Читать книгу A Modern History of the Somali - I. M. Lewis - Страница 17
ОглавлениеCHAPTER III
THE IMPERIAL PARTITION: 1860–97
The first phase of Imperial Partition
IN THE YEARS following the middle of the nineteenth century, Somalia was rapidly drawn into the theatre of colonial competittion between Britain, France, and Italy. On the African continent itself, Egypt was also involved; and later Abyssinia, expanding and consolidating her realm in this period. By 1897 the partition of Somaliland was virtually complete; and though subsequent adjustments occurred, the frontiers of the new Somali territories had been defined, at least theoretically. Such gaps as remained in the division were later adjusted in subsequent colonial consolidation. Only the frontiers remained to be demarcated, a practical step which turned out to be infinitely more difficult than could have been envisaged in 1897.
Britain’s interest in the Somali area stemmed from her possession of Aden which had been acquired by force in 1839 as a station on the short route to India. With its poverty in local resources, the Aden garrison was almost entirely dependent upon northern Somaliland for supplies of meat. There was also a considerable Somali community at Aden, many of whom found employment with the new rulers there. The Aden authorities and the Bombay government were thus directly concerned that orderly conditions should prevail on the Somali coast, and more especially that the feeder caravan routes from the interior, and the ports of Berbera and Zeila, should function freely. But although travellers like Burton and local officials at Aden might advocate a definite British occupation of the Somali coast, their plans fell on deaf ears in Westminster. The British government was only interested in Somaliland’s meat supply as a necessary ancillary to the garrisoning of Aden. Only if this were seriously threatened would any occupation of the Somali coast be justified. This attitude on the part of Whitehall towards the Somali coast, given different emphasis by different administrations in England, was still the guiding policy when events had driven Britain to establish a Somaliland Protectorate in 1887. This evaluation is also reflected in the character of the Anglo-Somali treaties of protection. It figures strongly in the negotiation of the 1897 treaty with Ethiopia, and it later bred a tradition of parsimony and neglect which dominated British action in her Somali Protectorate throughout most of its life. Yet although Britain’s utilitarian interest in her Protectorate was always limited and secondary, this did not deter the government from using her holdings in Somaliland as a convenient counter in bargaining for bigger stakes with Ethiopia in 1897.
The other powers who began to display interest in the Red Sea coast had more definite and more directly imperial ambitions. In this region Britain’s main rival was, first, France. In 1859 the French consular agent at Aden obtained the cession of the Danakil port of Obock. Three years later a treaty was drawn up by which France purchased the port outright from the ‘Afar and the French flag was hoisted. But it was not until 1881, eleven years after the opening of the Suez canal, that France took advantage of her lonely stake at Obock and the Franco-Ethiopian trading company was installed there. In the interval, Italy had replaced France in claiming Red Sea territory, while Britain’s Liberal ministers were far from pressing imperial claims. Empowered by the Italian Foreign Minister to select a place on the Red Sea coast for an Italian settlement, Giuseppe Sapeto, a former missionary in Ethiopia, in 1869 obtained an interest in the port of Assab on the Eritrean coast. In the following year, Assab was bought outright from the local ‘Afar by an Italian shipping company which proposed to run services through the Suez canal and Red Sea to India. Britain did nothing to contest these Italian gains.
Meanwhile, however, no doubt prompted by this foreign interest, Egypt revived Turkey’s ancient claims to the Red Sea coast. By 1866 Turkey had transferred the Red Sea ports of Suakin and Massawa to the government of the Khedive Isma‘il, and the latter claimed that this new jurisdiction also embraced the Somali coast.1 In the following year the governor of the Sudan visited the Red Sea ports and also Tajura, Zeila, and Berbera, seeking declarations of fealty from the local leaders. In 1869 an Egyptian vessel visited Berbera, and in the following year Muhammad Jamal Bey was sent to the Somali coast to raise the Egyptian flag at Bulhar and Berbera.
The Egyptian occupation provoked immediate British protests. While not herself seeking to occupy Somali territory, in the interests of the safety of the Aden garrison’s meat supplies, Britain did not wish to see any other power established on the opposite side of the Gulf of Aden. Indeed to this end emissaries had already been sent from Aden to intrigue amongst the Somali against Egypt, and in 1869 British agents had successfully frustrated the cession of harbourage to France by one of the eastern Somali clans. The India Office accordingly urged that measures should be taken to preserve Somali independence from Egypt. But the home government refused to sanction any military action, although resistance to Egyptian claims to the coast east of Zeila was maintained through diplomatic channels from 1870 to 1874. During this period the area under effective Egyptian jurisdiction rapidly expanded. In Eritrea, Annesley Bay was occupied in 1873 and Keren in 1874, and the allegiance of the local peoples there and on the Somali coast won. Between 1874 and 1876 this forward policy was continued; Abyssinia was attacked and expeditions sent to the Somali coast south of Cape Guardafui, although no effective dominion was established there. As events turned out, the Abyssinian ventures failed, but the Egyptians succeeded in expanding behind Zeila and established a garrison in the ancient commercial city of Harar.
By this time, faced by other less predictable rivals, Britain had come to regard the Egyptian occupation as more in keeping with her interests than hostile to them. Accordingly, in 1877 a convention was signed with the Khedive by which Britain recognized Egyptian jurisdiction as far south as Ras Hafun. This arrangement Lord Salisbury described as ‘our only security against other European powers obtaining a footing opposite Aden’. The convention included the precautionary provision that ‘no part of the Somali coast . . . should be ceded on any pretext whatever to a foreign power’, a stipulation which was later to be written into Britain’s treaties of protection with Somali clans.
