A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991. Bahru Zewde

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СКАЧАТЬ withdrawal of what he considered as his legitimate rights as governor. From his refuge in Bogos, encouraged and supported by his patrons, the Egyptians, he engaged in constant raids into Hamasen. Finally, in 1879, as Egyptian enthusiasm for his activities waned, Walda-Mikael made his peace with Alula and Yohannes, only to be imprisoned soon after.

      Yohannes’s policy of unification had also a religious dimension. In many ways, his religious policy lacked the liberalism and spirit of tolerance that he had shown in the political field. Here again, 1878 was the crucial year. The Leche Agreement in March, marking the apogee of the emperor’s power, was immediately followed by the Council of Boru Meda, which brought to an end the doctrinal controversies that had rent the Orthodox Church since the seventeenth century. At a stroke, therefore, the ideological wings of the Zamana Masafent may be said to have been clipped. In a meeting presided over by the emperor himself, the Tawahedo doctrine was declared as the only doctrine, and adherents of other sects were told to conform. Those who still persisted in their old doctrines were persecuted; one man had his tongue cut out.

      Apart from such methods of enforcing orthodoxy, the Council of Boru Meda was generally regarded as a positive measure restoring the unity of the church. The emperor’s prestige accordingly grew. It grew even further when, for the first time in Ethiopian history, he succeeded in bringing four bishops from Egypt. The harsher aspects of Boru Meda in any case soon paled into insignificance in comparison with the intolerance, verging on fanaticism, that Yohannes showed towards Islam: it emerged that he was aiming not only at unity of doctrine, but also at unity of faith. There was no room for Islam in his ideological world. The thrust of his repression was directed against Wallo, the same province which had earlier been the main target of Tewodros’s fury.

      The Muslims of Wallo were told to renounce their faith and embrace Christianity or face confiscation of their land and property. The reactions were varied. The political leaders generally acquiesced. Thus, two prominent converts were Muhammad Ali, baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as Mikael, and Abba Wataw, who became Hayla-Maryam. Others conformed outwardly, praying to the Christian God in the daytime and to the Muslim Allah at night – thereby reinforcing the unique juxtaposition of Islam and Christianity that we find to this day in Wallo. Still others preferred exile, supporting or spreading Islam in such faraway places as Gurageland and Arsi, respectively south-west and south-east of central Shawa. But a large number of the inhabitants resisted, led by such sheikhs as Talha of Argobba. The repressive rule of Yohannes’s son Araya-Sellase, to whom his father had entrusted the governorship of Wallo after 1882, helped to fan the flames of rebellion. The rebellion was finally suppressed by the intervention of both Yohannes and Menilek, and after a campaign characterized by devastation and massacre. Ras Mikael, who had made his political calculations and joined the campaign on the side of the emperor, emerged as the undisputed ruler of the whole of Wallo.

3. Intensification of the external challenge

      After Maqdala, the British seemed to have washed their hands of Ethiopia. Their policy of disengagement was almost scrupulously observed. Overtures from their former ally, Kasa Mercha, for closer co-operation left them unimpressed. His request for military advisers was turned down. For the procurement of arms from England, he could manage to obtain the services of only a private firm, Messrs Henry S. King & Co. An Ethiopian mission sent with the objective of recruiting instructors in skilled crafts was left stranded in Alexandria, on orders from London. Even Kasa’s seizure of the throne as Emperor Yohannes IV, after his victory over Emperor Takla-Giyorgis, Tewodros’s immediate successor, could not move the British. They deigned to respond to Kasa’s initial letter and gifts only two years after they had received his – with accompanying instructions to the British consul in Aden to inform Kasa that they were not interested in any future exchange of presents.

