1868 Expedition to Abyssinia
Encyclopedia
The British 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia was a punitive expedition
Punitive expedition
A punitive expedition is a military journey undertaken to punish a state or any group of persons outside the borders of the punishing state. It is usually undertaken in response to perceived disobedient or morally wrong behavior, but may be also be a covered revenge...

 carried out by armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...

 of the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 against the Ethiopian Empire
Ethiopian Empire
The Ethiopian Empire also known as Abyssinia, covered a geographical area that the present-day northern half of Ethiopia and Eritrea covers, and included in its peripheries Zeila, Djibouti, Yemen and Western Saudi Arabia...

. Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia
Tewodros II of Ethiopia
Tewodros II was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1855 until his death....

, also known as "Theodore," imprisoned several missionaries and two representatives of the British government in an attempt to get the attention of the British government, which had been ignoring his requests for military assistance. The punitive expedition launched by the British in response required the transportation of a sizable military force hundreds of miles across mountainous terrain lacking any road system. Harold G. Marcus described the action as "one of the most expensive affairs of honour in history."

Background

By October, 1862 Emperor Tewodros' position as ruler had become precarious: much of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 was in revolt against him, except for a small area stretching from Lake Tana
Lake Tana
Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest lake in Ethiopia...

 east to his fortress at Magdala
Amba Mariam
Amba Mariam is a village in central Ethiopia. It was known as Magdala or Meqdela during the reign of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia...

. He was engaged in constant military campaigns against a wide array of rebels. As a final attempt to recover his standing, Tewodros wrote to the major powers for help. As Donald Crummey recounts, "Now came the definitive attempt, at the turning point of the Emperor's career. Success might stabilize the internal situation; defeat would pull out the last prop. He proposed to send embassies with the ultimate objective of obtaining military alliances and agreements for technical progress."

Tewodros sent letters to Russia, Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

, Austria, France and Britain. The French government responded with demands on behalf of a Lazarist mission in Hamasien
Hamasien
Hamasien was the name of an histoical province including and surrounding Asmara, now part of modern Eritrea. The region has been divided and distributed amongst the modern Maekel, Debub, Northern Red Sea, Gash-Barka and Anseba regions....

, at the edge of Tewodros' realm; they were the only country known to have responded. However, the first European to cross his path after this lack of a response happened to be Henry Stern
Henry Aaron Stern
Henry Aaron Stern was an Anglican missionary and captive in Abyssinia....

, a British missionary. Stern had also mentioned the Emperor's humble origins in a book he had published; although the reference was not intended to be insulting ("the eventful and romantic history of the man, who, from a poor boy, in a reed-built convent became...the conqueror of numerous provinces, and the Sovereign of a great and extensive realm") it proved to be a dangerous mistake. At the time Tewodros was insisting on the truth of his descent from the Solomonic dynasty
Solomonic dynasty
The Solomonic dynasty is the Imperial House of Abyssinia. Its members claim lineal descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the latter of whom tradition asserts gave birth to the first King Menelik I after her Biblically described visit to Solomon in Jerusalem .-Overview:The dynasty, a...

, and Tewodros expressed his rage in many ways, including having Stern's servants beaten to death, and Stern with Rosenthal, were "chained, severely treated, and the latter thrashed on several occasions."

The British consul Charles Duncan Cameron
Charles Duncan Cameron
Charles Duncan Cameron was a British soldier who was serving as British consul in Ethiopia when he was imprisoned by Emperor Tewodros II as one of the acts which led to the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia.- Life :...

, along with the Abuna
Abuna
Also see Leaders of ChristianityAbun is the honorific title used for any bishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as well as of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church...

 Salama
Abuna Salama III
Salama III was Abuna, or head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church . Originally brought to Ethiopia by Dejazmach Wube Haile Maryam, he afterwards attached himself to the party of Emperor Tewodros II for his help to settle the theological disputes and to gain control over the fractured church...

 and the group of missionaries based at Gafat, all interceded for the release of the imprisoned pair, and for a while it appeared that their efforts might succeed; but on 2 January 1864 Cameron was seized along with his staff, and all put in chains. Shortly afterwards, Tewodros ordered most of the Europeans in the royal camp put into chains.

The British government sent Hormuzd Rassam
Hormuzd Rassam
Hormuzd Rassam , was a native Assyrian Assyriologist, British diplomat and traveller who made a number of important discoveries, including the clay tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest literature...

, an ethnic Assyrian
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...

