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Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. If you could completely remove one phrase from your vocabulary, which phrase would you choose? I don't know. Correct answer. No, I meant I don't know which phrase, and the best way to banish I don't know from your life is by cramming your brain full of stuff you should know. Join your host, Josh and Chuck on the Super Popular podcast packed with fascinating discussions on science, history, pop culture and more episodes that ask, was the lost city of Atlantis Real? I don't know. Is birth order important? I don't know. How does pizza work? Well, I do know. Bit about that see? You can know even more, because stuff you should know has over 1500 immensely interesting episodes for your brain to feast on. So what do you say? I don't want to miss the stuff you should know. Podcast you're learning already. Listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your Co host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast, in this special episode. You're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her social discoveries on chimpanzees. For four, oh, months, the chimps ran away from me. I mean, they take one look at this peculiar white ape and disappear into the vegetation. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. What's recording my this meetings. I'm Robert Evans, host of behind the ******** 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's. I don't know, I didn't have a better idea. She's been rebranded. She's nicer now. She doesn't say that. They they they they were like, you know, a little too intense. Might sound like a cop rebrand after like 2 weeks rebrand. ******* cops. ******* movie. Cops. I don't know what I'm going for here today. Our guest is Joelle Monique, producer here at iHeartRadio. Joel, 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 wanna. I wanna feel the hate for people. We're doing a bit of a different kind of episode this week, right? Mostly like the last episode you did with us. We talked about Roy Cohn, which is obviously we're going very deep into the personal history of 1 influential, ****** person. Today is more of a broader history. Podcast. There's a lot of ******** in it, but really, the ******* of this episode is the Nation of Italy. And the victim. Yes, ******* Italians. We're finally taking it to him. *** **** them all. Prepared to pay the whole country. But let's do no it's there's one country it's OK to hate all of, and it's Italy. OK, fine. We've all I should know. Robert is Italian. And you should I don't sunburn like it's we're we're a demon people I know sunburn that's your OK. So Italy is the ******* and the victim of Italy is a little country you might have heard of called Ethiopia. So we're going to be talking a lot about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is limitation. 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 only African nation that wasn't colonized. It was up until the 20th 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 colonialism. We're going to talk about Ethiopian history is actually fascinating. Part of why I'm doing this is I've been trying to study up on the current conflict, what is probably a genocide, at least an ethnic cleansing in Tigray, which is a part of the nation of Ethiopia. A lot of people who want to be separatists there, the tigrayans are like a separate ethnic group. We're not 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 100 years of Ethiopian history, trying to get build up a better base of understanding and when you. Go through 18 hundreds, 1900s Ethiopian history. The recurring ******* is the nation of Italy, so we're talking about that today, all right? I think we make a lot of jokes about being anti Italian because it's funny to talk about the space, see meet the balls and and whatnot, 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 ******* in Indochina, some really terrible ****. They did like Nam the the British Empire obviously carried out like Nazi level crimes against humanity and multiple nations across the World United States. Bunch of ethnic cleansings and mass murders in the Philippines. Horrible, horrible ****. Italy, you know, you had that spicy meatball bit ready to go. Mostly it's the spicy meatball, the heel of all of these other major powers for a long time, like, yeah, Brits were like, I guess if you have to marry an Italian, you can. But why? You know, I've watched Downton Abbey the last couple of weeks. Lot of hate for the Italians in that thing, you know? And they came to America. Same situation. Yep, Yep. And and the big European powers were all really competent, right. The British Empire, very good at what they did. That's why 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 **** 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 axis in World War Two. Nobody is scared about the fashion of the fascist Italians, right? The Nazis are still alive in Italy. No, Mussolini's 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 there's actually, this goes back in in European history, back to a relay, the seventeen 1800s. There's this, like long standing. There's even a Latin phrase for it that I don't have memorized. But the the joke is Italians can't fight. They're not good fighters. Which is going to 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 and Romans in particular were the best heavy infantry the world had ever seen, right? Yeah, but an army includes a lot of stuff that's not heavy. Country you've got, you've got Archers, you've got, you know, sling throwers or not, you've got different kinds of cavalry, you've got skirmishers. None of those were ever Italians. They always went. That's part of why they colonize is they would take these, you know, Balearic slingers and Arthur Archers from, you know, create and all, 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 these other roles that they just weren't very good at. 