The army of the Ethiopian Empire was the principal land warfare force of the Ethiopian Empire and had naval and air force branches in the 20th century. The organization existed in multiple forms throughout the history of the Ethiopian Empire from its foundation in 1270 by Emperor Yekuno Amlak, to the overthrow of the monarchy and Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 by members of the Ethiopian army. Chronicles of war and military prowess are plentiful in Ethiopia’s historical literature. Growing up we are effortlessly taught the virtues of honor and duty, which have bestowed sovereignty to generation after generation of Ethiopians. Countless retelling of tales depicting the early and decisive victory at the battle of Adwa remain ever fresh in our proud minds and hearts; the feeling only to be outdone by the resoluteness of heroes who ended the Italian occupation of Ethiopia during the Second World War.
Historical setting is one of the key elements for understanding the socially rooted, popular, perpetually emergent individual warriors that the chewa were. This is because of their proverbial sensitivity to history, their loyalty to the local and national structures, and their practice of coalescing into cohesive forces across linguistic groups when faced with hostility. Pride in monarchs and regiments featured in their historical narratives, though most Ethiopians never strived to be literate in order to read about those histories. Nonetheless achieving titles and political positions in the hierarchically organized state was part of the chewa historical consciousness that remained a critical tenet for warriors’ activities in the nineteenth century.
The Ethiopian Empire,[a] historically known as Abyssinia or simply Ethiopia,[b] was a sovereign state[17] that encompassed the present-day territories of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It existed from the establishment of the Solomonic dynasty by Yekuno Amlak around 1270 until the 1974 coup d'état by the Derg, which ended the reign of the final Emperor, Haile Selassie. Founded in 1270 by Yekuno Amlak, who claimed to descend from the last Aksumite king and ultimately King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, it replaced the Agaw kingdom of the Zagwe.
After the fall of the Kingdom of Aksum in the 10th century AD, the Ethiopian Highlands would fall under the rule of the Zagwe Dynasty. By the late 13th century, a young Amhara nobleman named Yekuno Amlak rose to power in Bete Amhara. Yekuno Amlak then rebelled against the Zagwe king and defeated him at the Battle of Ansata. Yekuno Amlak would rise to the throne by 1270 AD. Throughout Yekuno Amlak's reign he would enjoy friendly relations with the Muslims.
Early Military Developments
While initially a rather small and politically unstable entity, the Empire managed to expand significantly under the crusades of Amda Seyon I (1314-1344) and Dawit I (1382-1413), temporarily becoming the dominant force in the Horn of Africa.[19] The Ethiopian Empire would reach its peak during the long reign of Emperor Zara Yaqob (1434-1468). In 1306, diplomatic envoys from Ethiopia arrived in Rome seeking diplomatic relations.
Read also: Planning Your Ethiopia Trip
The neighboring Muslim Adal Sultanate began to threaten the empire by repeatedly attempting to invade it, finally succeeding under Imam Mahfuz.[23] Mahfuz's ambush and defeat by Emperor Lebna Dengel brought about the early 16th-century jihad of the Ottoman-supported Adalite Imam Ahmed Gran, who was defeated in 1543 with the help of the Portuguese.
In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias completed the first circumvention of the African continent reaching India and opening relations between the Portuguese and multiple African countries, including Ethiopia. In 1488, Ethiopian diplomats arrived in Lisbon, Portugal and Jesuit missionaries came to Ethiopia where they remained until their expulsion by Emperor Fasilides in 1632.[3] Emperor Yeshaq I, according to the Islamic historian al-Maqrizi, hired a group of Mamluks led by al-Tabingha to train his army in gunnery and sword fighting.
Greatly weakened, much of the Empire's southern territory and vassals were lost due to the Oromo migrations. In the north, in what is now Eritrea, Ethiopia managed to repulse Ottoman invasion attempts, although losing its access to the Red Sea to them.[25] Reacting to these challenges, in the 1630s Emperor Fasilides founded the new capital of Gondar, marking the start of a new golden age known as the Gondarine period. It saw relative peace, the successful integration of the Oromo and a flourishing of culture.
The warlike emperor of Amda Seyon I conducted many campaigns in Gojjam, Damot and Eritrea, but his most important campaigns were against his Muslim enemies to the east, which shifted the balance of power in favour of the Christians for the next two centuries. Amda Seyon's conquests significantly expanded the territory of the Ethiopian Empire, more than doubling it by size and establishing complete hegemony over the region.
In 1557, the Ottoman Empire invaded Ethiopia and conquered Massawa and other areas along the Red Sea coast. The Ottomans would remain in the area until 1863, when Isma'il Pasha became the Governor of the Egypt Eyalet and declared a Khedivate that was later recognized in 1867.
