Part One: The Italian Invasions of Ethiopia

Robert is joined by Joelle Monique to discuss why Italy is the Bastard of Ethiopia.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's recording my this meeting? I'm Robert Evans, hosted Behind
the Bastards, ripping off the zoom robot lady who yells
at us at the start of every meeting to let
us know that it's being recorded. She'd she's been rebranded,
she's nice or now she doesn't say that they they

(00:22):
were like, you know, a little too intense, might sound
like a cop rebrand after like two weeks rebrand fucking cops, cops.
I don't know what I'm going for here today. Our
guest is Joel Monique, producer here at I Heart Radio. Joel,

(00:44):
how are you doing today? Oh my god, I'm in
a very good mood to learn about some bad people
like I. I really want to feel the hate for people.
We're doing a bit of a different kind of episode
this week. Right the last episode you did with us,
we talked about Roy Cone, which is obviously we're going
very deep into the personal history of one influential, shitty person.

(01:05):
Today is more of a broader history podcast. There's a
lot of bastards, but really the bastard of this episode
is the Nation of Italy and the victor. Yes, fucking Italians.
We're finally taking it to I'm god, damn them all prepared.
Dan A little country, Well, let's do No, it's there's

(01:26):
one country. It's okay to hate all of and it's Italy. Okay, fine,
I should not Robert as Italian and you should. I
don't sunburn like it's we're we're a demon, people's sunburn, Okay. Um,

(01:47):
So Italy is the bastard and the victim of Italy
is a little country you might have heard of called Ethiopia.
We're gonna be talking a lot about yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
in yeah, I mean less than most of so, I mean,
we'll talk about this a bit later. But one of
the things that makes Ethiopia unique is that it's the

(02:08):
only African nation that wasn't colonized. It was, up until
the twentieth century, the only independent African nation after the
Scramble for Africa. Right there was kind of Liberia, but
Liberia kind of started as a US colony. Was a
different than a normal colony, right because we were It's
not quite the same as like you know, South Africa
or whatever. But Ethiopia was never conquered throughout the entire

(02:29):
colonialism here. Um, we're gonna talk about Ethiopian history is
actually fascinating. Part of why I'm doing this as I've
been trying to study up on the current conflict what
is probably a genocide at least an ethnic cleansing in
tigray Um, which is a part of the nation of Ethiopia.
A lot of people who want to be separatists there,
the tigray like a separate ethnic group. Um. We're not

(02:50):
going to talk a lot about that hit right now,
because again I'm part of my learning up on this
has been studying the last couple hundred years of Ethiopian history,
trying to get a build up a better base of understanding.
And when you go through eighteen hundreds nineteen hundreds Ethiopian history,
the recurring bastard is the nation of Italy. So we're
talking about that today, Um, And I think we make

(03:13):
a lot of jokes about being anti Italian because it's
funny to talk about the spicy meat, the balls and whatnot. Um,
But I think it actually, for the most part, when
you're kind of looking at the imperial powers, Italy doesn't
really wind up on anyone's radar. Right France, You've got
a bunch of horrible and extensive Fuccorre in Indo, China.
Some really terrible ship they did, Like the British Empire

(03:36):
obviously carried out like Nazi level crimes against humanity and
multiple United States bunch of ethnic cleansings and mass murders
of the Philippines. Horrible, horrible shit. Italy, you know, you
had spicy meatball bit ready to go. Yeah. Mostly it's
the spicy the heel of all of these other major

(03:57):
powers for a long time, Like Brits were like, I
guess if you have to marry an Italian, you can,
but why you know, I've watched down Town Abbey the
last couple of weeks. A lot of hate for the
Italians and that thing. Uh, you know, And when they
came to America the same situation, ye yep. And and
the big European powers were all really competent, right. The
British Empire very good at what they did. That's why

(04:19):
they were the British Empire. The French you know, imperial,
very good at what they did up until you know,
it all fell apart. The Germans really scary nation in
terms of like the kind of ship that they were
able to pull off, like really frighteningly competent. Not the
same thing with the Italians. You know, they're part of
the access in World War Two. Nobody scared about the
fashion of the fascist Italians, right. The Nazis are Mussolini's

(04:44):
a joke, right, like Italy comes came off that war
as like the bumbling and incompetent partner to these like
nightmare warriors the Germans. Gone were the glory days of Rome?
For sure? Yeah, for sure. And it's um there's actually
this goes back in European history, back to really at
the hundreds. There's this like long standing. There's even a
Latin phrase for it that I don't have memorized. But

(05:05):
the joke is Italians can't fight. They're not good fighters,
which is gonna sound like if you know Roman history,
like one of the things I mean. And this this
does go back a bit because even in ancient Rome,
Italian Italians Romans in particular, were the best heavy infantry
the world had ever seen. Right, But an army includes
a lot of stuff that's not heavy infantry. You've got
you've got archers, You've got you know, sling throwers or

(05:28):
what not. You've got different kinds of cavalry. You've got skirmishers.
None of those were ever Italians. They always went with
That's part of why they colonize is they would take
these you know, Balaric slingers and arthur archers from you know,
Crete and all these different like Gallic cavalry and whatnot.
And that's what made the Roman Empire imposing the heavy infantry,
which were Italians were really good, but they had all
these different peoples that they would bring in to fill

(05:49):
these other roles that they just weren't very good at. Um.
They're really good at artillery, but you know they have
and they have a really significant period of military dominance
during Ancient Rome, and then they're kind of not that impressive, right.
Some of the Italian city states do some okay ship
and like you know the Renaissance period, the Medieval period,
but like they're not there. You know, when you're talking

(06:10):
about like the dominant military powers in Europe for most
of less thousand years, talking about the French, you're talking
about the German's, talking about the British, you know, Um,
nobody's all that impressed with Italy military might. Um. And
it's it's there's also some aspects of this that are
weird because like when Mussolini first came to power in
like twenty two, the first like ten years of his reigners,

(06:30):
so he was the fascist right, nobody cared about Hitler,
Nobody talked about Hitler. Hitler was kind of cribbing off
of him, and he was a very popular leader worldwide.
Mussolini was. He was super popular in the United States,
and we've kind of forgotten that because by the time
the war started, it fascist Italy was such a ship
show that like everybody just like wrote Mussolini off as

(06:50):
like Hitler's bumbling sidekick, when it really was the opposite
at the start. Um and this kind of bumbling reputation
has led to a lot of it's kind of benefit
did the Italian nation in the modern era, because we
don't remember all of the horrific crimes against humanity that
that steadily committed outside And part of that is because
the number one place fascisteadily committed crimes against humanity was Ethiopia,

(07:13):
a place where Westerners do not think about, they don't
care about it. Yeah, and that's what we're talking about today. Now,
our story begins in one thousand BC, because we're gonna
talk about where Ethiopia comes from. And one thousand BC
is about the time roughly when a bunch of folks
in Northeast Africa were like, what if we did an Ethiopia. Right,

