollar, or thaler, which had circulated throughout Ethiopia, as well as much of the Middle East, since the mid-eighteenth century. Despite this equivalence Menilek’s money failed to supplant the thaler, which for the next half century was to remain the country’s principal coin. A mint was later established in the palace, with Austrian help. It was used to strike Menilek’s smaller denomination coins, but not the thaler piece itself, which was imported from Paris.

A Postal Service

The year 1894 also witnessed the issue of Ethiopia’s first postage stamps. These too were produced in Paris, and bore representations of Menilek and the Lion of Judah. The stamps were at first little used in the country itself, but were well received by philatelists, and provided the basis for the subsequent development of an efficient postal system. This owed much to the assistance of French advisers, and enabled Ethiopia to join the International Postal Union in 1908. This was the first international organisation to which the country was admitted, but by no means the last.

The Jibuti Railway

Another important step taken by Menilek at this time was the granting to Ilg, in 1894, of a concession for the construction of Ethiopia’s first railway, to link Addis Ababa with the French Somaliland port of Jibuti. Ilg, whose work confined him the Ethiopian capital, obtained the support of the French trader Lon Chefneux, who became his partner. Implementation of the project could not, however, take place until after the battle of Adwa, on 1 March 1896, and the consequent elimination of Italy’s Protectorate claim. The French Government almost immediately afterwards the gave permission, on 5 March, for the laying of an adjacent section of the line across French protectorate territory, between Jibuti port and the Ethiopian frontier. The railway project, however, soon ran into numerous technical, financial and political difficulties. Building operations were so delayed that the railway line reached Dire Dawa, half way between Addis Ababa and the coast, only in 1902. The original railway company then went bankrupt. Menilek was obliged to grant a second concession, in 1906, to his personal physician, Dr Vitalien, who had the support of the French Banque de l’Indo-Chine. Railway construction work, backed by French finance, was then resumed, and the line duly arrived at Aqaqi, in the vicinity of the capital, in 1915. The coming of the railway, the country’s greatest technological achievement of the period, contributed greatly to the expansion, and permanence of Addis Ababa. Of major commercial importance, the line also led to substantial expansion of the country’s import-export trade.

Railway construction was accompanied by the installation of the country’s first telephone and telegraph line, which followed the railway track from the capital to the coast. This line, which was erected by the technicians working on the railway, and led from Addis Ababa to Jibuti. The line was supplemented, after the battle of Adwa, by a second one, installed by Italian electricians. It ran from the Ethiopian capital to the frontier of Eritrea, as well as to a number of provincial capitals to the south and west of the country.

2 The Eucalyptus Tree, and Ethiopia’s First Modern Schools and Hospitals

Another important development of this period was the introduction, by whom is uncertain, of the Australian eucalyptus tree. Some of the first plants were reportedly planted by Menilek’s French adviser, Casimir Mondon-Vidailhet, in 1894 or 1895. The tree grew so fast that it was soon extensively cultivated in Addis Ababa. Some landowners planted large eucalyptus forests on their estates, and thereby solved the capital’s hitherto serious shortage of both timber and fire-wood. The eucalyptus tree was, however, a thirsty plant, which dried up rivers and wells, and, by restricting grass cover, increased soil erosion.

2.1 Of Crucial Importance for Addis Ababa

The coming of the eucalyptus was of crucial importance in the history of Addis Ababa. The town’s shortage of wood had been so acute that Menilek, in 1900, had actually envisaged abandoning the capital in favour of a settlement 55 kilometres to the west, which Taytu named Addis Alam, literally New World. The eucalyptus tree, however, grew so fast that the Emperor, in the following year, abandoned the plan to transfer the capital. The move had in any case been strongly opposed by most of the foreign legations, as well as by some of the nobles. Both had invested heavily in Addis Ababa buildings, and were reluctant to see them abandoned. Almost the only support for the Addis Alam project came, curiously, from Italy, which, wishing to please the monarch, went so far as to erect a Legation at the new site.

