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🗓️ 10 April 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
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0:00.0 | Welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. Today we're going |
0:11.1 | back to Easter 1868 and to a historic battle that would have a major impact on modern Ethiopian |
0:17.6 | history, as well as determining the fate of one of its towering figures, Emperor Teodros II. |
0:24.8 | In 2016, Rob Walker spoke to Historian Philip Marston. |
0:39.8 | This account is from a British military expedition, as it closed in on the mountain top stronghold |
0:45.1 | belonging to Teodros II. The British had come to secure the release of a group of Europeans |
0:51.1 | that the Ethiopian Emperor was holding hostage. Boom. Boom. Boom went three monstrous guns in quick |
0:57.8 | succession, discharging 68-pound chain-shot. And one continued blaze of fire announced to us below |
1:05.5 | that he had ten guns at work in real earnest. Despite this show of defiance from his artillery, |
1:12.3 | Teodros knew that he was completely outgunned, but this was a leader who'd spent a lifetime fighting. |
1:18.7 | Teodros began in quite humble background. He was a camel raider on the borders of Ethiopia. |
1:24.8 | Very early on he showed both extraordinary charisma in his personality, but also a great aptitude |
1:30.4 | for military victory. Philip Marston has written about the life of Teodros II. He says that despite |
1:37.4 | his modest origins, Teodros had a vision of becoming a leader who could modernise and unify Ethiopia. |
1:44.0 | The powers of the Ethiopian tried to defeat him and eventually sort of embraced him if you like |
1:48.7 | and took his own forces within them and then he challenged them and in 1855 he declared himself |
1:56.6 | emperor of Ethiopia. At the point he came to power, Ethiopia had been divided bitterly, |
2:02.5 | hadn't it, between different warring factions and warring regions. Yes, I mean for a couple of |
2:07.3 | hundred years really there was no one ruler in the country and so he bought to an end this period |
2:13.2 | of chaos. But in the 1860s Teodros faced growing rebellion and his own conduct became increasingly |
2:19.6 | erratic and at times brutal. And then he came into conflict with European powers after he detained |
2:26.6 | a number of missionaries and diplomats. That included to British envoys he imprisoned, |
... |
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