1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abyssinia
ABYSSINIA (see 1.82).—Since 1910 boundary commissions have delimited in part the Sudan-Abyssinia and the Italian-Abyssinian frontier. No change was made in the international status of the country between 1910 and 1921. The conquests of Menelek had been retained and the independence of the empire maintained. The Spanish protectorates excepted, Abyssinia was the only country of Africa neutral throughout the World War.
Recent History.—From 1899, a year which marked the end of an era of conquest and civil war, the Emperor Menelek (see 18.128) had maintained internal peace and had cautiously encouraged commercial relations with Europeans. But in 1910 Menelek was stricken by a malady which incapacitated him from rule, although until his death, in Dec. 1913, and for years afterwards (e.g. in 1919), his name was invoked by the people as that of the highest authority in the country. A regency was formed in 1910, consisting of Lij Yasu—Menelek's grandson, whom he had nominated his heir in 1908—and Ras Tesamma, Lij Yasu being then only fourteen. Menelek's wife, the Empress Tartu, a princess of Tigre, opposed the regency, called to her aid the Tigrian chiefs, and usurped authority. She refused to see the representatives of foreign powers and stopped the building of the railway from Jibuti (see 1.95) to the capital, Addis Abbaba. After maintaining her position about a year Taitu was overthrown by a palace revolution. She took no further part in the government and died Feb. 11 1918.
Not long after the regency was established Ras Tesamma, a capable man of moderating influence, died, April 1911. Lij Yasu then attempted to reign uncontrolled. He was strongly opposed; but with the help of his father Ras Michael, chief of the Wollo Galla, Yasu made good his authority and on Menelek's death was acknowledged negus negusti (king of kings, emperor).
At that time, the beginning of 1914, the condition of the country was not without promise. The building of the railway from Jibuti had been resumed; in 1912 it had reached the Hawash river, and was then (1914) being carried up the steep escarpment to the Abyssinian plateau. Even in its incomplete state it carried in 1913 merchandise valued at over 1,600,000. A considerable trade between the Galla provinces (western Abyssinia) and the Sudan had also developed. Both Abyssinians and Gallas showed a distinct appreciation of foreign products; it needed only good government and the provision of better means of communication to have brought about a great development of the very rich natural resources of the country. Lij Yasu, however, was a youth of depraved morals, his administration was both weak and tyrannical, and the result was in the south anarchy,[1] and in the north the alienation of the Tigrians, always jealous of Shoa (Menelek's hereditary kingdom). The maintenance of a large standing army was another cause of poverty and discontent. Out of a total population, according to trustworthy estimates, of from 10,000,000 to 12,000,000, about 500,000 were in the army. (Detailed figures for 1916 gave a total of 571,000 as the strength of the Abyssinian forces.) In the Galla, Somali and Shankalla (i.e. negro) provinces these men lived largely by plunder.
Such was the situation when the World War broke out. Lij Yasu had already come very much under German and Turkish influence, the chief agent in the propaganda of the Central Powers having been Herr K. Schwemmer, consul for Austria-Hungary. (Schwemmer, owing to Italian pressure, was recalled to Vienna and left Abyssinia in Oct. 1914.) Yasu had already given offence to the Abyssinians, whose attachment to their own form of Christianity is strong, by his neglect of the observances of the national church, and in June 1914 had caused his father, Ras Michael, to be crowned negus (king) of Wollo, the only province of Abyssinia proper inhabited by Moslems (Galla intruders). Michael remained nominally a Christian; Yasu, at first secretly and later openly, embraced Islam, and, inspired by Turco-German policy, set himself to unite all the Moslems of the empire. He married the daughters of several Danakil and Galla chiefs, and betrothed himself to the daughter of Aba Jiffar, King of Jimma, the most powerful Moslem prince in the empire. He also made political alliances with Moslems outside the Abyssinian dominions, among others with the “Mad” Mullah of Somaliland, then at war with the British. His policy was summed up as (1) Moslem as opposed to Christianity; (2) Galla as opposed to Abyssinian; (3) Turco-German as opposed to the Entente.
In April 1916 Yasu officially placed Abyssinia in religious dependence on the Sultan of Turkey as Caliph and sent to the Turkish consul-general at Harrar an Abyssinian flag bearing the crescent and a confession of faith in Islam. About this time he informed his Moslem confederates who had been told that Germany and Austria had embraced Islam and had imposed that faith upon France that he would lead them against the Allies as soon as a great German victory should be announced. His anti-Christian, anti-Abyssinian attitude led to Yasu's downfall. The Allied representatives at Addis Abbaba, in particular the Hon. W. G. Thesiger, then the British minister, did much to counteract Turco-German propaganda and, except Ras Michael, all the Abyssinian chiefs were opposed to the Emperor's proceedings. They had the support of the people, the Shoans as well as the men of Tigre and Gondar, and they determined to end an intolerable situation. On Sept. 27 1916 the Feast of the Cross by a public proclamation of the Abuna (the head of the church) Lij Yasu was declared dethroned, on the specific ground of his apostasy. His aunt, the Princess Zauditu (Judith), who had been a prisoner in the palace since Menelek's illness in 1910, was proclaimed empress. Dejaz (general) Taffari Makonnen, a cousin of Zauditu, was appointed heir to the throne and regent with the title of Ras (prince). The new regime was at once accepted, practically unopposed, by the chiefs and people of Shoa and by the imperial army (a force of 50,000 kept in the neighbourhood of the capital).