The Egyptians, it seems, had little difficulty in establishing their authority over the ports of Zeila, Bulhar, and Berbera, though their influence over the nomads of the interior was more limited. At this time the Somali had no firearms, and had to depend for their security upon the traditional spear and dagger. In addition, despite their sense of cultural identity, they did not constitute a single political unit. Foreign aggression thus encountered not a nation-state, but a congeries of disunited and often hostile clans which themselves were regularly divided by bitter internecine feuds. The Egyptians consequently experienced no united opposition, although they had serious difficulties with individual clans and lineages throughout their brief rule of the coast (1870–84).
At Zeila ruled Abu Bakr Pasha, a local ‘Afar, who had been Turkish governor of the town before the arrival of the Egyptians, having earlier supplanted his Somali predecessor Haji ‘Ali Shirmarke. Abu Bakr was actively engaged in the slave trade, still considerable at this time, and was regarded by the British at Aden as favourable to the interests of their French rivals. The governor at Berbera was an Egyptian, ‘Abd ar-Rahman Bey, whose rule, according to the vigilant Aden authorities, was oppressive and unjust: certainly it aroused the hostility of his Somali subjects. And despite the community of religion between the Egyptian colonizers and their Somali subjects, at both Zeila and Berbera there were the inevitable difficulties with the nomadic clans of the interior. The new administration sought to manage the appointment of Somali clan Sultans, and in order to secure some degree of control over the smaller clan segments appointed headmen (Akils) to represent them. These Egyptian candidates were not always acceptable. In 1883, there was trouble with the Gadabursi clan over the recognition of their leader, Ugas Nur, who was eventually sent to Egypt, where, if tradition is accurate, he was feted by the Khedive and presented with a gift of firearms. Other similar incidents occurred.
Yet, however distasteful their régime to the eyes of the British at Aden, the Egyptians did succeed in creating tangible evidence of their presence on the Somali coast. This was especially the case in the field of public works where much was achieved by corvée labour. The port facilities of both Zeila and Berbera were greatly improved; piers and lighthouses were erected; and at Berbera the ancient Dubar aqueduct was restored to supply fresh water to the town. The Egyptians also naturally encouraged Islam and several new mosques were built during their tenure of the coast. Whatever its merits or demerits, however, the Egyptian régime was abruptly terminated by the Mahdi’s revolt in the Sudan which necessitated a concentration of Egyptian resources and a drastic curtailment of outlying responsibilities in Eritrea, Harar, and the Somali coast: or, at least, so it seemed to Britain. The consequent Egyptian evacuation of Harar, Zeila, and Berbera took place in 1884 and immediately raised again the question of how these areas were to be administered to the advantage of Britain.
Meanwhile France and Italy had also been active. Recent French acquisitions in Madagascar and China, and the collapse of the Anglo-French condominium in Egypt gave France an impetus to establish a base on the Red Sea route which was now a vital link in her overseas communications. The time had come to rescue Obock from the oblivion of its moribund trading company, and to create an efficient coaling station. This was all the more necessary since, in the climate of acute Anglo-French rivalry of the period, the British authorities at Aden now refused to allow French transports to coal at the port. Léonce Lagarde, who laid the foundations of the French Côte des Somalis, and who played so prominent a part in the expansion of French influence in Ethiopia and N.E. Africa, was nominated governor of Obock in June 1884.
In the same period Italian influence at Assab, owned still by the Raffaele Rubattino shipping company, was consolidated and extended. At first the British reaction to these Italian moves was hostile; but by 1882 when under British pressure Italy had agreed to recognize Egyptian sovereignty to the north and south of her settlement, the Italian government felt sufficiently confident of its position to claim Assab openly and the port was bought from the company. Notwithstanding continued misgivings in some quarters as to Italy’s ambitions, the British government began to move towards the position of viewing Italian involvement as a convenient counterpoise to French expansion which was regarded as infinitely more threatening. The British Liberal government was by now in any case prepared to take more effective measures to safeguard the use of the Suez canal. By July 1882 British troops had occupied Suez, Ismailia, and Port Said. Yet the possibility still remained that the Mahdists would obtain control of the eastern Sudan and the port of Suakin. In an atmosphere of rumours of a French bid for the Eritrean port of Massawa after the withdrawal of the Egyptian garrison in 1885, Britain encouraged Italy to slip in and made the necessary juridical arrangements with the Turks. By February 1885 Italy had proclaimed her protectorate on the Eritrean coast from Assab to Massawa.
This establishment of the Italian colony of Eritrea well to the north of the farthest extension of the Somali area did not of course give Italy a stake amongst the Somali. But the further thrust of Italian expansion inland soon led to encroachments within Abyssinia and to the treaty of Ucciali signed between the two countries in 1889, a treaty which in the eyes of Italy established an Italian protectorate over Abyssinia. The same year saw Italy’s first direct acquisition of Somali interests, and Italian influence established on the littoral to the north-east and south-east of Abyssinia. By the treaty of Ucciali itself, moreover, Italy became directly concerned in the partition of the Somali nation.
The establishment of the British and French Protectorates
If from the British point of view Italy seemed to provide a suitable replacement to Egypt in Eritrea, the same solution was not applicable at Harar or on the Somali coast opposite Aden. The problem of the future status of these areas was complicated; no one friendly or fully acceptable to Britain seemed to want them.2 The Egyptians were not prepared to conduct the evacuation of their garrisons themselves; Turkey showed no willingness to resume control of Tajura and Zeila; and the local clans of the Somali coast, who of course were not consulted, were manifestly incapable of maintaining their independence and guaranteeing permanent peace and order at Berbera.
