#mahdist war

[lightdancer1]

The Siege of Khartoum is one of those mythologized instances of British Imperial history:

The Siege of Khartoum for the British proved a signal achievement of a unique factor in British history where what in other societies would be stinging total disasters with no redeeming traits whatsoever are rewritten as moral victories. Wellington's retreat in Spain and Dunkirk are two of the classics, so too the Siege. The reality is that Chinese Gordon was a dumbfuck who'd prevailed against the Taiping by virtue of having rifles against muzzle loaders and any sense of tactics at all versus massed charges launched with fanaticism but not skill.

Against the Mahdi none of this did him a bit of good because he let himself get boxed into a catastrophe, kept insisting reinforcement would arrive when it didn't, and then he and his entire army paid the according price. Equally the victory stands with Adwa as one of the two main victories of African arms against European power, though unlike Adwa Khartoum did not stick, because the British Empire, the superpower of the day, could no more accept this than the US could the Battle of Mosul in 2014.

[keepthemacramesecret]

hello im back with more potentially controversial timeline thoughts and this time i am here to suggest that BLAN takes place, despite the date given in the opening, in january 1888 or 1890

because it simply makes no sense to me that watson would remarry suddenly in 1902 and say nothing about it in his own writing, blan is literally the only mention of the supposed second marriage. but if you put it in 88 or 90 it lines up nicely with various campaigns of the mahdist war that the soldiers could be coming home from, and puts it exactly in either a) the 5 months between watsons marriage and SCAN during which they dont speak or write or visit or b) the year watson also describes as a time when they have become so distant that he only has 3 cases in his own notes.

[destinyc1020]

Honestly its impossible with the entertainment industry and how supportive and connected they are to zionism and funding things like the IDF you would have to boycott almost every movie b/c most of these movie studios are active supporters of zionism. This is too much of an ask for people so look to the bds movement which was created by palestinian organizations they have outlined a more focused boycott of specific organizations that include mcdonalds and starbucks so a boycott can be more realistic.

Also please yall dont be using identity politics in a way to undermine people. I am middle eastern as well but I aint gonna tell people " that they think too much" that is diminishing of people and their thought process and you have no place to judge people who boycott or who dont. In the same way Im not gonna force people to boycott.

I plan on watching the film, but some people seem to use the argument that dune is fantasy therefore its detached from real world events like no. Frank herbert was actually inspired by actual historical events and it was the frame in which he wrote the book ( the algerian war for independence 1954-1962 and the mahdist revolution from 1881-1898) terminology used, the language used throughout the book, the freeman ( based on french ethnographies of indigenous people in north africa) the themes of colonislism,rebellion, jihad, resistance, the danger of the white saviour are all a byproduct of what frank herbert witnessed and read in his time. Like its fantasy but there is grounding for why its imagined the way it is. This is why its been critiqued to hell and back for orientalism and this is why I understand why people are displeased with some aspects of the film especially the erasure of its arabic , islamic themes and jihad ( the struggle) but at the dame time its WB so we all knew it was gonna happen.

Im not saying dont like dune. I personally love dune but I feel sometimes people talk and speak about it as if its without context or wasnt written inspired by actual real world events.

Thanks Anon for your heartfelt input.

No, I know very well that parts of the book are based on real life society. I read about the complaints when the first film came out years ago. And even when you watch the first movie, you can tell that the film is saying a LOT about society as a whole.

What I meant, was that these are not real historical people, it's not a historical book or film, and these characters are not real. There are plenty of films that are fiction, but are based on REAL LIFE events or societal issues.

Just wanted to clear up what my former post meant.

Anyway, like I keep saying, ppl are FREE to do whatever they want to do with regards to "Dune". 🤷🏾‍♀️

Like you said, you'd have to practically boycott ALL of Hollywood at this point if you don't want to be offended by SOMETHING.

I'm going to end discourse on this.

[ausetkmt]

Who are the Negas

The Negas were a group of people who lived in Ethiopia. They were known for their strong military and their rich culture. The Negas were also known for their long history of independence.

The Negas first came to power in the 13th century. They were led by a man named Yekuno Amlak. Yekuno Amlak was able to unite the Negas and defeat the Agaw, who had been ruling Ethiopia at the time.

The Negas ruled Ethiopia for over 700 years. During that time, they had many wars with other countries. They also had to deal with internal conflicts. However, they were able to maintain their independence and their culture.

In the 19th century, the Negas began to lose power. This was due to a number of factors, including European colonization and internal conflicts. In 1974, the Negas were overthrown by a communist revolution.

The Negas are still a part of Ethiopian culture today. They are remembered for their strong military, their rich culture, and their long history of independence.

Here are some key figures in Negas history:

Yekuno Amlak: The first Negus of Ethiopia. He united the Negas and defeated the Agaw.