Lij Yasu was then at Harrar, a Moslem centre, arming the Somalis. On receipt of the news of his deposition he showed the weakness of his character by publicly renouncing Islam, a step which gained him no credit either with the Abyssinians or the Somalis. The garrison of Harrar (Abyssinians), sent by Yasu to oppose the Shoan troops which the new rulers had dispatched against him, joined his enemies. On Oct. 8 Yasu fled secretly from Harrar, making for the Danakil country. On the gth Harrar was occupied by the Shoans, who killed some 400 un- resisting Somalis before the slaughter was stopped through the intervention of the British consul.
Ras Michael was made of sterner stuff than his son; moreover, the Wollo Galla remained faithful to him and he was able to put some 80,000 men in the field. Wollo lies on the eastern edge of the Abyssinian plateau, with Gondar and Tigre N. and N.W. and Shoa to the S. Leaving 20,000 to 30,000 men to guard his northern frontier, Ras Michael marched S., hoping to capture Addis Abbaba by a rapid blow. Meantime the new Government had prepared to advance N., fixing on Shano, 40 m. N.E. of the capital, as the place of concentration. Michael, who was first in the field, had an engagement with the advanced force of the Shoans under Ras Lul Seged Oct. 17, before whom he gave way. But on the 19th Michael surrounded and destroyed Lul Seged’s force in a furious battle in which over 12,000 men perished. Lul Seged himself was slain, but his resolute defence had de- layed Michael’s advance; it gave time to the Shoans to complete their concentration. By Oct. 21 they had 60,000 men at Shano, and a great superiority in artillery over Michael. On the 22nd Shoan cavalry under Ras Kassa[2] seized a position in the rear of Michael’s army; the same day his force on the northern frontier was attacked and defeated by the Ras of Gondar (Waldo Giorgis). Cut off from his base, almost enveloped and with supplies running short, Michael’s only alternative to being starved into surrender was to attack. The King chose the latter course and gave battle at Shano on Oct. 27. The fighting was desperate and the slaughter great. The Shoans were at first hard pressed but the timely arrival of Ras Kassa’s cavalry decided the issue. The Wollo army was utterly routed, Michael was taken prisoner and all his artillery captured. This ended the campaign, in which in three weeks over 60,000 lives are said to have been lost, the casualties of the Shoans alone exceeding 20,000. The Fitaurai Hapti Giorgis, Minister of War, who had commanded in chief the Shoan forces, made no attempt to occupy Wollo or to pursue Lij Yasu and thus effectively pacify the country. He returned to Addis Abbaba where the Empress Zauditu reviewed the victorious troops, the ceremony ending with the parade of Ras Michael, a fine-looking, dignified man of about 65, chained to the chief who had captured him.
Profiting by the inactivity of the Government, Lij Yasu gathered together the remnants of his father’s army. He managed to keep his footing in the Wollo country for the greater part of 1917 and finally took refuge in Magdala. Closely besieged, Magdala surrendered in Dec. 1917. Lij Yasu escaped, and thereafter appears to have led a wandering life among the Danakil and Somali. In Oct. 1918 he was appealing to the Turks in Arabia for help, and making attempts to raid the Jibuti railway. At the close of 1920 Yasu appeared in Tigre, apparently hoping to gain over that province, but in Jan. 1921 he was captured by Government forces.
The Government of the Empress Zauditu and Ras Taffari was pro-Ally and in the summer of 1919 missions were sent to London, Paris, Rome, Brussels and Washington to congratulate the Allies on their victory. These missions received good advice as to the necessity of an amelioration of social conditions in Abyssinia, the suppression of slavery Menelek’s conquests had given a great impetus to the slave trade and the development of commerce and agriculture.
Economic Conditions and Trade. Two great hindrances to the economic development of the country have been stated internal disturbances and lack of adequate means of communication. After the close of the World War, and with the railway from the Gulf of Aden to Addis Abbaba completed, an improvement was anticipated. A British company, the Abyssinian Corporation, was formed in Dec. 1918, with the approval of the Foreign Office, but owing to restriction of shipping, the fluctuations of exchange and the fall in the price of coffee its first two years' operations were unsatisfactory. Nevertheless the total trade of Abyssinia increased. Valued at about 1,000,000 in 1905, it had more than doubled by 1910; and in 1920, in the absence of any official statistics, was roughly estimated at between 3,500,000 and 4,000,000. Hides and skins, coffee and beeswax are the chief exports. The chief imports are cotton goods and Maria Theresa dollars (minted at Trieste and an exact reproduction of the 1780 issue). The external trade of northern Abyssinia is with Massawa via Asmara; that of Shoa and Harrar with Jibuti and, to a small extent, with Zeila and Berbera (British Somaliland). These are all ancient routes to the sea-coast; to the old trade routes to the Sudan by the Blue Nile has been added that by the Baro-Sobat rivers. Gambela, on the Baro and 60 m. within the Abyssinian frontier, was leased to the Sudan Government in 1907, and in the Sobat flood season (June-Nov.) a steamer service is maintained with Khartum. Although the road from the Baro river to Gore, on the highlands, was and remained very bad, Gambela became an important transport centre. The value of its trade, 43,000 in 1910, was 103,000 in 1913 and was estimated at about 200,000 in 1919. Much of the trade in the country is in the hands of Greeks, Syrians and Arabs. The agricultural and mineral wealth of the country remain as yet if the cultivation of coffee be excepted scarcely tapped, and its water-power unutilized.
See L. de Castro, Nella Terra del Negus, 2 vols. (1915); Capt. Stigand, To Abyssinia through an Unknown Land (1910); G. Montandon, Au Pays Ghimirra (1913) ; Major C. W. Gwynn, “A Journey in S. Abyssinia” (with map), Geog. Jnl., Aug. 1911; Major F. L. Athill, “Through S. W. Abyssinia to the Nile,” ibid., Nov. 1920; C. H. Armbruster, Mitia Amharica, Part III. Amharic-English Vocabulary, Vol. I. (1920). (F. R. C.)