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 kinda not that impressive, right. Some of the Italian city states do some OK **** and like, you know, the, the, the Renaissance. The medieval period. But like, they're not, they're, you know, when you're talking about like the dominant military powers in Europe for most of the last thousand years about the French, talking about the Germans, talking about the British, you know, nobody's all that impressed with Italy's military might. 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 22, the first like 10 years of his reign or so, he was the fascist. Like 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'll fascist. Italy was such a **** show that like everybody just like wrote Mussolini off as like Hitler's bumbling sidekick when it really was the opposite at the start. And this kind of bumbling reputation has led to a lot of it's kind of benefited the Italian nation in the modern era because we don't remember all of the horrific crimes against humanity that fascist Italy committed outside. And part of that is because the number one place Fascist Italy committed crimes against humanity was Ethiopia, a place where Westerners do not think about, they don't care about it now. Yeah. And that's what we're talking about today. Now our story begins in 1000 BC because we're going to talk about where? Ethiopia. Comes from and 1000 BC is about the time roughly when a bunch of folks in Northeast Africa were like, what if we did any Ethiopia, right? That's kind of like when the the the the what becomes the modern nation of Ethiopia? Like, OK, right. OK, well, let's do an Ethiopia seems like a good idea. I think it happened, right. And they're still doing in Ethiopia. So clearly there were some some good ideas there. Now I'm going to leave out some stuff, but the gist of the story is that the nation of Ethiopia has existed in some broadly recognizable form, though, for about 3000. Years, right? That's a long time for there's been a recognizable not a nation in the modern sense, but an Ethiopian people inhabiting and and exerting political power in that area. But like 3000 years, which is huge, you know, very few other peoples that are in that China would be 1, right? Not a lot of different peoples around the world that could say 3000 years. We've more or less been an entity, you know, not the Brits, because even the Brits were, you know, it was the Anglo Saxons and the Vikings just tearing at each other's throats. Yeah, previous so yeah, I think 1000 years is is a dynasty. Yeah, because like modern, you know, people usually like the start of kind of like what we recognize the Brits is being is like 1066, right? The Battle of Hastings is kind of when that starts to form Ethiopia's 2000 years old at that point, right? Just for an idea of like, how ******* far this this culture goes back. And again, I'm not saying the modern nation of Ethiopia is 3000 years old, but something broadly recognizable in that way now, during this time, a **** load of different stuff went down, right? You had your Alexander the greats, you got your Roman Empire. You've got a couple of different caliphates. You've got some *******. You get another caliphate after the ******* 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. 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, Rome is in the Middle East and North Africa. Alexander the Great ***** around and chunks of that area. Caliphates, you know, ******* were not. All of these guys are kind of ******* around, in and around, but none of them destroy Ethiopia. And staying continuing to exist through all of this was not a simple matter. As Emperor Haile Selassie wrote in the early 1900s quote, 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 it remaining independence, since for most of their history or most of the release 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. And that's that's difficult, right? Because that's how perilous. Yeah. There's like 700 years where, you know, the Caliphates are kind of the biggest power in the region, and there are attempts to take over Ethiopia by these folks. Ethiopia 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. They were invaded by Albania and Turkey in the early 1500s in a brutal war that pushed the King of Ethiopia back to the Giant plateau. What is the Ethiopian heartland? Disaster was only narrowly avoided by the intervention of Portugal, who at that point was probably the greatest power in Europe. This European colonizer sent 400 men 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. And so, again, one of the things that makes Ethiopia weird is unlike a lot of the rest of the region, there are there are elements to which they benefit from not colonization. From colonizing powers because Portugal kind of saves their bacon and they do it for selfish reasons. I mean, they justify it be like 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. They don't take power, right. You know, in Portugal does that all throughout South America because it's not like just from a distance perspective Portugal, it would seem Portugal would be like perfect like already a strong Christian like hold here. It's hard to capture. We're already on the inside and we know they were really about conquering ****. Like, that was their main champ. They did a lot of that. Yeah, they did a lot of that. That's why there's a Brazil. Yeah, yes, exactly, exactly. It's quite astounding that they wouldn't just immediately try to, especially knowing how much the other other European powers were at the time, conquering portions of Africa. Yeah, like everyone would want to get their foothold in there. 