Menelik II

Menelik II was emperor of Ethiopia from 1889 to 1913, and the only African ruler to defeat a European army decisively enough to keep his country independent. He was born Sahle Maryam, son of the Negus of Shewa, and spent a decade as a hostage at the court of Emperor Tewodros II before escaping to claim his own throne. He built Shewa into the strongest of the Ethiopian kingdoms, largely by importing modern firearms from any European power that would sell them, and succeeded to the imperial throne when Yohannes IV died fighting the Mahdists. The Treaty of Wuchale with Italy in 1889 contained two texts. The Amharic said Ethiopia might use Italy for its foreign dealings; the Italian said it must. Italy claimed a protectorate on the strength of its own version, Menelik repudiated the treaty, and Italy invaded. At Adwa on 1 March 1896 he met them with an army of around a hundred thousand, far larger and better armed than Rome expected, and destroyed it. Italy recognised Ethiopian independence unconditionally. He then spent the rest of his reign doubling the empire southward and eastward by conquest, which is remembered very differently in the Oromo and Somali regions than in the highlands. He founded Addis Ababa, introduced the telephone, the railway to Djibouti, electricity, postal services and modern schooling, and abolished the slave trade on paper. A stroke left him incapacitated from 1909. Adwa made him a figure of enormous significance far beyond Ethiopia, cited by pan-Africanists and by African-American writers for decades afterwards as proof that a European army could be beaten. His widow Taytu Betul had been a considerable political force in her own right and commanded troops at Adwa.

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