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Firearms and Princely Power in Ethiopia in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

R. A. Caulk
R. A. Caulk
Affiliation:
Haile Selassie I University
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Extract

Several centuries after firearms had been introduced, they were still of little importance in Ethiopia, where cavalry continued to dominate warfare until the second half of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, they were much sought after by local leaders ambitious to secure their autonomy or to grasp supreme authority. The first of these warlords to make himself emperor, Tēwodros (1855–68), owed nothing to firearms. However, his successors, Yohannis IV (1872–89) and Minīlik (d. 1913), did. Both excelled in their mastery of the new technology and acquired large quantities of quick-firing weapons. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, possession of firearms — principally the breech loading rifle — had become a precondition for successfully contending for national leadership. Yet the wider revolution associated (as in Egypt) with the establishment of a European-style army did not follow. Nor was rearmament restricted to the following of the emperor. Despite the revival of imperial authority effected by Yohannis and Minīlik, rifles and even machine-guns were widely enough spread at the turn of the century to reinforce the fragmentation of power long characteristic of the Ethiopian state. Into the early twentieth century, it remained uncertain if the peculiar advantages of the capital in the import of arms would be made to serve centralization.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , October 1972 , pp. 609 - 630
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

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6 I am indebted to my colleague, Dr D. Crummey, for this explanation of the obsession with heavy ordnance. With good reason, an ironical poem about the invasion of Gojam by Yohannis IV has his rebellious vassal praise the steep sides of two mountain fortresses as the best peacemakers; trans. quoted, Cerulli, E., Storia della Letteratura Etiopica (Milan, 1956), 247.Google Scholar

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43 As in his letter cited above note 40.Google Scholar

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99 Brice to Minister, 1 July 1910, Ethiopie 3, fol. 73.Google Scholar

100 Brice to Minister. Addis Ababa, 21 Feb. 1914, Ethiopie 3, fol. 279;Google Scholar on his import of German arms through Jibuti in 1911/12, fols. 215, 258. Already Minīlik had permitted him to replace his cavalry with perhaps as many as 20,000 infantry armed with rifles or other firearms (Saletta to Affari Esteri, Rome, 3 May 1907, ASMAI 38/4–36).Google Scholar

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102 The Wello were defeated on the approaches to Addis Ababa only when government reinforcements arrived in the midst of the fighting to attack them from the rear; then their fieldguns were taken along with Mika'ēl assuring a debacle. For this information I am indebted to And Alem Mulaw who interviewed at Gonder Balambaras Asfaw Welde Sadiq, who had served Dejaz Ayalew from 1909 and fought under him in the campaign of 1916.Google Scholar

103 Zoli, C., Cronache Etiopiche (Rome, 1930), 313 ffGoogle Scholar. Again I am indebted to And Alem Mulaw's interviews of survivors for confirmation of the striking effect the regent's one air-worthy plane had; this is much the same account given by the chronicle of the kings kept at Debre Birhan Sillasē, Gonder.