$Unique_ID{COW01274} $Pretitle{228} $Title{Ethiopia Chapter 1B. The Making of Modern Ethiopia} $Subtitle{} $Author{Richard P. Stevens} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{menelik ras ii ethiopia emperor italian rights land oromo tigray} $Date{1980} $Log{Figure 4.*0127402.scf } Country: Ethiopia Book: Ethiopia, A Country Study Author: Richard P. Stevens Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1980 Chapter 1B. The Making of Modern Ethiopia At the beginning of the nineteenth century what has come to be called the Gonderine state was constituted by the northern and central highlands and the lower areas immediately adjacent to them (see fig. 3). As historian Sven Rubenson has put it, "kings were enthroned and dethroned at the whims of governors who fought among themselves for the position of ras of the kingdom or ras bitwoded, literally, favorite duke ... The Ethiopian monarchy existed only in name." The peoples who made up the state were the Amhara, the Tigray, and the Cushitic-speaking peoples, such as the Oromo and those groups speaking Agew languages, many of whom were Christian by this time. In some cases their conversion had been accompanied by their assimilation to Amhara (or less often, Tigray) language and culture; in others they had become Christians but retained their language. Next to the Amhara the most important ethnic group in the state was the Oromo, but Oromo were not a single bloc, politically or culturally. Some were Christians, spoke Amharic, and were much intermarried with the Amhara. Other Christian Oromo retained their language, although their modes of life and social structure had changed radically from that of their pastoral cousins. At the eastern edge of the highlands, many had been converted to Islam. The Oromo, whether Christian and Amhara in culture or not, played important political roles in the era of the princes-often as the allies of Amhara aspirants for power but sometimes as rases and kingmakers. Meanwhile to the south of the Gonderine state, sections of the Oromo, cultivators and suppliers of goods exportable to the Red Sea coast and beyond, had developed kingdoms of substantial scope, stimulated in part by the example of the Amhara to the north and that of the Sidamo-speaking kingdoms to the south. The seventeenth through nineteenth centuries had been a period not only of migration but of mixture, and those who experienced it borrowed usable techniques and institutions from each other. In the south too, Islam had made substantial inroads. Many Oromo chieftains found it could be a useful adjunct to the process of centralization. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, external forces were having a renewed impact on the highlands and elsewhere in Ethiopia. Trade with the Red Sea states had been revived; Egypt was making incursions along the eastern border of the Gonderine state and sought at various times to control the Red Sea ports. Europeans, chiefly British and French, were showing interest in the Horn of Africa and beyond. The competition for trade, differences over the response to Egypt's activities, and the availability of arms contributed to the conflict-ridden politics of the time. As the mid-nineteenth century approached, one of the actors in the Gonderine chaos was Lij Kassa Haylu, son of a chief from the western border province of Qwara. From about 1840, Kassa alternated between life as a highwayman and as a soldier of fortune for various nobles including Ras Ali, a Christian of Oromo origin, who then controlled the emperor in Gonder. Kassa became important and effective enough as an army commander to be offered a daughter of Ras Ali in marriage and the governorship of a minor province. Aspiring to something more, he eventually rebelled against Ali, won a series of important battles, and could have become successor to the ras. He chose instead to become negusa nagast (king of kings) and defeated the governor of Tigray, who opposed the move. In February 1855 he was crowned by the head of the church, choosing the throne name Tewodros. From Tewodros to Menelik II Tewodros' background was in the era of the princes, but his ambitions differed from that of the regional nobility. He sought to reestablish a cohesive Ethiopian state and to reform its administration and its church. He did not initially claim descent in the Solomonic line, but he did seek to restore Habesha hegemony, and he saw himself as "the Elect of God." Later in his reign (1855-68), reacting to his belief that foreigners considered him an upstart, he included "son of David and Solomon" in his title. Tewodros' first task was to bring Shewa into the empire; in the course of doing so he took prisoner the king's heir, Menelik. In the era of princes Shewa was, even more than most regions, an independent entity; its ruler styled himself negus (king). Despite his success against Shewa, Tewodros was faced constantly with rebellions in the other provinces. The era of princes was not easily terminated. In the first six years of his reign, Tewodros managed to put down the rebellions, and the empire was relatively peaceful from about 1861 to 1863; but the energies, wealth, and manpower necessary to deal with regional opposition limited the scope of his other activities. By 1865 other rebels had emerged, including Menelik, who had escaped from prison and returned to Shewa where he became king. In addition to his conflicts with rebels and rivals, Tewodros ran afoul of the European powers. Seeking aid from the British government, he was disappointed in the behavior of those British whom he had counted on to further his request and took them