It seemed also likely that the Egyptian withdrawal itself would provoke disorder. Major Hunter, Assistant Resident at Aden and Consul for the Somali coast since 1881, reported that the sudden evacuation of the Egyptian garrison from Harar would be likely to lead to a struggle between the Somali and Oromo and that the retreating Egyptian forces would almost certainly be attacked by ‘Ise and Gadabursi Somali clansmen on the road to Zeila. Harar itself would be open to attack and would present an attractive target for the growing ambitions of King Menelik of Shoa. On the Somali coast the news from the Sudan was causing restlessness amongst the Somali at Berbera. Apart from the growing menace of the French at Obock, affairs at Zeila, however, were, momentarily at any rate, more placid. Yet the general effect of the Egyptian withdrawal was likely to be disruptive and to promote unrest.
In these circumstances it was reluctantly decided that direct British action was needed to ensure the safety of the trade-routes and to safeguard the Aden garrison’s meat supplies. A British mission led by Admiral Hewitt was dispatched to Abyssinia in 1884 to secure King John’s co-operation in the evacuation of the Egyptians from Harar. And after an Italian ironclad had visited Berbera and staged a somewhat equivocal incident at Zeila, Major Hunter was authorized to make the necessary arrangements with the local Somali clans for a British occupation. Tired of the Egyptian rule, and perhaps already sensing the expansionist moves of Abyssinia and of other foreign powers which they were soon to experience so much more forcibly, the Somali clans seem to have readily consented to British protection. By the end of the year formal treaties, replacing the earlier Anglo-Somali trade agreements, had been signed with the ‘Ise, Gadabursi, Habar Garhajis,3 Habar Awal, and Habar Tol Ja’lo clans.
These new Anglo-Somali treaties were presumably regarded by their Somali signatories as contractual alliances of the same sort as those used so extensively in internal Somali clan politics. Certainly little was ostensibly conceded to Britain. The preamble to each clan treaty explained that its purpose was, from the Somali side: ‘for the maintenance of our independence, the preservation of order, and other good and sufficient reasons’. The preambles to some of the treaties also alluded to the new situation created by the Egyptian withdrawal, stating that, ‘Whereas the garrisons of His Highness the Khedive are about to be withdrawn from Berbera and Bulhar, and the Somali coast generally, we, the undersigned Elders of the . . . tribe, are desirous of entering into an Agreement with the British Government for the maintenance of our independence, the preservation of order, and other good and sufficient reasons.’ Nor did the clans concerned expressly cede their land to Britain; they merely pledged themselves ‘never to cede, sell, mortgage, or otherwise give for occupation, save to the British Government, any portion of the territory presently inhabited by them or being under their control’.
The Somali clansmen did, however, grant to the British Government the right to appoint British Agents to reside on the Somali coast. A further supplementary treaty was signed with each of the five clans in 1886 which referred to the desire of each side for ‘maintaining and strengthening the relations of peace and friendship existing between them’, and which announced that the British government undertook to extend to the clansmen concerned and to their territories ‘the gracious favour and protection of Her Majesty the Queen-Empress’. A further clause obliged each clan not to enter into relations with any foreign power except with the knowledge and consent of Britain.4
Once these arrangements were completed the way was clear. But despite the enthusiasm of the Aden officials who had been preparing for an occupation of the Somali coast for some time, and who had especially trained a party of about forty members of the Aden police, instructions were issued that the occupation was to be as unobtrusive as possible: there was to be no attempt to extend British control inland. By the end of 1884 three British ‘Vice-Consuls’ were established on the Somali coast. One was stationed at Berbera with an assistant at Bulhar; and another at Zeila, where a joint condominium had temporarily been agreed to with Turkey, and Abu Bakr Pasha, the ‘Afar official, was still nominally governor of the port. These Vice-Consuls worked under the direct authority of the British Resident at Aden. They were given explicit directions that their duties were those of British agents in a native state: they were to keep the peace, but not to assume powers beyond this. No grandiose schemes were to be entertained; expenditure was to be limited to a minimum, and was to be provided by the local port revenues. All this was fully in accordance with Britain’s secondary interest in the Somali coast as a source of provisions for Aden.
L. Prendergast Walsh, undoubtedly one of the most flamboyant of the Vice-Consuls in this period, describes his administration at Berbera as ‘parental’.5 Under Walsh, building material which was scarce in the town was obtained by issuing camel drivers with a rope sling by means of which they were to bring two boulders into Berbera whenever they came in from the interior. Before entering the town, the nomads of the hinterland were encouraged to deposit their weapons at the police station and an ingenious procedure was devised to discourage violence. If two men were caught fighting, they were separated and deprived of their arms. They were then obliged to dig a grave. When this was completed to the satisfaction of the police, their arms were returned and they were urged to resume their dispute on the understanding that the victor would bury his adversary. Walsh found that under these conditions the most bellicose of warriors preferred to forget their differences, at least temporarily: the whole story was then broadcast in the town by the town crier.
With such methods as these and the aid of a small force of about a hundred Somali Coast Police armed with rifles, order was maintained quite effectively at Berbera and Bulhar. The safety of trade with the interior was ensured by the activities of an irregular force of armed caravan guards paid by the merchants whose caravans they escorted. And at Berbera the Ayyal Yunis, and at Bulhar the Ayyal Ahmad were still the officially recognized agents for all foreign traders: they exercised a monopoly in the organization of caravan trade with the interior.