(07:33):
that's kind of like when the what becomes the modern
nation of Ethiopia, Like, Ok, let's do an Ethiopia. It
seems like a good idea, and they're still doing in Ethiopia.
So clearly there were some some good ideas there. Um.
Now I'm gonna leave out some stuff, but the gist
of the stories that the nation of Ethiopia has existed
in some broadly recognizable form though for about three thousand years, right,

(07:55):
that's a long time for there's been a recognizable not
a nation in the modern sense, but in Ethiopian people
inhabiting and exerting political power in that area. But like
three thousand years, which is huge. You know, very few
other peoples that are in that. China would be one, right,
but not a lot of different peoples around the world
that could say three thousand years we've more or less

(08:17):
been an entity, you know, not the Brits, because even
the Brits where you know, it was the Anglo Saxons
and the Vikings just tearing at each other's throats. Um,
the thousand years is a dynasty, Yeah, because like modern
you know, people usually like the start of kind of
like what we recognize the Brits as being is like
ten sixty six. Right, the Battle of Hastings is kind
of when that starts to form. Ethiopia's two thousand years

(08:40):
old at that point, right, just for an idea of
like how far this this culture goes back? Um. And
again I'm not saying the modern nation of Ethiopias three
thousand years old, but something broadly recognizable in that way. Um. Now,
during this time, a shipload of different stuff went down. Right.
You had your Alexander the Greats, You've got your Roman Empire,
You've got a couple of different caliphates. You've got some Mongols,

(09:01):
you get another caliphate after the Mongols. And through sheer
cussedness and the fact that their homeland is what historians
call a natural fortress. It's huge, it's mountainous, it's difficult
to fight in if you're invading, right, you're in it's
a defensible position. Um. And because of this, Ethiopia manages
to stay more or less independent through all of these
different empires. Just rolling through the neighborhood. Right. You know,

(09:24):
Rome is in the Middle East and North Africa, Alexander
the Great Fox around and chunks of that area. Um caliphates,
you know, Mongols were not. All of these guys are
kind of sucking around in and around, but none of
them destroy Ethiopia. UM and staying continuing to exist through
all of this UM was not a simple matter, as
Emperor highly Selassie wrote in the early nineteen hundreds, quote,

(09:46):
throughout history, the Ethiopians have seldom met with foreigners who
did not desire to possess themselves of Ethiopian territory and
to destroy their independence. With God's help and thanks to
the courage of our soldiers, we have always come what
might stood proud and free upon our native mountains. Now,
the rise of Islam was probably the biggest challenge for
the Ethiopians and in terms of remaining independence, since for

(10:08):
most of their history, or most of the at least
their modern history, they've been kind of their own brand
of orthodox Christianity. Right, That's one of the things. You're
in the Middle East, North Africa very much much heavy
Muslim populations, and then there's Ethiopia, which is christian Um.
And that's that's difficult, right, because yeah, there's like seven
hundred years where you know, the Caliphates are kind of
the biggest power in the region, UM, and there are

(10:31):
attempts to take over Um Ethiopia by these folks. Um
Ethiopio was invaded constantly, and it existed as kind of
an island of Christianity in the middle of the Muslim world,
which was at that point that kind of the center
of Western military power. Uh. They were invaded by Albania
and Turkey in the early fifteen hundreds in a brutal
war that pushed the King of Ethiopia back to the
giant plateau that is the Ethiopian heartland. Disaster was only

(10:54):
narrowly avoided by the intervention of Portugal, who at that
point was probably the greatest power in Europe. This European
colonizers sent four hundredmen with early rifles to beat back
the Turks and Albanians, which they did, saving Ethiopia. Of course,
Portugal didn't leave, but they didn't succeed in properly colonizing
Ethiopia either. UM. And so again, one of the things

(11:14):
that makes Ethiopia weird is unlike a lot of the
rest of the region. There there are elements to which
they benefit from not colonization, but from colonizing powers because
portable kind of saves their bacon. And they do it
for selfish reasons. I mean they justify it, be like
were we have these people are Christians, we're Christians, We've
got to save them. They're also they have a financial
interest here. But for a variety of factors. Um, they

(11:36):
don't take power right, you know in Portugal. Does that
all throughout South America because it's not like just from
a distance first suspective Portugally, it seemed Portugal to be
like perfect, like already a strong Christian like hold here.
It's hard to cap sure, we're already on the inside,
and we know they were really about conquering ship like
that was their main sham. They did a lot of that. Yeah,

(11:59):
it's in a lot of that. That's why there's a
Brazil Yes, exactly. Quite astounding that they wouldn't just immediately
try to especially knowing how much uh the other European
powers were at the time conquering portions of Africa, and
like everyone would want to get their foothold. There hundreds
European powers weren't. This is like Europe hadn't really done

(12:21):
anything in Africa very much at that point. Some in
northern Africa, right, there's always been interchanged between Northern Africa
and Europe because it's not very far. But Um colonization
hadn't started in mass in Portugal fift hundreds. They don't
really have the resources to do it because number one,
after all this war against Turkey in Albania, Ethiopia is devastated,
so they don't have a like a functional state to

(12:42):
just kind of pick up. The terrain is really difficult,
it's very rugged, they don't have a lot of minutes
hard to get people there. It just doesn't wind up
being practical. So eventually the Portuguese kind of give up
and leave Um. And the next few centuries after this
are a chaotic period for Ethiopia. There's a number of
invasions and warlords um. And for a big chunk of
this time, there's an Emperor of Ethiopia, but he's basically

(13:03):
a token figure, and there's kind of these vying local
kings and war lords who were you know, one of
them will be more of the power than he is,
and this kind of continues off and on until the
mid eighteen hundreds. That's when an adventurer named Casa defeated
all of the different regional kings vying for power and
declared himself King of Kings. He took the name Yeah,

(13:24):
I mean, it sounds like there's a lot of movies
that should be made. I mean maybe there are a
couple of Yeah, So he takes the name Theodros. Some
people will call him Theodore, right, like it's usually anglicizes that,
But his name was theodros Is. His name was not
fucking Theodore um And he became the first modern Emperor
of Ethiopia um And like most emperors in history, Theodros

(13:46):
veered between kindly and wise and the narcissistic, murderous madman,
depending on whether or not he was having a good day. Right,
No one who wants to be the King of kings
is going to be a nice dude, right, doesn't matter
that they're pretty much ship get, you know, defying God
coming down to me like he should be your leader. Yeah,
you know, sometimes you got don't get to be king

(14:07):
of kings by handing out backrubs. You know. He maintained
power by virtue, of his mighty army. So he's got
a really good army. That's why he's in power. But
he fucks up, you know, after some time in power,
he focks up because he has these he has these
fits of rage and right, who knows, maybe he had
some head injuries from battles, maybe he was drinking lead,

(14:28):
or there's all sorts of reasons people's death. Yeah, you
have all these This happens all throughout a lot of
You have a lot of Roman emperors like that were like, well,
he was prone to these fits of rage, and now
we know they're like, oh, well they were head lead
in the drinking water, Like there's all this ship that
might have been, like why this rage happened? Like who
knows what was going on? But he has a fit
of rage and he makes the mistake during one of