 Christian, to negotiate a solution to this crisis, but "security in Tigre
Tigray Province
Tigray was a province of Ethiopia. The Tigray Region superseded the province with the adoption of the new constitution in 1995. The province of Tigre merged with its neighboring provinces, including Semien, Tembien, Agame and the prominent Enderta province and towards the end of 19th century it...

, the King's indecisiveness, and continuing confusion about the envoy's instructions" delayed Rassam's arrival at Tewodros' camp until January 1866. At first, it looked as if Rassam might succeed in the release of the hostages: the Emperor showed him great favour, establishing him at Qorata, a village on the south-eastern shores of Lake Tana
Lake Tana
Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest lake in Ethiopia...

, and sending him numerous gifts, and having Cameron, Stern, and the other hostages sent to his encampment. However, about this time C.T. Beke
Charles Tilstone Beke
Charles Tilstone Beke was an English traveller, geographer and Biblical critic. Born in Stepney, London, the son of a merchant in the City of London, for a few years Beke engaged in mercantile pursuits...

, arrived at Massawa
Massawa
Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa (Ge'ez ምጽዋዕ , formerly ባጽዕ is a city on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. An important port for many centuries, it was ruled by a succession of polities, including the Axumite Empire, the Umayyad Caliphate,...

, and forwarded letters from the hostages' families to Tewodros asking for their release. At the least Beke's actions only made Tewodros suspicious. Rassam, writing in his memoirs of the incident, is more direct: "I date the change in the King's conduct towards me, and the misfortunes which eventually befell the members of the Mission and the old captives, from this day." Meanwhile, Emperor Tewodros' behavior was becoming increasingly erratic, his actions included acts of friendship towards Rassam, paranoid accusations, and sudden violence upon whoever happened to be around him. In the end, Rassam himself was made a prisoner, and one of the missionaries dispatched with the news and Tewodros' latest demands in June 1866. The Emperor eventually moved all of his European prisoners to his fortress on Magdala, and continued to parlay with the British until Queen Victoria announced the decision to send a military expedition to rescue the hostages 21 August 1867.

The campaign

In the eyes of Alan Moorehead
Alan Moorehead
Alan McCrae Moorehead OBE was a war correspondent and author of popular histories, most notably two books on the nineteenth-century exploration of the Nile, The White Nile and The Blue Nile . Australian-born, he lived in England, and Italy, from 1937.-Biography:Alan Moorehead was born in...

, "There has never been in modern times a colonial campaign quite like the British expedition to Ethiopia in 1868. It proceeds from first to last with the decorum and heavy inevitability of a Victorian state banquet, complete with ponderous speeches at the end. And yet it was a fearsome undertaking; for hundreds of years the country had never been invaded, and the savage nature of the terrain alone was enough to promote failure."

The task was given to the Bombay Army
Bombay Army
The Bombay Army was the army of the Bombay Presidency, one of the three Presidencies of British India, in South Asia.The Presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company until the Government of India Act 1858 transferred all three presidencies to the direct...

, and Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Napier
Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala
Field Marshal Robert Cornelis Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala, GCB, GCSI, CIE, FRS was a British soldier.-Early life:...

 was given command of the expeditionary force. Intelligence was carefully gathered about Ethiopia while the size of the army was calculated and its needs estimated before a massive effort begun to meet them. "Thus, for example, forty-four trained elephants were to be sent from India to carry the heavy guns on the march, while hiring commissions were dispatched all over the Mediterranean and the Near East to obtain mules and camels to handle the lighter gear. A railway, complete with locomotives and some twenty miles (32 km) of track, was to be laid across the coastal plain, and at the landing place large piers, lighthouses and warehouses were to be built." The expedition took Maria Theresa thaler
Maria Theresa thaler
The Maria Theresa thaler is a silver bullion-coin that has been used in world trade continuously. Maria Theresa Thalers were first minted in 1741, using the then Reichsthaler standard of 9 thalers to the Vienna mark. In 1750 the thaler was debased to 10 thalers to the Vienna Mark...

s with them to pay local expenses.

The force consisted of 13,000 British and Indian soldiers, 26,000 camp followers and over 40,000 animals, including the elephants. The force set sail from Bombay in upwards of 280 steam and sailing ships. The advance guard of engineers landed at Zula
Zula
Zula is a small town in central Eritrea. It is situated near the head of Annesley Bay , on the Red Sea coast...

 on the Red Sea, about 30 miles (48.3 km) south of Massawa
Massawa
Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa (Ge'ez ምጽዋዕ , formerly ባጽዕ is a city on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. An important port for many centuries, it was ruled by a succession of polities, including the Axumite Empire, the Umayyad Caliphate,...

