Adwa 1896: Who Was Civilized & Who Was Savage?
By Negussie Ayele
March 1997
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While much of the literature so far on the Adwa conflict understandably dwells almost exclusively on Article 17, what we are doing here is to profile the Treaty as a whole and see whence comes the Italian claim of ‘protectorate.’ Only by so doing can we get a fuller picture and a more complete context to analyze and evaluate the ensuing causes, the courses and the consequences of the controversy that includes but is not limited to Article 17. The inescapable conclusion after we examine the whole situation is that it is not Article 17 that gave rise to Italian chicanery vis-a-vis Ethiopia, but, shall we say, a chronic anomie of deception and duplicity, among other things, that begot Article 17. Even if one were to stipulate that the Italian version or interpretation of Article 17 is defensible, it remains inconsistent with the whole spirit and thrust of the Treaty as a whole. Crispi and company might have had a better chance of arguing their case for a paper ‘protectorate’ and then blame the controversy on translation error between Amharic and Italian if Article 17 was the only article that Menelik signed. But as it was, there is no way that their rendering of Article 17 could be reconciled with the rest of the articles of the Wuchalie Treaty. In fact, the Amharic wording of Article 17 ¾I€ªJ is unambiguous as it can only mean the Emperor “can, if he wishes; he may; it is possible for him to.” What is even more noteworthy is that the very same word is also used in the same sense in the same Treaty in Articles 2, 8, and 16 as it is in Article 17. The word does not denote or connote that the Emperor compromised Ethiopian sovereignty and it is not amenable to multiple interpretations. It was the Italians that took the initiative to draft the Treaty-as all colonial craftsmen took such undertakings for granted as part of their sense of carrying the ‘white man’s burden’ in the ‘dark continent.’ The main reason Menelik acceded to it was to garner international recognition for his de facto status (he was yet to be officially crowned Emperor of Ethiopia which took place in November, 1889) as the sovereign of an independent Ethiopia by an important power in a continent that was fast succumbing to colonialism and his country was fast becoming encircled by these very colonialists.
The offending term ‘protectorate’ is not found in a cover page, preamble or in any article within the Wuchalie Treaty as is normally the case in protectorate treaties even if such ‘treaties’ are basically for the perusal or in-house consumption among European colonialists and have little or no relevance to the subjects or victims concerned in Africa. The Wuchalie Treaty is a treaty between two sovereign states of the day entered into voluntarily by both parties to attain and safeguard mutual political and commercial interests. A rudimentary analysis of the Treaty reveals that its contents feature items that enunciate (a) reciprocal benefits and (b) respective benefits for the signatories. Provisions that are of reciprocal benefit for both Italy and Ethiopia include mutual recognition and establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the two governments on the principles of equality and reciprocity (1,2); free trade and free movement of nationals in their respective countries (7,8); mutual respect of each other’s religious persuasions while in residence in each other’s jurisdictions (9); use of own courts and laws for trying own nationals as well as protection of nationals in each other’s jurisdictions and extradition of criminals (10,11,12,13); provisions to amend, change and ratify the Treaty as well as the acceptance of Amharic and Italian to be equally valid languages of the Treaty (16,19, 20). For their part the most important benefit for the Italians was Emperor Menelik’s formal acknowledgment of their territorial possessions on the Red Sea; in addition, of benefit to them was renting the use of Massawa port for commercial goods to and from Ethiopia, their sense of European ‘civilizing’ mission in Africa vis-a-vis slave tradea la the 1885 Berlin Actwas also disposed of and they were to gain a most favored nation treatment when it came to bids (3,5,14,18). For Ethiopia the beneficial provisions of the Treaty included retaining sovereignty over Debre Bizen monastery which fell within Italian occupied territory, the Emperor’s right to import arms duty free through Italian occupied Red Sea ports, Italian liaison services for Ethiopia in relations with the rest of Europe (4,6,11). Article 15 appears to be redundant and/or inconsequential unless it was conceived as a continuation of the Article before it.
The reader with even minimum familiarity with treaties and contemporary relations can easily appreciate the Wuchalie Treaty summarized above cannot qualify as a “protectorate” (which itself is an oxymoron) agreement between a sovereign power and a subordinate, subservient nominal local vassal or minion. What is also ironical about this whole lethal comedy of errors was the fact that the Italian offer of liaison services in Article 17 which the Emperor did not think to be necessary to begin with but was persuaded by Antonelli that it would be in his (Menelik’s) advantage to include it. It was thought that Article 17 would facilitate and enhance Ethiopia’s diplomatic activities in Europe, if and whenever the Emperor chose to utilize Italian offer of assistance that is, ‘serversi’ as the Italian rendition has it. But the ‘civilized’ Italians completely turned Article 17 on its head and purveyed it as Ethiopia’s albatross of obligation. Analysts may quibble about which party to the treaty attained more in certain areas but taken as a whole it would require a gargantuan figment of imagination (apparently a variety that grows wild in Italy) to portray the Wuchalie Treaty as a ‘protectorate’ agreement. The Wuchalie Treaty is essentially typical of any contemporary friendship and commercial treaties concluded among European or other sovereign states at the time. There is no treaty or agreement even between European powers and African rulers in the category of “protectorate” agreements in the annals of colonial history that the Wuchalie Treaty could be compared to.
As we shall see later on, had it not been for the fact of a glaring discrepancy in the two languages, the Wuchalie Treaty was written in (Ethiopic and Italian) the controversy might not have snowballed into a crisis leading to full-scale international war in the Horn. Without going into details here regarding the controversies, we can identify the main issues relating to the Italo-Ethiopian political and diplomatic crisis and Italian deception and deviousness surrounding the 1889 Wuchalie ‘Friendship’ Treaty which inexorably led up to the Battle of Adwa, 1896.
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