hostage. Finally, in 1868 confronted by a British expeditionary force that defeated his army, which was depleted after a series of defeats by internal enemies, Tewodros committed suicide. Tewodros did not realize his aspirations although he took some important initial steps. He sought to establish the principle that governors and judges be his salaried appointees. He also established a professional standing army instead of calling on local lords to provide soldiers for his expeditions. He insisted upon drill and discipline, never before characteristic of Ethiopian soldiers. He also intended to reform the church, believing the clergy ignorant and immoral, but he was confronted by strong opposition when he tried to impose a tax on church lands to help finance his government's military and other activities. His confiscation of these lands gained him enemies in the church and little support elsewhere. In general, as Rubenson has said, Tewodros had great ambitions, considerable talent as a military campaigner, and little or none as a politician. His solutions to problems tended to be military ones. He had no talent for compromise or conciliation, whether with his own people or foreigners. His attempt to realize his many intentions simultaneously and by fiat led to his downfall, but not before his ambitions for Ethiopia had changed the perspectives of others who survived him. The kingdom at Tewodros' death was disunited, but the contenders to succeed him were not prepared to return to the Gonderine system. One of them, crowned as Tekla Giyorgis, took over the central part of the highlands. Another, the governor of Tigray, Dejazmatch Kassa Mercha, was offered the title of ras in exchange for recognition of Tekla Giyorgis, but he refused. The third, Menelik II of Shewa, came to terms with Tekla Giyorgis in return for which the latter made no attempt to curtail Shewa's independence. Tekla Giyorgis did, however, seek to bring Kassa Mercha under his rule, but was defeated by a small Tigray army well equipped with more modern weapons than the Gonderine forces. In 1872 Kassa Mercha was crowned king of kings in a ceremony at the ancient capital of Aksum, taking the throne name of Yohannes IV. Yohannes was unable to exercise control over the nearly independent Shewans until six years later. From the beginning of his reign he was confronted with the growing power of Menelik, who had proclaimed himself king of Shewa and had traced his lineage back to Lebna-Dengel of the Solomonic line. While Yohannes was struggling against opposing factions in the north, Menelik consolidated himself in Shewa and spread his rule among the Oromo to the south and west. He garrisoned Shewan forces among the Oromo and received military and financial support from them. Strengthened by the acquisition of European firearms, Menelik was able to reach an agreement with Yohannes in 1882 by which he acquired a free hand in the southern part of the empire. Yohannes' concordat with the Shewan king was strengthened by the provision for his son's marriage to Zauditu, daughter of Menelik. This agreement, although only a truce in the long-standing conflict between Tigray and Shewa, was important to Yohannes who was preoccupied with external enemies and pressures. In many of Yohannes' external struggles, Menelik negotiated with the emperor's enemies and continued to consolidate Shewan authority in order to strengthen his position. Yohannes first had to meet attacks from Egypt in 1875 on three fronts. An Egyptian force moved in from Tadjoura on the Gulf of Tadjoura opposite Djibouti but was annihilated by Afar tribesmen. Other Egyptian forces set out from Zeila to the south and occupied Harer, where they remained for ten years, long after the Egyptian cause had been lost. A more ambitious attack launched from Mitsiwa was defeated by Tigray arms; the Egyptian forces were almost completely destroyed. A fourth Egyptian army was decisively defeated in 1876 southwest of Mitsiwa near Gura. Italy was the next source of danger. The Italian government took over Aseb in Eritrea from an Italian shipping company that had purchased it from a local ruler some years before. Italy's main interest was not the port but the exploitation of the back country. In the process of exploitation, it entered into a relationship with Menelik. The main Italian drive was begun in 1885 and was based in Mitsiwa, which Italy had occupied. From this port the Italians began the penetration of the Eritrean hinterland, with British encouragement. In 1887 the Italians suffered a drastic defeat at Dogali by the governor of Eritrea and sent a stronger force to the area. Yohannes was unable to give his attention to the Italian threat because of difficulties to the west in Gonder and Gojam. In 1887 followers of the Sudanese Muslim movement known as Mahdists spilled over from Sudan into Ethiopia and laid waste parts of the country. The emperor met these forces in a battle at Metema on the border. When Yohannes was killed, the Ethiopian forces disintegrated. Just before his death he designated his illegitimate son, Ras Mangasha of Tigray, as his successor but without effect as Menelik successfully claimed the throne. Menelik now was the dominant personality in Ethiopia, recognized by all but Yohannes' son and Ras Allula, governor of Eritrea. During a temporary period of confusion, the Italians were able to advance further into the hinterland from Mitsiwa and establish a foothold in Eritrea from which Menelik was unable to dislodge them. From this time until after World War II, Ethiopia lost its maritime frontier and was forced to accept the presence of an ambitious