Read also: CEO Opportunity: Development Bank of Ethiopia
By 1875, Isma'il had expanded his control to Berbera and Harar during the Ethiopian-Egyptian War, but following his deposition by the British and the Ethiopian victory in the war the areas were returned to their control. In 1887, the Sudanese Mahdist State invaded the Gojjam and Begemder provinces as a part of the Mahdist War. From 9 to 10 March 1889, Emperor Yohannes IV met the Mahdists at the Battle of Gallabat where the Mahdists were defeated, but Yohannes IV was fatally wounded and died on 10 March.
The Battle of ADWA: Africa’s Greatest Victory Against Colonisation
The Introduction and Evolution of Firearms
European contact with the Ethiopians in the 1500s brought the first firearms to the country although attempts to arm the imperial army with gunpowder weapons did not happen until the early 1800s. This is the earliest reference to firearms (Arabic naft) in Ethiopia.[11] In the 1520s, Lebna Dengel bought two swivel-guns from the Portuguese, as well as fourteen muskets acquired from Turks, he was thus ill equipped for the Ottoman backed invasion in 1527 which included thousands of Turkish and Arab flintlocks and matchlocks. By the time of Wayna Daga, however, the army was trained in gunfighting.
The first firearms arrived in Ethiopia arrived during Yeshaq I's reign, but were not put to use. In 1828, Ras Sabagardis, the chief of the Tigray Province, sent his English servant to Bombay, Egypt, and England with requests for firearms and one hundred light cavalry. In India the servant found a surplus of outdated matchlocks belonging to the East India Company and Foreign Secretary Henry John Temple and the directors of the East India Company approved the transfer of 3,000 matchlocks in 1831.
During the Gondarine period guns became common among the royalty and aristocracy, and in the Zemene Mesafint, among the peasantry. Sahle Selassie of Shewa later imported several canons in 1839 and by 1840 a French envoy had brought Sahle Selassie a mill to manufacture gunpowder along with 140 muskets. A British mission in 1842 visited Shoa and presented the Negus with 2 cannons, 300 muskets, and 100 pistols. His contemporaries like Sabagadis Woldu and Wube Haile Maryam would use their proximity to the sea in the north to obtain many firearms from the Europeans which they would use to counter the Ottomans to the west in the Ethiopian-Ottoman border conflict.
By the time of the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887-1889 nearly all warriors carried the most modern rifles of the time such as Remingtons. In 1900 Powell-Cotton stated Menelik II could put 500,000 rifles into the field along with 100 pieces of artillery. The Ethiopians attempted to develop modern weapons internally, but after a British expedition to the country resulted in the death of an emperor and an Ethiopian defeat, the empire increased its importation of weaponry. Unlike the majority of non-European armies, the Ethiopian army was able to successfully modernize in the late 19th century and saved the country from European colonialism until another Italian invasion in the 1930s.
Read also: Hotel Expansion in Ethiopia
In 1879, Alfred Ilg arrived in the court of Menelik, seeking employment similar to Werner Munzinger who had helped Khedive Isma'il Pasha with the modernization of the Khedivate of Egypt, and aided in the modernization of Ethiopia's infrastructure and military.[14] In 1905, the Ethiopians signed a weapons treaty with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary. On July 27, 1914, the Ethiopians and Austro-Hungarians made an agreement and paid for the transfer of 120 cannons from the Austrians to Ethiopians.
On 13 December 1906, the British, French, and Italians signed a Tripartite Treaty regarding economic activities in Ethiopia and also regulated the sale of weapons to the Ethiopians, which had before lacked any, with patrols in the Red Sea to enforce the weapon regulations. During World War I the Ethiopian Empire remained neutral, but made attempts to side with the Entente Powers which were stopped by the Italians.[3] Kaiser Wilhelm II attempted to convince the Ethiopians to join the Central Powers.
Leo Frobenius and Salomon Hall were sent in attempts to enter Ethiopia, but were arrested in Italian Eritrea. In 1917, Selassie established the Machine Gun Guards under the leadership of Gäbrä Yohannes Woldä Mädhen, who had served in the British army in Kenya as a NCO. In 1919, veterans of the East African campaign from World War I were assigned to serve in the unit. In November 1922, Haile Selasssie watched an air show of the British Royal Air Force in the Aden Province.
Map of Ethiopia
Military Reforms and Conflicts
In 1855, Tewodros II became the emperor and had the goal of unifying the Ethiopians into a centralized state in order to establish the country as a regional power. In 1856, he defeated Negus Haile Melekot, who ruled over the semi-autonomous Shewa region, and started military campaigns against the Oromo. Tewodros II also centralized the military by creating a permanent standing army from its historical practice of temporarily raising regional armies to create a national army. He also created a military hierarchy with titles going upward from commanders of ten, fifty, one thousand, and larger amounts of soldiers.