      What made the Napier expedition something more than an episode was its indirect bearing on the internal power struggle in Ethiopia, and on the evolution of Ethiopia’s foreign relations. In recognition of his services, the departing British had rewarded Kasa with 6 cannon, 850 muskets and rifles and a considerable supply of ammunition. In addition, although the British had refused any official secondment of military advisers, a member of the expedition, a certain J.C. Kirkham, had volunteered to help train Kasa’s army along modern lines. It was the combination of British arms and Kirkham’s rudimentary training which is generally believed to have been decisive for Kasa’s victory over Emperor Takla-Giyorgis at the Battle of Assam in 1871.

      Externally, the ease with which the British penetrated to the heart of Ethiopia and accomplished their mission helped to create a false idea as to Ethiopia’s capability to withstand foreign aggression. Forgetting or unaware of the internal factors which had facilitated the British victory, other countries came to feel that the experience of the Napier expedition could easily be repeated. At this early stage, it was Egypt which showed the tendency to underestimate Ethiopia’s strength to the greatest degree. In March 1871, the Swiss-born J.A. Werner Munzinger (then still French consul at Massawa), who in the future was to launch Egyptian expansion into Ethiopia, threatened Kasa Mercha with the fate of Tewodros unless he showed greater leniency towards the Catholic missionaries. The attempt to carry out this threat ultimately led to the Battles of Gundat and Gura, which ended with the crushing defeat of the invading Egyptian troops.

      Munzinger’s patron was Khedive Ismail. A man who, to all intents and purposes, considered himself a European, Ismail at the same time saw Egypt’s destiny in Africa. Even more ambitious than his great predecessor, the Albanian Muhammad Ali, who, side by side with his expansions up the Nile in the early nineteenth century, had entertained territorial ambitions in the direction of the Middle East, Ismail pursued a policy of vigorous penetration of the African interior, more particularly of the Nile valley. With the help of such European explorers as Samuel Baker, he extended his sway to the equatorial regions of Sudan. The whole exercise was given the character of a crusade, as Ismail justified his expansion in terms of eradication of the slave-trade. It was the same abolitionist argument, so sweet to European ears, that Ismail evoked in his expansion into Ethiopian territory.

      Ismail went about the job of realizing his dream of a north-east African empire systematically, combining military and diplomatic initiatives. He proceeded to encircle the newly crowned Emperor Yohannes territorially and to isolate him diplomatically. First to be occupied by the Egyptians was the northern territory of Bogos. The architect of this initial thrust was none other than Munzinger. The pretext was the alleged raids of a nearby Ethiopian governor into ‘Egyptian’ territory. Yohannes reacted immediately by sending a letter of protest to Ismail, and launching his first comprehensive diplomatic initiative in Europe. Kirkham, the military expert now doubling as the emperor’s roving ambassador, was sent with letters to the monarchs of Britain, Austria, Germany and Russia, and to the President of France. The requests were identical: Christian solidarity with Ethiopia, who found herself under the threat of Islamization and enslavement by Ismail. The letter to Queen Victoria, however, in whom Yohannes was to continue to place so much trust, contained additional details about Munzinger’s occupation of Bogos.

      Yohannes’s plea fell on deaf ears. Kirkham was greeted with a complete lack of interest in Russia, Germany and France. The British even took it upon themselves to vouch for Ismail’s good intentions. Baffling as their reactions must have appeared to Yohannes, the European powers did not find the theme of Christian solidarity very convincing. To them, Muslim though it was, Egypt offered more opportunities for trade and investment than Ethiopia did, for in economic terms Ethiopia was a relatively unknown quantity. Particularly after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the strategic as well as economic value of Egypt had risen considerably, and a fair amount of European finance had come to be invested in Egypt. It was therefore inconceivable that the Europeans would do anything to antagonize a country which offered them so many economic opportunities, for the sake of another which was still very much on the periphery of the international economic scene.

      For Ismail to counter Yohannes’s protests, therefore, it was enough simply to argue that, in occupying Bogos, Egypt was merely subduing a rebellious province. The Egyptians consolidated their hold СКАЧАТЬ