(14:49):
these of imprisoning a British envoy. And by this point
we're in the midds, Like the eighteen forties, the British
are the one people you don't want to piss off,
right fucking unless you're the United States, you don't want
to piss off Britain. In the early eighteen hundreds, it
doesn't end well for you Victoria's reigned by eighteen forty. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(15:12):
this is the Victorian period, I think, um, yeah, yeah,
so yes, because um so he imprisons prisons of British
a British envoy, and he seems to have done this
because of a male dispute. So Emperor Theodorum sent a
letter to Queen Victoria and it didn't reach her. Um
And I don't think we know why it didn't reach her.
It may have been a slight. It may have just

(15:32):
at least the eighteen hundreds, right, it could have just
gotten lost, you know, that probably didn't make it to
his death. I don't know. There's a long history that
we'll talk about later in this episode of like particularly
British monarchs being racist towards Ethiopian monarchs. But honestly, this
might have just been a funk up. It's getting a
letter from Ethiopian a UK in the eighteen forties not

(15:55):
an easy task. But this letter doesn't reach her, she
doesn't respond, and he feels in Alton because a fellow
monarch had neglected to respond to him. Um And this
may have also been a deliberate slight. We really don't know.
In any case, he arrested. The British consule. England sends
another envoy to ask him to release their first envoy,
and the emperor arrests this guy too, and then he
arrests sixty other Europeans in his country to boot. This

(16:18):
sparks a major debate within the halls of power in
the British Empire. Um, they did not have a meaningful
presence in Ethiopia, They did not have a whole lot
of soldiers anywhere near Ethiopia, And so there's this big
debate in parliament is it worth deploying an army to
free two dudes? Being the British Empire, they say yes,
like they like, yeah, this is worth it enough men,

(16:38):
let's go yeah, I mean, And to be honest, we
talk about like why the British are and empire. It's
because they make choices like this, right, It's because they're
willing to deploy power like this. It will get him
in trouble at points, but like these are the kind
of calls empires make. UM. In eighteen sixty seven, the
British send their first European invasion force into Ethiopia, and
it was twenty thousand men, which is a massive army

(17:01):
for the day, especially in in in that part, especially
in Africa. Like, that's a huge army in eighteen forty
to send. And this army lands on the coast of
what is now Somalia. They marched through some of the
most rugged mountain terrain on Earth until in April of
eighteen sixty eight they reached the emperor's walled city of Magdela. Uh.
It was not much of a fight because the emperor
had alienated all of his vassals because he was a dick. Um.

(17:24):
So all of these different you know, it's a feudal system.
He relies on all these levies from different local kings
and lords and whatnot to fill his army. And none
of these guys are willing to fight against the British
for him. Um. And so Emperor Theodros winds up yeah,
shooting himself to avoid capture. Now yeah, yeah, So he's

(17:44):
out of the picture now and and ship like this
happens all throughout the colonial period, and usually it ended
with Great Britain owning another giant fucking chunk of the planet.
It doesn't in this case. Um. And it's worth worth
asking why, because the British obviously take anything that's not
fucking nailed. Um. I found a really fascinating right up. Um.
It's a master's thesis for the Department of History at

(18:06):
Kansas State University, written by an Ethiopian historian named two
Fairy tech lehman at Um who got his b a.
From highly Salassia University in Ethiopia and then went to
Kansas States. This is not like a white guy European
view of history. This is an Ethiopian guys writing about
the history of his nation, which is what I wanted
for this. And here's what to ferry rights to explain

(18:26):
why England didn't stay and do you know British Empire
ship in Ethiopia quote. An interesting question now arises, why
did not the British colonize the country? There is, of
course no evidence that they had any that the general,
who they said had any orders to do so. In fact,
the British government was at that time not very keen
in further acquisition of colonial lands. But even if the

(18:49):
general had wanted, he could not have accomplished the task
to begin with. The expedition itself could very well have
failed if it were not for the indifference of the
regional rulers. Indeed their active disobedience and time of emergency
so to Ferry argues that these local chiefs gave aid, food,
and guidance to the British forces. They were so angry
at the empery. They helped these guys through the mountains, right.

(19:10):
But they also they didn't just help them. They made
certain to put on a display of their military might,
marching their soldiers past the British Empire, just to be like,
we're not going to fight you, but we could, right, Like,
we're cool with you now. We want like you suck
the emperor. You can take the emperor out, but if
you try to stick around, we have enough dudes to

(19:30):
wreck your ship, right right, and we would combine our
forces against you. So definitely watch out. I love them.
This is this is forward leaders with forward thinking power,
unlike the guy who literally shot the messengers. Yes yes,
um and two, Ferry goes under right. Quote. After the meeting,
this meeting where the Ethiopian show off their military power,
the British general proceeded to magdela Uh and, as he

(19:53):
put it, quote somewhat less confident than before, having seen
the bearing in arms of the Ethiopian soldiery. Um. So yeah,
the British go in here, um, and and they don't
they don't stay. And probably part of it is that,
you know, this is something that probably should be talked
about more colonization. You know, it was never the thing

(20:14):
that even the British political class was whole log for
a lot of guys through every stage of the expansion
of the British Empire keep saying this is a bad idea.
Now they don't win, um, but they're that like they
were kind of more dominant during this period. Maybe that
played a role. But there's also and this what Taffaria
is arguing is the British number one, they see the
kind of country. They're like, we're we only got through
all these mountains because these locals led us through and

(20:36):
there's a lot of them, and they're good fighters, and
if they wanted to make a problem for us, they
could really wreck our day. It's it's not worth it,
you know. And that's why Ethiopia stays independent this entire period,
is it's not worth it to funk with them. Um.
I love the idea of land having such an advantage,
like it's kind of I don't know if it. Impressive

(20:59):
is right word. But it's sort of miraculous almost that
there was any space in Africa that people were just like,
you know what, why bother with this one? It's it's
it's very similar. I see a lot of similarities when
I read about the Ethiopians to the Kurds. Right, you
have these peoples who are continuously have are surrounded by enemies,
but never get quite wiped out because they have the mountains, right,

(21:21):
and they know they're fucking mountains And if you come
into the mountains, you're probably not going to live, right.
You may not they may not be able to like
run what is a functional nation because they may not
have access to the sea or infrastructure, but you're not
going to wipe them wipe them out because they have
the fucking mountains um. And the Ethiopians have the goddamn
mountains um and that is a huge asset to them. Um.