Farther inland the maintenance of order sometimes required punitive expeditions organized with the aid of supplementary forces from Aden. Here the normal conditions of periodical raiding and looting between clans and upon caravans were aggravated by popular sympathy for the Mahdi’s cause in the Sudan. This was furthered by the activities of local agents of the Senusi Muslim Order and by Mahdist emissaries: fortunately for the British, however, these were often at loggerheads and thus did not make the immediate impact they might otherwise have done. Early in 1885, however, the Zeila police who had been taken over from the Egyptians mutinied; but serious trouble was averted by the intervention of the Indian Infantry who had been stationed at Zeila to cover the Egyptian withdrawal from Harar. A minor riot followed at Berbera. To counteract the effects of religious propaganda, a pro-British sheikh was unobtrusively appointed as the official Muslim judge in place of two ‘self-styled’ Kadis who were both Arabs and extremely anti-British.
While this modest but surprisingly effective administration was being established, the Egyptian garrison withdrew from Harar without serious incident in 1885 and ‘Abdallah Muhammad, a Harari, was left as governor of the city with a British adviser. At the same time, the French were active at Obock: and their rivalry with the British, especially through their intrigues at Zeila conducted by the enterprising French Consul with the support of the Danakil governor, had become acute. Here the position of the local British officials was complicated by their government’s reluctance to come to a decision on the future status of Zeila.
Under the inspiration of the forceful Lagarde, the French station had been extended to the northern shore of the Gulf of Tajura after the departure of the Egyptians. Early in 1885 the French asserted that their dominion extended beyond Tajura to close on Jibuti, and Britain replied with a counter notification of her Somali Protectorate from Berbera to a point within the sphere claimed by France. Having gained a treaty of perpetual friendship (which included an unambiguous and total cession of land to France) with the ‘Ise of Ambado and Jibuti, France answered by extending her claim to the latter port.
This wrangle, conducted without regard for the interests of the local inhabitants, now looked as though it might lead to open conflict; and indeed by the end of 1885 Britain was preparing to resist an expected French landing at Zeila. Instead, however, of a decision by force, both sides now agreed to negotiate. The result was an Anglo-French agreement of 1888 which defined the boundaries of the two protectorates as between Zeila and Jibuti: four years later the latter port became the official capital of the French colony. The effect of this new arrangement was, of course, to divide the ‘Ise with whom both France and Britain had treaties of ‘protection’, the British treaties being designed to protect the ‘independence’ of the clan and giving Britain no outright claim to ‘Ise territory.
The Italian sphere
The Italians, used conveniently as allies in the face of French opposition, were now in a position to extend their claims inland from their colony of Eritrea. The effect of this with the added menace of the Mahdia in the Sudan was, like the earlier Egyptian invasions, to give a further impetus to Abyssinian unity. To counter the growing Abyssinian resistance to their expansion, the Italians sought to play off King Menelik of Shoa against John of Tigre who held the title of King of Kings. Italy supported Menelik and armed and encouraged him to contest John’s title. The two leaders, however, concluded a dynastic alliance, agreeing to a division of their anticipated conquests, and John accepted that on his death Menelik should take the title of Emperor. In 1887, after the ardent Muslim ruler of Harar, ‘Abdallah Muhammad, had conveniently caused his soldiers to massacre a party of Italian explorers, Menelik seized the city and appointed his cousin Ras Makonnen as governor. In a message to the British at Aden, Menelik made it clear that he regarded ‘Abdallah Muhammad as a latter-day successor to the sixteenth-century Muslim conqueror Ahmad Gran, and that ‘Abdallah’s defeat, like Gran’s, was a vindication of Christian sovereignty.
Meanwhile King John was engaged in keeping both the Mahdists and the Italians at bay. After what amounted to an Italian victory, although an indecisive one, in 1888, John was killed in the following year on the battlefield of Metemma against the Dervishes; and the Italians succeeded in making the treaty of Ucciali with Menelik who had now assumed John’s title. The Italian version of this treaty was interpreted as making Abyssinia an Italian protectorate, but Menelik claimed that the Amharic version did not oblige him to conduct all his external relations through Italy. This inconsistency, however, was not to come to light until later. For the moment, the Italians, who had gained formal recognition of their sovereignty over Eritrea, felt confident of their position and made arms and ammunition freely available to Menelik: loan capital was also granted, and in 1890 Italy sponsored Abyssinian membership of the Brussels General Act which empowered her as a Christian state to import munitions legally. French merchants had already long been engaged in the lucrative arms trade with the Abyssinian rulers, having paid little attention to an Anglo-French convention of 1886 prohibiting the import of arms. France’s ally, Russia, which vied with Italy to make Ethiopia her protectorate, likewise poured arms and military advisers into the country. This influx of war material which on the Italian reading of the Ucciali treaty accorded with Italian interests, was in succeeding years to be applied to the consolidation of Menelik’s realm, and finally enabled the Emperor to assert his country’s independence. In the process, Somali clans which hitherto had lain outside the ancient Abyssinian hegemony were incorporated in the new Ethiopian empire.
In the year in which the ambiguous treaty of Ucciali was concluded, Italy established direct claims to the Somali coast on the Indian Ocean to the east of the British sphere. In February, a treaty was concluded between Vincenzo Filonardi, the Italian Consul at Zanzibar, and Yusuf ‘Ali, the Majerteyn Sultan of Obbia,6 by which the latter placed his country and his possessions under the ‘protection and government’ of Italy in return for an annuity of 1,800 tallers. Two months later, a similar convention was signed with Yusuf ‘Ali’s kinsman ‘Isman, the hereditary Sultan of the Majerteyn clan at Alula. And at the end of the year (1889) Italy rounded off these new Somali acquisitions when the Imperial British East Africa Company sublet the southern Benadir ports which it held in lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Somali territory to the south of the Juba remained within the British Company’s domain, until 1895 when, after the suppression of the rebellion which the incompetence of its officials had provoked, the I.B.E.A.C. surrendered its charter, and the establishment of British colonial rule was proclaimed. Thus Jubaland, as the area was called, became for the time being part of the British East Africa Protectorate.