2.2 The Russian Red Cross Hospital

The country’s first modern hospital meanwhile was set up in 1896, immediately after the battle of Adwa, by a Russian Red Cross mission. It had been despatched, by the slow-moving authorities in St Petersburg, to treat Ethiopians wounded in the fighting, but, arriving after the conclusion of hostilities, established itself in the capital instead.

2.3 The First Roads

The first years of the twentieth century, the period of peace, that is, after the battle of Adwa, witnessed the construction of Ethiopia’s first two modern roads. One, built with the help of Italian engineers, linked Addis Ababa with Addis Alam. The other, constructed, with the assistance of French technicians working on the railway, ran from the old emporium of Harar to the new railway town of Dire Dawa. A shipping service, linking Gambla on the Baro river, a tributary of the Nile in west, with Khartoum in Sudan, came into existence shortly afterwards, in 1907.

2.4 The Bank of Abyssinia

During the next few years, the last of Menilek’s reign, a succession of modern establishments came into existence. The first, set up by imperial charter in 1905, was the Bank of Abyssinia. An affiliate of the British-owned National Bank of Egypt, it was run largely under the supervision of British staff. The Bank of Abyssinia was engaged in most ordinary aspects of banking, but also handled most of the Emperor’s commercial affairs, which were largely undifferentiated from those of the Ethiopian state. The bank was also responsible for the issue of the country’s currency, including the issue of paper money, inaugurated in 1914-15.

2.5 The Etege Hotel

The country’s first government hotel, founded by Empress Taytu, and known as the Etege, literally Queen, was established in 1907. It was such a novelty that Menilek’s chronicler, drawing a distinction with the free hospitality traditionally afforded at state banquets and those of the nobility, found it necessary to explain that guests had to pay for what they consumed.

2.6 The Copts, and the Menilek School

The first modern school, the Menilek II School, which taught in French, was founded by the Emperor in 1908. Having to contend with Church opposition to Western ideas, he entrusted it, and three others in the provinces, at Harar, Ankobar and Das, to Egyptian Coptic teachers, to whom the local priesthood, and their Egyptian Coptic head, Abuna Matewos, could raise no objection. Earlier, with Ilg’s help, Menilek had despatched three youngsters in 1894 for study in Switzerland. Others were later sent to Russia, which was selected as an Orthodox Christian country, like Ethiopia, with strong monarchical traditions.

2.7 The Menilek Hospital

The first Ethiopian Government hospital, the Menilek II, was established in 1910, with the assistance of several foreign doctors. Some of them, including several German specialists, had come to treat the Emperor, who was then mortally ill. The establishment was located on the site of the earlier Russian Red Cross hospital, which had ceased functioning a few years earlier.

2.8 The Newspaper “Aymro”

A State printing press was set up in 1911. It was used for the publication of the first real Amharic newspaper, “Aymro”, as well as various decrees and other official documents.

Several small-scale industrial enterprises were likewise established at this time, among them a hydro-electric plant and a cartridge factory, both at Aqaqi, and saw-mills in the Managasha forest, west of Addis Ababa.

2.9 “Water Worships Menilek”

Another innovation was a water pipe, which ran from the Entotto mountains, above the town, to the palace compound. The latter was situated on elevated ground, so that the water had to travel upwards for part of its journey. This at first created considerable amazement, and caused a poet to exclaim that “even water worshipped Menilek”.

2.10 Getting to Work on Time

A large clock, one metre square, was later installed above one of the palace buildings. It was visible from afar, and chimed every hour, thus, it is reported, enabling the citizens, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to go to work on time.