(21:44):
So after the British leave, Ethiopia has another one of
its periods of internesting conflict. Right the Emperor's gone, all
these local leaders who weren't willing to fight for him
wind up fighting amongst themselves. Um. And after a period
of this, another guy, Casa of tig Gray wound up
and charged next and Tigray a mountainous region in the
north of Ethiopia. Right um, in eighteen seventy two, Cosa

(22:05):
is crowned Emperor Johannes the Fourth. Now almost as soon
as he comes to power, Egypt invades. The Ethiopians beat
Egypt into horrific battles. But they you know, this is
like an ugly victory, right, they lose a lot of
men doing it. Uh, This is eighteen seventy eighteen seventy
six um. And again, one of the things that should

(22:25):
make clear about Ethiopia that makes it unique is that
during this time, when most other African nations are being
in the eighteen seventies, were starting to see the scramble
for Africa. They're starting to steal everything that's not nailed
down on the continent. While all of these colonizers are
doing that to the rest of Africa. Ethiopia's main conflicts
are either internal or with other African nations, and Europeans

(22:48):
had actually up to this point been more of a
neutral or even sometimes beneficial force for their sovereignty, which
is very unique, very very unique for for because again
everyone else is getting horribly fucked over. There's obviously there's
reasons for that. It's not out of the good of
the European's heart. It's just practicalities and realities of the
situation in the terrain. Um. Now, by the early eighteen eighties,

(23:10):
Egypt had gotten fucked over by the Mahdi. And the
Mahdi was a Messianic Muslim leader who led a revolution. Um.
He beat a couple of British armies, He beat a
couple of Egyptian armies. He eventually gets crushed by the British.
But the Mahdi's army invades Ethiopia because Ethiopia is Christian
and the Maddy this is like a Messianica Islamist movement. Um.
And Ethiopia beats them, you know, they win the battle

(23:34):
against the Maddy's army, but the Emperor Johannes dies fighting. Um.
And by the time this fighting is over, Ethiopia is
just fucking exhausted, right, I mean, there's yeah, there's a
lot going on. Yeah. Um. Now, they had, however, been
fortunate that through this period they completely missed the Scramble

(23:55):
for Africa. Now, Scramble for Africa starts in the eighteen seventies.
And it starts because we talk about King Leopold of Belgium, right,
the guy who stole the congo and killed thirteen million people.
Horrified because suddenly one of the worst people who's ever lived,
one of the one in the top one percent of
bad people on this show. Um, maybe the very top

(24:16):
of the list. Um, real piece of shit. Uh he
uh so he's you know, Belgium steals the Congo basically,
and all of the other European leaders freak out because
they're like, oh my god, Belgium took all of the Africa. Soon,
we're going to run out of Africa. We'd better all
steal a bunch of Africa. And so they steal a
bunch of Africa in the conference in Berlin. Yeah, it's

(24:36):
just it's a shady position to be in, just like
I have to be right under these assholes, Like god damn,
I couldn't even get like the months of boat ride
to get from one space to the other. Yeah. And
and during this period, almost every inch of Africa is
either conquered or claimed, but not Ethiopia. And to understand why,
it helps to understand how Europeans talked about Ethiopia In

(24:59):
this period, it, as one contemporary Western historian wrote, quote,
encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion.
The Ethiopians slept near a thousand years forgetful of the
world by whom they were forgotten. Now that's obviously not true,
right because we just talked about all the people who
invaded them. Yeah, but that is how Europeans think about them. Yeah,

(25:21):
it's a dark, mysterious land. It's forgotten. It's like you
guys invaded it like twice. But like, yes, it's that's
the European enity. Yes, it was like whow you're writing
this dude? Um? Yeah, but it is good for Ethiopia
though that Europeans tend to think about Ethiopia this right, right,

(25:42):
because whenever they thought about a country a lot, they
would suck it over right, like you don't want them,
You don't want Europeans paying a lot of attention to you.
If you're an African nation, it doesn't end well. Um. Now, Unfortunately,
Ethiopias splendid isolation from colonialism was not going to last forever.
From a right quarts quote at the Berlin Conference of

(26:02):
eighteen eighty four to eighteen eighty five, fourteen European countries
divided Africa among themselves. Before the conference, only about ten
percent of Africa was controlled by Europeans. The remaining was
ruled by indigenous and traditional rulers. Italy had a colonial
possession over a sub port since eighteen eighty two. At
the Berlin Conference, European colonial powers agreed that Italy could
take over Ethiopia as its future colony. So they don't

(26:27):
take Ethiopia, but they have this port that's on the
it's kind of in I think modern day Somalia. Right,
they have this little bitty chunk of the African coast.
And while everyone's gobbling everything else up, Italy is like, well,
I guess we'll take Ethiopia because it's close to what
we already have. And the rest of Europe is like, yeah,
it's a pain in the s to get there. It's
a pain in the Yeah, if you guys can take Ethiopia,

(26:47):
it's yours. You know. That's basically what they were. Just
sitting down at a continent. They were like, all right,
I guess this part that No, it's sleepy, nobody has
really been there. We'll take it. That's ours now, Wow,
just be a conversation. You haven't even tried militarily or
really that is mind blowing that people can just think

(27:08):
they can possess other people's land like that. That is
it's wild, unhandished. I can't. But you know what won't
divide up the nations of Africa between a handful of
European colonial powers for the profit of the Western world. Well,

(27:32):
what's that the products and services that support this podcast?
Can you guarantee that not a single, not a single
one of our sponsors is the government of Belgium. That's
say that we were getting those I don't even let
Belgians listen to the podcast. That is illegal. If you're
Belgian and you're listening, like, you know, get out of here,

(27:54):
Get out of here Belgian listeners. I'm sorry, Yeah, we apologize.
It's on the Italians that we don't want listening. Um,
all right, here's Samad's uh we're back and we're talking

(28:15):
about Ethiopia. So at the Berlin conference, Italy is like,
we'll take Ethiopia and everyone else's and I think it
might have been kind of like, yes, you're you'll take Ethiopia, right, yes,
gets a little jest like yeah, okay, dude. Now, because
Italians spend all their time making olive oil and eating

(28:37):
six hour dinners, they tend to be late for everything,
and they were extremely late for the scramble for Africa.
Italy only managed to get two tiny colonies, one and
what they called Italian Somali Land modern day Somalia, and
a little trading post that port we talked about on
the Red Sea coast. These were not lucrative or large possessions. Uh.
And this hurt the famously a national pride of the

(29:00):
Italian people who remember that one time they had conquered
the whole known world at liked years ago, and they
thought that being rabid years ago still mattered, which it
didn't do they still think that today, Robert, Yeah, um,
look just lean into the pasta. You're fine at pasta

(29:21):
bad at war, you're now. Both of Italy's colonial possessions
bordered Ethiopia, and Italy's laziest nationalists started saying, hey, we
should take that too, um. Now, While Italy had kind
of like gotten like, yeah, you can take this at
the conference, neither France nor England really wanted them, like

(29:42):
to take Ethiopia. Both France and England supported Ethiopian independence. Again,
not because France and England were like, yes, it's of
course these people have the right to national self determination
human beings. No, yeah, it's because the Suez Canal was
a thing at that point, Um, and the British basically
going to Egypt and they saw like this, So because
of the way the Nile is built and ship not

(30:04):
built is the wrong over because of the geography, Ethiopia
has the ability if they were to damn things to
choke Egypt off from like the like, they could funk
up the channel by like fucking with the way the
water works. Right, It's a thing that was possible. And
so the British were scared of France scanning influence here,
right because Britain and France, like literally until World War
One starts, are like at each other's throats constantly, like

(30:25):
up until like like everyone kind of assumed the big
European war would be between them, right. Um, So the
British are scared. The British one Ethiopia to be independent
because they don't want France to get it and to
get the ability to choke off Egypt. Um. And the
Brits or and the French didn't want the British to
get Ethiopia because they didn't want the British to have
any more power than they already had, and the would
a power in that specific I'm seeing it, yeah. So

(30:49):
as a result, both powers were fine with Ethiopia staying
independent because it was just easier for them than figuring
out something else. So the Italians had to be sneaky
about things, as is in their conniving nature. They started
their plans when Ethiopia was already deeply in meshed in
war in eighteen sixty nine, by having a private company
purchased a trading post on the coast from a local sultan.

