The British Expedition to Abyssinia: An Emperor Seizes Every Diplomat
Victoria never answered one letter, so Tewodros II locked the British consul and a batch of missionaries inside Magdala at the top of a mountain — and got an expeditionary force instead.
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One unanswered letter lit the war
Tewodros II wrote Victoria a letter that read like a pen pal's: "How are you? I am well, thank God." It travelled by way of the Red Sea, Aden, Bombay, Suez, Alexandria, Marseille and London, halfway around the world, and ended up filed by the Foreign Office in the India Office records. No one replied. The emperor waited two years, and his expectation turned to suspicion: he became convinced Britain was colluding with his Muslim enemies. In 1864 he seized the British consul Cameron and a group of missionaries, and the hostage crisis began.
He claimed Solomon's line, and meant it
Abyssinia had a legend: a descendant of Solomon and David would rise, unify the divided kingdom, defeat the Egyptians, and march all the way to Jerusalem, and his name would be Tewodros. In 1855 Kassa, a man of obscure origins who had been a bandit chief, defeated his last rival, declared himself the new emperor, and took the name Tewodros II. He later claimed descent from Solomon, though he said nothing of the kind when Plowden first met him. This messianic identity was both the source of his legitimacy and the root of his later paranoia.
After his wife died he began to lose control
In 1858 Tewodros's wife Tewabech died, and he was grief-stricken. His next wife, the 12-year-old Tiruwork, was cold to him and told him, "I am speaking with a king greater than you — get out." He began drinking heavily, sleeping with women in the camp at random, and admitted to the missionaries that he was living "a very unchristian and indecent life." In 1860 his friend Plowden was ambushed by rebels and died nine days after being speared. Britain waited two years before sending a new representative, and in that interval the emperor's paranoia deteriorated sharply.
The letter Cameron carried became the fuse
At the end of 1862, when Cameron left the emperor's camp, he took with him a letter in which Tewodros asked Victoria to arrange safe passage for his envoys and said, "See how Islam oppresses the Christians." Cameron came back saying he had received no reply from London, and the emperor began to suspect he had gone off to Sudan to collude with the Muslims. In October 1863 the missionary Stern enraged the emperor with his book Wanderings Among the Falashas, and was arrested, whipped and put in chains. In January 1864 Cameron and the other missionaries were seized too, and all the hostages realised the nightmare had only just begun.
What Britain really feared was France
The Foreign Office did not much care whether the missionaries lived or died; what worried them was France. Suez Canal fever was at its height, and if they alienated Tewodros he might turn to Paris, giving France control of the route from the Red Sea to India. So they sent Hormuzd Rassam — a Mosul-born Assyrian, archaeologist, discoverer of Ashurbanipal's palace and the Epic of Gilgamesh, Oxford-educated, a Protestant convert, and an ardent Anglophile. He set out for Abyssinia with Victoria's letter and two assistants, Dr Blanc and Lieutenant Prideaux.
Rassam nearly succeeded, then was seized
In January 1866 Rassam met Tewodros in his blue diplomatic uniform, and after reading Victoria's letter the emperor was too excited to sleep; the next day he dictated a reply calling the queen "the defender of religion chosen by God." He agreed to release all the hostages, but demanded that Rassam first accompany him on a campaign to put down a rebellion. Along the way the emperor kept sending gifts: muskets, manuscripts, salmon, antelope, two lion cubs, two monkeys and a baboon. In March 1866 the hostages were finally brought to the lake, but on 13 April, when Rassam went to say goodbye, he found that he too had been arrested.
He held everyone just to get gunmakers
Why did Tewodros seize Rassam? There are three possibilities: he had been acting all along; he was overcome at the last moment by his hatred of the missionaries; or he genuinely liked Rassam and could not bear to let him go. Philip Marsden thinks the third most likely — the emperor was infatuated with Rassam and saw him as his only channel to British friendship and British technology. The emperor then wrote to Victoria demanding "skilled craftsmen, blacksmiths, gunsmiths, artillery experts" to make guns, and said he would release the prisoners once he was satisfied.
In the cellar he admitted he was mad
Tewodros locked the missionaries in a cellar, came in with a bottle of arak, and sat down among them drinking and talking. At last he said, calmly and sadly: "My father was mad. People often said I was mad, and I never believed them. But now I know it is true." Rassam urged him not to say such things; the emperor walked to the door, turned back, and in a hoarse whisper said: "I am mad. Goodbye." Then he left. For nearly two years after that they were held on the mountain of Magdala, at ten thousand feet, in chains, their spines bent.
In their own words · checked verbatim
may this letter sent by the king of kings teodros of ethiopia reach the queen of england victoria how are you are you well i am well thank god i've received your envoy would love and friendship now you are the child of christ and i am the child of christ for the love of christ i want friendship
he's like a man on the verge of a titanic explosion
worst of all ridiculing the emperor's genealogy
I know God has chosen you from all men to be the champion of religion to be the friend of the poor and the oppressed
My father was mad. And though people often say that I am mad, I never would believe it. But now I know it's true.
only one thing remains force
Figures
| Birth year of Tewodros II | c. 1818 | 10:21 |
| Tewodros II crowned emperor | January 1855 | 10:21 |
| Plowden appointed Britain's first consul at Massawa | 1848 | 7:13 |
| Death of Plowden | 1860, nine days after being speared | 21:46 |
| Cameron seized | 3 January 1864 | 32:09 |
| Rassam arrives at Massawa | July 1864 | 41:43 |
| Rassam meets Tewodros | 28 January 1866 | 47:58 |
| Hostages brought to Magdala | Late 1864, after a seven-day march | 44:52 |
| Britain issues its ultimatum | Summer 1867, giving three months to release the hostages | 1:06:32 |
| Britain decides on war | 19 August 1867 | 1:07:33 |
Glossary
- Abyssinia
- The old name for Ethiopia, the term nineteenth-century Europeans used for the kingdom.
- Magdala
- Tewodros II's mountain-top fortress, about ten thousand feet up, which served as both prison and treasury.
- Theodros II
- Emperor of Ethiopia, crowned in 1855, originally named Kassa, who claimed descent from Solomon.
- Hormuzd Rassam
- Mosul-born Assyrian archaeologist and British diplomat who discovered Ashurbanipal's palace.
- Walter Plowden
- Britain's first consul in Abyssinia, a friend of Tewodros, killed by rebels in 1860.
- Charles Duncan Cameron
- British consul in Abyssinia, seized by Tewodros in 1864.
How to listen
Listeners interested in Victorian imperial history, hostage negotiation, and the psychology of paranoid leaders; anyone who wants to understand how Britain went from diplomatic failure to military expedition.
The opening Flashman novel quotation and the Canadian listener joke can be skipped; start at 07:13, when Plowden appears.