2.11 A New, and More Commercialised Way of Life

The early years of the century also coincided with the expansion of Addis Ababa. The city, after the coming of the railway, grew rapidly, and developed an increasingly commercialised way of life. Innovations included stone buildings, which replaced wattle and daub huts; corrugated iron roofing, which replaced thatch; and mechanical grain grinding-mills, which replaced pestles and mortars worked by hand. Among other developments mentioned may be made of the setting up of bakeries, for the manufacture of European-type loaves, which were beginning to be eaten instead of, or as well as, enjera, the traditional Ethiopian-type bread; the sale of enjara, which had formerly been made only at home for family use; butchers’ shops, for a population which had hitherto slaughtered its own livestock; hotels, restaurants, and drinking houses, for paying customers, who had previously eaten and drunk at home, or in other people’s houses as non-paying guests; and commercial, in many cases open-air, tailors’ shops, instead of traditional hand sewing. These shops often made use of Singer sewing machines, imported from the United States, and acquired by the tailors on very convenient hire-purchase terms.

3 Menilek’s Failing Health, European Attempts to Partition
Ethiopia, and the Rise of Lej Iyasu

3.1 Succession Problems

The last years of Menilek’s reign, like those of several earlier Ethiopian rulers, were bedevilled by the problem of succession. This became particularly serious after 1904, when the Emperor’s health began visually to deteriorate. The question of the royal inheritance was the more serious in that the ageing monarch by then had no recognised living son. The presumption was that the throne would pass to the monarch’s cousin, Ras Makonnen, but he predeceased his ailing master in March 1906, thus leaving the succession wide open.

3.2 The European Diplomats, and the Tripartite Convention of 1906

The impending demise of Menilek, victor of Adwa and founder of the modern Ethiopian state, gave rise to the persuasive idea, on the part of European diplomats in Addis Ababa, that his empire, which they regarded as an anachronism in the era of the Scramble for Africa, would soon disintegrate. The three neighbouring colonial powers, Britain, France and Italy, whom Menilek had played one against the other, now came together with a view to mutual cooperation. The British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, and the French and Italian ambassadors in London accordingly signed a Tripartite Convention, on 13 December 1906. It declared, in Article 1, that it was the “common interest” of the three powers to “maintain the integrity of Ethiopia”, while “arriving at an understanding as to their conduct in case of a change in the situation”, by which they meant Menilek’s demise. The three signatories jointly agreed, in Article 3, that in such an eventuality they would maintain a policy of neutrality, and refrain from military intervention, except to protect their legations and foreign nationals, and that not one of the three powers would take any military action in the country except in agreement with the other two.

3.3 Economic Partition of the Country

To ensure their respective interests they agreed, however, in Article 4, to partition the country into three spheres of influence. These were defined as a British, and Egyptian, interest in the Nile basin, and in particular in the regulation of the Nile waters; an Italian interest in the “hinterland” of the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia, and in their linkage west of Addis Ababa; and a French interest in the “hinterland” of the French Somali Protectorate, and in the territory along which the railway from Addis Ababa to Jibuti was then already partially built.

The three signatories further agreed, in Article 10, that their representatives in Addis Ababa would keep each other mutually informed, and would cooperate in protecting their respective interests. If they were, for one reason or other, unable to do so, they were to inform their respective governments.

3.4 Without Consulting the Emperor

This agreement was concluded, significantly enough, without consulting the Emperor. When he was afterwards presented with a copy he ironically thanked the representatives of the three powers for acquainting him with their governments’ desire, as the treaty put it, to “consolidate and maintain” the independence of his realm. He observed, however, that the convention was “subordinate” to his authority, and could not `in any way’ bind his decisions.

3.5 “In the Interests of Whites against Blacks”

The British representative in Addis Ababa, John Harrington, one of the drafters and keenest supporters of the convention, was insistent that he and his French and Italian colleagues should abide closely by it. He urged the Foreign Office, most forcefully, in February 1907, that all three representatives should receive “strict orders to follow a policy in the interests of whites against blacks”, and that if any of them were “not in accord about any particular point, they should not disclose their difference of opinion to King Menelik, but refer the question to their respective Governments”.

