Emperor Tewodros II was born Kassa Haile Giorgis, (often
refered to as Kassa Hailu), the son of a minor nobleman of Qwara district of
Dembia, a region of western Beghemider province bordering on the Sudan. His
actual place of birth was in the small villiage of Dawa, located about 12
kilometers from the city of Gondar, in 1818. His father, Haile Giorgis Wolde
Giorgis would die long before Kassa could possibly have remembered him.
The monastery where he was studying was pillaged and burned
as a result of the battles between Ras Ali and Dejazmatch Wube endless wars.He
lived in the time of the Zemene Mesafin(Age Of Judges)
Dejazmatch Wube was among the more powerful of these
warlords as he ruled not only Simien, Tsegede and Wolkait, but all of Tigrai
which he had snatched from the sons of Dejazmatch Sabagadis, the Shum Agame,
and all of Hamasein, Serai, Akale Guzai, as well as parts of northern Wollo. He
was ruler of most of northern Ethiopia, and in fact liked to occasionally call
himself "Ye Abesha Nigus" or "King of Abyssinia", an
illigitimate claim that irritated Ras Ali, the Emperor Yohannis III and the
King of Shewa as well.
Dejazmatch Wube was among the more powerful of these
warlords as he ruled not only Simien, Tsegede and Wolkait, but all of Tigrai .Ras
Ali and his son puppet Emperor Yohannis the III ruled the Yejju provinces in
Debra Tabor .The Yejju were muslims of the Ormo tribe.Dejazmatch Wube convinced
him that Ras Ali and his Yejju dynasty were really muslims and not Orthodox
Christians.
Hearing of Dejazmatch
Wube's intentions of removing Ras Ali from the Enderaseship, the puppet Emperor
Yohannis III (who had been forced to marry Ali's mother and crown her Empress
Menen)they went to battle.
During the course of the battle, Ras Ali ordered a cavalry
charge. As he watched from a hill top, he saw many of his cavalry fall before
the guns of Dejazmatch Wube's army. Seeing so many of his horsemen die, Ras Ali
is said to have commented that all was lost, and he took flight to evade
capture. Ironically, Dejazmatch Wube had also been viewing the charge, and
seeing many of his men fall under the cavalry attack, he also decided that all
was lost, and he also fled the battle field. The fact that both commanders of
both armies had fled before the end of the battle would be the source of
endless jokes for years.
All in all, the situation was restored to exactly what it
had been before the war, and the battle had been nothing more than a farcical
waste of time, resources and lives.
Kassa was not one who served under anyone easily, and
although he did try to serve in Goshu's army, it did not work. The other option
was to become a bandit warlord (shifta) and sieze property and power, and it
was in this endevor that Kassa excelled. As a warlord, Kassa Hailu lived very
differently than other lords of banditry. He shunned pomp and circumstance,
living a frugal and simple life. He as accessible to his men, and lived like
them.
He robbed and pillaged the property of his wealthy enemies,
and kept a portion, but distributed a considerable ammount to the poor, and
devided what he kept among his men equally. He soon aquired legendary status,
and men began to flock to his banner.
He also launched an attack agains the Egyptian surrogates of
the Ottoman Turks in the Sudan, but was soundly defeated at the Battle of
Dabarqi in 1848
Egyptians, they had prevailed because of their outstanding
discipline, and because of their modern weapons, two things that Kassa would
thereafter insist on for his army. Kassa instituted harsh punishment for the
violation of military discipline among his men. He also ordered his men to stop
robbing the peasantry of the lands they fought in, and instead to only take
from rich foes.
First, an attempt was made to co-opt him into their ranks.
The puppet Emperor Yohannis III, and his step-son, the Enderase and Re-ese
Mekwanint, Ras Ali, recognized Kassa as ruler of Kwara with the title of
Dejazmatch, and the Empress Menen arranged to tie Kassa to them even more
closely by arranging the marriage of Kassa Hailu of Kwara, to Ras Ali's
daughter, her granddaughter, Tewabech Ali"Mentewab"
Kassa was devoted to her to the point of worship, and she
was equally loyal and loving towards her new husband, not a common occurance in
arranged marriages.
