1913-1916 - Lij Iyasu / Yasu
Apparently recognizing that his political strength was ebbing, Menelik established a Council of Ministers in late 1907 to assist in the management of state affairs. The foremost aspirants to the throne, Ras Mekonnen and Ras Mengesha, had died in 1906. In June 1908, the emperor designated his thirteen-year-old nephew, Lij Iyasu, son of Ras Mikael of Welo, as his successor. After suffering another stroke in late 1908, the emperor appointed Ras Tessema as regent. These developments ushered in a decade of political uncertainty. The great nobles, some with foreign financial support, engaged in intrigues anticipating a time of troubles as well as of opportunity upon Menelik's death.
Menelek's grandson Lidj Yasu, on account of the illness of the Emperor, had been virtually ruler, under regents, since 1909. Born in 1896, he was the son of Menelek's second daughter, Waizeru Shoa Rogga and Puis Mikael, the chief of the Wollo fiallas. A Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (G.C.V.O.), had received an excellent European education, and at the age of 14 could speak fluently English, French and German. In May 1909, when 13 years old, Lidj Yasu was married to Princess Romani, a granddaughter of the late Emperor John, who had fought against and defeated Menelek (when King of Shoa) in 1877. Sentimentality or favoritism found no part in Menelek's nature; the welfare of his country was his first preoccupation, and it was a well-known fact in Abyssinia that he had carefully studied the nature and character of the youth before he took the step of appointing him as his successor.
Since 1910 the Empire was under actual control of a Council of Regency, from which Menelik II was excluded. Menelek's wife, the Empress Taitu, a princess of Tigre who had borne no children, opposed the regency. Empress Taytu called to her aid the Tigrian chiefs, usurped authority, was heavily involved in court politics on behalf of her kin and friends, most of whom lived in the northern provinces and included persons who either had claims of their own to the throne or were resentful of Shewan hegemony. She refused to see the representatives of foreign powers and stopped the building of the railway from Jibuti to the capital, Addis Abbaba. After maintaining her position about a year Taitu was overthrown by a palace revolution - her efforts had been thwarted by the Shewan nobles. She took no further part in the government and died in February 1918.
The two years of Menelik's reign that followed the death of Ras Tessema in 1911 found real power in the hands of Ras (later Negus) Mikael of Welo, an Oromo and former Muslim, who had converted to Christianity under duress. Mikael could muster an army of 80,000 in his predominantly Muslim province and commanded the allegiance of Oromo outside it. On 15 December 1913, Menelik died, but fear of civil war induced the court to keep his death secret for a few weeks.
Lij Yasu attempted to reign uncontrolled. He was strongly opposed; but with the help of his father Ras Michael, chief of the Wollo Galla, Yasu made good his authority. Menelik II was succeeded by Lij Yasu, and on Menelek's death was acknowledged negus negusti (king of kings, emperor).
At that time, the beginning of 1914, the condition of the country was not without promise. The building of the railway from Jibuti had been resumed; in 1912 it had reached the Hawash river, and was then (1914) being carried up the steep escarpment to the Abyssinian plateau. Even in its incomplete state it carried in 1913 merchandise valued at over £1,600,000. A considerable trade between the Galla provinces (western Abyssinia) and the Sudan had also developed. Both Abyssinians and Gallas showed a distinct appreciation of foreign products.
The chief industries were pastoral and agricultural. The exports consisted mainly of hides and skins, coffee, wax, ivory, civet and native butter. The imports comprise gray shirting, cotton goods, arms and ammunition, provisions, liquors, railway material and petroleum. Trade is chiefly with England, France, Italyv and the United States. It is said that there were few, if any, roads in Abyssinia other than mere tracks. Transportation was by mules, pack horses, donkeys, and in some places camels. Cattle, sheep, and goats were numerous. The horses of the country are small but hardy ; mules are bred everywhere, being used as pack animals; donkeys are also small and serve for baggage animals. Cotton, the sugar-cajie, date-palm, coffee, and vine might thrive well in many districts, but were nowhere extensively cultivated. The production of Harari coffee (long berry Mocha) was on the increase. Besides this, which was cultivated, there grew more especially in southern and western Abyssinia a wild coffee plant, yielding a berry known as Abyssinian coffee, which grew in extensive forests.
The coin of Abyssinia was the Maria Theresa dollar, but the Menelik dollar was the standard coin. This coin, the talari, or dollar, worth about 2s., weighs 28 075 grammes, '835 fine. It had nominally the same value as the Maria Theresa dollar, but in the capital was disliked, and in some places is not taken at all. Other silver coins were the half, quarter, and sixteenth (girsh or piastre) of a talari, and there is also a copper coin, the besa (= one-hundredth of a dollar). Various articles, however, were used as medium of exchange; bars of salt are regularly accepted as money all over the country, in two sizes, and at a fluctuating rate according to supply and cost of transport. Cartridges were also currency, although there is a dead-letter edict against them ; and in most places barter prevails.
