sea that was the corner-stone of his policy. Not even when he shifted his request from Massawa to Zula or Anfilla, minor ports to the south, were they ready to listen. The heart of the matter was that the British did not wish to see the consummation of the Ethiopian victory over the Egyptians. As early as 1879, they started grooming a power to replace the Egyptians on the Red Sea coast and at the same time serve as watch-dog of British interests. Gordon’s parting recommendation for the cession of Zula to the Italians, who had already occupied Assab to the south, was a prelude to their installation in Massawa in 1885, through the good offices of Britain.
But, before that eventuality came about, developments took place which appeared to facilitate the realization of Yohannes’s objectives. In 1881, the Mahdist movement, combining Muslim revivalism and nationalism, broke out in Sudan. In the following two or three years, it engulfed the northern and central parts of the country, and effectively cut off the Egyptian garrisons in the east. It therefore fell to the British, who with their unilateral occupation of Egypt in 1882 had assumed responsibility for her possessions, to try and extricate the imperilled Egyptian troops. It was then that they were forced to abandon their policy of indifference bordering on arrogance vis-à-vis Ethiopia and to start an assiduous soliciting of Ethiopian assistance. That was the setting for what has come to be known as the Hewett or 54 Adwa Peace Treaty, named respectively after the British negotiator Rear Admiral Sir William Hewett or the place where the treaty was signed on 3 June 1884.
On the surface, Yohannes obtained more or less what he had sought in vain for the preceding eight years. Free import of goods, ‘including arms and ammunition’, was guaranteed. Bogos was restored to Ethiopia. There were in addition clauses for the reciprocal extradition of offenders, and Egyptian facilitation of the appointment of bishops (abun) for Ethiopia. In real terms and in the long run, the peace treaty did Yohannes more harm than good. The retrocession of Bogos, which relatively speaking was the only positive gain, might well have been achieved without British intercession, as the Egyptian hold over the territory was becoming tenuous; Yohannes’s governor of the Marab Melash, Ras Alula, had already been levying tribute in the region. The reciprocal extradition clause became meaningless when Dajjach Dabbab Araya, who had rebelled against his cousin the emperor, was given asylum in Massawa. As for the free transit of goods through Massawa, it failed to pass its first test when the Egyptians delayed delivery of a church bell ordered by Yohannes, on the grounds that duty had to be paid on it. More significantly, about three months after ratifying the treaty, the British entrusted Massawa to the Italians, who occupied it on 5 February 1885. It was a move which can be said to have been presaged by the ominous clause of the Hewett Treaty, that Massawa was to remain ‘under British protection’. The British disposed of their responsibility the way it suited them best.
On the other hand, Yohannes was bound by Article III of the treaty to facilitate the evacuation of Egyptian troops from their posts at Kasala, Amideb and Sanhit, respectively in Sudan, near the Sudan border, and well within Bogos. This obligation Yohannes carried out with a faithfulness which provided a contrast to British duplicity. In the process, Ras Alula, who had been given the task of carrying out the relief operation, came into direct conflict with the Mahdists, inaugurating a period of bloody confrontation between Ethiopia and Mahdist Sudan that, in the end, was to consume the emperor himself. Ultimately, therefore, what Yohannes managed to achieve after two brilliant military victories and a belated peace treaty was, in the words of Sven Rubenson, to trade ‘one weak enemy [Egypt] for two strong ones, the Mahdist state and Italy’ (Rubenson, Survival, 362).
4. The road to Matamma
The years 1876-1878 might be said to have marked the apogee of Yohannes’s power. Externally he had dealt a telling blow to Egyptian expansion. Internally, he had obtained the submission of his main rival. This double victory at the same time appeared to have resolved both the external and internal challenges that Ethiopia faced in the nineteenth century. Yet it was a victory which did not last. By 1885, we can say that Yohannes had reached the turning-point in his career, which was to end with his death at the Battle of Matamma. In that year the Italians occupied Massawa. In the same year, Ethiopian forces clashed with the Mahdists (or the Ansar, as they preferred to call themselves), initiating a period of hostility which was to reach its climax in 1889. Also after 1885, the latent insubordination of Menilek began to simmer until it burst out into the open in 1888. It was in that year that the triangular tension in which Yohannes had lived reached its ultimate limits. The following year, it was resolved, with his tragic death.