, and began to construct a port in mid-October 1867, and by the end of the first month they had completed a pier, 700 yards (640.1 m) long; they completed a second one by the first week of December and the railway was already reaching into the interior. At the same time an advance guard, under Sir William Lockyer Merewether
William Merewether
Major General Sir William Lockyer Merewether KCSI, CB was a British General who served in a number of places including India and Abyssinia.-Abyssinia 1867–1868:...

, had pushed up the dry bed of the Kumayli River to the Suru Pass, where again the engineers were busy at work building a road to Senafe
Senafe
Senafe is a market town in southern Eritrea, on the edge of the Ethiopian highlands. The surrounding area is inhabited by the Saho people and the Tigrinya people....

 for the elephants, gun-carriages, and carts.

From Senafe, Merewether sent out two letters from Lieutenant-General Napier: one to Emperor Tewodros, demanding the release of the hostages (which Rassam intercepted and destroyed, afraid this ultimatum might enrage Tewodros against the prisoners); the other to the people of Ethiopia, proclaiming that he was there purely to free the captives and that he had hostile intentions only towards those who sought to oppose him. Napier arrived at Zula on 2 January 1868, and put the finishing touches on his plan of advance before leaving on 25 January for Senafe.

It took the British forces 3 months to trek over 400 miles (643.7 km) of mountainous terrain to the foot of the Emperor's fortress at Magdala. At Antalo, Napier parleyed with Ras Kassai (later Emperor Yohannes IV
Yohannes IV of Ethiopia
Yohannes IV , born Lij Kassay Mercha Ge'ez, was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1872 until his death.-Early life:...

), and won his support, which the British badly needed in their single-minded march to Magdala; without the help, or at least indifference, of the local peoples, the British Expedition would have never reached its goal deep within the Ethiopian highlands
Ethiopian Highlands
The Ethiopian Highlands are a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia, Eritrea , and northern Somalia in the Horn of Africa...

. On 17 March, the army reached Lake Ashangi, 100 miles (160.9 km) from their goal, and here, to further lighten their loads, the troops were put on half-rations.

At this point, Emperor Tewodros' strength had already been dissolving. At the beginning of 1865 he controlled little more than Begemder
Begemder
Begemder was a province in the northwestern part of Ethiopia. There are several proposed etymologies for this name...

, Wadla
Wadla
Wadla is one of the 105 woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia; it is named for the former district which lay roughly in the same area. Part of the Semien Wollo Zone, Wadla is bordered on the south and east by Dawuntna Delant, on the west by the Checheho River which separates it from the Debub...

, and Delanta (wherein the fortress of Magdala lay). He struggled to keep up the size of his army—which Sven Rubenson points out was his only "instrument of power" -- but by mid-1867 defections from his army had reduced its size to 10,000 men. Harold Marcus observes, "For a total cost of about £9,000,000 Napier set out to defeat a man who could muster only a few thousand troops and had long ago ceased to be Ethiopia's leader in anything but title."
At the same time the British marched south to Magdala, Tewodros advanced from the west, up the course of the Bashilo River
Bashilo River
The Bashilo River is located in Ethiopia. Known for its canyon, which one source describes as almost as extensive as the canyon of its parent the Abay, also known as the Blue Nile, the river originates just west of Kutaber in the Amhara Region, flowing first to the northwest to where the Tergiya...

, with the cannons (including his prize creation, the massive Sebastopol
Sebastopol (cannon)
Sebastopol was the name of a huge mortar commissioned by the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II. The name derived from that of the Crimean town Sevastopol, the site of a battle during the Crimean War....

) that he had induced the European missionaries and foreign artisans to build for him at Gafat. The Emperor intended to arrive at Magdala before the British, and although he had a shorter distance to cross and had started his journey ten days before Napier left Zula his success was not certain, and he only arrived at his fortress ten days before his opponents. Rubenson notes that it was Tewodros, not the British expedition, which had to travel through hostile territory, for Tewodros' soldiers
had marched under the threat of attacks from Gobeze
Tekle Giyorgis II of Ethiopia
Tekle Giyorgis II was of Ethiopia from 1868 to 1872....

's numerically superior forces, and had been obliged to defend themselves against a hostile peasantry. Tewodros's problems of provisioning for his army and transporting his artillery had also been much greater than Napier's. Most important of all, Tewodros could not trust even the four thousand soldiers who still followed him. Given the opportunity, they might abandon him as so many had already done.