The Italian claim to the Benadir coastal strip, for this was all it was, was strengthened in 1892 when the Sultan of Zanzibar ceded the ports of Brava, Merca, Mogadishu, and Warsheikh directly to Italy for a term of twenty-five years, the annual rent being fixed at 160,000 rupees. The Italians were free to derive what profit they might from the coast and to administer it, but it still remained the property of the Sultan. In the interval, Filonardi had deserted his consular post to form the commercial enterprise of V. Filonardi e Co., to which the Italian government entrusted the management of its Benadir holding. The first Italian station was opened in 1891 at Adale (called Itala by the Italians) where the local Somali leaders had signed a treaty of protection with Filonardi. Here the new rulers of the coast were represented by an Arab agent and a small garrison of twenty native soldiers. These were the modest beginnings of the colony which the Italians were to use forty-five years afterwards as their principal base for the conquest of Ethiopia.
While the Company thus assumed its functions on the Benadir coast, Italian explorers were also active. In 1891 Robecchi-Brichetti trekked from Mogadishu to Obbia, and thence crossed through the Ogaden to Berbera. In the same year Baudi di Vesme and Candeo crossed the Ogaden and in the process obtained requests for Italian protection from elders of the Ogaden clan. At the end of the following year, Prince Ruspoli set out from Berbera to traverse much the same area, but from the opposite direction. When he reached Bardera on the Juba in April 1893, he concluded a treaty of protection with the Somali of that region. These Italian pioneers were not the first Europeans to visit all the regions included in their explorations: in 1883 a party of Englishmen had reached the Shebelle from Berbera despite difficulties with the Aden authorities; and between 1886 and 1892 the Swayne brothers had surveyed much of the country between the northern coast and the Shebelle River. But unlike their Italian colleagues, these British explorers did not enter into protectorate agreements with the clansmen they encountered.
More orthodox conventions were established with the Filonardi Company as it began to extend its jurisdiction. The coastal Somali, however, did not always welcome the new rulers. In October 1893, at Merca, as Filonardi and his companions were about to board the Italian warship on which they were travelling, having successfully signed a treaty with the leaders of the town, one of the party was attacked and mortally wounded. In reprisal, twelve Somali elders were taken prisoner and the city heavily bombarded. There were other occasions also when the Italian warships plying Eritrea, Aden, Zanzibar, and the Benadir ports found that such methods had a salutary effect and facilitated the Company’s gradual expansion. But in 1896, after only three years of existence, the Company’s slender financial resources proved inadequate and it was forced to wind up its affairs. By the end of the year, in addition to Itala, six other stations had been opened: two, Giumbo and Warsheikh, were like Itala mere outposts with no Italian official; but at Brava, Merca, Mogadishu, and Lugh there were now Italian Residents in command.
The collapse of Filonardi’s Company followed the resounding Italian rout at the battle of Adowa which decisively shattered Italy’s ambiguous claim to a protectorate over Ethiopia. Italy managed, however, to retain her Eritrean colony, and despite the furore at home which greeted the news of Menelik’s victory, she still clung optimistically to her new Somali possessions. Indeed, with the help of the small flotilla of warships stationed in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, preparations were being made to defend the Benadir against a possible Ethiopian attack. And attempts were also being made to extend Italian influence inland. In November 1896, without waiting for the consent of the Sultan of the Geledi, a party led by Cecchi, the Italian Consul at Zanzibar, set off to reconnoitre the left bank of the Shebelle River. The expedition ended disastrously at Lafole where its members were ambushed by Somali clansmen, only three of the seventeen Italians escaping with their lives.
This set-back did not, however, deter the Italian government which interpreted the situation as calling for an intensification of the work of ‘pacification’. Consequently, until a new company could be found to assume the burden of administering the Benadir, Giorgio Sorrentino, commander of the cruiser Elba, was appointed as Special Commissioner to restore order, and more native troops were hurriedly shipped to the coast from Massawa. By November 1897, Sorrentino’s reprisals for the incident at Lafole had convinced the Sultan of the Geledi of the wisdom of accepting the new colonizers and the Special Commissioner’s mission was complete. Six months later, despite the continued lack of enthusiasm in Italy for further colonial adventures, the ‘Benadir Company’ was ready to take over where Filonardi had left off. Like its predecessor, however, this new organization soon found that it had neither the means nor the resources to conduct the undertaking profitably, and succumbed in 1905 when the Italian government at last realized that if anything was to be made of the Benadir, it would have to assume direct responsibility.
The acquisition by Italy of her two northern Somali protectorates and her lease of the southern Benadir ports, although she was at first hardly in a position to assert her authority, naturally raised the question of how the frontiers between these and Britain’s Somaliland Protectorate should be drawn. The issue was in fact much wider than this for it also included the more important question of how much territory Italy had gained as protector of Abyssinia, on her interpretation of the Ucciali treaty which Britain accepted but France contested. Interest was focused mainly on Harar and Zeila. France sought to divert the lucrative trade from Harar to the ports of her new colony. Britain endeavoured, within the scope of her limited interests on the Somali coast, to keep the trade flowing along the ancient caravan route to Zeila in her Protectorate. Italy, in her turn, regarded Harar as part of her Abyssinian protectorate and coveted Zeila, the natural outlet of Harar’s trade.