Menen (Grandmother of
Yohannis III)contemptuously stated that no matter what, Kassa was nothing more
than a mere lowlander (Qolegna), Once his rebellion was official, the empress
revealed her true feelings of hatered for her grandson-in-law who she
contemptuously refered to as "that Kosso sellers son".Menen's large
army was crushed by Kassa's men, and the Empress was captured.
The news of his mother's defeat alarmed Ras Ali emensely. He
promptly ordered Kassa's one time patron, Dejazmatch Goshu Zewde, Prince of
Gojjam, to march north and end the challenge of Kassa. The two armies met at
Gur Amba on November 27, 1852, and Dejazmatch Goshu was killed, his army
distroyed.
Promptly, Kassa began to wear a coronet (Ras werq) without
Imperial sanction,shock to the noble families and warlords that ruled their
fiefdoms and districts with such autonomy durign the Zemene Mesafint period.
Ras Ali and Dejazmatch Wube were life long enemies.
Re-ese Mekwanent Ras Ali II, and Dejazmatch Wube Haile
Mariam of Simien and Tigre, ruler of the north, into a panic.
The battle occured south west of Gondar, and the four
Dejazmatches and their armies were routed again. Two of the Dejazmatches were
killed, and it seemed that nothing stood in the way of Kassa entering the
capital. Emperor Yohannis III fled the city for the camp of Dejazmatch Wube,
who promptly confined him under close guard. Abune Sellama, a long time friend
of Dejazmatch Wube also arrived in Simien and joined his cause.
Dejazmatch Kassa entered Gondar, the capital of the
Ethiopian Empire and announced that Yohannis III was deposed. The proud city of
the heir of the House of Solomon was now ruled by the heir of a minor noble of
remote Kwara.
King of Shewa, Haile Melekot, who was now also in a panic
over the success of the upstart from Kwara. Haile Melekot returned to Shewa to
prepare for what he recognized as the inevitable invasion of his Kingdom by
Kassa, and Ras Ali went on to Yejju.
Yejju was the home of the dynasty of Oromo lords who had
been the true power behind the throne since the reign of Emperor Tekle Giorgis
II, and was now his place of hiding.Infact the Kwara and Oromo rivalry had
begun the Zemene Mesafin. Dividing the Ethiopian Empire into fiefdoms.
The Archbishop was clearly reluctant to crown a non-dynastic
warlord as Emperor over a land that he himself had not long before been
annointed bishop. Kassa decided to use the carrot and stick approach. In using
a stick, Kassa casually remarked that an Armenian Bishop was traveling through
the Empire, and as he was of the same religion as Ethiopia and the Copts, Kassa
could simply remove Sellama and replace him with the Armenian.
Kassa promised to stamp out all of the various heretical
sects that had proliferated in the Orthodox Church since the time of the
conflict with the Catholics during the post-Gragn years, namely the Sost Lidet,
Tsega, and Qibat doctrines. Sellama decided to agree to Kassa's terms,
Tewodros decided that it was time to unite the fractuous
empire once more under a strong central monarchy. He swept into Wollo in March
of 1855 and led a brutal campaign to bring that province under the direct rule
of the crown.
The Yejju and the House of Wag both resisted fiercely, as
did the Islamic Mammadoch clans which were split by the claims of the two rival
princes to the leadership of the Mammadoch who claimed decent from the Prophet
Mohammed.
In Wag and Lasta the
fighting was also brutal, and to make an example of him, Tewodros ordered that
the rebelious Wagshum Gebre Medhin, heir to the Zagwe dynasty, be hung from a
tree.
