Taytu Betul

Empress Taytu Betul was Menelik II's consort, his most hawkish adviser, and a commander in the field at Adwa. She came from a noble family with a claim of Solomonic descent and had been married four times before Menelik, which gave her an unusual independence for a consort. She founded Addis Ababa with him in 1886, choosing the site for its hot springs and giving the city its name, new flower. Her politics were consistently suspicious of Europeans. When the Treaty of Wuchale was found to say different things in Amharic and Italian, it was Taytu who argued hardest against any accommodation, telling an Italian envoy that she was a woman and did not love war, but would rather die than accept such a proposal. At Adwa in 1896 she brought her own force of several thousand and directed the cutting of the Italian water supply at the fort of Mekelle, which forced its surrender, and she organised the nursing of the wounded during the battle. She dominated the court after Menelik's stroke in 1909 and was pushed out by nobles who would not accept a woman regent. She spent her last years at Entoto and died in 1918. She founded churches and schools and controlled substantial land in her own right, which is where her independent political weight came from. Her insistence on the Amharic text of the treaty was vindicated when Italy conceded unconditional independence after Adwa. She is remembered in Ethiopia as a national figure rather than as a royal wife, and the first hotel in Addis Ababa, which she built, still carries her name.

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