European power on its borders. Menelik II By 1900 Menelik II (reigned 1888-1913) had succeeded in establishing a degree of control over much of present-day Ethiopia and had, in part at least, gained the recognition of the European colonial powers for the boundaries of his empire. Although in many respects a traditionalist, he introduced some changes of considerable significance. His decision in 1893 to establish a permanent capital at Addis Ababa (New Flower) in time gave rise to a genuine urban center, which in turn would set the stage for new forces of change. The location of the capital also indicated a new, southern orientation of the empire, a move that further irritated Menelik's Tigray opponents and perhaps even the Amhara of the more northerly provinces who resented Shewan hegemony. Menelik II also authorized a French company to commence construction of a railroad that would eventually link Addis Ababa with Djibouti. Menelik II embarked on a program of military conquest that would more than double the country in size (see fig. 4). Enjoying superior firepower, his forces overran the Kembata and Welamo regions north of Lake Abaya and Borena in the far south; also subdued were the Kefa and other Oromo and Omotic-speaking peoples (see Ethnic Groups, Ethnicity, and Language, ch. 2). Expanding south, Menelik II introduced a system of rights in land much modified from that prevailing in the Amhara-Tigray highlands. These changes were to have significant implication for the ordinary cultivator in the south and were ultimately to generate quite different responses there to the land reform programs following the revolution of 1974 (see Revolutionary Change, this ch.). In the central and northern highlands, despite regional variations, most peasants had substantial heritable rights (broadly, rist rights-see Glossary) in land. In addition to holding rights of this kind, the nobility held or were assigned certain rights to tribute from the land (gult rights), which entitled them to a portion of the produce of the land in which others held rist rights and to certain services from the rist holders. The Ethiopian church held both land of its own and gult rights in land to which peasants held rist rights. Although a peasant's obligations in goods and services to his lord could be onerous, he had a substantial interest in his land and could acquire rist rights in other land and, if he distinguished himself in war, be assigned gult rights over others. In the south all land theoretically belonged to the emperor. He in turn allocated land rights to those he appointed to office and to his soldiers. The rights allocated by the king were more extensive than the gult rights prevailing in the north and left most of the indigenous peoples with far fewer rights than the Amhara and Tigray peasants, turning them into tenants. Moreover most of those allocated by Menelik were Amhara and to a lesser extent Shewa Oromo, who were his allies. In any case, unlike the Amhara and Tigray nobility to the north who shared the language and culture of the peasants over whose land they held gult rights, the new landholders were aliens and largely remained so. Some of the rulers and other notables of the conquered peoples were also given land and were assigned certain administrative roles, thus acquiring a status substantially different from those they had formerly held (see Social System in Flux, ch. 2; Agriculture, ch. 3). [See Figure 4.: Expansion of Ethiopia under Menelik II, ca. 1880-1900] At the same time that Menelik II was extending his empire, European colonial powers were showing an interest in the territories surrounding Ethiopia. Menelik II considered the Italians a formidable challenge and negotiated the Treaty of Ucciale with them in 1889. The most important provision of the treaty turned over the handling of Ethiopia's foreign relations to Italy, but interpretations of the unsigned Italian and Amharic versions of its text were in conflict. Whereas Italy insisted that it had acquired a protectorate over Ethiopia through the treaty, Menelik II argued that utilization of Italian offices for foreign affairs was a matter of choice. In 1895 the emperor renounced the treaty and repaid in full a loan Italy had granted as a condition of the treaty. Relations with Italy were further strained as the result of the Italian annexation of Eritrea in 1890 and growing penetration of the Somali territories. Italian ambitions were undoubtedly encouraged by British actions in 1891 when, hoping to stabilize the region in the face of the Mahdist threat in Sudan, Britain agreed with the Italian government that Ethiopia should fall within the Italian sphere of influence. France, on the other hand, encouraged Menelik II to oppose the Italian threat by delineating clearly the projected boundaries of his empire. Anxious to advance French economic interests through the construction of a railroad from Addis Ababa to its own territory of Djibouti, France accordingly reduced the size of its territorial claims in Djibouti's hinterland and recognized Ethiopian sovereignty there. Italian-Ethiopian relations reached a low point in 1895 when Ras Mangasha of Tigray, hitherto reluctant to recognize the Shewan emperor's claims, was threatened by the Italians and asked for the support of Menelik II. In 1895 Italian forces invaded Tigray but were completely routed as they approached its capital, Adwa. This victory brought Ethiopia new prestige as well as general recognition of its sovereign status from the European powers. Besides confirming the annulment of the Treaty of Ucciale, the peace agreement ending the conflict also entailed