1500s European powers weren't. This is like Europe hadn't really done anything in Africa. But very much at that point, some in northern Africa, right? There's always been interchange between Northern Africa and Europe because it's not very far. But colonization hadn't started in mass and Portugal, 1500s. They don't really have the resources to do it because #1, after all this war against Turkey and Albania, Ethiopia's devastated. So they don't have a like a functional state. To just kind of pick up the terrain is really difficult. It's very rugged. They don't have a lot of men. It's hard to get people there. It just doesn't wind up being practical. So eventually the Portuguese kind of give up and leave. And the next few centuries after this are a chaotic. For Ethiopia. There's a number of invasions and warlords, and for a big chunk of this time there's an Emperor of Ethiopia, but he's basically a token figure. And there's kind of these vying local kings and warlords who are, 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 1800s. 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, I mean, yeah, it sounds like a ******* red. There's a lot of movies that should be made. I mean, maybe there are a couple like, *** **** yeah. So he takes the name theodros. Some people will call him Theodore, right? Like, it's usually anglicized as that. But his name was theodros, his name was not ******* Theodore, and he became the first modern Emperor of Ethiopia. And like most emperors in history, theodros 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 in the King of Kings is going to be a nice dude, right? Doesn't matter. The culture, they're pretty much all **** that you know. Find God coming down and be like he should be your leader. Yeah. You know, sometimes you got American person. You don't get to be King of kings by handing out back rubs. 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 ***** up, you know, after some time in power, he ***** 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 or lays all sorts of reasons. People, you know, it's always much 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, like, Oh well, they were had lead in the drinking water. Like, there's all this **** 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 these of imprisoning a British envoy. And by this point, we're in the mid 1800s, like the 1840s. The British are the one people you don't want to **** *** right? Unless you're the United States, you don't want to **** *** Britain in the early 1800s. It doesn't end well for you. The end of Victoria's reign by 1840. Or we. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is the Victorian. I think. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, because so he imprisons prisons of British, British envoy, and he seems to have done this because of a male dispute. So Emperor Theodros sent a letter to Queen Victoria and it didn't reach her. I don't think we know why it didn't reach her. It may have been a slight. It may have. But at least the ******* 1800s, right? It could have just gotten lost, you know? There's so much mail that probably didn't make it to his stuff. There is a long the horse got sick and died. 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 **** **. It's getting a letter from Ethiopia to a UK in the 1840s. Not an easy task, but this letter doesn't reach her, she doesn't respond, and he feels insulted because a fellow monarch had neglected to respond to him. And it this may have also been a deliberate slight, we really don't know. In any case, he arrested the British consul. England sends another envoy to ask him to release their first envoy, and the Emperor arrests this guy too. And then he arrests 60 other Europeans in his country to boot. This sparks a major debate within the halls of power in the British Empire. 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, like, yeah, this is worth it. We've got enough men. Let's go. Yeah. I mean, and to be honest, we talk about like, why the British are in empire. It's because they make choices like this, right? It's because they're willing to to deploy power like this. It'll get him in trouble at points. But like this, these are the kind of calls empires make. In 1867, the British send their first European invasion force into Ethiopia, and it was 29,000 men, which is a massive army for the day, especially in in, in that part, especially in Africa. That's a huge army in 1840 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 1868, they reached the emperor's walled city of Magdala. It was not much of a fight because the emperor had alienated all of his vassals because he was * ****. 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. And so Emperor Theodros winds up, yeah, shooting himself to avoid capture now. Oh yeah, yeah. So he he's out of the picture now. And and **** like this happens all throughout the colonial period. And usually it ended with Great Britain owning another giant ******* chunk of the planet. It doesn't in this case. And it's worse. Worth asking why? Because the British obviously take anything that's not ******* nailed down, you know? I found a really fascinating write up. It's a master's thesis for the Department of History at Kansas State University, written by an Ethiopian historian named Teferi Teklehaimanot, who got his BA from highly Selassie University in Ethiopia and then went to Kansas State. So this is not like a white guy European view of history. This is an Ethiopian guys writing about the history of this nation, which is what I I wanted for this. And here's what Teferi writes to explain why England didn't stay and do you know British Empire **** 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 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 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 emperor. They helped these guys through the mountains, right? 