Italian interest in the Harar–Zeila area was emphasized as early as 1890 when the Italian government expressed concern about the possible consequences at Harar of a punitive expedition in the British Protectorate against the ‘Ise clan. In September of this year, Menelik wrote to the King of Italy pointing out that the Amharic version of the Ucciali treaty allowed him to make use of the Italian government in his relations with foreign powers but did not compel him to do so. The Italian government replied by dispatching Count Antonelli to take the matter up with the Emperor. Another object of Antonelli’s visit was to induce Menelik to address a circular letter to the powers defining the ancient boundaries of Abyssinia. This remarkable document was dispatched and received in 1891: in Somaliland it claimed ‘the Province of Ogaden, the Habar Awal, the Gadabursi, and the ‘Ise’ (the last three Somali peoples being clans with whom Britain, and in the case of the ‘Ise, France also, had treaties of protection). The letter also contained the challenging declaration: ‘Ethiopia has been for fourteen centuries a Christian island in a sea of pagans. If Powers at a distance come forward to partition Africa between them, I do not intend to be an indifferent spectator.’
Nevertheless, it was as protector of Abyssinia that Italy entered into negotiations with Great Britain over their respective boundaries. In March of 1891 an Anglo-Italian protocol was signed which defined the boundary between East Africa and Italian Somaliland, and the Italian government proceeded to press for a further delimitation between her and Britain’s Somali territories. At the time Britain was not as anxious as Italy to settle this matter and consequently embarked upon delaying tactics. However, in May 1894 a protocol was signed defining the respective spheres of influence.
By this time Menelik had succeeded in giving some colour to his claims over Somali clans advanced in his circular letter of 1891. The conquest of Harar in 1887 had been followed by the subjugation of the turbulent local Oromo peoples. These achievements encouraged the Abyssinians to turn their attention towards their Somali neighbours. From Harar, Ras Makonnen’s forces began foraging not only amongst the ‘Ise, Gadabursi, and Habar Awal clans, but also to the east and south-east amongst the Somali of the Haud and Ogaden. This placed the British Protectorate authorities in an awkward position, especially after a small Abyssinian force had opened a post in 1891 at Biyo Kaboba on the British side of the Protectorate’s western border. Italy insisted that all negotiations with Abyssinia should proceed through her, and Britain accepted this position protesting vainly to the Italians as incident followed incident. Although the clans concerned turned to the Protectorate authorities for support, nothing effective was done, despite the fact that the Abyssinian pressure could easily have been countered with little cost in arms. The possibility of arming the Somali to protect themselves was raised, and inevitably dismissed.
This unwillingness to honour fully the terms of the Anglo-Somali protectorate treaties, however distasteful to the local British authorities, was of course consistent with the official British attitude towards the Somali coast. The effect was to strengthen Abyssinia’s hand, and Italy’s as Abyssinia’s protector, although there was now growing British scepticism as to Italy’s real influence with Menelik.7
The negotiations which led to the 1894 Anglo-Italian Protocol discussed a possible surrender of the ‘Ise and Gadabursi clans along with the port of Zeila to the Italians in exchange for Italian concessions in their northern Somali protectorates. In the event, however, this course was not followed, and the decision eventually agreed to, amounted to a recognition that the Ogaden lay within the Italian sphere,8 and the Haud in the British. Three years later Britain was severely to curtail her newly defined rights in the Haud.
The treaties of 1897 with Ethiopia
The Italian defeat at Adowa in 1896 completely destroyed the Italian claim to a protectorate over Abyssinia: the irksome treaty of Ucciali had served Menelik well. The Christian state of Ethiopia to which Menelik’s genius had contributed so much, had now become a sovereign power whose position and aspirations had to be taken seriously if European imperial interests were to prosper. This France had long appreciated and had already reaped the fruits of conciliation. Britain, however, remained unconvinced until the Italian débâcle at Adowa drove the point home. Then events in the Sudan, and increasing Ethiopian encroachments in Somaliland, made it imperative for the British government to treat directly with the real masters of the hinterland. Accordingly in 1897, Rennell Rodd, the First Secretary in the British Agency in Cairo, was instructed to go to Addis Ababa to settle these and other wider issues with the Emperor.
By this time, as has been seen, the ‘Ise and Gadabursi clans were divided between Britain, France, and Ethiopia in their affiliation. Some of the ‘Ise were under French ‘protection’, some under British, and others, further to the interior, open to the de facto influence of Ras Makonnen at Harar. The Gadabursi were similarly divided between the British and Ethiopians; their clan-head, Ugas Nur, paid an annual fee of 100 sheep to Ras Makonnen on the understanding that his clansmen would not otherwise be disturbed. He received gifts and drew a salary from both the Ethiopians and the British. In the centre of northern Somaliland, the Isaq clans, which in the course of their grazing movements in the Haud encounter the Ogaden clan, were experiencing periodical Ethiopian raids. Some of the Habar Awal clan had been threatened with attack unless they offered tribute. Even the religious centre at Hargeisa was regularly menaced.
To the south, Ethiopian raiding parties had penetrated as far clown the Juba River as Lugh. Here the head of the local Somali clan had requested protection from the Sultan of Zanzibar and had been provided with ten muzzle-loaders which enabled him to maintain his position for a time. About 1893, however, his village was overrun by an Ethiopian attack and he sought help from the Italians on the coast. The pioneers Bottego and Ugo Ferrandi reached Lugh in 1895 and occupied the town after beating off an Ethiopian attack. Bottego then continued his trek towards Lake Rudolf and Shoa where he was killed, while Ferrandi stayed to administer the Company’s new station at Lugh, later known as Lugh Ferrandi. In 1896 a further Ethiopian attack was successfully repulsed.