3.6 Klobukowski

Despite his displeasure with the Convention, Menilek entered into a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with France, on 10 January 1908. Signed by Antony Klobukowski, the French Minister in Addis Ababa, and generally referred to by his name, it laid down, in Article 5, that Ethiopia had the right freely to import fire-arms. This important proviso was intended to legalise the entry of weapons through Jibuti and the French Somaliland Protectorate. Menilek in return accepted a measure of French extra-territorial privilege. Article 7 specified that French subjects in Ethiopia involved in legal cases had to be tried according to French law, and, if detained, placed in the custody of the French Consul.

3.7 The Appointment of the First Ministers

Failing health, the increasing complexity of government, the danger to national independence inherent in the Tripartite Convention, and the need to take account of the question of succession, caused the Emperor to decide on the establishment of the country’s first cabinet. Established in October 1907 it consisted initially of nine trusted noblemen. They were respectively responsible for justice, war, the interior, trade and foreign affairs, finance, agriculture, “writing”, i.e. of diplomatic correspondence and the royal chronicle, public works, and the palace. Their appointment stemmed, according to his chronicler, Gabra Sellas, Menilek’s desire to “implant European customs”.

Menilek also attempted to solve the succession question more directly. By then largely incapacitated by several strokes, he took the decisive step of designating a successor in May 1909. In a remarkable proclamation he reminded his subjects of the political difficulties which had followed the deaths of his predecessors Twodros and Yohannes, and announced that his twelve-year-old grandson Lej Iyasu, the son of his daughter Shawaragga by Ras Mika’el, the Oromo and former Muslim ruler of Wallo, was his chosen heir.

Despite Iyasu’s nomination as heir power was soon usurped by the dying monarch’s formidable wife Empress Taytu, who claimed to be acting in accordance with her incapacitated husband’s wishes. She succeeded in ousting some of her principal opponents, as well as in arranging a number of politically advantageous marriages. Her influence was, however, resented by many of the Shawan nobles, who feared that she, as a woman of Gondar, was bent on destroying their own political power. They rallied against her, and with the help of Abuna Matwos, and of the mahal safari, or palace guards, banished her from the capital. The government was then entrusted to one of Menilek’s loyal chiefs, Ras Tassama Nadew. He was appointed as Lej Iyasu’s regent, but soon afterwards fell ill, and died in April 1911. Two and a half years later Menilek himself finally passed away, on 13 December 1913.

On the death of Ras Tassama the Council of Ministers proposed appointing a new regent, but Iyasu, who had begun to enjoy his freedom, refused to accept one. Brushing aside the Ministers, he impetuously declared, “My father Menilek gave me a Regent, but God took him away!” Thus asserting his independence, he took control of the government, and toured the country. Returning to Addis Ababa he tried to remove his dying grandfather from the palace, but was prevented by the latter’s wife, Taytu, and daughter, Zawditu, supported by the palace guards. When eventually Menilek died Iyasu insisted on keeping the news secret, and offended many of his subjects by forbidding public mourning. He later became increasingly disrespectful to Menilek’s old nobles, and sneered at them that they had “grown old, and fat”. Not long after this he exiled both Taytu and Zawditu from the capital. The vested interests of Shawa retaliated by using his youth as a pretext for preventing him from being crowned.

4 The Fall of Lej Iyasu

4.1 The Religious Issue

Iyasu, a child of the twentieth century, and son of Ras Mika’‚l, a former Muslim, had a significantly different attitude to religion from that of previous Ethiopian monarchs. Extending the secularist attitude of his grandfather, Menilek, who had permitted the practice of smoking, hitherto banned by the Church, he tried to treat followers of the two country’s two main religions, Christianity and Islam, on a more or less equal footing. This was doubtless easier for him than for many members of the royal family, in that Wallo, his father’s homeland, was a province in which members of a single family often included members of both faiths. He was at the same time strongly opposed, like Emperor Yohannes before him, to foreign missionaries.