Tewodros II also created an arsenal of modern weaponry in Magdala with 11,063 rifles, 875 pistols, 481 bayonets, 83,563 bullets, 15 cannons, 7 mortars, and 55 cannon shells. In 1864, Tewodros II imprisoned British consul Charles Duncan Cameron and multiple missionaries and ignored British ultimatums sent ordering his release. The British sent an army, equipped with modern military supplies and artillery, under the leadership of Robert Napier to free Cameron. On 10 April 1868, Ethiopian infantry armed with rifles and spears met the British at the Battle of Magdala and were easily defeated.
During the latter half of the 19th century the size of the Ethiopian field army rose dramatically. The largest army raised by Tewodros II during his reign was 15,000. In 1873, Emperor Yohannes IV raised an army of 32,000 soldiers, by 1876, he raised an army of 64,000 soldiers, and by 1880, he raised an army of 140,000 soldiers with 40,000 armed with rifles. In 1887, the Ethiopian army was estimated to consist of over 145,000 soldiers with 88,000 infantry and 57,000 cavalry.
In 1885, the Italians took over Massawa and Beilul and despite protests made by Menelik to Queen Victoria the Italians remained in the area. On 20 October 1887, the Italians and Ethiopians signed a treaty of friendship and alliance where both nations declared themselves allies, and the Italians promised to give weapons to the Ethiopians and to not annex more of their territory. The Treaty of Wuchale was signed on 2 May 1889, and another convention was held on 1 October 1889. The Treaty of Wuchale further expanded diplomatic relations between the countries, but despite the Italians recognizing Menelik as the Emperor of Ethiopia in the treaty the Foreign Affairs ministry sent telegrams to thirteen other countries describing Ethiopia as an Italian protectorate on 11 October 1889.
The Kingdom of Italy attempted to enforce their version of treaty onto the Ethiopians during the First Italo-Ethiopian War, but was defeated by Emperor Menelik II due to the vast arsenal of modern weapons and ammunition acquired though treaty negotiations and purchases from the French and the Russians.[19] Russian adventurer Nikolay Leontiev organized the first modernized army battalion of the Ethiopian army in February 1899, the kernel of which became the company of volunteers of former soldiers he invited from Senegal, who were trained by Russian and French officers.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War and Beyond
In 1931, Emperor Selassie asked the Japanese to accept an ambassador extraordinary delegation to be sent to Japan. The delegation toured Japan to inspect the Japanese Army and to learn how Ethiopia could modernize its country in a way similar to the Japanese. The Ethiopian army was in possession of outdated infantry weapons, 10-11 million rifle cartridges, four tanks, and thirteen planes against the more numerous and technologically advanced Italian Army and air force. The army consisted of 40,000 regular soldiers and 500,000 irregular soldiers all with poor equipment with the nucleus of the army being the 7,000 royal guardsmen trained by Belgian officials.
On 3 October 1935, 100,000 soldiers of the Italian Army commanded by Marshal Emilio De Bono attacked from Eritrea without prior declaration of war.[47] The Italians used chemical weapons, in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, effectively against the Ethiopian army, whose uniform consisted of light desert clothing and mostly barefoot soldiers. Chemical weapons were used in multiple battles and against thirteen towns from 22 December 1935 to 7 April 1936.[48] In 1936, Addis Ababa was taken by the Italians and the last battle between the Italians and Ethiopians occurred on 19 February 1937.
In addition to the Italian war crimes in violation of the Geneva Protocol and civilian massacres the Ethiopians engaged in war crimes. Some captured Italian soldiers and Eritrean Ascari were castrated as per Ethiopian military tradition. On 20 January 1941, Selassie entered Gojjam returning to Ethiopia after five years in exile. Following the liberation of Ethiopia in 1941, Selassie started a campaign to transform the country into a more centralized monarchical state and modernization of the country's military with the ancient military hierarchy being abolished.
In 1942, a military treaty was signed between Ethiopia and Britain where the British would provide military missions to assist in training and organizing an Ethiopian army that would be effective at restoring order and for the British to exercise control over the country's main cities and police the capital. The British Military Mission to Ethiopia (BMME) under the leadership of General Stephen Butler aided in the training and rearmament of the Ethiopians. By 1942, the reorganized Ethiopian army was in possession of 250 horses, 2,100 mules, two artillery batteries, an armored car regiment of 205 soldiers, and 148 officers were trained in methods similar to those at the Royal Military College.
After the Italian armies were defeated in North and East Africa the British started selling the captured Italian weapons to the Ethiopians, but at high prices resulting in the army limiting its purchases to small arms. In 1944, the Ethiopians rejected arm sales from the British due to price gouging and started buying military supplies from the Americans although the United States could only sell a fraction of the requested supplies. From 1953 to 1970, the United States gave Ethiopia $147 million in military aid and was the main receipt of all American military aid to Africa.[53] In 1960, the United States made a secret agreement with Ethiopian to help train and equip an army of 40,000 soldiers to fight against the Somali Republic and rebels in Eritrea.