(31:10):
This company then sold said post to the Italian government
in eighteen eighty two uh and during the modest uprising
the the Italians took another chunk of coastline, and like
most of their colonial possessions, Italian Africa wasn't apartheid state.
Um Italian and Native housing was strictly separate. Different schools
were established for Italians and natives. There was also a
system called mada mismo, which was basically codified sex trafficking.

(31:35):
Italian officials, soldiers, and other citizens were allowed to take
Native wives or mistresses and these women had no rights
under the law. Um. Oh yeah, so just sex sleeve's
great super slash domestic sleeve, I guess, oh god, yeah
yeah perfect. So Ethiopia is a landlocked country, right and

(32:00):
this has been a real problem for Ethiopia for a
while because you don't want to be landlocked, you want
to have sport, not to your advantage. Absolutely kind of
a big deal. Have an report. Um. And during the
fighting with the Mahdi. This again, the Mahdi is a
big problem for the British Empire there. They fight a
bunch of battles against him. Um. Ethiopia work fights alongside
the British against the Mahdi because he's fucking with them too,

(32:21):
and they make an arrangement with the British and basically
we're like, the British need Ethiopian helped to evacuate a
bunch of Egyptian garrisons, and the Ethiopians do this for
them in exchange for the British promise them free access
to a coastal port. Now, the Ethiopians fulfill their end
of the bargain and save these garrisons, but the British
do not fulfill their end. Of the bargain um, and

(32:41):
so Ethiopia gets screwed out of access to this port um,
in part because Italy is gobbling up a bunch of
this coastline. Right, never trust the British um seven Italy
invades Ethiopia for the first time. They send in a
scientific mission, that's what they call it, a five hundred
armed men to occupy a piece of ethio be in territory.
And this is a thing that European powers do a lot, right.

(33:03):
You send in a small group of armed men, you
take a little area, you hang out there. Usually the
leaders don't funk with you, right because they don't want
to deal with the hassle. And once you get that foothold,
then you could take another piece, and another piece and
another piece. Eventually work straight a war and you take
it all. Yeah, yeah, just a slow invasion of the body, horrifying,
and their hope had been that has often happened in Africa.

(33:26):
The locals would launch an ill equipped counter attack which
would be easily defeated by modern Italian guns, and the
bloodshed would service the justification for a more comprehensive Italian
land grap But the Italians forgot one crucial thing, Joel,
was it the mountains Italians? No, it's it's that Italians
suck acid war and Ethiopians don't pretty good. So Italy

(33:51):
is defeated decisively at a battle called dega Ali. Now
from this experience, Italy learned that in Ethiopia is not
an easy thing to steal. The next to the strategy
then of under my yeah ship, they really want to
keep being Ethiopia. We didn't anticipate this. It's too spicy
if meat the ball the last word of many an

(34:15):
Italian soldier bleeding in the dust of spicy meat the ball.
I feel like spicy meat ball is going to end
up on the behind the bastards bingo board that fans make.
We could do like a little photoshop of Ethiopia as
a meat ball and like an Italian choking on it,
like that's a spicy meat the ball. I was thinking

(34:37):
more like a drinking game or something that doesn't like
no death. Oh okay, well now, uh so Italy gets
rebuffed in this first attempt, so they sat next to
they establish a new strategy. And this strategy is kind
of more like what the British would try to do,
right because the British. There's sometimes where they use brute force,

(34:58):
they rarely start with that. They're a usually a lot
more cunning. Um and Italy adopts the same strategy. The
idea is to undermine Ethiopian unity, Um, because this is
a known vulnerability. Right. There's a lot of infighting in Ethiopia.
All these different regional lords don't always work together. They
like to fight for dominance. So the Italians like, okay,
what if we try to play these different tribal groups
and local leaders against one another and the emperor and

(35:19):
kind of fragment Ethiopia and then we can take, you know,
eat it up piecemeal, right, um, which is a better strategy,
And they were much more successful at this. The guy
they chose to reach out and bribe was a local
king named Menelik two ferry rights quote. As king of Shoa,
away from the central government in the north, Menelik enjoyed
unlimited power over his kingdom. He conquered Gali lands to

(35:42):
the south and expanded his territory greatly through his large
and relatively well armed forces. Thus, conscious of his growing power,
Menelik became less and less obedient to the emperor and
the Italians were not slow in noticing this. Accordingly, after
the presentation of gifts and tempting promises, the Italians were
able to have Menelik sign in a secret treaty in
which he was promised money, arms, and the province of

(36:04):
Tigray and in recognition is the king of Kings if
he allied with them in attacking Emperor Johannes the Fourth.
This is while Johannes is still alive. Um to this,
Menelik agreed and the treaty was signed in eighteen eighty eight.
Uh that the Italians would benefit. What the Italians would
benefit from this was little. It meant the annexation of

(36:24):
Eritrea in the northernmost province. But the Italians were solidifying
their hold and they were ready to wait for further demands.
So Italy gets this guy on board. They're like, well,
back this guy, this guy is the most powerful king.
Will back him against the emperor, will let him take
a big chunk of Ethiopia. But if we get this emperor,
we can take other chunks and eventually we'll eat this
guy up to right, will either make him into a

(36:44):
rump kingdom or like that's the plan, right, they're going
to use this guy to fragment Ethiopia, to let him
be independent, probably for the rest of his life, and
then take it over right whenever he passes, right whatever.
Pretty standard. Yeah, this happens all the time. Yes, they're
they're natural backstabbing people, the Italians. Um. So no, Now,

(37:08):
this basic tactic is one a bunch of European powers
would use all over the world during the age of colonization,
most local rulers around, not just Africa, but we're talking
like Southeast Asia, a bunch of places, and you know
it earlier. Very versions of this are done in like
Central and South America. To most local rulers in mental
exposition kind of would agree to do help whatever power

(37:30):
would overthrow the ruler um and they would be called
either betrayed immediately or bribed off and used to oppress
their fellows for the profit of England or France or whatever.
But so this was generally a successful strategy. But Italy
made a mistake, and the mistake was picking Menelik because
Menelik was really fucking smart, way smarter than any of

(37:50):
the Italians trying to manipulate him. Um. Yeah, So right
after the Italians signed this secret contract. Right, the Modests
invade again and the Emperor Johannes you know, dies fighting them,
which means the emperor that Menelik had agreed to fight
alongside the Italians isn't the emperor anymore? Um. And as
soon as the Italians here that Johannes is dead, they