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 like, **** the Emperor. You can take the Emperor out, but if you try to stick around, we have enough dudes to wreck your **** right? And we would. Buying our forces against you. So yeah, definitely watch out. I love that. Yeah, this is this is forward leaders with forward thinking power, unlike the guy who literally shot the messengers. Yes, yes. And Teferi goes on to write quote after the meeting, this meeting where the Ethiopian show off their military power. The British general proceeded to mock della and as he put it quote somewhat less confident than before having seen the bearing and arms of the Ethiopian soldiery. So, yeah, the British go in here 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, was never a thing that the even the British political class was whole hog 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, but they're that like they were kind of more dominant during this. Maybe that played a role. But there's also, and this what teferi is arguing is the British number one, they see the kind of country they're like. We only got through all these mountains because these locals led us through, and 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? Right? Totally. And that's why Ethiopia stays independent this entire period is it's not worth it to **** with them, you know? I love the idea of land having such an advantage, like it's it's kind of. I don't know if it impressive is the 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 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? And they know they're ******* mountains. And if you come into the mountains, you're probably not going to live, right. You may not. They might 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 ******* mountains and The Ethiopians have the *** **** mountains and that is a huge asset to them. So, after the British leave, Ethiopia has another one of its periods of internecine conflict. Right the emperor's gone. All these local leaders who weren't willing to fight for him wind up fighting amongst themselves, and after a period of this, another guy Casa of Tigray wound up in charge next, and Tigre is a mountainous region in the north of Ethiopia. Right in 1872, Casa is crowned Emperor Johannes, the 4th. 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. This is 18751876. And again, one of the things that should make clear about Ethiopia that makes it unique is that during this time, when most other African nations are being in the 1870s, we're 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 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 ****** over. There's obviously there's reasons for that. It's not out of the good of the Europeans heart, it's just practicalities and realities of the situation and the terrain. Now, by the early 1880s, Egypt had gotten ****** over by the Mahdi, and the Mahdi was a messianic Muslim leader who led a revolution. He beat a couple of British armies. He beat a couple of Egyptian armies. He eventually gets crushed by the British, but the Mattis army invades Ethiopia because Ethiopia is Christian and the Mahdi. This is like a a messianic Islamist movement. And Ethiopia beats them, you know, they they win the battle against the Macy's army. But the Emperor Johannes dies fighting. And by the time this fighting is over, Ethiopia is just ******* exhausted, right? I mean, they've been years of fighting. Yeah, there's a lot going on. Yeah. Now, they had, however, been fortunate that through this. They completely missed the scramble for Africa. Now the scramble for Africa starts in the 1870s. And it it it starts because we talk about King Leopold of Belgium, right? The guy who stole the Congo and killed 13 million people. Horrified. Because suddenly. They're one of the worst people who's ever lived, one of the one in the top 1% of bad people on this show. Maybe the very top of the list? Little ***** ** **** he 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. They big conference in Berlin. Yeah, that's just ****** position to be in. Just like I have to be right under these ********. Like, *** **** couldn't even get like the months of boat ride to get from 1 space to the other. Just brutal, yeah? And and during this. 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 this. As one contemporary Western historian wrote quote, encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, The Ethiopians slept near 1000 years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten. Now, that's obviously not true, right, because we just talked about all of the people who invaded them. Yeah, but that is how you. Peins, think about them. Yeah, it's a dark, mysterious land. Ookie. It's forgotten. It's like you guys invaded it, like twice. But like, yes, it's that's the European attitude all like, yeah, it was like, wow, you're writing this, dude. Yeah, but it it is good for Ethiopia though, that Europeans tend to think about Ethiopia this rate, right? Because whenever they thought about a country a lot, they would **** 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. Now, unfortunately, Ethiopia's splendid isolation from colonialism was not going to last forever. From a write up in quarts quote at the Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885, fourteen European countries divided Africa among themselves. Before the conference, only about 10% of Africa was controlled by Europeans. The remaining 90% was ruled by indigenous and traditional rulers. Italy had a colonial possession over Assab port since 1882. At the Berlin Conference, European colonial powers agreed that Italy could take over Ethiopia. As its future colony O they don't take Ethiopia, but they have this port that's on the, it's kind of, 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's 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 *** to get there. It's a pain in the yeah, you, if you guys can take Ethiopia, it's yours. You know, that's basically what they were just sitting down at a cop and they were like, alright, I guess. This part that no, it's sleepy. Nobody's really been there. We'll take it. That's ours now. Wow. Wow. Just be a conversation you haven't even tried militarily or really thought that is mind blowing, that people can just think they can possess other people's land like that. That is. Yeah, it's wild unravished. I can't. I'm really powerful. 