4.2 Dynastic Marriages

Determined to weld the country together by dynastic marriages he followed the custom of earlier rulers by marrying into several of the country’s most important families, both Christian and Muslim. His wives, acquired within a span of only a few years, thus included Wayzero Aster, daughter of Ras Mangasha Seyoum of Tegray, Wayzero Sabla Wangel, daughter of Ras Haylu Takla Haymanot of Gojjam, and Wayzero Dasshe, later called Sehin, daughter of Dajazmach Kumsa of Wallaga. He was also married to daughters of King Abba Jifar of Jemma, Dajazmach Jote of Wallaga-Lakempti, Nagadras Abbokar of Chenno in Yefat, an Adal chief of Muhammad Yayyu’s family, and two further Oromo chiefs, one of the Swalih family of Karra Qir‚ in Yefat, the other of the Warra Sah clan of Yajju.

Iyasu actively attempted to accommodate both faiths. As a Christian, he attended Church services, founded the church of Madhane Alam at Qachane, in Addis Ababa, and inaugurated that of St. George, also in the capital. On the other hand he also built a mosque, at Harar, and toured the Muslim provinces, where he consorted with Muslim chiefs, and too often, critics complained, with their nubile daughters. These travels, though in the tradition of Ethiopia’s old rulers, weakened his already tenuous position by taking him away from the capital, which had by then, due to the coming of the telegraph and telephone, become the country’s real centre of political power. His visits to the Muslim periphery also displeased the country’s Christian establishment. The nobles of Shawa did not take kindly to the young man’s attitude and policies. They were particularly incensed when the prince, declaring that he could not become Emperor while his father Mika’‚l was only a Ras, promoted the latter to the title of Negus, or King, of Wallo and Tegray. This was resented in that it gave him precedence over all Menilek’s former courtiers, many of whom had previously regarded him, an Oromo and a convert from Islam, as their political and social inferior.

4.3 Reforms

Notwithstanding growing opposition from both the Shawan nobility, and from the Church, Iyasu, and his counsellors, continued Menilek’s reforming policies. They attempted to improve the system of land ownership and taxation, established a system of government auditing, abolished the traditional system by which plaintiffs and defenders were chained together, banned the traditional institution of lebeshay, or magical thief-catchers, and set up Addis Ababa’s first police force. Iyasu also tended to give his support to populations on the country’s periphery, in many cases oppressed by Amhara settlers or administrators appointed by the central state. In this way for example he reconciled the Yefat and Adal peoples, and others who had long been hostile to the Addis Ababa administration. His rule was on the other hand by no means fully benevolent. It was marred in particular by his participation in an inhuman slave hunt against the “Shanqella” people of Gimirra.

4.4 World War I, a Complicating Factor, and Anglo-French Efforts to Reward Italy at Ethiopia’s Expense?

Iyasu’s difficulties, which owed much to his youth and inexperience, were compounded by the outbreak, in August 1914, of World War I, a cataclysmic event from which it was difficult for Ethiopia to isolate herself. The country, after Italy’s tardy entry into the war in 1915, was entirely surrounded, and in a sense encircled, by territories under Allied rule. Italy’s involvement in the conflict had moreover a direct bearing on Ethiopia. The British, French and Italian Governments at that time signed the London Treaty of 26 April 1915, which laid down that “in the event of France and Great Britain increasing their colonial territory in Africa at the expense of Germany, these two Powers agree in principle that Italy may claim some equitable compensation, particularly as regards the settlement in her favour of questions relative to the frontiers of the Italian colonies of Eritrea, Somaliland and Libya and the neighbouring colonies belonging to France and Great Britain” The significance for Ethiopia of this agreement was later noted by the American author Ernest Work. “There could have been no other possible place for Italy to expand from Eritrea and Somaliland than into Ethiopia”, he wrote, “except at the expense of England and France and no one would accuse these nations of having that in mind when they agreed that Italy might expand in Africa”.