Zara Yacob: A Negus who ruled Ethiopia in the 16th century. He is known for his military conquests and his religious reforms.

Susenyos I: A Negus who ruled Ethiopia in the 17th century. He converted to Catholicism and tried to convert the Ethiopian people to Catholicism.

Iyasu I: A Negus who ruled Ethiopia in the 18th century. He was overthrown by his mother, Mentewab, who ruled as regent for her son.

Tewodros II: A Negus who ruled Ethiopia in the 19th century. He is known for his efforts to modernize Ethiopia and his resistance to European colonization.

Yohannes IV: A Negus who ruled Ethiopia in the 19th century. He is known for his victory over the Mahdists in the Battle of Gura.

Menelik II: A Negus who ruled Ethiopia in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is known for his unification of Ethiopia and his resistance to Italian colonization.

Here are some key events in Negas history:

The founding of the Ethiopian Empire in the 13th century by Yekuno Amlak.

The defeat of the Agaw by Yekuno Amlak in the 13th century.

The rise of the Zagwe dynasty in the 12th century.

The fall of the Zagwe dynasty in the 13th century.

The rise of the Solomonic dynasty in the 13th century.

The Portuguese invasion of Ethiopia in the 16th century.

The Oromo expansion into Ethiopia in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Zemene Mesafint (Era of the Princes) in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Battle of Adwa in 1896, in which Ethiopia defeated Italy.

The Italian occupation of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941.

The Ethiopian Revolution in 1974.

The fall of the Negas in 1974.

[lboogie1906]

The European race for colonialism made Germany start launching expeditions of its own, which frightened both British and French statesmen. Hoping to soothe the brewing conflict, Belgian King Leopold II convinced France and Germany that common trade in Africa was in the best interests of all three countries. Under support from the British and the initiative of Portugal, Otto von Bismarck, the Chancellor of Germany, called on representatives of 13 nations in Europe as well as the US to take part in the Berlin Conference in 1884 to work out a joint policy on the African continent.

The conference was opened on November 15, 1884 - February 26, 1885. The number of plenipotentiaries varied per nation, but these 14 countries sent representatives to attend the Berlin Conference and sign the Berlin Act:

The US reserved the right to decline or to accept the conclusions of the conference.

Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Britain, Italy, and Portugal. The conference provided an opportunity to channel latent European hostilities towards one another outward; provide new areas for helping the European powers expand in the face of rising American, Russian, and Japanese interests; and form constructive dialogue to limit future hostilities. In Africa, colonialism was introduced across nearly the continent. When African independence was regained after WWII, it was in the form of fragmented states.

The Scramble for Africa sped up after the Conference, the European powers had to take effective possession by the principle of effectivity. In central Africa, expeditions were dispatched to coerce traditional rulers into signing treaties. Bedouin- and Berber-ruled states in the Sahara and the Sahel were overrun by the French in several wars by the beginning of WWI. The British moved up from South Africa and down from Egypt and conquered states such as the Mahdist State and the Sultanate of Zanzibar having defeated the Zulu Kingdom in South Africa in 1879, moved on to subdue and dismantle the independent Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[literary-motif]

I. The Symposium

“Was it not Béraud you studied under, dear?” Jean Béraud (1849-1935) was a French painter known for depicting life in Paris.

"I scarcely think you will be here a week before being invited to lecture at the Royal Academy." The Royal Academy of Arts is a prestigious Art School in Britain and one of its oldest, founded in 1768. Its president during the 1890s was Lord Leighton.

"Have we not discussed the notion of ars gratia artis at length—?”Ars gratia artis is Latin for art for art’s sake. It is the idea that art serves its own purpose and does not need to have a deeper message or be a narrative retelling of some sort.

“You were in the Art Journal quite a few times.” The Art Journal was the most important art magazine in Britainduring the 19th century. It was published in London.

"All the more reason for us to quit stalling and get involved in this crisis in Sudan.” The Mahdist War lasted from 1881 to 1899. During the 1890s, the Allies, which were England, Italy, and Egypt, fought to repel the Mahdist troops. Several people escaped from Sudanese captivity and later recounted their terrible experiences. In 1891, it was the catholic Father Joseph Ohrwalder, and in 1895 a former Governor Rudolf Carl von Salatin. Their accounts were widely read in Britain and spiked the public demand for military intervention in the conflict with Sudan to help the Italians.

"Nobody wants a repetition of the Gordon Relief Expedition, I am certain." The popularly called ‘Gordon Relief Expedition’ or Nile Expedition was an expedition of British troops during the Mahdist War. It was supposed to relieve the Khartoum garrison after winning the battle of Abu Klea (1885), but when the relief column arrived in Khartoum, they found the garrison to have been brutally massacred. The relief expedition had come too late, perhaps because the British Government had only decided to send it to Khartoum to relieve Gordon’s garrison by overwhelming demand from the British public.

