Menelik II

Menelik II was king of Shewa from 1866 and emperor of Ethiopia from 1889 until his death in 1913. He defeated an Italian invasion at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, the most decisive African victory over a European army in the colonial era, and so kept Ethiopia independent through the Scramble for Africa. He also roughly doubled the size of the empire by conquering the peoples of the south and east, founded Addis Ababa, and began the modernisation of the state.

He was born Sahle Maryam on 17 August 1844 (some sources give the 19th) at Ankober, in the highland kingdom of Shewa. His father, Haile Melekot, was heir to the Shewan throne, and his mother, Ejigayehu, was a servant in the royal household. Shewa's ruling house claimed descent from the Solomonic dynasty, which traced its line to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and his grandfather named him after Menelik I, their legendary son.

In the mid-nineteenth century Ethiopia was divided among regional lords, and the emperor Tewodros II set out to reunite it by force. In 1855 he invaded Shewa; Haile Melekot died during the campaign, and the eleven-year-old prince was taken to Tewodros's mountain fortress at Magdala. There he was raised at court, educated and treated as a favoured son, and was even married to the emperor's daughter. In 1865 he escaped and made his way back to Shewa, where in 1866 he proclaimed himself negus, or king.

For more than twenty years Menelik built up Shewa's power while acknowledging, when he had to, the authority of the emperors further north. When Yohannes IV of Tigray became emperor in 1872, Menelik at first resisted, then submitted in 1878 in return for keeping his kingdom and his own claim to the succession.

Meanwhile he expanded relentlessly to the south, west and east. His armies and generals, notably the Oromo commander Ras Gobana Dache, conquered Oromo, Gurage, Sidama and other lands, and in 1887 took the walled Muslim city of Harar after the Battle of Chelenqo. The new provinces supplied ivory, gold, coffee, civet and slaves, which paid for modern rifles bought from French, Italian and other European dealers. The conquests were often brutal. In Arsi, in Wolaita in 1894 and elsewhere, campaigns brought mass killing, enslavement and the seizure of land, and northern soldier-settlers were placed over the conquered populations. These wars made modern Ethiopia, but they are also remembered bitterly in parts of the south.

In 1883 Menelik married Taytu Betul, a shrewd and forceful noblewoman who became one of his closest advisers. In 1886 the couple founded a new capital, Addis Ababa, near hot springs below the Entoto hills.

Yohannes IV was killed fighting the Mahdist Sudanese at Metemma in March 1889, and Menelik moved quickly to claim the imperial throne. On 2 May 1889, before his coronation, he signed the Treaty of Wuchale with Italy, which had established itself on the Red Sea coast. The treaty recognised Italian control of the territory that became the colony of Eritrea (see History of Eritrea). But its seventeenth article differed between the two versions: the Amharic text said Ethiopia could use Italy for dealings with other powers, while the Italian text made this obligatory, which Italy then used to claim a protectorate over the whole country. Menelik was crowned emperor on 3 November 1889.

His first years as emperor coincided with the Great Ethiopian Famine of about 1888 to 1892, caused by a rinderpest epidemic that killed most of the country's cattle, followed by drought and disease. Perhaps a third of the population of some regions died. When he learned how Italy was interpreting the treaty, Menelik protested to the European powers and in 1893 formally denounced the treaty.

Italy, under Prime Minister Francesco Crispi, moved troops into Tigray in 1895. Menelik mobilised the provinces and marched north with an army of perhaps 100,000 or more, many armed with modern rifles, while Taytu commanded her own contingent. After Ethiopian victories at Amba Alagi in December 1895 and the siege of Mekele in January 1896, the two armies faced each other near the town of Adwa.

On 1 March 1896 the Italian commander, General Oreste Baratieri, under pressure from Rome, advanced at night in separate columns over difficult ground. The columns lost contact, and the Ethiopians destroyed them one by one. Italy and its Eritrean colonial troops lost roughly 6,000 to 7,000 killed and around 3,000 taken prisoner, while Ethiopian losses were also heavy. Crispi's government fell. In the Treaty of Addis Ababa that October, Italy annulled Wuchale and recognised Ethiopia's full independence, while keeping Eritrea.

The victory had an impact far beyond Ethiopia. European powers sent envoys to Addis Ababa and signed border treaties with Menelik, and Ethiopia became, with Liberia, one of only two African states to remain independent. For Africans and people of African descent across the world, Adwa became a lasting symbol of resistance to colonial rule.

After Adwa, Menelik's armies pushed the empire's borders further, into Kaffa in 1897 and towards Lake Turkana and the Ogaden, the region now disputed with Somalia (see History of Somalia), roughly fixing the borders that Ethiopia has today. He used foreign advisers such as the Swiss engineer Alfred Ilg to begin modernising the state. A railway from the French port of Djibouti was started in 1897 and reached Addis Ababa in 1917, after his death. His reign saw the first telegraph and telephone lines, a new currency, the Bank of Abyssinia in 1905, the first modern hospital and a government school, and in 1907 he appointed Ethiopia's first cabinet of ministers.

From 1906 he suffered a series of strokes, and by 1909 he could no longer rule. Taytu tried to steer the succession and was pushed aside by the nobles in 1910. Menelik named his young grandson Lij Iyasu as heir and died in Addis Ababa on 12 December 1913, though his death was kept quiet for some time.

Menelik is regarded in Ethiopia as one of its greatest rulers, the man who saved the country's independence and created its modern territory and capital. The anniversary of Adwa is a national holiday. His legacy is contested, however, by many in the south and among the Oromo, who see his conquests as a colonisation of their own, with lasting consequences for land ownership and political power. Iyasu was deposed in 1916, and power passed to Menelik's daughter Zewditu and her regent, Ras Tafari, the future Haile Selassie. The independence Menelik secured lasted until Benito Mussolini avenged Adwa with a second invasion in 1935. For the wider story, see the History of Ethiopia.