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Tewodros II The Imperial Robin Hood

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  Quote AksumVanguard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Tewodros II The Imperial Robin Hood
    Posted: 09-Feb-2009 at 20:10

         

          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.

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  Quote jfsndvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Feb-2009 at 03:16
That was a very good read.  Where did you get this story?  You got any on Yohannes IV and Menelik?  
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  Quote AksumVanguard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Feb-2009 at 04:21
Originally posted by jfsndvs

That was a very good read.  Where did you get this story?  You got any on Yohannes IV and Menelik?  

 Yea I just posted some more about Yohannis the IV. TewodrosII  was an inspirerer to Tekle Giorgis II, Yohannis IV, and  Menelik II  it crazy they all went against him in his last days they however hold him with high  esteem later on.


Edited by AksumVanguard - 20-Apr-2009 at 05:29
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