Prelude to Magdala. Emperor Theodore of Ethiopia and Britisch Diplomacy.

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Vu par biblethiophile

En 1960, le journaliste britannique Percy Arnold séjourne deux ans à Addis Abéba avec l’intention d’écrire la biographie de l’Empereur Hailé Sélassié. Il se prend de passion pour l’histoire des relations entre l’Éthiopie et l’Angleterre et l’épisode concernant l’empereur Tewodros II devient un sujet d’étude qu’il mène à son retour au pays. En 1980, il décède en laissant un manuscrit inédit que Richard Pankhurst publie finalement en 1992.

Le mot « prélude » utilisé dans le titre est on ne peut mieux choisi car Arnold prend un malin plaisir à décortiquer les événements, les querelles de politiciens et les relations diplomatiques qui précèdent le déclenchement de l’expédition punitive britannique contre le negusä nägäst Tewodros II. La bibliographie est bien présente mais sans pour autant que des notes permettent de la relier au texte. Il faut par conséquent faire confiance au journaliste avant de se référer à Prelude to Magdala.

Biblethiophile, 30.11.2024

Vu par l’éditeur

This book studies the dispute between the British Government and Emperor Theodore II (reigned 1855-68) – a notable Ethiopian protagonist of reform and reunification of the then divided country – which led to the detention of a British consul. This remarkable event was followed, with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy, by others no less remarkable: the imprisonment of three other British officials and several German and other European missionaries at that monarch’s mountain fortress of Magdala; the British Governments decision, after seemingly interminable debate, on military intervention; the dispatch of Sir Robert Napier’s Expedition of 1867-8 which crossed the greater part of northern Ethiopia without encountering any significant opposition, land was much acclaimed in Britain where a number of roads and two public houses were named in his and its h onour; the destruction of Theodore’s army as a result of Britain’s superiority in modern weapons; Theodore’s dramatic suicide at Magdala on Easter Sunday, 1868; the collapse of the government Theodore had forged; the looting of manuscripts, crowns, crosses and other artifacts (largely to the benefit of the British Library); a bitter power struggle among Ethiopian chiefs to decide who should inherit his crown; and eventually, the reunification and modernization of Ethiopia which Theodore had envisaged, but which he failed to achieve, and never lived to see.

Prelude to Magdala is a history of Britain in the 1860s – and of policy-making in Downing Street, as much as of Emperor Theodore and Ethiopia; the work is interesting moreover for its insights into some of the personalities involved, not least Walter Plowden, Britain’s first Consul in Ethiopia, a great admirer of Theodore; and the author’s particular Bête-noir – the ‘pushful’ Dr Charles T Beke.

Percy Arnold was a distinguished journalist and an Ethiopian scholar. He was instrumental in founding the Diplomatic and Commonwealth Writers’ Association of Britain. This, his last book has been edited for publication by Richard Pankhurst, Professor of Ethiopian Studies at Addis Ababa University.

Source: rabats de la jaquette.