“I lost my son in the Rear Column of that last blasted Equatorial Expedition." The Rear Column of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. This was an expedition during the Mahdist War to relieve Egyptian Emin Pasha, who wasbesieged by Mahdist forces. It was led by Henry Morton Stanley. The fate of the Rear Column is somewhat hard to explain coherently because it is, frankly, a mess. The Rear Column lost contact with Stanley during the expedition and basically descended into chaos. The soldiers had no clear instructions since their previous objective to wait for reinforcement had failed due to a lack of provisions. Eventually, they marched to meet up with Stanley, which resulted in a mass desertion. Soldiers were shot in disputes amidst raging sicknesses, and there were accounts of an officer paying to view cannibalism. It was wild. I strongly recommend looking into it for a multitude of shocks and absurdities because, pardon me, you can’t make that shit up. Stanley returned to Europe in 1890. At first widely celebrated, the public soon turned to despise him as the cost of the expedition and the disaster of the Rear Column was made known.

"It was the very essence of the schism in society..." Society in the Victorian age was starkly divided, more sobecause of the Industrial Revolution. The upper class lived in opulence while the slums were overflowing with the impoverished working class. Diseases and illnesses were common, and there were several cholera outbreaks during the time. Disease Control improved by the end of the 19th century. Germ theory was accepted, and people realized that the germs in the Thames, which they had been throwing their waste in, negatively impacted their health.

"It was a scene that would have made Marx weep..." Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto, which was published in 1848. It lays out the principles of Communism, which gained traction as a philosophy and an ideal of state organization in the late 19th and early 20th century. The driving factor behind it was basically the growing societal injustice, amplified by the Industrial Revolution. It talks of class struggles between the working class (proletariat) and the upper class, or their employers (bourgeoisie), with the final goal being a classless society where the workers (or the many) hold the means of production. 

“I have found wars fought based on religious differences the most detestable invention of humankind to date.” Xanthus died at the Battle of Newburn, a battle in the English Civil War between England and Scotland. Part of the reason that led to the Civil War were fights about religious practices.

"Turkish, no doubt." The smoking of tobacco was popularized in Britain during and after the Crimean War, widely because of the alliance with the Ottoman Empire. The tobacco smoked was Turkish tobacco, which was also used in the Egyptian cigarette industry. It began thriving in the late 1880s since Egyptian tobacco was of poor quality and taste. Since British troops began being stationed in Egypt (see the part of the Mhadist war), the popularity of Egyptian cigarettes rose, and they were exported to the UK, paving the path for the true cigarette boom of the early 20th century (although the taste shifted away from Turkish tobacco later on) and inspiring Egyptian motifs in the cigarette industry for example used by Camel.

"I have been continuously stuck in long-winded debates whether to go to concerts at..." France was musically divided after the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), which Germany won. Part of the musical sphere turned away from the German influences --- specifically Richard Wagener ---because they were salty Napoleon lost. Instead, they chose to focus on French music. The other sphere did not.

"You walked to the front of the manor where the rubbish of the Aldertons waited to be collected..." Victorian London had a rubbish issue. There were cholera outbreaks during the period, in part because of the polluted water of the Thames. After germ theory (stating that germs were distributed via the water and not, as previously thought, through the air and smell) was widely accepted, efforts were made to improve public health. In the Public Health Decree from 1875 it was stated that households should dispose of rubbish in ‘movable receptacles’, from which the waste would be collected by the first centralized institution to do so in London, the Metropolitan Board of Workers, founded in 1855.

"I hope the evening was to your satisfaction despite the symposium that is unavoidable with these ladies.” A symposium in ancient Greece was a drinking party held after a meal. The word has a double meaning since it also refers to an academic conference where people discuss subjects such as politics and art. It is also the name of a Socratic Dialogue which centres around love and how it can be defined. If that interest you, I strongly recommend Professor Sugrue's Lectures on YouTube.

"She looked threatening in the dim light of the two shining incandescent light bulbs of the hallway..." Joseph Swan was a British physicist (among other things) and was one of the first to develop incandescent lightbulbs to illuminate homes. He installed them in England himself during the 1880s.

Annotations

Overview

Prologue

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" is a quote from Shakespeare’s play Henry IV.

"They insisted on visiting Crete and got killed in one of the uprisings." The Cretan Revolt (1897-1898) was an uprising of the Greek population of Crete against the rule of the Ottoman Empire after many years of tension. The uprising, later supported by the Great Powers, ended with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the recognition of Crete as an autonomous state within it.

