| Chapter 1: | Historical Background |
Emperor Menelik was succeeded by his grandson, Lij Eyasu, in 1913. But Eyasu, who tried to align himself with the Turks, was overthrown after only a three-year reign by the Shoan aristocracy and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church which suspected the young negus’ loyalties to the state religion. What came next was a diarchic rule with Menelik’s daughter, Zawditu, crowned Queen of Ethiopia, but with Ras Tafari donning the mantle of regent with full political power. Following the death of Zawditu, Tafari was finally crowned as “Haile Selassie, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, King of Kings of Ethiopia” and vigorously continued to follow the footsteps of Menelik in championing the modernization of autocracy by opening more and more schools and trying to introduce all major aspects of the 20th-century technology and know-how.
It was in 1935 that the Italian Fascist leader Mussolini, who claimed that “Italy did not have enough share in Africa,” decided to defy the Covenant of the League of Nations. Using as a pretext a clash between Italian troops (who penetrated Ethiopian territory at Walwal on the Ethiopian-Somali frontier) and Ethiopian border guards (who twice inflicted heavy casualties and repulsed the intruders with exemplary courage), his armies invaded Ethiopia, the only fully independent country in all of Africa, by employing modern implements of war such as planes, tanks, and poison gas against peasant Ethiopian fighters equipped only with old firearms, spears, and clubs. Although the invaders succeeded in occupying Addis Ababa, and the emperor took exile in Britain, the Ethiopian people’s resistance continued. Large parts of the country, particularly in Shoa, Gojam, Begemder, Wallo, and Wallaga, remained outside Italian control.
During the Fascist occupation, only three countries refused to recognize Italian sovereignty in Ethiopia—the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Following Mussolini’s declaration of war on France and the United Kingdom, the British and the Commonwealth Army finally came to the aid of the exiled Emperor who had commissioned the British officer General Orde Wingate to train his newly recruited