On 13 December 1960, the Imperial Bodyguard attempted a coup d'état while Selassie was outside of the country. Prince Amha Selassie and twenty cabinet ministers were captured by the coup members, but the main army remained loyal to the emperor. Following the 1960 coup by the Imperial Bodyguard and the threat of an independent Somalia the army was enlarged to over 28,000 soldiers by 1962, and over 30,000 the next year.
The Role of Women in Ethiopian Military History
From earliest times, both women and men were encouraged to participate in mobilization and preparation efforts. Historians have estimated that an average of 20,000 to 30,000 women have participated in the campaign of Adwa alone. While the majority served in non-violent chores such as food preparation and nursing of the wounded, a significant portion served as soldiers, strategists, advisors, translators, and intelligence officers.
Queen Yodit is one of the earliest-mentioned Ethiopian female leaders who fought spiritedly in battles. Between 1464 and 1468, under the leadership of King Zere Yaqob, women’s expansion into political positions became more evident. King Zere Yaqob’s wife, Queen Eleni, was an equally formidable and astute military strategist, and was largely responsible for the arrival in 1520 of the Portuguese as one of the first diplomatic missions. Years later Queen Seble Wongel was able to draw on the help of the Portuguese in defeating Ahmed Gragn’s muslim expansion into Ethiopia.
Perhaps the most famous queen involved in military affairs is Empress Taitu, wife of Emperor Menelik II. In the battle of Adwa Empress Taitu is said to have commanded an infantry of no less than 5,000 along with 600 cavalry men and accompanied by thousands of Ethiopian women. Following her example, Itege Menen avidly participated in battles taking places during the ‘Era of the Princes.’ Fighting against the incursion of the Egyptians, she is said to have had 20,000 soldiers under her command. Intelligence work was key in Ethiopia’s gaining the upper hand against fascist Italy and here too women played a significant role in information gathering.
Queen Taitu’s role as advisor is also well known. In depicting the wariness and foresight of Queen Taitu, historian R. Greenfield records her advise to Emperor Menelik and his cabinet regarding the Italian encroachment. Her dedication and subsequent victory in preserving Ethiopia’s sovereignty won her the title “Berhane ZeEthiopia” (Light of Ethiopia). In the role of translator, Princess Tsehay Haile Selassie served her country by accompanying the Emperor to the League of Nations and aiding in Ethiopia’s call for support from the International Community.
The role of women in Ethiopian military history will remain largely untold if their work as non-combatants is not recalled. It is in this position that the majority of women of the lower class contributed in strengthening Ethiopia’s defense. While some uplifted the morale of the fighting contingent through popular battle songs and poetry, others labored for the daily nourishment and overall well-being of the soldiers. The record of Ethiopia’s long-standing independence will be incomplete without the recognition of thousands of women servants who accompanied women and menfolk of the aristocracy in battle after battle.
Ethiopian Women Soldiers at the Battle of Adwa
The Chewa Warriors
Today best known for their role in defending Ethiopia from Italian invasion 1935-41, chewa warriors protected Ethiopia for centuries. Yet, depicted by some 19th-century Western observers as little more than “a horde” of warmongers, and later suppressed by Ethiopian monarchs who sought to create a centralized modern state, their contribution has been neglected. Drawing on oral and written sources, as well as the zeraf poetry through which theyexpressed themselves, this book explores for the first time in depth the history, practices and principles of warriorhood of the chewa, and their wider influence on society and state.
Often self-trained individuals who began by defending their communities, by the end of the 19th century there were chewa warrior groups from almost all linguistic groups who fought together to resist foreign invaders. Some chewa enrolled in the service of the Ethiopian “kings of kings”, who organized them as named corps that supplemented the formal defence of the state.
Table: Key Figures in Ethiopian Military History
| Name | Role | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Yekuno Amlak | Emperor | Founded the Ethiopian Empire in 1270 |
| Amda Seyon I | Emperor | Expanded the empire and shifted power in favor of Christians |
| Zara Yaqob | Emperor | Reached the peak of the Ethiopian Empire |
| Tewodros II | Emperor | Unified Ethiopia and modernized the military |
| Menelik II | Emperor | Defeated the Italians in the First Italo-Ethiopian War |
| Haile Selassie | Emperor | Modernized the military after liberation from Italian occupation |
| Queen Yodit | Leader | Fought spiritedly in battles and overthrew the Aksumite kingdom |
| Queen Eleni | Military strategist | Responsible for the arrival of the Portuguese diplomatic missions |
| Empress Taitu | Commander | Commanded an infantry in the battle of Adwa |
Popular articles:
tags: #Ethiopia