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. 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 a hard line. We were getting those. Oh, we don't even let Belgians listen to the podcast. That is illegal. If you're Belgian and you're listening like you get. No, get up, get off. Get outta here. Get outta here. Belgian listeners. I'm sorry. You know, we we apologize. It's only Italians that we don't want listening. Alright, here's some ads. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. 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That's mintmobile.com/behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy at Mint Mobile. Com slash behind my name is Erica Kelly and I am the host and creator of Southern Freight true crime. There are so many people that just have no idea about some injustices in the world and if you can give a voice to them you can create change. To be able to do it within podcasting is just such a gift. I believe it was 18 months after I got on with Spreaker that I was making enough that I could quit my day job. It was incredible. I always feel like an ambassador for speaker. But that's because I'm passionate about podcasting. It's really easy to use. I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with spreaker, and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break our handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love. Spreaker from iheart this fall on revisionist history. Is there anything that we haven't talked about or or that I should have asked you or you'd like to add that seems relevant? You should have asked me why I'm missing fingers on my left hand. A story about sacrifice. I think his suffering drove him to try to alleviate suffering. And the shocking discovery I made where I faced the consequences of writing a book I thought would help people? Isn't that funny? It's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Revisionist history is back with more. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've never seen less enthusiasm for a great idea in my life. Ah, we're back. And we're talking about Ethiopia. So at the Berlin Conference, Italy's like, we'll take Ethiopia and everyone else's. And I think it might have been kind of like, yeah, sure, you'll take Ethiopia, right? Right. Yes. Like a little Jess, like, yeah, OK, sure, dude. Now, because Italians spend all their time making olive oil and eating 6 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 in what they called Italian Somaliland, 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, and this hurt the famously irrational pride of the Italian people who remember that one time they'd conquered the whole known world. At like 1500 years ago, and they thought that being RAD 1500 years ago still mattered, which it didn't. Do they still think that today, Robert? Yeah, they sure do. Well, some of them. Look, just lean into the pasta, you're fine. It pasta bad at war? Fine. Now both of Italy's colonial possessions bordered Ethiopia, and Italy's laziest nationalists started saying, hey, we should take that too 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, 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. **** about that. Human beings, no, yeah, it's because the Suez Canal was a thing at that point and the British basically owned Egypt and they saw like this. So because of the way the Nile is built and **** not built is the wrong one because of the geography. Ethiopia has the ability, if they were to damn things, to choke Egypt off from like the like, they could **** ** the channel by like ******* 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 or like at each other's throats constantly, like up until like, like they everyone kind of assumed the big European war would be between them, right? Right. So the British are scared. The British want Ethiopia to be independent because they don't want France to get it and to get the ability to choke. Of Egypt 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 in there. That would be a lot of power in that specific region. OK, I'm seeing it. Yeah. So as a result, both powers were fine with Ethiopia staying independent because this 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 enmeshed in war in 1869 by having a private company. Purchased a trading post on the coast from a local Sultan. This company then sold said post to the Italian government in 1882 and during the modest uprising the the Italians took another chunk of coastline and like most of their colonial possessions, Italian Africa was an apartheid state. Italian and native housing was strictly separate. Different schools were established for Italians and natives. There was also a system called Moda Mismo which was basically codified sex trafficking, Italian officials, soldiers and others. Citizens were allowed to take native wives or mistresses, and these women had no rights under the law. Oh, oh. Oh yeah. So just sex sleeves. Great. Super slash domestic sleeve. Yeah, I guess. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Horrific. So Ethiopia is a landlocked country, right? And this has been a real problem for Ethiopia for a while because you you don't want to be landlocked. You wanna have important not to your advantage. Absolutely. Kind of a big deal having a port and during the fighting with the Mahdi, this again, the Mahdi is a big problem for the British Empire. They're they they fight a bunch of battles against him. Ethiopia work fights alongside the British against the Mahdi because he's ******* with them, too, and they make an arrangement with the British. And basically we're like the British need Ethiopian help to evacuate a bunch of Egyptian garrisons, and The Ethiopians do this for them in exchange for the British promised 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. And so Ethiopia gets screwed out of access to this port, in part because Italy's gobbling up a bunch of this coastline. I never trust the British. Ever. In 1887, Italy invades Ethiopia for the first time. They send in a scientific mission, that's what they call it, a 500 armed men to occupy a piece of Ethiopian territory. And this is a thing that European powers do a lot, right? You send in a small group of armed men, you take a little area, you hang out there. Usually the leaders don't **** 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. Another piece eventually. That you orchestrate a war and you take it all? Yeah, yeah, just a slow invasion of the body. Horrifying. And their hope had been that as often happened in Africa, the locals would launch an ill equipped counterattack which would be easily defeated by modern Italian guns, and the bloodshed would serve as the justification for a more comprehensive Italian land grab. 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 at war. Got it. So Italy is defeated decisively at a battle called Dega Ali. Now, from this experience, Italy learned that an Ethiopia is not an easy thing to steal. They next set to the strategy of then of under my yeah, that ****. They really want to keep being Ethiopia. We didn't anticipate this. Ah, it's too spicy if I meet the ball. No, the last word of many an Italian soldier bleeding in the dust at dagali spicy meatball pasta fettuccini. I feel like spicy meatball is gonna end up on the behind the ******** bingo board that fans make nice. We could do like a little Photoshop of Ethiopia as a meatball and like an Italian choking on it like that's a spicy meatball. I was thinking more like a drinking game or something that doesn't like no death. Oh, OK, well. Now, so Italy gets rebuffed in this first attempt. So they set. Next they they establish a new strategy. And this strategy is kind of more like what the British would try to do, right? Because the British are, there's sometimes where they use brute force, they rarely start with that. There are usually a lot more cutting. And Italy adopts the same strategy. And the idea is to undermine Ethiopian unity 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, OK, what if we try to play these different? Tribal groups and local leaders against one another and the emperor and kind of fragment Ethiopia. And then we can take, you know, eat it up piece meal, right, 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 Menelek. Tafari writes quote as King of Shoah, away from the central government in the North, Menelik enjoyed unlimited power over his Kingdom. He conquered Gallia lands to the South and expanded his territory greatly through his large and relatively well armed forces. Thus, conscious of his growing power, metallic became less and less obedient to the emperor, and the Italians were not uh slow in noticing this. Accordingly, after the presentation of gifts and tempting promises, the Italians were able to have metallic sign, a secret treaty in which he was promised money, arms, and the province of Tigray, and in recognition is the King of Kings if he allied with them and attacking Emperor Johannes the 4th. This is while Johannes is still alive. To this metallic agreed, and the Treaty was signed in 18-6 in 18. 88 that the Italians would benefit what the Italians would benefit from. This was little it meant the annexation of 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's the most powerful king. We'll back him against the emperor. We'll let him take a big chunk of Ethiopia. But if we get this Emperor, we can take other chunks as and eventually we'll eat this guy up too, right? We'll either make him into a rump Kingdom or, like, that's the plan, right? They're going to use this guy to fragment. Ethiopia. They'll let him be independent for the rest of his life and then take it over right when he ever he passes, right? Whatever. Pretty standard stab, just like Caesar sure got. Yeah. This happens all the time. Yes, they're they're naturally backstabbing people, the Italians, so. No. Now 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 in like the 1500s of versions of this are done in like, Central and South America too. Most local rulers and metalex position kind of would agree to do help whatever power would overthrow the ruler, and they would be either bright, 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 ******* smart, way smarter than any of the Italians trying to manipulate him. Yeah. So right after the Italian signed the secret contract, right, the modest invade again in the Emperor, Johannes, you know, dies fighting them. Which means the the emperor that Menelik had agreed to fight alongside the Italians isn't the emperor anymore. And as soon as the Italians hear that Johannes is dead, they send a telegram to Menelik, 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 colonizer speak for we're coming, right? We're going to take the ship, right? 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 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. Hell. And this again, they do this all the time. This is something the US does a **** load to the indigenous peoples, right? Classic colonizer move, right? Like base level? Like you. Yeah, the way you just. What is we're looking for inventory is your your enemy is just embarrassing. Yeah. And so there's a difference between the Italian version and the Amharic is the is the language that that in the Ethiopia. Yeah. I think Amharic is how it's pronounced. It's a MHRC. 