Although recognized as emperor, Menelik's nephew, Lij Iyasu, was not formally crowned. Lij Yasu was a youth of depraved morals, his administration was both weak and tyrannical, and the result was in the south anarchy,1 and in the north the alienation of the Tigrians, always jealous of Shoa (Menelek's hereditary kingdom). Although legaly married to Seble Wongel Hailu, daughter of Ras Hailu Tekle Haimanot of Gojjam, and granddaughter of King Tekle Haimanot of Gojjam, Lij Iyasu had numerous secondary wives, concubines and liasons with a variety of high born and commoner, and Christian and Muslim women in violation of the tenents of the Orthodox Church. These included such prominent women as the daughters of the Sultans of Ausa (Afars), the Sultan of Jimma, the ex-Emir of Harrar, and others. His only legitimate child was a daughter, Alem Tsehai Iyasu (titled as an Emebet-hoi by Emperor Haile Selassie), but had countless other children by his other women.
Such was the situation when the Great War broke out. Lij Yasu had already come very much under German and Turkish influence, the chief agent in the propaganda of the Central Powers having been Herr K. Schwemmer, consul for Austria-Hungary. (Schwemmer, owing to Italian pressure, was recalled to Vienna and left Abyssinia in Oct. 1914.) Yasu had already given offence to the Abyssinians, whose attachment to their own form of Christianity is strong, by his neglect of the observances of the national church. Seeking to revive Muslim-Oromo predominance, Lij Iyasu placed the eastern half of Ethiopia under Ras Mikael's control. In June 1914 Lij Yasu caused his father, Ras Michael, to be crowned negus (king) of Wollo, the only province of Abyssinia proper inhabited by Moslems (Galla intruders). Michael remained nominally a Christian; Yasu, at first secretly and later openly, embraced Islam, and, inspired by Turco-German policy, set himself to unite all the Moslems of the empire. He married the daughters of several Danakil and Galla chiefs, and betrothed himself to the daughter of Aba Jiffar, King of Jimma, the most powerful Moslem prince in the empire. He also made political alliances with Moslems outside the Abyssinian dominions, among others with the "Mad" Mullah of Somaliland, Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, then at war with the British. His policy was summed up as (1) Moslem as opposed to Christianity; (2) Galla as opposed to Abyssinian; (3) Turco-German as opposed to the Entente.
In April 1916 Yasu officially placed Abyssinia in religious dependence on the Sultan of Turkey as Caliph and sent to the Turkish consul-general at Harrar an Abyssinian flag bearing the crescent and a confession of faith in Islam. About this time he informed his Moslem confederates - who had been told that Germany and Austria had embraced Islam and had imposed that faith upon France - that he would lead them against the Allies as soon as a great German victory should be announced. One result was raiding into the Sudan and adjacent territories by Abyssinians. These raids the central Government did not or could not prevent.
His anti-Christian, anti-Abyssinian attitude led to Yasu's downfall. After offending the bulk of the nobility with his irresponsible liasons with numerous prominent and not so prominent women, the old nobility attempted to reassert its power, which Menelik had undercut, and united against Lij Iyasu. The Allied representatives at Addis Abbaba, in particular the Hon. W.G. Thesiger, then the British minister, did much to counteract Turco-German propaganda and, except Ras Michael, all the Abyssinian chiefs were opposed to the Emperor's proceedings. They had the support of the people, the Shoans as well as the men of Tigr6 and Gondar, and they determined to end an intolerable situation. The Shewan nobility secured a proclamation from Metropolitan Abuna Mathaeos, the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, excommunicating Lij Iyasu and deposing him as emperor. On September 27, 1916 - the Feast of the Cross - Lij Yasu was deposed by public proclamation of the Abuna, on the specific ground of his apostasy.
His aunt, the Princess Zauditu (Judith), who had been a prisoner in the palace since Menelek's illness in 1910, was proclaimed empress. Dejaz (general) Taffari Makonnen, a cousin of Zauditu, was appointed heir to the throne and regent with the title of Ras (prince). The new regime was at once accepted, practically unopposed, by the chiefs and people of Shoa and by the imperial army (a force of 50,000 kept in the neighbourhood of the capital).
Lij Yasu was then at Harrar, a Moslem center, arming the Somalis. On receipt of the news of his deposition he showed the weakness of his character by publicly renouncing Islam, a step which gained him no credit either with the Abyssinians or the Somalis. The garrison of Harrar (Abyssinians), sent by Yasu to oppose the Shoan troops which the new rulers had dispatched against him, joined his enemies. On Oct. 8 Yasu fled secretly from Harrar, making for the Danakil country.
Profiting by the inactivity of the Government, Lij Yasu gathered together the remnants of his father's army. He managed to keep his footing in the Wollo country for the greater part of 1917 and finally took refuge in Magdala. Closely besieged, Magdala surrendered in Dec. 1917. Lij Yasu escaped, and thereafter appears to have led a wandering life among the Danakil and Somali. In Oct. 1918 he was appealing to the Turks in Arabia for help, and making attempts to raid the Jibuti railway. At the close of 1920 Yasu appeared in Tigre, apparently hoping to gain over that province, but in Jan. 1921 he was captured by Government forces. He died in captivity in 1935? or 1936?
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