"I heard the Qing-Dynasty has become unstable." British intervention in China began with the Macartney Mission, more directly with the Chinese defeat in the First Opium War (1839-1842). It was the beginning of the unequal treaties and the ‘century of humiliation’ for China, which suffered greatly under the informal rule from the imperialistic West. The end of the 19th century saw the so-called Boxer Rebellion, an uprising of the people or the ‘Boxers’ against the imperialist influence, specifically the Christian missionaries in China, who were granted extensive rights after the Qing Dynasty lost the Second Opium War. The Boxer Rebellion reached its peak in 1900 when a German minister was shot in the street. After that, the Eight-Nation Alliance dispatched troops and brutally ended it.

[abybweisse]

Ch175, p4, Ada’s flashback

She was a medic in the Sudan war, the Mahdist War. The British involvement was indeed called the Sudan Campaign.

She’s a lot like Violet and the other P4/S4, isn’t she? Full of guilt and trying to repent.

Will she help Bard? Will she protect the blood collection operation? Will she lose all hope and take her own life?

Whatever her actions, she’s definitely on Ronald’s radar....

[cuirassier]

Cameron Highlanders taking the stockade at the battle of Atbara, 08 April 1898, by Stanley Berkeley

You can read more about this engagement of the Mahdist war here.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The Mahdist War in the Sudan (1881-1889)

The Mahdist War (1881–99) was a war of the late 19th century between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam (the "Guided One"), and the forces of the Khedivate of Egypt, initially, and later the forces of Britain.

Eighteen years of war resulted in the nominally joint-rule state of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956), a de jure condominium of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt in which Britain had de facto control over the Sudan. The Sudanese launched several unsuccessful invasions of their neighbours, expanding the scale of the conflict to include not only Britain and Egypt but the Italian Empire, the Belgian Congo and the Ethiopian Empire.

The British participation in the war is called the Sudan Campaign.

The Mahdist Revolution was an Islamic revolt against the Egyptian government in the Sudan. An apocalyptic branch of Islam, Mahdism incorporated the idea of a golden age in which the Mahdi, translated as “the guided one,” would restore the glory of Islam to the earth.

Attempting to overhaul Egypt through an aggressive westernization campaign, Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali, who was himself a provincial governor of the Ottoman Empire, invaded the Sudan in 1820.  Within a year his armies had subdued the Sudan and he began conscripting local Sudanese men into the Egyptian military.  In 1822 Khartoum became the capital of Egyptian-occupied Sudan and a distant outpost in the Ottoman Empire.

Egyptian rule over the Sudan involved the imposition of high rates of taxation, the taking of slaves from the local population at will, and the absolute control over all Sudanese trade which destroyed livelihoods and indigenous practices.  During the process of military conscription, tens of thousands of Sudanese men and boys died on their long march from the Sudanese hinterlands to Aswan, Egypt.

Ali’s tenure as Egyptian governor ended in 1848, but the suffering of the Sudanese people under Ottoman rule did not.  When the anti-slavery campaign of the new Egyptian governor, Ismail, began in 1863, Sudanese unrest intensified since human bondage was now an integral part of the local economy.  Matters were complicated by the arrival of the British in 1873 who assumed responsibility over Egypt in order to protect their interests in the Suez Canal and ensure repayment of loans to that government.  General Charles Gordon was appointed governor of Sudan and he immediately intensified the anti-slavery campaign initiated a decade earlier.  Sudanese Arab leaders, however, saw British efforts as a European Christian attempt to undermine Muslim Arab dominance in the region.

On June 29, 1881, a Sudanese Islamic cleric, Muhammad Ahmad, proclaimed himself the Mahdi.  Playing into decades of disenchantment over Egyptian rule and new resentment against the British, Ahmad immediately transformed an incipient political movement into a fundamentally religious one.  Urging jihad or “holy war” against imperial Egypt, Ahmad formed an army.  

By 1882 the Mahdist Army had taken complete control over the area surrounding Khartoum. Then, in 1883, a joint British-Egyptian military expedition under the command of British Colonel William Hicks launched a counterattack against the Mahdists.  Hicks was soon killed and the British decided to evacuate the Sudan. 

Fighting continued however and the British-Egyptian forces which defended Khartoum in a long siege were finally overrun on January 28, 1885. Virtually the entire garrison was killed. 

General Charles Gordon, the commander of the British-Egyptian forces, was beheaded during the attack.  

In June 1885 Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi, died.  As a result the Mahdist movement quickly dissolved as infighting broke out among rival claimants to leadership. Hoping to capitalize on internal strife, the British returned to the Sudan in 1896 with Horatio Kitchener as commander of another Anglo-Egyptian army.  In the final battle of the war on September 2, 1898 at Karari, 11,000 Mahdists were killed and 16,000 were wounded.

