You should guard to the Mereb River and I will guard it to Gondar and even beyond Gondar. You want the road to be open and I want the road to be open. "And you (Italians), why do you need to look for distant friends? We are neighbors (meaning Medri Bahri and Tigray) and can serve each other. Let the Italian soldiers come to Adwa, I shall come to meet them like a friend. ( 1996, Ḥagai Erlikh, p. These following two quotes made by Ras Alula shows us without a doubt, that leaders of Tigray/Abyssinia of the late 19th century, were in alliance with the Italians for their political survival and that the regions of north of the Mereb river were foreign to them.īut if he gives as a present what is out of his door the present is of no value.You want the country to the Mareb (Eritrean highlands) to cultitivate your gardens, to build your houses, to construct your churches.? We can give it to you. Although by this point, it was evident that Ras Alula had already crossed the Mereb river and retreated back into Tigray, which completely ended his brief occupation over Medri-Bahri or Mareb Mellash as the Tigrayans called it. Though then the weakest of the three chiefs, he for a time laid ineffective claim to the imperial throne, which he was eventually to inherit. ( 2001, Richard Pankhurst, p.162)Īfter the defeat of Yohannes by the Sudanese Mahdist, Ras Alula desperately tried to solicit the Italians for friendship, confirming that they can occupy all the lands up till the Mereb River (modern Eritrea), which is still the historical and modern border between Medri-bahri/Eritrea and Tigray/Ethiopia. He then proclaimed himself Emperor Yohannes IV, on 21 January of the following year.The third contestant for power was Menilek, heir to the throne of Shawa, who had been one of Tewodro's prisoners at Maqdala, but escaped in 1865, and proclaimed himself king of his province. Gobaze set out with 60,000 men to capture Adwa, the then capital of Tigray, but Kasa, making good use of his British guns, defeated him at the battle of Assam, on 11 July 1871. The latter was militarily more pwerful, in part on account of the gift of arms he had received from the Napier expedition, and assiatance given him by a former member of the British force, John Kirkham, who had volunteered to train his army on European lines. He was, however, soon effectively challenged by Dajzmach Kasa Mercha of Tigray. The first to gain prominence was Wagshum Gobaze, the ruler of Amhara, Wag and Lasta, who was immediately crowned Emperor Takla Giyorgis at Gondar. Three rival personalities then held power in different areas. Tewodros's death in 1868, which, like his life, was a turning point in his country's history, left Ethiopia again divided, and without a ruler. Someone who worked with colonial forces to defeat their own countrymen certainly can not be taking as being anti-colonial. For his cooperations with the British, he ended up receiving British weapons and training of his troops, which led to his subsequent rise to power. It was not till Yohannes collaborated with British forces to dislodge emperor Tewodros did he become emperor himself. For starters, Kassay Mercha of Tigray (later to be renamed Yohannes IV) is regarded as curbing colonialism by Ethiopian historians, a simple glance at his past shows that he came to power with the help of colonial British forces himself.
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