Thus, with Russian officers attached to their forces,9 the Ethiopians had continued their forward thrust and enlarged their sphere of influence since 1894. Now, not merely in the north, but over most of their western periphery, the Somali clansmen were experiencing Ethiopian pressure, which though for the most part irregular and spasmodic in its application nevertheless produced a considerable effect. And caught between the conflicting ambitions of the Ethiopians on the hinterland, and the French, British, and Italians, on the coast, individual Somali clans and lineages sought to profit from this rivalry by playing one side off against another. The effect of this was to weaken the general position of the Somali and to encourage the entrenchment of foreign interests.
In the north, the 1894 Anglo-Italian delimitation of territory, which had not been communicated to Menelik, had not in any way improved the growing tension between the Protectorate authorities and Ras Makonnen at Harar. With the increasing Ethiopian pressure, matters indeed had worsened, and by the beginning of 1897 were moving towards a climax. Ras Makonnen refused to allow the British Protectorate administration to act against the ‘Ise over an incident which had occurred on territory which he claimed belonged to Ethiopia, and he reinforced his point with a threat to assert Ethiopian authority by force. The British Resident at Aden, who had been trying to settle the dispute with Makonnen, was instructed by his government to refrain from further communications with Harar, since the whole issue of the Protectorate’s frontiers would be dealt with by the Rodd mission to Menelik.
In a statement in the House of Commons, the Rodd mission was described as being sent to Ethiopia: ‘to assure King Menelik of our friendly intentions, to endeavour to promote amicable political and commercial relations, and to settle certain questions which had arisen between the British authorities on the Somali Coast and the Abyssinian governor of Harar’. Although the wider aims of the Mission were to reassure Menelik as to Britain’s interests in the context of Anglo-French rivalry on the Nile, and to secure at least Ethiopian neutrality in the war against the Khalifa in the Sudan, the settlement of the British Protectorate’s frontiers was described as one of the principal objects of the negotiations. However, the actual terms in which the Protectorate’s frontiers were to be defined and the concessions which might have to be made were of relatively minor importance if Rodd could succeed in establishing friendly relations with Ethiopia. Britain was not prepared to defend the 1894 frontiers if this would entail any considerable expenditure: indeed the possibility of abandoning the Somaliland Protectorate altogether had already been raised. The Aden authorities, however, had insisted that this drastic course was impossible, and so the problem remained of retaining the Protectorate in a form sufficient to satisfy Aden’s requirements in meat imports but within boundaries acceptable to Menelik.
Several French missions had already preceded the British Mission to Addis Ababa, but Menelik received Rodd hospitably. And Rodd was impressed by the Emperor, of whom he records somewhat patronizingly, that he ended ‘by feeling a great respect for the strong man of Ethiopia, who made a genuine effort to understand the position and overcome his mistrust of his own inexperience’.10 Menelik’s conduct of the negotiations, however, suggest that he required little tutelage in diplomacy. Although Rodd succeeded in getting Menelik to pledge himself to prevent the passage of arms to the Mahdists whom he declared the enemies of Ethiopia, subsequent events show that the Emperor continued to conduct clandestine negotiations with the Dervishes.
No agreement was reached on the definition of Ethiopian boundaries in the Sudan. And the price Rodd had to pay was considerable. Britain authorized the transit of arms and ammunition for the Emperor’s use, and waived customs duties at Zeila on goods destined for the use of the Ethiopian state. On the other hand, the ancient caravan route between Harar and Zeila which was already threatened by the proposed railway from French Somaliland, was to remain open to the commerce of both nations, and in Ethiopia itself Britain was to be accorded most favoured nation treatment in trade and commerce. However striking these trade arrangements may have seemed at the time, in practice they amounted to little; French commerce was already strongly entrenched in Ethiopia, and the Jibuti railway soon completely eclipsed Zeila’s trade.
The discussion of the Protectorate’s frontiers proved exceedingly difficult. The Emperor advanced claims for a reconstitution of the ‘ancient frontiers’ of Ethiopia and referred to his circular letter of 1891, a document of which Rodd disclaimed knowledge. At first Menelik pressed for the inclusion of the British Protectorate within his empire, but he eventually yielded ground and agreed to Rodd’s proposal that the actual definition of the Protectorate’s boundaries should be left for settlement to Rodd and Ras Makonnen at Harar: Article II of the Treaty provided that the frontiers thus decided should be attached to the treaty as an annex. A prior annex agreed to at Addis Ababa, foreshadowed the concessions that Rodd was to make at Harar. This stipulated that such Somali clansmen who, as a result of any adjustment of boundaries might eventually become Ethiopian subjects, were to be well treated and assured of ‘orderly government’.
The discussion of boundaries with Ras Makonnen at Harar was again tedious and difficult. But in the end a compromise was reached by which, while abandoning her claim to some 67,000 square miles of land in the Haud, Britain was able to retain Hargeisa and part of the hinterland within her Protectorate. This represented a considerable concession to the Ethiopian claims which, though not in 1897 supported by any firm Ethiopian occupation on Somali soil beyond Jigjiga,11 could not be challenged without the use of force, a course which Rodd rightly understood his government would not countenance.
