The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

In July, 1867, the British Cabinet finally resolved to send an expedition to Abyssinia, to enforce the release of the captives.

Bombay having been fixed upon as the base of operations, the Government of that Presidency was asked to make all the necessary arrangements. In August, Sir Robert Napier, the commander-in-chief of the Bombay army, was appointed to command the expedition.

The task which the force had to accomplish was to march over 400 miles of a mountainous and little known region to the camp occupied by Theodore, and to use armed force to release the British officers whom he detained as prisoners.

The king had now broken up his camp at Debrataber. His power was entirely gone. His once great empire was wholly in the hands of rebels. Slowly towards his last stronghold he was marching, encumbered by his guns and mortars and by much heavy baggage. According to the campaign arranged, the British force and the king would advance on two lines which would meet at Magdala.

The army, under King Theodore, consisted of about 3000 men, armed with percussion loaders, about 1000 matchlock men, a mob of spearmen, and about 30 pieces of ordnance which his people could not properly handle. This rabble was to oppose the enormous disciplined army of the British. Doubtless it was this fact which led Theodore to be described as being like “an exhausted, hunted lion, wearily seeking his lair, to die there unconquered and at bay.”

When Sir Robert Napier arrived upon the scene of operations, upwards of 7500 of his men were ready to give battle. Two courses were then open to him. He could have chosen to intercept Theodore in his flank march before he reached Magdala, and so prevent the prisoners falling completely into his power, or, by the alternative plan, which was adopted, allow Theodore to reach Magdala at his leisure, with all his guns, and thus place the British prisoners at his mercy.

The beginning of February saw the pioneer force under the General marching on the road from Adyerat to Antalo. The difficulties of the road were great, but the indomitable zeal and energy of the force overcame them. Along the route the force was well received by the people. The commander took care to leave a good impression behind him, and this he did in several ways, but especially by the prompt payment he ordered for everything that was brought for sale.

Theodore was also marching to Magdala, and he had surmounted difficulties in a manner that was afterwards to astonish his foes. He had odds against him, but he knew every inch of the country, and won the race. Still, the king had already sealed his own doom. He had devastated his one faithful province of Bagemder. He burned Gondar, destroyed all the villages round Debrataber, and put to death in the cruellest manner possible three thousand persons in the course of eighteen months. There could only be one result of such barbarism. The inhabitants of Bagemder, hitherto devoted to the king’s person, rose against the tyrant and his diminishing army. Such a state of affairs could not last long. The king had reduced a rich province to a desert, and in order to keep his troops alive it was necessary that he should move.

Back fell the king upon his fortress, his last hope in this his time of bitter experience. He began his wonderful march in October, 1867. It was forlorn, but magnificent, and at once stamps Theodore as a man of brilliant resource. With no base of operations, surrounded on every side by enemies, and with the ever-present necessity of constructing roads over which to take his heavy artillery, he achieved what his own countrymen had described as an impossibility. By the 1st March, 1868, the king saw the end of his wonderful undertaking approach. All that remained was to drag the heavy ordnance up the Wark-waha valley to Arogee, and thence up the steep declivity of the Fala saddle to Islamgye, at the foot of Magdala.

The king now spoke frequently of the advance of the British. One day he remarked, “With love and friendship the English will conquer me, but if they come otherwise I know that they will not spare, and I shall make a blood-bath and die.”