(38:11):
send a telegram to Mendelick, who again they think is
their boy, and their exact phrasing was something like, it's
time for our two countries to establish a more solid friendship,
which is colonizers speak for we're coming right, We're gonna
take the ship. And it seemed initially that Menelik was
falling for their sneaky tricks. He signed a treaty with Italy,
which the Italians claimed would just officially lay out their

(38:33):
separate territories and enshrine Ethiopian independence into international law. This
was a lie because there were discrepancies between the version
of the treaty written in Italian, which is the one
that Europeans are going to consider value. And this again,
they do this all the time. This is something the
US does. A ship load to the indigenous people's right,
classic colonizer move. Right. It's so se like base level,

(38:55):
like you the way you just what is whatever for
inventialize your your enemy is just embarrassing. Yeah, and so
there's a difference between the Italian version and the MRK
is the is the language that in the Ethiopia. Um,
I think amhrek is how it's pronounced. It's a m

(39:16):
h A R I C. Now, the Italian version of
the of the treaty included an article that read, quote
his majesty, the King of Kings of Ethiopia consents to
avail himself of the Italian government for any negotiations which
he might enter into with other powers. Now what that
means is under the Italian version of the treaty, Menelik
is agreeing that he has to ask the the Italian

(39:39):
government for permission before making any arrangements with other countries.
This would make Ethiopia into what is known as a protectorate,
which is not an independent nation. A protectorate is under
the government governance of another country. Um. Because if you
can't make your own contracts and treaties foreign countries, you're
not really independent. That what that line is the Italian

(40:00):
is trying to steal Ethiopian sovereignty in a very clever way, right. Um. Now,
the Amharic version of the treaty, which mentally gets, is
crucially different. It just says that the emperor might, if
he desired, avail himself of Italian help and foreign matters.
So his version of the treaty is like, since we're friends,
if yeah, if you want to make a deal with
the European nation, hey where European will help you with it?

(40:21):
You know, we might write exactly crucial difference. One of
them is a nice thing that a friend would do,
and one of them is somebody stealing your fucking house,
you know. Um yeah. So the Italians, of course, as
soon as this treaty has signed, the Italians informed the
rest of Europe like, hey, we've basically we've acquired one.
Ethiopia slightly used like congratulations, look at how who we are?

(40:45):
Um now to Ferry, that Ethiopian scholar who a big
basis of this junk of the history, seems to think
that Menelik was legitimately fooled by this, that he thought
he'd signed a friendship treaty and was shocked when the
Italians were like, we own you now. But other schollers
disagree now to Ferry's pieces, very good, which is why
I've used it, but it's also rather old. It's a
couple of decades old. It's not a new piece of scholarship.

(41:06):
There's a two thousand eleven book by Cambridge historian Raymond
Jonas that makes a different argument, and I'm gonna quote
from a writeup of his book by Ohio State University's
Origins Project. Quote Jonah suggests that Menelick used his protectorate
status to his advantage, such as a loan of four
million lira from Italy, used to purchase weapons until his
position was strong enough to claim there was a mistranslation.

(41:28):
So by this interpretation of events, the emperor knew Italy
was trying to funk him over. But he also knew
that the etho Opian army was exhausted and was badly
outgunned by any European force. Because all these worth they fought,
to have any hope of victory against a full invasion,
they would need refitting. So he was like, if the
Italians think I'm a protectorate, they'll give me a loan.
I can use that loan to buy guns, and I

(41:49):
can use those guns to kill Italians. Listen, I love
the double play that we're grad Yeah, this is a
very very smart guy. So Italy strategy here is to
gradually move forces further and further into Ethiopia, which they

(42:10):
start to do. They sent in soldiers and they occupy
a city called Addagat for a full year, and the
emperor doesn't do anything. And again, the last time they
tried this, they immediately got counterattacked and pushed out. So
they're like, oh, it's working, it's working. This guy's gonna
let us in spicy yeah. Um, right, So they think
Ethiopia is going to be a big push over. They
think they finally cracked cracked the nut. Now they had

(42:30):
further reason to believe that Ethiopia would be easy pickings
because they also brought a horrible plague with them when
they invaded the first time. Um, the historical record shows
that when the Ethiopians wiped out that first expeditionary force
and rated its camp, they stole cattle that had been
infested with a disease called the render pest. This pest
quickly spread throughout the country, wiping out all cattle in

(42:51):
Ethiopia and causing a nightmarish famine. So this is all
happening at the same time. Right. I'm gonna quote from
a write up by the Aromo Studies Association. This historical
period is recorded in the collective memory of the Aroma
people as Bara Nama Niata the period of human eater,
bara Uxia, Rukisa the period of extreme famine, and Cina

(43:12):
the period of termination. So those are the three periods
of this plague. Um we have no evidence that the
Italians had deliberately introduced our PV into Abyssinia. However, the
colonial public health history made clear that the colonizers knowingly
and with wittingly neglected the needs of the colonized people,
and this is evident in the case of our PV
in Ethiopia. As we know today, the practice of quarantine

(43:33):
began in Italy during the fourteenth century. It was started
in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics.
Italy and many European countries practiced quarantining. For example, in
thirteen seventy seven, the Great Council of Ragusa and Southern
Italy passed a law establishing a trentino or thirty day
isolation period. This made Italy the first in Europe to
organize institutional responses to disease control that began during the

(43:54):
plague epidemic of thirteen forty seven to thirteen fifty two.
Ships arriving in Italian ports were required to sit an
anchor for forty days before landing. Although the Italians had
practiced quarantining ships arriving in their reports ever since the
fourteenth century, when they brought the infected cattle to the
Red Sea coast, they did not take the necessary quarantine
steps and caused the RPV epidemic. Whether or not it
was deliberate, the Italian Army introduced the deadly RPV infection

(44:17):
to Africa. Carried by just three infected cows. RPVs spread
from Ethiopia's east coast across the Sahela Desert, killing in
just one year of the domesticated cattle plus countless whild, buffalo, giraffe,
and antelope. RPVs swept from the Horn of Africa west
to the Atlantic and south to the Cape of Good Hope.
Ethiopia lost of its cattle and most of the human

(44:39):
populations starved to death. According to Yoma, thirty to sixty
of Ethiopia's population started at that year. Oh my god,
that's devastating. And it's important to note the Italians know
how to quarantine, which is why some people suggest they
did this on purpose. They introduced this plague to prepare

(44:59):
the area, to basically wipe out the population and prepare
the area for colonization. We don't know that. We do
know they knew how to quarantine and shows not to
and that's why this plague spreads and kills as many
as sixty percent of the people in Ethiopia. And that's
happened right as this as the EI, as the Italians
are moving in, as they take this city. So Menelik
is not just dealing with recovering from all these wars,

(45:21):
like fucking half of his population has just gotten wiped
out by this devastating, fucking plague. So by the early
eighteen nineties, Ethiopia is in bad shape, right, this is
they're about as vulnerable to colonizations you could possibly be,
you know, like that's a bad position. Um, and the
Italians tried to take further advantage of the situation by

(45:42):
using the desperation of the famine to drive divisions between
Menelik's kingdom Showa and the Northern Tigray Kingdom the two
most because these are the two most powerful chunks of Ethiopia.
But in this they were outflanked because Menelik married the
Empress Tattoo from Tigray, which effectively united the two great
power walks in the country. He also used the Italians

(46:03):
during their early stages of investment in the country to
crush local princes and warlords who were threats to his power.
In effect, he used the army he would one day
have to fight to crush resistance to his rule and
ensure that when the big fight came, Ethiopia was united
behind him. The Italians were willing to do this because
this was a normal colonialism thing. Right, you fight these
little powers so you don't have to fight the big war.