It is important to emphasize that the terms of the agreement were carefully drawn up to yield Ethiopian recognition of the new boundaries of the British Protectorate. The lost lands in the Haud which were excised from the Protectorate were not, however, ceded to Ethiopia; nor did the agreement bind Britain to recognize Ethiopian sovereignty over the territory which had been relinquished.12 This one-sided recognition was indeed already implied in the wording of the annex to the treaty which Menelik had accepted at Addis Ababa guaranteeing orderly government and equitable treatment to those Somali who might, in the future, become Ethiopian subjects. Moreover, the adroit form of words adopted by Rodd, is consistent with the terms of the original Anglo-Somali treaties of protection which it will be recalled did not, in fact, cede Somali territory to Britain. The treaty also – and this was essential – did not in any way compromise the Italian claims agreed to between Britain and Italy in 1894.
The eventual effect, of course, clearly envisaged by Rodd and his government of this unilateral withdrawal or curtailment of protection by Britain, was to place the Somali clansmen concerned in a position in which they would not be able to maintain their independence from Ethiopia. It was merely a matter of time before Ethiopia followed up her spasmodic thrusts and transformed her infiltration among the Somali into a definite occupation. This contingency was clearly provided for in the third annex to the treaty which stipulated that the clans on each side of the new British Protectorate frontier should have access to the grazing areas and ‘nearer wells’ both within and outside the British sphere; during such migratory movements they were to be under the jurisdiction of the appropriate territorial authority. However, Rodd and the other British officials concerned thought that the Ethiopians would be slow to take advantage of what they had in effect already gained; it was considered that in practice things would continue much as they were with the Haud remaining as a sort of buffer zone used by the British clans only temporarily for grazing. The effects of the gradual adoption of agriculture by the western Somali clans were not envisaged, for this process had hardly yet started. A more serious objection which might more reasonably have been anticipated was the effect of the centuries’ old trend of population movement away from the highly eroded north towards the centre and Haud. This gradual drift of population was to bring increasing numbers of British protected Somali into what was now effectively the Ethiopian sphere.
These and other more immediate objections to the effects of the treaty were, however, of only local importance, and although there were protests in England as well as misgivings amongst the local Somali Coast administrators, these carried little weight in the face of the imperatives of imperial strategy. From this wider point of view, given Britain’s secondary interest in Somaliland and her refusal to undertake any financial commitment there which went beyond the purpose for which the Protectorate had been created, Rodd had in reality merely yielded to the inevitable. A notable attempt had at least been made to secure Ethiopian goodwill, and Ethiopian recognition had been obtained for the British Somaliland Protectorate within frontiers which were still consistent with the requirements of the trade to Aden. That this had been achieved at the price of unilaterally abandoning protectorate treaties with Somali clansmen, was, of course, unfortunate, but whatever misgivings Rodd himself may have had were reassured when an interview with Lord Salisbury revealed that the Foreign Minister was ‘not much preoccupied by Abyssinian encroachments in Somaliland’.13
Nevertheless, the Government of Bombay which was directly responsible through Aden for administering the territory was not entirely satisfied and prophesied that trouble with the Somali, who had not been consulted and knew nothing of the treaty, would be likely to follow. Any additional expenditure which might thereby be incurred should not, Bombay urged, fall upon its exchequer. The point was taken, and the Foreign Office, which had been responsible for the treaty, assumed responsibility for the Protectorate in the following year, in time to bear the burden of the first phase of the twenty years rebellion which broke out two years later.
Thus 1897 saw the definition of the British Somali sphere in relation to Ethiopia. But it was not until 1934, when an Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission attempted to demarcate the boundary, that British-protected Somali became aware of what had happened, and expressed their sense of outrage in disturbances which cost one of the commissioners his life. This long period of ignorance, far from indicating acquiescence, was facilitated by the many years which elapsed before Ethiopia established any semblance of effective administrative control in the Haud and Ogaden.
Yet 1897 remains the crucial year in the imperial history of the Horn of Africa; and the boundary agreements made then have left a legacy of indeterminacy and confusion which still plagues the relations between Ethiopia and the Somali Republic. Nor was it only the British who unilaterally abrogated some of their protectorate obligations towards Somali. The Lagarde mission to Menelik, which had preceded Rodd’s, had also discussed boundary questions and reduced the extent of the Côte des Somalis to the satisfaction of the Emperor. In return, commercial guarantees were obtained which included agreement on the construction of the proposed railway from Jibuti, the new capital of the Côte, to the Ethiopian hinterland: the effect of this was to make French Somaliland the official outlet for Ethiopia’s trade.
Farther to the south, though as yet only weakly established, Italy was determined to cling to her new Somali interests, and forced, after her defeat at Adowa, to reach a boundary settlement acceptable to Ethiopia. This was negotiated by Major Nerazzini who had earlier conducted with Menelik the negotiations for the Italo-Ethiopian peace treaty.14 And although in that treaty Menelik described himself as ‘Emperor of Ethiopia and of the Galla countries’, making no reference to his pretensions in Somaliland, Italy was forced to reduce her claims to the Ogaden which Britain had accepted in the Anglo-Italian Protocol of 1894. In fact, the Italian sphere was defined vaguely as lying within an area up to 180 miles from the coast and running from the boundary of the British Protectorate to the Juba River, north of Bardera. At the time, when the Italian position was so weak, this hasty division of spheres of interest may have seemed advantageous to both parties; certainly in later years it fostered the growth of a tradition of uncertainty and conflict which led to the Walwal incident and Italo-Ethiopian war, and is still unresolved.
Nevertheless, for the time being at least, France, Britain, and Italy, had now pruned their Somali possessions to dimensions acceptable to Ethiopia, and the stage was set for the march of local events. For the next twenty-three years these were dominated by the religious war against the Christian ‘infidels’ led by Sheikh Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan in which Somali, who for the most part had so far seemed to accept those new imperial developments of which they had knowledge, fiercely strove to regain their lost independence.
