Mereja.Forum

I understand your stand or view, no problem about it but there was no link what you stated. When King Yohannes was alive there was no confederacies or federalist military system in Ethiopia, yes there was Kililization by ethnics started to shape up before prematurely the king death but never fully implemented. Militarily there was no centralized military command, every region had their own, even in Tigray the same and even in Tembien the lords aka Raesi had their own and when they join for war every Raesi pick their spot and fight with their own leader or Raesi. Unlike the old system during king Yohannes, TPLF had centralized military command and all mingled all over Tigray controlled by the central command Seye was the leader for the military command and the Ganta Haili take orders from the central command and implement them at the ground against enemies. TDF is the something central command and where ever they fought like TPLF, all Tigrayans are the battle participants, no region of Tigray fought harder than any other because TPLF or TDF are from all Tigray walk of life.

Greeting Axumzena,

The king of kings was to assign kings to each ethnic and rival provinces and he started by handing king of Shewa and Gojjam only but had the king lived longer he could have given to all ethnics the way TPLF followed up his principle and gave all ethnics their kilil to administer with their chosen language and culture and still exists but there was no a single military central command in that country during Tewodros or Yohannes, even in 1935 when the Italian came back, in Tigray there was no central command, Tembien had its own in Worka Eba garrison, Agame had its own garrison in Agame, Shire had its own garrison in Shire, Enderta had its own garisson in Enderta, Raya had its own garrison in Raya with few King Haileselassie trained special forces then Dessie had Amhara garrison. The Hamassien Italian soldiers advised the Italians to march straight to Temgien garrison with all force and if you win Tembien you are in Addis Ababa within a week and the Italians did that and they crashed Tembien and went to Enderta did not last for hours, the same Raya and Dessie and reached Addis Ababa with out much challenge. The Agame and Shire garrison fallen apart without fight when they heard the Tembien forces were beaten.

Axumezana wrote: ↑

02 Mar 2024, 00:48

Halafi Mengedi,

I agree with you there was no unified military under one command and that was the reason King Minilik was able to exploit to betray King of Kings Yohannes. With regard to the various garrisons in Tigray, I do not have the knowledge and I appreciate sending me reference books/ publications to educate myself. Of course I know that each district's leader( መስፍን) had their own informal military unit recruited from farmers under their respective administration.

It is in google you can find it written in English. That Italian video almost band in Tigray not to be seen because the Adwans were in the Italians payroll in Asmara before they marched to Tembien garrison and how they fought the garrison you can see it yourself the true story Adwans do not want to show the rest of Tigray. Adwa landscape is better than Tembien for guerrilla war yet the Italians were marching to Tembien crossing the entire Adwa without any incident like merchants going to Tembien market place, but as soon as they crossed Maiqnetal the border between Adwa and Tembien called "Wor'ee" forest used to be and the bombardment started from the ground with heavy weapons and from the air raining as you see the video. The video is how the Hamassien and Seraye soldiers with Italians marched to Tembien with the Italians and advised them to march to Tembien garrison and used chemical weapons too in that video and others we have not seen them but I was told. BTW, my own father as a young mad commanded his unit and was there in that war video Wor'ee Worgamba and Worsege the other video 10,888 Italian soldier, commanders and generals identified and buried in that video one spot.