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Great African leaders:Menelik II
(An extract taken from the book, Black in History, by H. G.
Cass Gilroy.)
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Although Ethiopia is geographically a part of the African continent, in reality, the country is neither black, white, nor Asian.
In fact, many people don’t think of Ethiopia as really a part of Africa at all; for she is in part, Arabic, Semitic and a strong mixture of Negroes. And as bloodlines go, the Ethiopian Monarchy possessed a stronger bloodline than any other existing monarchy and has been a wonderful symbol of greatness for over two thousand years. This royal bloodline began it’s heritage with the biblical Solomon, King of Kings, and the wisest man on earth at the time, and the beguiling Goddess, The Queen of Sheba, who was reputed to be the most beautiful woman on earth. Their challenging and tempestuous relationship resulted in the fruits of their love-union, King Menelik I.
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For many hundreds of years, the rest of the world have come to regard Ethiopia as a shining and exotic jewel on the East coast of Africa. They have also come to know that of all the African countries, Ethiopia is the only one with a complete record of continuous independence. But until the turn of the nineteenth century, Ethiopia was not a united country. It was purely a collection of four tribes with similar racial backgrounds, living under the one name of Ethiopia. The Shoa, The Tigre, The Gallo and The Harar, are the four main tribes embracing the great mass of the Ethiopian people. And although there were semi-serious conflicts and rivalry among the tribes, they lived well enough together until the situation was aggravated by the Somalis to the east, the Madhists to the south, and by foreign intervention.
Internal strife and chaos were the rule with the advent of the founder of modern Ethiopia,
Menelik II. Menelik II was originally the ras (ruler) of Shoa (central Ethiopia). But after the death in 1868 of Emperor Tewodros II, Menelik, with Italian support, gained strength
steadily. He seized the throne after Emperor Johannes IV died. And when Menelik ascended to the throne, he immediately set about getting a tribal unification programme underway. Unwittingly, help came from the most unlikely of sources. The British, the Italians and the French drove the tribes closer together through their greed in demanding
certain concessions.
During the early years of his life, Sahala Mariem aspired to become the, ‘Negus
Negusti’, The King of Kings, and a leader of all the governing tribes in the land. Having been schooled and brought up in scrumptious splendour benefiting only a crown prince of the Shoa Kingdom, Sahala, (or Menelik) as he later decided to call himself, was made a prisoner in 1855 by Kassai, the then Governor of Shoa.
Lusting greatly for the throne, Kassai then seized power over all the ruling tribes and became head of Ethiopia. His reign was short-lived however. Kassai died in 1868 after a rather debauched reign, leaving the throne vacant. And at the age of 24, and an extremely energetic and intelligent young man, the ambitious Sahala Mariem, or Menelik, as he preferred, once more attempted to ascend to the heights of Negus Negusti, but he was once again unsuccessful.
Rising victoriously from the supreme struggle for power, the King of the Tigre tribe, one
of the larger of the Ethiopian tribes, ascended the throne, taking the name of King John IV. And having already made two unsuccessful attempts to become Negus Negusti, Menelik decided to employ a more subtle approach. He engineered a romance between King John’s son, the Ras Ared, and his own daughter, Zaudith. He believed that through his daughter he, Menelik, would realise his dream to become the King of Kings.
The romance blossomed and the inevitable marriage occurred. And by engineering this move, Menelik became regarded as a remote claimant to the Ethiopian throne. But few people had realised then that within three years from then, Menelik would realise his dream and become the Negus Negusti, King of Kings and Emperor of the Ethiopian Kingdom. So it was that in the campaign against the Madhi, King John IV’s reign came to an abrupt end by the intervention of a stray bullet, and with a little help from the Italians who had an eye on the colonization of the country, Menelik ascended the throne.
In 1889, Menelik signed the Treaty of Uccialli with Italy. By now he had no serious rival for the throne, and his general intelligence and strength of character made him the most outstanding personality among the Ras. It also gave him the full support of the Shoan army.
Italy was quite intent on extricating as much territory as it possibly could and tried to play
the hopeful aspirants for Negus Negusti against each other. But the signed treaty was to bear the fruits of much mischief between Ethiopia and Italy. A swift separation of two totally different interpretations to the treaty caused the Italians to develop a foothold in the north-eastern sector of the country, christening the whole area Eritrea.
The terms of the treaty, as the Italians believed it to be, gave Italy the right of total control over any
relation with a foreign power that Ethiopia may develop. This, in effect, would make the country a power in Italy’s own hands. Menelik, on the other hand, felt that the treaty unquestionably left full control and the issue of sovereignty in the Emperor’s hands. So when he learned that the Italian version of the treaty made Ethiopia a protectorate of Italy, he denounced the agreement.
Twenty-eight cannons, 38,000 rifles and a loan of 4,000,000 francs were negotiated with Menelik as part settlement of the treaty. And thinking that the Emperor would not be in a
position to repay the loan, the Italians asked for the Harar Province as collateral for the 4,000,000 francs. But the very first thing that Menelik did was to repay the loan; however, the question of the country’s sovereignty remained unanswered.
Menelik also began to accumulate arms and equipment, slowly building the country’s arsenal. But ever alert to the question of independence, he began to drum-up support from the population and made peace with the more troublesome of the minor tribes. The Italians too had started to move men and equipment into the country, building their army in readiness for an assault on the Ethiopian’s Holy City. With the stage now set for a massive confrontation, in 1896 Italy gave the order to march.
But the Italian invasion which followed was crushed by Menelik’s great victory at Adwa. 14,500 heavily armed The Italian officers and men moved towards Adwa, but Menelik’s forces were already ready and waiting. And through a lack of accurate intelligence, a misjudgement of Menelik’s strength, and an undisciplined army, the Italians ended up with over 12,000 men killed and more than a thousand taken prisoner.
Completely defeated by the Ethiopians, in October of the same year, the Italians made peace with Menelik. Italy was forced to renounce all claims to Ethiopia and pay an indemnity. Following his victory, the King of Kings took important steps to strengthen and modernize his domain. He made Addis Ababa his capital, constructed a railroad, attempted to end the slave trade, and curbed the feudal nobility.
His conquests doubled the size of the country and brought the present southern Ethiopia (largely Muslim in population) into the realm. After the war, there were no further questions on the country’s sovereignty.
And Menelik, the Negus Negusti, had decidedly astonished the world at large, for never before had a single African nation been powerful enough to decisively defeat a potential coloniser. But later on, Britain, France, Turkey and the Soviet Union all sought to establish a stronghold in the land of Judah. A variety of ploys were attempted. The French built a single-tracked railroad and tried to turn over absolute control of it to the British Government, until the Emperor saw fit to discontinue this diplomatic farce.
Menelik had also become adept at using the greed of the developed nations to bolster his own needs, and his country’s advantage. During all of these political transactions, however, Menelik had but two primary goals uppermost in his Royal mind. The Emperor was completely adamant on the question of the country’s sovereignty, coupled with the consolidation of territories already won and their extension whenever and wherever possible.
But although most of the border disputes arising from this policy were settled, one major
exception resulted in the second Italian-Ethiopian war of 1935. But gradually his health failed, and the end of his reign was marked by intrigue and positioning for succession.
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And in 1913, worn out by his extremely strenuous undertakings, and coming at the end of a four year period of continuous strokes, Menelik died. He had left behind him a country unified by tribes and free of all foreign interventions, and a blueprint for Haile Selassie to
follow some seventeen years later. Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia was truly Negus Negusti, King of Kings. He was succeeded as Emperor by Lij Yasu.
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