Italian recognition of Ethiopian independence. For some years after the Italo-Ethiopian war, the most important question facing Menelik's government was that of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad. When the French government attempted to take over the concession that the emperor had granted to a private French company, Menelik II, fearing larger French designs, revoked the agreement. Britain and Italy subsequently urged that the line be constructed and maintained under international auspices. Eventually, however, the Tripartite Treaty gave British and Italian approval to the French in 1906 for construction of the railroad. The project was completed in 1918. In addition to attempts on the part of Britain, France, and Italy to gain influence within the empire, Russia, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire also troubled Menelik II. But showing a great capacity to play one power off against another, the emperor was able to avoid any substantial concessions. Moreover, while pursuing his own territorial designs Menelik II joined with France in 1898 to penetrate Sudan at Fashoda and then cooperated with British forces in British Somaliland between 1900 and 1904 to put down a rebellion in the Ogaden by the Somali leader Mohamed Abdulla Hassan. By 1908 the colonial powers had recognized Ethiopia's borders except for those with Italian Somaliland. After Menelik II had a disabling stroke in May 1906, his personal control weakened. Apparently responding to that weakness and seeking to avoid an outbreak of conflict in the area, Britain, France, and Italy signed the Tripartite Treaty, which declared that the common purpose of the three powers was to maintain the political status quo and to respect each other's interests. Britain's interest, it was recognized, lay around Lake Tana and the headwaters of the Blue Nile; Italy's chief concern was in linking Eritrea with Italian Somaliland; France's interest was the territory to be traversed by the railroad from Addis Ababa to Djibouti. Apparently sensing that his strength was ebbing, Menelik II established a Council of Ministers in late 1907 to assist in the management of state affairs. The foremost aspirants to the throne, Ras Makonnen and Ras Mangasha, had died in 1906. In June 1908 the emperor designated his thirteen-year-old nephew, Lij Iyasu, son of Ras Mikael of Welo, as his successor. After suffering another stroke in late 1908, the emperor appointed Ras Tasamma as regent. These developments ushered in a decade of political chaos. The great nobles, some with foreign financial support, engaged in intrigues anticipating a time of troubles as well as of opportunity upon Menelik's death. The empress Taitu, who had borne no children, was heavily involved in court politics on behalf of her kin and friends, most of whom lived in the northern provinces and included persons who either had claims of their own to the throne or were resentful of Shewan hegemony. By 1910, however, her efforts had been thwarted by the Shewan nobles; thereafter the empress withdrew from political activity. Interregnum The last two years of Menelik's reign, after the death of Ras Tasamma, found real power in the hands of Ras (later Negus) Mikael, an Oromo and a former Muslim, who had been constrained to convert to Christianity. Mikael could muster an army of 80,000 in his predominantly Muslim province and commanded the allegiance of Oromo outside it. In December 1913 Menelik II died, but fear of civil war induced the court to keep his death secret for some time. Although recognized as emperor, Lij Iyasu was not formally crowned. The old nobility quickly attempted to reassert its power, which Menelik II had undercut, and united against him. At the outbreak of World War I Lij Iyasu, encouraged by his father and by German and Turkish diplomats, adopted Islam. Seeking to revive Muslim-Oromo predominance Lij Iyasu placed the eastern half of Ethiopia under his father's control, officially placed the country in religious dependence upon the sultan-caliph, and established cordial relations with the Somali rebel leader, Mohamed Abdulla Hassan. The Shewan nobility immediately secured from the head of the Ethiopian church a proclamation excommunicating Lij Iyasu and deposing him as emperor. Menelik's daughter, Zauditu, was declared empress. Ras Tafari, the son of Ras Makonnen of Harer who was a descendant of a Shewan negus and a supporter of the nobles, was declared regent and heir to the throne. By virtue of his power and prestige deriving from his achievements as one of Menelik's generals, Fitwarari Habte Giorgis, the minister of war and a traditionalist, continued to play a major role in governmental affairs until his death in 1926. Although Lij Iyasu was captured in a brief military campaign in 1921 and imprisoned until 1932, his father, Negus Mikael, continued for some time to pose a serious challenge to the government in Addis Ababa. The death of Habte Giorgis in 1926 left Ras Tafari pitted against the empress Zauditu. In 1928 Tafari was crowned negus, and in 1930 the empress died under mysterious circumstances. Thus, seventeen years after the death of Menelik II, the struggle for succession was decided in Ras Tafari's favor. Even before his victory against Zauditu and his crowning as negus, Ras Tafari revealed his modernist inclinations. Whether out of fear of being overwhelmed by the European powers or out of conviction that western influence was necessary for development, Ras Tafari acted to promote a degree of modernization in Ethiopia. As early as 1920 he ordered administrative regulations and code books from various European countries