Italian colonialism in the Horn of Africa combined the vigour of youth with the desperation of the late-comer. This distinctive feature arose from the late arrival of Italy on the colonial scene: Italy became a unified state only in 1871. Italy’s thrust was abetted by the British, who, themselves unwilling to get involved in Ethiopia, wanted someone to guard their interests in the region against their ancestral rivals, the French.
Nevertheless, Italy’s first territorial acquisition antedated the completion of its unification. In 1869, the port of Assab, south of Massawa, was acquired for Italy by a team which symbolically included a missionary, Giuseppe Sapeto, and a navigational enterprise, Rubattino Company. But it was Massawa which provided Italy with the base for its penetration of the Ethiopian interior. And Massawa, as we have seen, was secured through the good offices of Britain in the wake of Egyptian evacuation from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean coasts. That evacuation had also secured Zeila and Berbera for the British and Tajura for the French. But while the British and French acquisitions were to terminate with narrow coastal colonies – British and French Somaliland – the Italians, from Massawa, were to make a bid for the whole of Ethiopia. Massawa, in short, led to Adwa.
With remarkable foresight, Yohannes recognized the connection. ‘With the help of God,’ he wrote to Menilek in late 1886, ‘they will depart again, humiliated and disgraced in the eyes of the whole world’ (Zewde, 199). When he wrote this, the Italians had already pushed further inland and occupied Saati, about 15 miles (24 km) west of Massawa, and Wia, 20 miles (32 km) to the south of the port. It had thus become evident that Yohannes’s earlier hopes of containing the Italians within the coast were futile. Protests from Ras Alula, the governor of the Marab Melash, that the Italians should abandon their advance posts were ignored. It was in such circumstances that Alula opted to obtain by force of arms what he had failed to achieve through correspondence. On 25 January 1887, he attacked the Italian fort at Saati. He was repulsed, incurring considerable losses. The following day, at Dogali, between Saati and Massawa, Alula’s force intercepted some 500 Italians sent to relieve the Saati garrison. The relief force was virtually destroyed.
News of the Battle of Dogali provoked a frenzied reaction in Italy. The call for revenge was heard in the streets as well as in the government chambers. Parliament voted for an appropriation of 20 million lire for the defence of Massawa and its environs. A special force of 5,000 men was organized to reinforce the existing troops. Roads and bridges were built and repaired in an effort to strengthen the infrastructure for future military action. Simultaneously, the policy of instigating Menilek to act against Yohannes was intensified.
In an initial attempt to solve the problem through diplomatic intervention, both Yohannes and the Italians turned to the British. Yohannes wrote to Queen Victoria complaining about the violation of the Hewett Treaty. The Queen’s reply contained an implicit justification of Italian actions and a warning to Yohannes, suggesting that it was a pity that he was in disagreement with the Italians, who were powerful, though well intentioned. To the Italians, on the other hand, the British were once again obliging. A mission headed by Sir Gerald Portal was sent to Ethiopia, ostensibly to mediate between the belligerents, but in reality hoping to gain for the Italians what Dogali had denied them. Portal’s proposals for peace included a public apology by Yohannes for the Dogali incident as well as Italian occupation of Saati, Wia, Karan and the territory of the Assaorta and the Habab peoples on the Red Sea coast. The ‘mediator’ was rebuffed, bluntly by Alula, diplomatically by Yohannes.
Under cover of this diplomatic ploy, however, the Italians had reoccupied Saati. Yohannes now took the field himself to resolve