(46:24):
Right Um. They thought they're sinking their teeth into this country,
wrapping their Italian tentacles around it, but they're really being
used by Menelik. In eighteen ninety three, Italy announced to
the rest of Europe that Ethiopia was their protectorate. They
did not bother making an announcement to Metelk. He found
out during the course of his normal diplomatic correspondence when
he reached out to a European nation and was informed

(46:46):
by their emissary that they would not treat with him directly.
All communication would have to go through Italy. So Menelik
wrote a letter to the King of Italy. Quote, when
I made the treaty of friendship with Italy in order
that our secrets might be guarded and that undertaking should
not be spoiled. I said that, because a friendship, our
affairs in Europe might be carried on with the aid
of the Sovereign of Italy. But I have not made
any treaty which obliges me to do so, and today

(47:08):
I am not the man to accept it that one
independent power does not seek the aid of another to
carry on its affairs. Your Majesty understands very well. Basically,
you're a king and you wouldn't put up this with
with this, why would you expect me to? Yeah, okay,
laid down the la like I love the respect being commanded.
This is amazing. You know what else is a king

(47:30):
of Italy? Is the king of the sovereign of Italy.
Is it that? Yes, we are supported by the Italian crown?
I thought, okay, all right, I mean they're looking they
like to be kings of other things. So you know,
if you're looking for a king, you know, if you

(47:51):
if you would like to be a king um, or
if you would like to have a king, you know,
consider the sovereign of Italy. You know, you could do worse. Right,
there's worse kings. Not a lot of worse things, but
there's a couple. Yeah, anyway, we'll take it. Uh, we're back.

(48:15):
I hope you all enjoyed. Um, I hope you all
enjoyed this. Those ads from the King of Italy. Um.
Italy it's a country technically, So for the next three years,
the Italians wage a shadow war against Ethiopian independence. They
reached out to Menlik's rivals to try and turn other

(48:37):
kings against him. They tried to trick him into further
treaties with tricky language, but everywhere they're out maneuvered because
mental Wick is just smartest shit. Like, it seems silly
to me to be like that first contract mistake. Let's
try it again. Yeah. The thing that I love about this, dude, well,

(48:57):
this is such a cool story. Um. This part of
it as a cool stories because this whole period is
all of these different African leaders just getting completely fucked
over by Europeans, um and and and and brute with
a huge body counts as a result. And this this
guy though, he's just so much fucking smarter than them,
Like he's just running circles around these motherfucker's And it's beautiful.

(49:19):
Um it's it's a it's a really gratifying story compared
to everything else happening between Europeans and Africans in this
period of time, which is mostly you know, genocide. Um so, yeah,
we might as well enjoy the good story while we
I mean, there's a genocide here too. They killed half
the country. Uh so, I don't know. You take the
winds when you get them. You gotta find your victory

(49:41):
somewhere for ye, So he out maneuvers them, um and. Finally,
in eighteen nine, Italy decides they have no option but
to invade with a real class army, and they assemble
a full modern European army of twenty five thousand men
under the command of a general named Baratieri, and they
invade for Mauritrea. Now, unbeknownst to Italy, Menelik had started

(50:03):
preparing for war in earnest in eighteen ninety three, He'd
ordered the creation of food depots across the country, leading
to a place called Adwa, where he believed the Italians
would advance towards next From a write up in Quartz,
on September seventeenth, eighteen ninety five, Menelik declared a total
mobilization of war against Italy. He called on all Ethiopians
to defend their country, family, and religion. He ordered every

(50:24):
capable person to fight and those incapable to pray for
Ethiopia's victory. Ethiopians from every tribe, culture, and community answered
Mendelick's call. Regional leaders from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds
responded unanimously, creating an army of one hundred thousand. They
had inferior weapons but a strong cause. The first showdown
occurred at Amba Alagi on December seventh, eighteen ninety five,

(50:45):
where a relatively smaller Italian army was wiped out. The
next encounter was at Mcelly, where the Italians were stationed
behind a strong fort. The Ethiopians surrounded the Italians for
two weeks, and, upon Empress Tattoo's advice, cut off the
fort's water supply. The Italian in commander agreed to surrender
if they would be allowed to leave with their firearms.
Menelik agreed that they could leave the garrison unharmed, but

(51:06):
the Italians remained in their strongholds, fortifying their position at
Adigrat and Saria. Menelik was not in a hurry to
attack these forts. After two weeks of an activity, General
Baratieri decided to advance for a surprise attack. It was
marched first eighteen ninety six, or according to the Ethiopian
counter Yakati, eighteen eighty eight, the day of St. George.
The priests carried the Taboau, a replica of the Ark

(51:28):
of the Covenant, a religious icon that symbolizes the sanctity
of Ethiopia, to the battlefield. The twenty thousand Italian and
Italian trained native troops, who advanced in three columns, fought
bravely with their cannons and machine guns before facing a
decisive defeat. Casualties were severe on both sides. So the
you know, there's this kind of like ongoing war and

(51:50):
it comes to a head at this place of Ottawa,
and the Ethiopians smash this Italian army of twenty thousand people.
This is we'll talk about that a sex. So it
is us noting before we move on that during this battle,
the Ethiopians are one of the things that I don't
know if I wouldn't say it makes them a unique
but one of the things that's worth noting is that
there were a significant number of women fighting in the
Ethiopian army. This is a thing in Ethiopian military history,

(52:13):
including a tatool the empress who led a unit of
six thousand cavalry into battle. And also, as we talked about,
she was a major strategic leader of the army. She
has all these plans for cutting off water supplies and stuff.
She's a big part of this um the Battle of Ottawa. Sorry,
I was just gonna say, I love how all of
these like high ranking um monarchs or queens and kings

(52:38):
and emperors are like dying on the battlefield, which seems
very to history to that they're fighters, rare, that they're
like in the front on the front lines. Yeah, I
mean it happened like if you go to the European
Europe a thousand years before, right the Battle of Hastings,
the monarch dies in the field. That happens in European
history a lot earlier. Um. But yeah, like fucking Menelik

(52:58):
is on the field, as is his wife. They're both
fighting in this battle, which I've never heard of before.
Like it like a like an emperor and an empress
fighting like side, like a side by side. Because she
was leading the cavalry. I think he had another gig.
But like they're both fighting in the same battle, which
is pretty fucking rad. Um. So, the Battle of Ottawa
is the first defeat military defeat, like major military defeat

(53:21):
of a European power by indigenous Africans. It was the
only such defeat during the Scramble for Africa that also
led to the complete victory of the native people. Right.
There's other times where like a small European army will
like lose, but they always win the war, right, that
doesn't happen here, they win the war, um, And this