Never before had the
head of the Zagwe House of Wag been executed, and this act caused much fear and
anger in Wag and Lasta. The mothers of the two underage Mammadoch claimants,
Aba Wattew (whose mother was the queen Woizero Mestawat) and his rival Imam
Amede (whose mother was the queen Woizero Werqitu) fought each other and
Tewodros fiercely.
He fought through Lent and the rainy season, two things that
were not done traditionaly in Ethiopia.
He took the young Imam to Magdalla and held him there, had
him baptized, and stood as his godfather, much to the consternation of the
young Imam's mother, Woizero Werqitu.
The mountain top fortress town was surrounded on all sides
by sheer cliffs and extremely steep inclines, making it close to impregnable.
Capturing it was quite an accomplishment,
He established a large workshop at Gaffat, south of Gondar,
where he had Europeans attempt to make fire arms for his army. He tried to
build a boat on lake Tana that was propelled by a pedaling system, and dreamed
of establishing European modernism in is country.
Plowden was functioning as British Consul in Ethiopia when
Tewodros came to power, and John Bell became a close friend and confidant to
the Emperor.
Among Tewodros' goals was the ending of division in the
Orthodox church as well as in the Empire. Since the 1500's and 1600's, various
doctrines had appeared within the Orthodox church that were in direct conflict
with the teachings of the faith as understood by the Patriarchate of
Alexandria. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church upheld the Tewahido doctrine
as did the Coptic Church of Egypt.
Now however, these doctrines were all regarded as heretical
by the Patriarch in Alexandira, and the Bishop, Abune Sellama II was determined
to stamp them out. Tewodros was eager to help in uniformizing the doctrine of
the church as it would help in uniting the country under central authority.
The heirarchs were very pleased with Tewodros II's doctrinal
stance, and the initial relationship between church and state in Tewodros'
reign were warm
He angrily complained that half the land is Seeso, and half
Gedam (catagories of church land), and how was he expected to pay and feed his
troops he wanted to know. The priests were lazy men who lived off the people, He
decided however to seize all the land that he needed from the church,
When the Patriarch of Alexandria, Pope Kyrilos (Cyril),
decided to visit (the first time ever that a Patriarch actually visited the
country), he hoped he could mediate an agreement between the Archbishop and the
Emperor. However, when he judged the Archbishop to be right, and said that the
Emperor should return the siezed church property, Tewodros had both the
Patriarch and the Archbishop imprissoned. Both the Patriarch and the Archbishop
further compromised themselves by writing a letter to the Khedive of Egypt
asking for a military regiment be sent to Ethiopia to help in training the
Emperor's army. They did this without consulting the Emperor, who was
immediately suspicious that they were trying to establish an Egyptian foothold
in his Empire. Tewodros declaired that they were both spies in the pay of the
Turks and their Egyptian vassal state. When Abune Sellama II eventually died at
Magdalla, a messenger came to Tewodros at Debre Tabor, knelt before him and
said "His Eminence has died your Majesty, may God console you!" The
EmTewodros II was a devotee of the Orthodox faith. He forbade entrance to the
Catholics,peror is said to have replied "Console me!
When a group of German missionaries arrived at his court to
pay their respects, he asked them if they knew how to make firearms. He ended
up forcing many of these missionaries to join his workshops at Gaffat and
attempt to make firearms. They succeeded in casting a huge canon which they
named Sabastopol, and in gratitude he permited them to preach to the nearby
Falasha Jews. his greatest and often mentioned dream and desire was to drive
the Turks out of Jerusalem. He refered to himself as "Husband of Ethiopia,
Fiance of Jerusalem."
Dejazmatch Wube of Simien, and the daughter was Tiruwork
Wube. When first approached with the news that the Emperor had decided that she
should be his new wife .They did manage to bear a son, Dejazmatch Alemayehu
Tewodros, whom the Emperor loved very deeply, and whom he recognized as his
heir.