4.5 Iyasu: Anti-Allied, Pro-German and Pro-Turk

Iyasu, faced with the opening of hostilities, adopted an official policy of neutrality, but showed himself distinctly favourable to the Central Powers, Germany and Austria, and to their ally, the Ottoman Empire. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, he was unsympathetic to the Allied Powers, i.e. to the Italian, British and French, with which his grandfather, Menilek, had earlier been obliged to contend. They had partitioned his country by the Tripartite Convention of 1906 into spheres of influence, and the existence of their colonies or protectorates on the coast prevented his access to the sea. The Germans, by contrast, rejected the Convention, and spoke of their wish to maintain Ethiopia’s political integrity. Secondly, he had to allied himself to his country’s Muslim population, in the Ogaden, Jemma, and elsewhere, which for reasons of religious solidarity tended to be pro-Turkish. To manifest his sympathies he reportedly crossed in secret into British and/or Italian Somali territory, He also displayed support for the Somali nationalist leader, Muhammad Adbille Hasan, the so called “Mad Mullah”, who had for over a decade challenged British and Italian colonial rule. Iyasu also made friendly contact with the authorities in German East Africa, later Tanganyika, to whom he despatched at least one good-will mission.

4.6 Allied Intervention Threatened

All this angered the British, Italian and French, who, reverting to a nineteenth century policy of the colonial powers, prevented him from importing fire-arms. The Legations of the three powers later acted even more forcibly. They warned the Ethiopian Ministers, on 12 September 1916, that if their young master continued to support their enemies they would intervene militarily.

This threat, which recalled the British expedition against Emperor T‚wodros fifty years earlier, caused a number of the nobles finally to decide on rebellion against their still uncrowned monarch. They were helped in this by Iyasu’s reportedly pro-Muslim affinities, which eventually caused Abuna Matewos to free them from their oath of allegiance. On 27 September, which was symbolically Masqal, or the Feast of the Cross, they announced that Iyasu, who was then in the Harar area, had been deposed, for the crime of abjuring the Christian faith. Menilek’s daughter Zawditu was thereupon proclaimed Empress. She was, it is said, the first Ethiopian woman since the Queen of Sheba to rule in her own right. Ras Makonnen’s son Dajazmach Tafari, who had been one of the principal nobles working against Iyasu, was at the same time promoted to the rank of Ras, and designated Heir to the Throne. The latter was a previously unknown title, and gave him considerable powers. These were shortly afterwards formalised, and strengthened, when he assumed the rank of Regent.

4.7 A Coup d’Etat

Iyasu, on hearing news of the coup d’etat, tried to hasten back to the capital, but was defeated at Miesso, half way from Dire Dawa. His father, Negus Mika’‚l, meanwhile marched south in an attempt to re-establish his son’s rule. Two major engagements ensued. The first was at Toro Mask, near Ankobar, where the Wallo army was victorious. The second, and more decisive, at Sagale, north of Addis Ababa, on 27 October 1916, when the Shawan army, deployed by Ras Tafari, captured Mika’‚l, and thus brought the struggle to and end. Iyasu had little option but to flee into the Afar lowlands, where, refusing, it is said, to seek asylum abroad, he roamed among a friendly population for the next half decade. He was eventually captured, in 1921, after which he remained in close confinement at Garamulata, in the east of the country, until his death in the autumn of 1936.

5 Empress Zawditu, and the Tafari Makonnen Regency

5.1 Zawditu, and Tafari

The political settlement of 1916, which divided power between the Empress Zawditu, and the Regent and Heir to the Throne, Tafari, inaugurated a difficult, and unprecedented, period of dual government. Power become further polarised in 1918, when Menilek’s old ministers were dismissed as a result of popular agitation, in which the palace guards, played a major role.