Tewodros provided one last demonstration of his lack of diplomatic skills on 17 February, when after accepting the submission of the inhabitants of Delanta, he asked them why they had waited until he appeared with his army. When they answered that they had been prevented by rebellious Oromo and Gobeze, "he told them they were as bad as the others, and ordered them to be plundered. ... Consequently, when the King [Tewodros] further ordered them to be attacked, they all fought bravely, and, in conjunction with the inhabitants of Dawunt, killed a great number of his soldiers and seized their arms and mules." Not only had Tewodros isolated himself for several days in a hostile territory within sight of his last strong hold, a deputation from the Yejju, who were coming to him to offer their submission, upon hearing Tewodros' savagery promptly turned around.

On 9 April, the lead elements of the British force reached the Bashilo, "and on the following morning, Good Friday
Good Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...

, they crossed the stream barefooted, stooping to fill their water-bottles on the way."

On the afternoon of that Good Friday, the decisive battle took place outside Magdala
Battle of Magdala
The Battle of Magdala was fought in April 1868 between British and Abyssinian forces at Magdala, from the Red Sea coast, which at that time was the capital city of Abyssinia...

, almost as an anti-climax. The British repelled a massive attack, then routed the defending forces in just two hours the following day. British casualties were 2 killed and 18 wounded, while the Ethiopians lost 700 killed and 1,400 wounded. Over the next two days, Tewodros released his European hostages, and on Monday the defeated emperor committed suicide rather than be captured. "When Tewodros preferred self-inflicted death to captivity, he deprived the British of this ultimate satisfaction and laid the foundation for his own resurrection as a symbol of the defiant independence of the Ethiopian."

Aftermath

The British entered the capital and Sir Robert allowed his troops to loot and burn Magdala, including its churches, as a punitive measure, before departing from Ethiopia. His army began to retrace its steps back to Zula, "an imposing procession, with the bands playing and the flags leading the way, but the army soon learned that they had earned no gratitude in Ethiopia; they were treated as simply another warlike tribe on the move, and now that they were going away like weak and defeated men they were an obvious target for attack." At Senafe, the British rewarded Ras Kassai for his services with a formidable quantity of supplies, which Marcus estimates were worth "approximately £500,000": six mortars, six howitzers, about 900 muskets and rifles, stocks of ammunition which included 585,480 percussion cap
Percussion cap
The percussion cap, introduced around 1830, was the crucial invention that enabled muzzleloading firearms to fire reliably in any weather.Before this development, firearms used flintlock ignition systems which produced flint-on-steel sparks to ignite a pan of priming powder and thereby fire the...

s, and other goods and supplies. These later aided his rise to Emperor, against such talented rivals as Wagshum Gobeze and Menelik of Shewa. By 2 June Napier had reached Zula, and as the men were loaded into the ships, the base camp was dismantled; Napier boarded the Feroze on 10 June, and set sail for England by way of the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

. In London, Napier was created Baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...

 Napier of Magdala in recognition of his achievement. At Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...

, where he served as governor from 1876 to 1883, there is a battery named in his honour, Napier of Magdala Battery
Napier of Magdala Battery
Napier of Magdala Battery is a coastal battery on the south-western cliffs of the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, overlooking the Bay of Gibraltar near Rosia Bay.-History:...



The British expedition took a large amount of treasure, manuscripts and many religious items such as tabot
Tabot
Tabot , is a Ge'ez word referring to a replica of the Tablets of Law, onto which the Biblical Ten Commandments were inscribed, used in the practices of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Tabot can also refer to a replica of the Ark of the Covenant...

s, some of which are in private collections and some of which one can view today in various museums and libraries in Europe. The manuscripts ignited an interest in Ethiopic studies in the West. A few of the items have since been returned to Ethiopia. The most important of these was the crown of Tewodros II, which King George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....

 personally presented to the future Emperor Haile Selassie
Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia
Haile Selassie I , born Tafari Makonnen, was Ethiopia's regent from 1916 to 1930 and Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974...

 on his visit to England in 1925.

Battle honour

The success of the expedition led to the institution of a battle honour
Battle honour
A battle honour is an award of a right by a government or sovereign to a military unit to emblazon the name of a battle or operation on its flags , uniforms or other accessories where ornamentation is possible....

, Abyssinia, which was awarded in to units of the British Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

 that had participated in the campaign. The units that participated from the campaign belonged, with the exception of the Madras Sappers, to the Bengal and Bombay Presidency Armies.

In fiction

The 1868 Expedition forms the backdrop to George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...

's novel Flashman on the March
Flashman on the March
Flashman on the March is a 2005 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the twelfth and last Flashman novel.-Plot introduction:As in all of Fraser's Flashman novels, the story is presented as part of the Flashman Papers, supposedly written by Sir Harry Flashman, the villain of Tom Brown's Schooldays...

and Mason McCann Smith's When the Emperor Dies.

External links

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