to provide models for his newly created bureaucracy. Ministers were also appointed to advise the regent and were given official accommodation in the capital. In order to ensure the growth of a class of educated young men from whom he could derive support in the years ahead, Ras Tafari extended government schooling. He enlarged the school Menelik had established for the sons of nobles and founded the Tafari Makonnen School in 1925. A variety of steps were taken to improve health and social services. Ras Tafari also acted to extend his power base and to secure allies abroad. In 1919 after a move to achieve membership in the League of Nations was blocked because of the existence of slavery in Ethiopia, he (and Empress Zauditu) complied with the norms of the international community by imposing the death penalty for the buying and selling of slaves. In the same year Ethiopia was unanimously voted League membership. Continuing to seek international approval of the country's internal conditions, the government enacted laws in 1924 that provided for the emancipation of slaves and their offspring. Membership in the League of Nations quickly proved to be of value. In 1925 Britain and Italy came to an agreement in an exchange of notes that set forth their separate spheres of interest within Ethiopia. Ras Tafari immediately dispatched protests to the two governments and referred the matter to the League. Full use of the international body's machinery was not required as both powers backed away from the implications of their settlement and stipulated that they had not intended to limit Ethiopia's sovereignty. This victory for Ethiopian diplomacy had the effect, however, of leading Ras Tafari to conclude mistakenly that the League would be effective in other situations in which his country's integrity would be threatened. A twenty-year treaty of friendship was signed with Italy in 1928 providing for an Ethiopian free-trade zone at Aseb in Eritrea and the construction by the two governments, each in its own territory, of a road running from the port to Danse. A joint company was to control the traffic on the road. Contact with the outside world was further expanded when a Belgian military mission was engaged in 1929 to begin the training of royal bodyguards. In 1930 negotiations were begun for the establishment of a state bank. In the same year Tafari signed the Arms Traffic Act with Britain, France, and Italy, by which unauthorized persons were denied the right to import arms. Under the act the government was acknowledged as having the right to procure arms against external aggression and for the maintenance of internal order. Haile Selassie: The Prewar Period Although Empress Zauditu died in April 1930, it was not until November that Negus Tafari became Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, and King of Kings of Ethiopia. As emperor, Haile Selassie continued to push reforms aimed at modernizing the country and breaking the authority of the nobility. Henceforth the great rases were forced either to render the emperor obedience or to engage in treasonable opposition to him. In July 1931 the emperor granted a constitution that formally asserted his own status. Article Six stated: "In the Ethiopian Empire supreme power rests in the hands of the Emperor." Imperial succession was reserved to the line of Haile Selassie, and it was declared that "the person of the Emperor is sacred, his dignity inviolable and his power indisputable." All power over central and local government, the legislature, the judiciary, and the military remained with the emperor. The constitution was essentially an effort to replace the traditional provincial rulers with appointees loyal to the emperor. The strengthening of imperial powers was demonstrated in 1932 when a revolt led by Ras Hailu Balaw of Gojam in support of Lij Iyasu, who had escaped, was quickly suppressed and a new nontraditional governor put in his place. The only traditional leader capable of overtly challenging central rule was the ras of Tigray. By 1934 reliable provincial rulers were established throughout the traditional Amhara territories of Shewa, Gojam, and Gonder, as well as in Kefa and Sidamo-well outside the core Amhara area. Other peoples, however, remained almost outside the control of the imperial government. Although Haile Selassie placed administrators of his own choosing wherever he could and thus sought to limit the power of the rases and other nobles with regional power bases, he did not directly attack the systems of land tenure-north and south-that were linked to the traditional political order. Abolition of the pattern of gult rights in the Amhara-Tigray highlands and the system of land allocation in the south would have amounted to a social and economic revolution that Haile Selassie was not prepared to undertake. Foreign advisors were increasingly employed not only to train personnel but also to assist in administration. Under Swedish direction a military academy was opened at Holeta, and a predominantly Shewan officer corps was trained to defend the empire and the emperor. The Imperial Bodyguard, which was trained by Belgians, was also established. Nonmilitary measures were taken to promote loyalty to the emperor and the country. New elementary and secondary schools were established in Addis Ababa, and some 150 students were sent abroad. The Bank of Ethiopia, founded in 1931, commenced issuing Ethiopian currency. A criminal code was enacted, printing presses were imported to provide nationally oriented newspapers, electricity and telephone services were expanded, and health services received greater support.