Ahmad’s successor called the Khalifa fled after his forces were overrun.  In November of 1899 he was found and killed, officially ending the Mahdist state.  Exacting vengeance for the death of Charles Gordon a decade earlier, Kitchener exhumed Ahmad’s body and pulled out his fingernails.

[nightbringer24]

Yeah, I just saw about that one too. And there's one about the Siege of Vienna and King Jan III Sobieski. And one about a pair of kids, one Polish and one English, in Africa during the Mahdist War? That's a curve ball for sure.

Oh I just noticed something with the duel from The Deluge (on my tenth rewatch o so). When Wołodyjowski spins his sabre, he's not spinning his wrist... Wołodyjowski is spinning it using the gap between the hilt and the knucklebow.

That's fucking ballsy and cocky too.

[bantarleton]

Mahdist Quran taken by a Scot of the 9th lancers during the Anglo-Sudan War, now kept in the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow.

[lightdancer1]

Another of the classics is the Mahdist War, which would include two of the classic mythical moments of the British Empire:

The British Empire, once it conquered the Khedivate in 1882, committed itself to holding the Khedive's territories in what is today North and South Sudan. The limitations of this and the successes revealed both the real heft of European imperialism in the form of its modern weapons, and that no such forces were invulnerable. Muhammad ibn Ahmed, a warlord of the Sudan in a classical Islamist fashion, created new armies that collided with those of the Imperialist warlord General 'Chinese' Gordon, a figure who'd fought with the Qing to suppress the Taiping Rebellion. The result was the Siege of Khartoum and the city's fall, and the later mounting of the second war by General Kitchener against the Mahdi's son.

The Mahdi stands as one of the few Muslim rulers of Africa in this era to win a major victory against European arms in that continent, though his son was not his equal and the ways in which he was not contributed to the ultimate catastrophe at Omdurman.

[hobbitinthetardis]

other ppl writing fanfic:

me with my obsessive brain: okay so this needs to be perfectly accurate *pulls up map and weather records for indiana on nov 5 1984* alright so the temperature was–

[casbooks]

Title: Roberts and Kitchener in South Africa

Authors: Rodney Atwood

ISBN: 9781844685646

Tags: Africa, Battle of Omdurman, Boer, British Army, Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Mahdi Army of Muhammad Ahmad, Mahdist War, Second Boer War, South Africa, Sudan

Subject: Books.Military.18th-19th Century.Africa.Boer Wars, Books.Military.18th-19th Century.Sudan, Books.Military.Series.Pen and Sword

On the dark side, deeds were committed of which no civilized empire priding itself on justice and fair play could be proud, including the first use of ‘concentration camps’. The comradeship-in-arms of Roberts and Kitchener, their differing yet complementary personalities, their strategic and tactical decisions are described and assessed using a wide variety of sources including, personal papers and official correspondence. Through their resourcefulness the British Army, despite its unpreparedness and poor leadership at many levels, won a remarkable victory in the first of the twentieth century ‘People’s Wars’.

[thesoldierandthescholar]

Cody Fett

(he/him)

DOB: May 1879

Nationality/Ethnicity: Māori; lives in Britain

Occupation: Soldier

Other Notes:

Left New Zealand with family for Britain in 1888 (9 yrs)

Joins the army in 1895 (16 yrs)

Fights in the Mahdist War 1896–1898 (17-20 yrs)

He gets a soldier’s pension :)

Oh no.. he’s traumatised..

read here :)

[kemetic-dreams]

Who was the king of Ethiopia before Haile Selassie?

The title used by Haile Selassie actually translates as 'King of Kings', and thus was usually rendered in English as 'Emperor' rather than 'King'.

The previous monarch before him was a Queen (or Empress) not a King: Zewdita, who ruled from 1917 to 1930. Before her came her nephew Iyasu, who was never actually crowned so is usually not included in the list of emperors. Before him came Emperor Menelik II, who ruled from 1889 until 1913, but his death was not publicly announced until 1916.

In Amharic, the title was Negus Negusti, or in Ge'ez (the traditional language of Ethiopia still used for ritual and sacred purposes) Negusa Negest. 'Negus' is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, which is long, so something like ne-GOOSE. It is usually translated into English as 'King'. It should also be noted that Ethiopia does not use the Latin alphabet, so Amharic and Ge'ez words are often transliterated into English in different ways (such as negusti, naguste, etc).

For much of its history, Ethiopia was a collection of rival kingdoms such as Shewa, Gojjam, Wollo, and Begemder, whose rulers often used the title Negus or King. Meanwhile the Solomonic dynasty claimed to rule the whole country by the right of their descent from Menelik, the supposed son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Members of the dynasty called themselves Kings of Kings. Sometimes they had real power and the country had a centralised government; at other times there were merely figureheads while the various provincial kings were practically independent.