(53:41):
is the only time that happens. This is a huge
victory not just within a you know, African military history,
but within the annals of global military history. Menelik's campaign
against the Italians covered more miles than Napoleon's advance into Russia. Um.
This is like a really fastening, extremely influential battle Um.
The news of the Italian defeat spreads rapidly, um. And

(54:02):
this is this hits European news like a bomb because
a full European army has just gotten fucking annihilated by
an indigenous army. Be afraid. Yeah, that's exactly how it's taken.
And Ethiopia becomes an international symbol of black resistance to colonialism.
This battle is celebrated by men like W. E. B.
Dubois and Benito Sylvain of Haiti Um. And this is

(54:24):
in spite of the fact that many Ethiopians themselves didn't
see themselves as part of a Pan African resistance to
Western imperialism. Menelik was not an idealist. He was a
pragmatic emperor. Before the war, when he was gathering up forces,
he had appealed to the common blackness of the different
peoples of Ethiopia against the white invader. But when Benito Sylvain,
who was a Haitian Pan Africanist, got to sit down

(54:47):
and talk with Menelik about their common struggle, the emperor
informed Benito that while he sympathized with the black struggle
struggle mental it, considered himself Caucasian. So again, this is
like there's a lot of weird dimension here. Yeah, some picture, sir, Sorry,
but you look good. You look really I got a

(55:09):
pretty faith for an emperor who's actually doing battle on
a battlefield. You could have been, uh, you know, a
wealthy prince who was like, I'm just not gonna bother
with any of these things. But definitely black. But but
but a big part of I think part of why
he's saying that, And there's others, Like one of the
things is that like the Ethiopians considered themselves different because
they were never colonized, right, they were never like taken

(55:30):
out of their homeland and mass or anything like that. Um.
Also the kings of Ethiopia. Um, I don't know if
you could say this is genealogically true, but they are.
They believe they are descended directly from King Solomon. Right,
that's the that's the lineage of the royal lions of Ethiopia.
They are the descendants of King Solomon. So that may
have that may play a role in it, but it's

(55:52):
so Menelik himself doesn't really see himself as like a
representative of this global struggle against white imperialism, but he's
in that way in this battle is seen that way internationally,
in a very big way. The first Afro Brazilian newspaper
was named oh Menelik. The green, yellow and red Ethiopian
flag was later adopted by multiple African nations when they

(56:13):
finally threw off the colonial yoke. And of course Ottawa. Yeah,
so yeah, that's why that is that, that's why that
flag means. What it does is the Battle of Ada
is at this time where the where Africans stopped a
colonial power from from you know, facori um. And of
course the Battle of Ittawa had great but much darker
significance to Europeans to ferry rights quote. In some quarters

(56:36):
in Europe, the news was received with alarm. Germany complained
that England should have come to Italy's aid. General Kitchener
expressed his desire to support Italy, but that the British
government would not allow him to do so, and the
Times of London limited in an editorial, you may be
sure that from one part of Africa to the other,
the defeat of Italy has already known, or we will
be tomorrow that Africa has conquered Europe. This is the

(56:57):
reason why the whole business is so serious and nothing
could be more heedless than to rejoice at the defeat
of the Italians. That defeat is also ours Europe. Europe.
Let's let's sidebar and have a quick conversation. One smaller
sized country defending itself is not conquering. And I think

(57:21):
you know that you did a lot of conquering, you
you're That's a weird way to find conquering. Is someone
broke into their house and they kicked him out, Like,
I don't know if the conquer is the right word.
Just defeated Italy, Like, let's really get some context here, yeah, wild,
So Italy gets beaten so badly. And again, one of

(57:42):
the things that's really unique here, there are other European
armies defeated in Africa. The Europeans always win. In the end,
Italy basically capitulates right away. They sign a treaty with
Ethiopia that officially recognizes Ethiopian independence. Obviously, of course, the
fact that this happens means nothing to the other crownheads
of Europe. Right they don't care that Ethiopia has been

(58:04):
is independent that same year um or sorry not that
that's nineteen o six. Britain, France and Italy meet to
hold a conference to decide the fate of Ethiopia. UM.
And there were no representatives of the Ethiopian government at
this And during this conference, three European powers agree in
essence that they will not take any further actions towards
Ethiopia unless they all agree on it. So whatever happens

(58:26):
to Ethiopia next, Britain, France and Italy agree they have
to all come to an accord before doing anything. UM.
So again zero recognition of Ethiopian independence by European governments,
although there is a treaty with Italy, right, so they've
you know, as we end part one, this is maybe
the brightest spot we've ended, uh, one of our episodes

(58:48):
on um. They've defeated the imperial power. Things are looking great.
Um gonna be a real bummer in part two. I'm
sorry to say it is behind the bastards. Uh. It's
still a really important story in a really inspiring story,
so I think it's it's worth telling, even though it's
going to get a lot darker in part two. Listen.

(59:10):
As a fantasy writer and lover a fantasy, I'm really
big on pulling from monarchs of the past to create
you know, modern fantasy as we've seen half of our
cross you know, a Lord of the Rings. You can
look at any of Georgia Martin stuff. Uh. This guy
is brilliant and I really hope to pull him into

(59:31):
some of my fantasy lit. Uh. First of all, his
style is banging. Uh. I know he's fucking rad looking
right Listen. Not only does he looks like a very
like cool hit model and or that teacher you all
had a crush on, but also all of his clothes
are bomb like he's got Flago style. Uh. And I

(59:52):
would I would just and t outsmart empires and sort
of be funny in his cunningness. Like, I just feel
like I would like to learn. I'm definitely gonna learn
more about metal. Like he's a badass. Yeah, he's fucking rad. Um.
So that's gonna do it for us here at behind

(01:00:12):
the Bastards. Um until next time, which will happen Thursday,
when it'll get a lot sadder. You know, go go
out into the world and I don't know, um, uh,
really sock it to an Italian, find an Italian and
make him pay what Sophie Robert Look, they're never gonna

(01:00:37):
learn if we don't all start fighting back against deadly.
Give him a spicy meat, a ball of their own.
That's all. I'm sac knew it was coming. Okay, we
needed one more, all right, all right? Go oh yeah,
I have Joel. You got you got puble doubles. Oh yeah,
y'all already know me. I'm Joel Monique. Can find me

(01:00:58):
all over the internet at Juan Monique. It's j O
E L L E M O N I q u E.
So many podcasts we come to my Twitter and you
will learn about them. Hell yeah, I have a novel.
It's called After the Revolution. You can find it in
podcast form anywhere. Just type in After the Revolution to
whatever podcast app you have. It will be there. You

(01:01:21):
can also find the full text, uploaded of three new
chapters every week at a t r book dot com
as an e pub again a t r book dot com.
You can find the book there, so check it out please. Um.
You can also find it on Reddit at our slash
after the Revolution. There's a fan reddit open. People are
talking about it if you want to chat with people

(01:01:42):
about my novel. So there you go. All right, We'll
be back whenever. At some point