The two rulers had two separate palaces, groups of followers, and policies. Zawditu, who had received only a modicum of Ethiopian church education, and was innocent of foreign languages, represented patriotic, somewhat xenophobic, conservatism, earlier personified in Empress Taytu. Tafari, the son of the widely travelled Ras Makonnen, had by contrast been brought up in Harar, a city with outside contacts, and had received something of a modern education. He had studied with French missionaries, most notably Father Andr‚ Jarosseau, known in Ethiopia as Abba Endreyas, and had attended the country’s first modern educational establishment, the Menilek School. He was, doubtless for these reasons, more aware than Zawditu of the need for modernisation, and of the necessity of taking the outside world seriously into account. He thus emerged as a protagonist of reform in the tradition of T‚wodros and Menilek, and gathered around him a small, but increasing, number of foreign-educated young men, not a few of whom he had himself dispatched for study abroad. One other difference between the two leaders deserves mention: Zawditu owed her position almost entirely to her royal birth; Tafari, though the grandson of King Sahla Sellase, and hence, as he increasingly insisted, of imperial descent, had risen largely through his own efforts and ability. He had moreover administrative experience, having been governor of Harar and Sidamo successively.

5.2 The More Active Political Figure

Though Zawditu, as empress, held sovereign power, Tafari was doubtless the abler leader. Younger than the Empress by almost twenty years, he soon emerged as the more active political figure. He was in particular in charge of foreign affairs, and matters connected with foreigners. The latter, on visiting Ethiopia, were graciously received by him, and tended to give him their admiration and support. They welcomed him as the first ruler of his country (since at least Aksumite times) to be familiar with a European language – French, and were pleased that he saw a role for Europeans in the development of his country. One of his first steps, on gaining power in 1916, was to recruit a number of White Russian officers to train his troops. In the following year he established an Imperial Bodyguard, a modern force composed largely of Ethiopians who had served with the British in Kenya or the Italians in Libya.

5.3 The Country’s International Image

Anxious to improve his country’s international image, which was then being severely criticised on account of its age-old institution of slavery, and faced the possibility of foreign intervention on that account, he promulgated a symbolic decree, in 1918, abolishing the practice. With a view to improving the system of government he also extended the ministerial system, earlier established by Menilek, by setting up a Ministry of Commerce and a Public Works Department, both in 1922. A certain amount of road-building also took place at this time, in Addis Ababa, as well as in the provinces, where Gor‚ and other western towns were in particular linked with the inland port of Gamb‚la. Internal customs posts, a vexatious institution and a major hindrance to trade since time immemorial, were likewise gradually removed.

5.4 Entry into the League of Nations

Tafari’s most spectacular achievement came in the field of foreign affairs. On 28 September 1923 he succeeded in gaining Ethiopia’s entry into the League of Nations, which had been founded only four years earlier, in 1919. Admission to the international body was a notable step in overcoming the country’s age-old isolation, and was potentially important in withstanding pressures from Italy and other neighbouring colonial powers. An Ethiopian diplomatic corps came into existence at about this time, and was later issued with decorative, official uniforms. In 1924, Tafari began to grapple, more effectively than before, with the question of slavery. He had a first practical decree enacted for the gradual eradication of slavery, and established a bureau and a school, for freed slaves. This edict, like the earlier proclamation, served to counter foreign criticism, and thus to rehabilitate the country’s international image.

5.5 A European Tour

Later that year Tafari embarked, with Ras Haylu Takla Haymanot of Gojjam and several other nobles, on a major tour of Europe. This took them, via Egypt and Palestine, to nine European countries, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Italy, England, Switzerland and Greece. While in Paris, Rome and London, the Regent attempted to acquire Ethiopian access to the sea, or at least a free port on the coast of one or other of the neighbouring colonial territories. His requests were, however, turned down, in one way or another, by the three powers concerned. Despite this failure, his visit was important. Sometimes compared to that of Peter the Great to Western Europe two centuries earlier, it encouraged Ethiopian society to become aware of the rest of the world, as well as to adopt foreign inventions. Tafari and Haylu both acquired a number of motor cars, besides sundry European gadgets. Tafari also returned with Emperor T‚wodros’s crown, which he received on Zawditu’s behalf from the British who had looted it from Maqdala fifty-six years earlier.