The period from 1769 to 1855 was one of those times of division with no real central government: it is known as the Zemene Mesafint or 'Age of Princes'. No fewer than 23 different Emperors were crowned during this period, but none of them had much actual power. That changed with the rise to power of Kassa Haile, son of a minor nobleman from the Dembiya province. Disinherited and reduced to outlawry — popular legend speaks of him as a Robin Hood-like figure, stealing from the rich and helping the poor — he formed an army and eventually seized control of Dembiya for himself.

Kassa attracted the attention of the powerful noble Ali of Yejju, whose mother Menen had married the nominal emperor and who himself claimed to be the Imperial Regent. In order to make this up-and-coming young warlord an ally, Ali arranged for him to marry his daughter Tewabech in 1848. While Kassa and Tewabech had a happy marriage, he soon quarrelled with his in-laws, and by 1852 was in armed rebellion against them.

Kassa defeated both his father-in-law and several other rival nobles, and by 1855 was the strongest ruler in Ethiopia. He then forced the nominal Emperor Yohannes III to abdicate, and had himself crowned Negus Negusti on 11 February 1855. He changed his name to Tewodros ('Theodore') which sounded more imperial, and spread the story (which may or may not be true) that his mother was descended from a 17th-century Emperor of Ethiopia and thus he himself had the blood of the Solomonic dynasty in his veins.

For the first time in a century Ethiopia was united by an Emperor who had actual power. Tewodros II (there had been a previous Tewodros in the 15th century) ruled for 13 years and spent much of that time leading an army, forcing the semi-independent rulers of Gojjam, Tigray, Shewa, and Wollo to recognise his authority. As well as constant civil wars he was threatened by the expansionist Egyptian khedivate, the Ottoman Empire, and neighbouring Muslim kingdoms.

In 1862 Tewodros decided to ask the British Empire for help modernising his kingdom. However, the British did not want to get involved in the region, and did not take his request seriously. Outraged by this dismissal, Tewodros ordered all the British citizens in his country to be arrested and thrown in prison. When he heard that a Church of England missionary had written a book describing Emperor Tewodros as 'barbaric, cruel, and unstable' he flew into a rage, personally threatened the missionary with a gun, and then beat two of his servants to death with his own hands.

The British response to the imprisonment of their citizens (including their ambassador) has been described as "one of the most expensive affairs of honour in history." They organised an army 13,000 strong, invaded Ethiopia (in January 1868), defeated its army, conquered it, and set the British prisoners free. Then, mission accomplished, they turned around and went back home again, leaving Ethiopia to its own devices. As for Emperor Tewodros, he shot himself when the British soldiers broke through the gates of his fortress.

The death of the Emperor left a power vacuum in Ethiopia, triggering four years of civil war. His immediate successor as Negus Negusti took the throne-name Tekle Giorgis II and attempted to consolidate power by offering concessions to the Ethiopian Church; but few of his rival nobles recognised his claim to the throne. Tekle Giorgis ruled for only three years before being defeated in battle by the warlord of Tigray province, who had him blinded and thrown in prison to die.

The new ruler was Kassa Mercha, another son of a minor noble who had fought his way to control of a province. When the British invaded in 1868 Kassa had helped them pass through his lands in Tigray rather than fighting them, and in return the British gave him enough modern muskets to equip 800 men, plus a battery of artillery. It was with these modern troops, plus around 11,000 more traditionally-equipped warriors, that Kassa defeated the 60,000-strong army of Emperor Tekle Giorgis at the Battle of the Assem on 11 July 1871.

After mopping up several other rivals, Kassa had himself crowned as King of Zion and King of Kings of Ethiopia (Nagusä Sayon, Nəgusä Naguśt zä Ityopya) on 21 January 1872. He took the regnal name Yohannes IV, and ruled for 17 years. He was a strong ruler who continued the work begun by Tewodros II of attempting to unite the rebellious provinces under central control, and also expanding the borders of Ethiopia outwards by conquest. A major blow to his ambitions was when the Italians seized control of the port of Massawa, previously controlled by Egypt, in 1885 — Yohannes had hoped to acquire the city himself.

Emperor Yohannes IV was killed in battle in 1889 when the Mahdists of Sudan, who believed their leader was the prophesised Messiah, invaded Ethiopia. As he lay dying in his tent he declared that his nephew Mengesha was actually his son, and so should succeed him to the throne. However, few people believed this claim and even fewer were willing to accept Mengesha as their emperor; so he was never crowned. He did, however, continue to rule his father's lands in Tigray.