When Merid Azmatch Haile Michael rebeled against him in
Shewa, Tewodros was very angry. Abeto Seyfu had continued in rebellion for
years, and Tewodros suspected that Merid Azmatch Haile Michael had purposly
neglected crushing the rebellion of his brother. Merid Azmatch Haile Michael
was after all a Shewan member of the House of Solomon, was unlikely to
agressively hunt down his brother
Emperor replaced the Prince by a commoner, Ato Bezabih, as
the governor of Shewa. Bezabih had been among the Shewans that had tried to
resist Tewodros' take over of Shewa under the banner of the young Prince
Menelik. Tewodros had admired Bezabih a great deal commenting that except for
the crown of Ethiopia, Bezabih was Tewodros' equal in bravery.
The Shewan royal prisoners
there were deeply upset they thought that one of their own still held Shewa.( Darge
Sahle Sellassie)Young Menelik married Tewodros's daughter Alitash Tewodros.
After careful planning with the cooperation of Menelik's
good freind Meshesha Tewodros, the elder son of the Emperor himself, made sure
that the gates to the citadel were unlocked, and Menelik of Shewa, his mother
Ijigayehu, and most of the Shewan nobles stole down the side of the mountain of
the prison Magdalla , and entered the nearby camp of the Wollo queen Werqitu,
an avowed enemy of the Emperor.
They tried to break Imam Amede by Shewan noble Werqitu Tewodros
committed an act which is regarded as one of the most cruel and heartless acts
of his entire reign he ordered that their hands and feet be cut off, dragged to
the edge of the Magdalla plateau,and thrown over the escarpment into the plain
far below. None of the Shewans who had remained behind were molested in any
way. he murder of a young boy and his retinue was something that few in the
empire could accept as justified.
Menelik mourned the Wollo nobles with her, and then
proceeded to Shewa, where he recieved a tumultuous welcome from the population.
He deposed the usurper Bezabih, and was crowned king of Shewa at Ankober. In a
more sober mood, Tewodros II, who had always loved Menelik as a son, was heard
to comment that he himself would probably have escaped to claim his patrimony
in the same circumstances, and didn't blame Menelik at all for that. What he
could not forgive was the abandonment of his daughter Alitash.
He was deeply resented in Shewa and Wello as an opressor,
and even his native Dembia and Kwara smarted with his angry vengance.
Emperor Tewodros II had sent a letter to Queen Victoria.When the British Consul, Captain Cameron traveled to
Massawa, and returned without a reply, the Emperor was furious.He knew Consul
Cameron had traveled through Turkish held territory. Tewodros was suspicious
that the English were consorting with his Turkish he siezed Consul Cameron and
imprissoned him. Queen Victoria was made to pen a quick response, which failed
to satisfy Tewodros. In 1864, the British sent Hormuzd Rassam to negotiate
freedom for the European prisoners. Unsatified with Rassams messageTewodros
arrested him also and imprisoned him.
Queen and realm, sent an expiditionary force and was authorized to
crush Tewodros and free the hostages. General Sir Robert Napier led 32,000
British and Indian troops and landed at Zula on the Red Sea coast, and marched
into the Ethiopian highlands.The Ethiopian army was beaten badly, Tewodros II had
shot himself with a pistol sent to him by Queen Victoria years earlier.
In Shewa where Tewodros was widely hated as an opressor,
there was said to be much rejoicing. Politically, Menelik was Tewodros's avowed
enemy. The Shewan King Menelik Personally however, Tewodros had practically
raised Menelik from childhood, and had shown Menelik deep affection. Menelik
wept for Tewodros as if it was his own father who had died.
Over the years, the
harsh reality of Tewodros II's rule over the empire would fade, and instead, his
role in re-uniting a fragmenting country, his dreams of modernization and
progress, and his valiant last stand would replace any other negative image of
him. Above all, his choice of death over humiliation seemed to epitomize the
attitude of Ethiopians and their pride. He became the symbol of national pride
by his act of suicide, and to this day, he is regarded as a national hero and a
great Emperor. He had left a big mark on his country, and changed it for the
better.
I type and post this up he is definately one of the greast kings in History.