5.6 Modernisation in the 1920s

Tafari also emerged as a moderniser in other fields. In 1923 he founded a modern printing press, the Berhanenna Salam, i.e. Light and Peace. It printed an Amharic newspaper with the same title, which carried articles popularising the cause of reform, which some Ethiopian intellectuals of the time believed should follow the Japanese model. A steady flow of literary, religious, and educational books in Amharic were also published. Zawditu meanwhile established a scriptorium, with a staff of about 250 men, for the copying of Ge’ez religious texts. Since the institution of the lebeshay, earlier banned by Lej Iyasu, had not yet been eradicated, further action against it was also taken.

Other institutions established at this time included a modern hospital, the B‚t Sayda, founded in 1924, and a new secondary school, the Tafari Makonnen, in 1925. On the opening of that establishment, which taught in English as well as in French. Tafari urged his fellow nobles to follow his example by founding schools. Later, in 1928, he decreed symbolic fines for parents who left their children illiterate. The number of students abroad for study meanwhile was substantially increased. Several hundred were sent to France, Egypt, Lebanon, Great Britain, and the United States.

5.7 Difficult Relations with Britain and Italy; French Support

Ethiopia’s international position meanwhile was once more endangered by the British and Italian Governments. Reverting to a policy dating back to the late nineteenth century, they persuaded the League of Nations to ban the export of fire-arms by member states to much of Africa, including Ethiopia. The prohibition on Ethiopian arms imports was rigidly enforced by the two colonial powers, which between them controlled most of the territory on Ethiopia’s borders. Tafari, however, opposed this arms restriction. He contended that it was incompatible with his country’s League membership. He had, very conveniently, the support of the French Government, which wished to keep the port of Djibuti open to the arms trade. This was partly because this commerce was lucrative, and partly because it was considered a means of winning Ethiopia’s friendship. French opposition to the arms ban proved decisive, and the League finally agreed, in 1925, to exclude Ethiopia from the restriction zone.

5.8 Further Anglo-Italian Intrigues Foiled

A further diplomatic crisis between Ethiopia and the British and Italian Governments erupted shortly afterwards, in 1926. The two colonial powers, cooperating together in the spirit of the Tripartite Convention of 1906, agreed to put joint pressure on the Ethiopian Government, to grant them concessions in two areas of the country in which each was interested. The British thus supported Italy’s demand to construct a railway to link the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia, west of Addis Ababa, while the Italians reciprocated by backing Britain’s ambition to build a dam on Lake Tana. Tafari, who, on account of his country’s membership of the League, was in a stronger diplomatic position than Menilek twenty years earlier, immediately protested to the international organisation. He declared, once again with the support of France, that the Anglo-Italian agreement, entered into without consulting Ethiopia, a fellow member of the League, was incompatible with the principles of that body. He pithily inquired whether members of the League desired “means of coercion” to be applied against Ethiopia “which they would undoubtedly dislike if applied against themselves”. The British and Italians, embarrassed by this strongly worded reaction, protested their innocence of trying to exert undue pressure on Ethiopia, and were obliged, at least ostensibly, to abandon their policy.

5.9 The Duke of Abruzzi’s Visit, and the Ethio-Italian Treaty of 1928

In the following year, during a visit to Addis Ababa of the King of Italy’s cousin, the Duke of Abruzzi, the Italian Government reopened the question of Ethiopia’s request for access to the sea. They proposed making Assab a free port, and building a motor road to link it with Das‚, which, it was assumed, would be connected by a road to Addis Ababa. A twenty-year Treaty of Friendship and Arbitration between the two countries was duly signed, on 2 August 1928. Evidence of Italian intrigue and fear of future Italian intervention, however, prevented the Ethiopian Government from permitting the building of the road, and the free port of Assab was never established.

(Originally published in the Addis Tribune)

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