The next emperor was instead Sahle Maryam, who took the throne as Menelik II. He was the illegitmate son of the negus of Shewa province, and was taken prisoner when Emperor Tewodros II subdued Shewa and reincorporated it into his empire. However, Tewodros took a liking to Sahle and arranged for him to marry his daughter. In 1865 Sahle seized control of Shewa for himself. He remained neutral during the British invasion of 1868, helping neither his father-in-law the Emperor nor the British. While Yohannes ruled, Sahle remained mostly quiet, though he showed great interest in modernising his province and especially its army with Italian help.

He declared himself as rightful emperor under the new name Menelik as soon as Yohannes died, because unlike the previous few monarchs, he was directly descended in the male line from the House of Solomon. Most nobles accepted his claim and he was crowned on 3 November 1889. He would rule for 24 year

born Sahle Maryam, 1889–1913

Menelik II consolidated power in Ethiopia, establishing a new capital city at Addis Ababa with modern enhancements such as paved roads, plumbing, a bank, and a post office; and in 1894 he invited the French to build a railway to connect the city to the French-controlled port of Djibouti. He also more than doubled the size of Ethiopia, by conquering the tribal lands to the south and east of his empire in a series of brutal wars. However, he is probably most famous for defeating the attempted Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1895-96.

When he took the throne in 1889 Menelik had signed a treaty with Italy in which he recognised their ownership of Massawa and Eritrea in return for their acknowlegement of his position as Emperor. The treaty also guaranteed the freedom of both countries to trade in each others' territory and enjoy equal rights for their citizens there. However, this agreement, the Treaty of Wuchale, contained a clause that was different in the Italian and Amharic versions. The Amharic text said that the Emperor of Ethiopia could use the services of the Italian government when conducting negotiations with other nations. The Italian text said that the Emperor must use those services.

In other words, the Italian version of the treaty — which the Italian government circulated to other European nations — made Ethiopia their protectorate, conducting its foreign policy only with Italian permission. The Amharic wording suggested that this was merely optional, and that the Ethiopians could simply ask for Italian help and advice when negotiating with Western countries. It is thought that the discrepancy was included, on his own initiative, by the Italian ambassador in Ethiopia, Count Antonelli, who wrote the text of the treaty.

Emperor Menelik did not discover this deception until 1890, when he wrote letters to Queen Victoria of the UK and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, only to have them returned with a note that he was not allowed to do this, and should communicate with them only via Italy in future. (Supposedly Victoria's answer was cool but polite, Wilhelm was rude and dismissive.) Menelik was outraged, but it was not until 1893, when he felt his domestic position was secure, that he denounced the treaty. Italy, in turn, saw this defiance as justification for war.

In December 1894 fighting broke out between Italian forces in Eritrea and the inhabitants of Tigray, ruled by Mengesha, the "son" (or nephew) of Emperor Yohannes whom Menelik had beaten to the throne in 1889. The Italians won a swift victory and captured Adwa, the capital of Tigray. This encouraged them into overconfidence, and they decided to invade and conquer the rest of Ethiopia. This proved a disastrous failure.

On 1 March 1895 an Italian army of 14,519 men attacked an Ethiopian army of about 100,000 men in the Battle of Adwa (or Adowa), and was almost wiped out, losing 7,000 killed, 1,500 wounded and 3,000 captured. News of the defeat caused riots in Italy and the collapse of the government there. The new Italian government quickly signed a treaty under which they recognised Ethiopia's independence after all, and paid an indemnity of 10 million lire, in return for peace (and Ethiopia's recognition of the new border with Eritrea).

Menelik suffered a stroke in 1909, at the age of 65, which left him incapable and paralysed. His (third) wife Taytu, who had a strong personality, effectively ruled the country for a year until she was forced from power and replaced by a Council of Regency which governed from 1910 until Menelik died in 1913.

Menelik had no children from his three marriages, but he did have at least three illegitimate offspring. In 1909 he nominated his 14-year old grandson Kifle Yaqob, son of his eldest illegitimate daughter, as his heir. In 1911, with his grandfather still alive but unable to rule, his teenage grandson took power under the name of Iyasu. His title was Lij, literally meaning 'child [of noble blood]': 'Prince' might be an appropriate English translation in this context. ('Infante' would be even closer if we were speaking Spanish.)

Prince Iyasu, uncrowned ruler of Ethiopia 1911–16

Lij Iyasu faced multiple challenges to his rule, including an attempted coup, a poisoning attempt, and an armed mutiny in his first year in power. He was also accused of neglecting his duties and engaging in scandalous behaviour, including leading his bodyguards in slave-raids against neighbouring states instead of remaining in the capital.

In December 1913 Menelik finally died, though this fact was kept hidden to avoid instability. The nobles and ministers of the court, who regaded Lij Iyasu as an incompetent brat, avoided having him crowned as Emperor. On 27 September 1916 the Minister of War, Habte Giyorgis Dinagde, organised a coup d'état. He produced witnesses claiming that Iyasu had secretly converted to Islam, which would be grounds to forfeit the throne; and under pressure the Church confirmed this claim, excommunicated Iyasu and released the Ethiopian nobles from their oaths of loyalty.

A brief civil war followed, and Iyasu's side lost. He fled into hiding in the desert for five years, being captured in 1921 and kept under house arrest. When Emperor Haile Selassie took the throne in 1930, as described below, Iyasu was treated more harshly. When the Italians invaded again in October 1935 they distributed propaganda urging the Ethiopians to rise up in support of "the true Emperor Iyasu V" to overthrow Haile Selassie. Purely by coincidence, the 40-year old Iyasu was shortly afterwards found dead in his cell; having died entirely of natural causes and certainly not murdered on the Emperor's orders as a potential threat.

Going back to 1916, however, the organisers of the coup decided to make Zewdita the new monarch. She was an illegitimate daughter of Emperor Menelik II, and thus the aunt of Lij Iyasu. She was also the first regnant Empress of Ethiopia, and the first female African monarch in several centuries. Her title, rather than 'King of Kings', was 'Queen of Kings' (Negiste Negest). However, as a woman it was agreed that her relative Tafari Makonnen (who was also her heir since she had no surviving children of her own) would act as her regent and plenipotentiary, the Balemulu 'Inderase. Empress Zewdita was not entirely a figurehead — she had the final decision-making power and a lot of political influence — but her kinsman was the public face of the government.

Empress Zewdita, 1917–30

Empress Zewdita was crowned on 11 February 1917 and ruled for 13 years. She was conservative and a traditionalist, and a patron of the Church in Ethiopia. She left most matters of government in the hands of her relative the Regent Plenipotentiary, Tafari Makonnen.

This regent’s father Ras Makonnen ('ras' is a noble title, roughly equivalent to duke) was the first cousin of Emperor Menelik II on his mother's side, and was appointed as governor of Harar by the Emperor. He was also a notable military commander at the Battle of Adwa. Makonnen's son Tafari, born in 1892, thus had royal blood, and it was agreed in 1917 that he would be the nominated successor to the childless Empress Zewdita. He was also given the title ras at this point.

Ras Tafari thus became the face of the Ethiopian government in the name of the Empress. He arranged for his country to join the League of Nations in 1923, and pursued a cautious strategy of modernisation and westernisation. He also banned slavery in his country, though he was unable to enforce this.

In 1928 there was an attempted revolt against Tafari's power, led by the governor of Sidamo province who was accused of underpaying taxes to the central government. Conservative nobles rallied around the Empress and attempted to have Tafari tried, for treason and consorting with Italians. The attempt failed, and as a concession to secure peace Empress Zewdita was pressured into upgrading Tafari's title from Ras to Negus, or 'king'.

Two years later the Empress's husband Gugsa Welle launched a rebellion of his own against Negus Tafari — without the permission of his wife. He raised an army of around 35,000 men, but other members of the nobility were too cautious to join him. The Empress reluctantly declared her husband a rebel, and Tafari led the official army of Ethiopia to combat him at the Battle of Anchem on 31 March 1930. Three aircraft flew over the rebel army dropping leaflets urging the soldiers to desert, followed by bombs. Gugsa Welle himself was shot and killed while riding a white horse into battle. His army disintegrated. Within three days, Empress Zewdita herself was dead, supposedly of shock and grief at her husband's death (though she was in fact seriously ill anyway).

Eight months later on 2 November 1930 Tafari Makonnen was proclaimed as Emperor himself, taking the name Haile Selassie (which means 'Power of the Trinity'). He remained emperor until the revolution of 1974, though between 1936 and 1941 he was in exile in England after the Italian conquest of his country

A major famine in 1972-74 which killed tens of thousands of people (some sources claim even higher figures) undermined public support for the Emperor, who until then had generally been popular. High inflation also led to riots, strikes, and a mutiny by the army which demanded higher pay. On 12 September 1974 a Committee (Derg in Ge'ez) set up to investigate and rectify the army's grievances, instead deposed the Emperor and placed him and his family under arrest.

Haile Selassie's son, the 58-year old Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen, was in Switzerland at the time receiving medical treatment. The military junta announced that he was now King of Ethiopia (they used the term 'King', not 'Emperor'). However, Asfaw refused to accept the legitimacy of the coup against his father, and therefore refused to use the new title given to him. He also publicly condemned the actions of the Derg when they had about 60 high-ranking members of the government executed by firing squad. In March 1975 the Derg — officially known as the Provisional Military Administrative Council — therefore announced the abolition of the monarchy and declared the creation of a Marxist-Leninist socialist republic.

The last reigning emperor, 83-year old Haile Selassie, died on 27 August 1975, supposedly of complications following surgery but according to some, he was strangled.