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 ether the Italian 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 of another country. Because if you can't make your own contracts and treaties with foreign countries, you're not really independent that what that line. Is the Italians trying to steal Ethiopian sovereignty in a very clever way? Right? Uhm. Now, the Amharic version of the Treaty which Menelik gets is crucially different. It just says that the emperor might, if he desired, avail himself of Italian help and foreign matter. So his version of the tree is like, since we're friends, if, yeah, if you want to make a deal with the European nation, hey, we're European will help you with it. You know, we might right side scoop, exactly crucial difference. One of them is a nice thing that a friend would do, and one of them is somebody stealing your ******* house, you know? Yeah, so the Italians, of course, as soon as this Treaty is signed, the Italians inform the rest of Europe. Like, hey, we've basically, we've acquired 1 Ethiopia, slightly used, like, congratulations. Look at how cool we are. Now to fairy. That Ethiopian scholar who is a big basis of this chunk 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 scholars disagree. Now to fairies piece is very good. This 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. There's a 2011 book by Cambridge historian Raymond Jonas that makes a different argument, and I'm going to quote from a write up of his book by Ohio State University's Origins project. Quote, Jonah suggests that Menelik 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. So by this interpretation of events, the emperor knew Italy was trying to **** him over. But he also knew that the Ethiopian army was exhausted and was badly outgunned by any European force. Because all these wars 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 can use those guns to kill Italians. Listen, I love the double play that we're getting. Very Ocean's 11? Yeah, he's ******* rad. Yeah, this is a very, very smart guy. So Italy's strategy here is to gradually move forces further and further into Ethiopia, which they start to do. They send in soldiers, and they occupy a city called Adigrat 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. Meet the ball. Yeah, right. So they think Ethiopia is going to be a big pushover. They think they finally cracked, cracked the nut. Now, they had 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 in 1887. 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 rinderpest. This pest quickly spread throughout the country, wiping out all cattle in Ethiopia and causing a nightmarish famine. So this is all happening at the same time, right? I'm going to quote from a write up by the Oromo Studies Association. This historical period is recorded in the collective memory of the Oromo people as Bara Nama nyata, the period of human eater Baruque. Ruksa the period of extreme famine and Sena the period of termination. So those are the three periods of this plague. We have no evidence that the Italians had deliberately introduced RPV into Abyssinia. However, the colonial public health history made clear that the colonizers knowingly and wittingly neglected the needs of the colonized people, and this is evident in the case of RPV in Ethiopia as we know today. The practice of quarantine began in Italy during the 14th century. It was started in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics. Italy and many European countries practiced quarantining. For example, in 1377 the Great Council of Ragusa in southern Italy passed a law establishing a Trentino, or 30 day isolation. This made Italy the 1st in Europe to organize institutional responses to Disease Control that began during the plague epidemic of 1347 to 1352. Ships arriving in Italian ports were required to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing. Although the Italians had practiced quarantining ships arriving in their ports ever since the 14th century, when they brought the infected cattle to the Red Sea coast, they did not take the necessary quarantine. Steps and cause the RPV epidemic whether or not it was deliberate. The Italian army introduced the deadly RPV infection to Africa, carried by just three infected cows. RPV spread from Ethiopia's East Coast across the Sahel desert, killing in just one year 90 to 95% of the domesticated cattle prod. Plus countless wild Buffalo, giraffe and antelope RPV swept from the Horn of Africa W to the Atlantic and South to the Cape of Good Hope. Ethiopia lost 95% of its cattle and most of the human populations starved to death. According to Yoma 30 to, 60% of Ethiopia's population starved to death that year. So no, 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 the area to basically wipe out the population, to prepare the area for colonization. We don't know that. We do know they knew how to quarantine and chose not to. And that's why this plague spreads and kills as many as 60% of the people in Ethiopia. And that's happened right as this, as the as the Italians are moving in. As they take this city. So Menelik is not just dealing with recovering from all these wars like *******. Half of his population has just gotten wiped out by this devastating ******* plague. So by the early 1890s, Ethiopia is in bad shape, right? This is, they're about as vulnerable to colonization. She could possibly be, you know, like that's a bad position. And the Italians tried to take further advantage of the situation by using the desperation of the famine to drive divisions between Metalex Kingdom Shoah. 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 Taitu from Tigray, which effectively united the two great power blocks in the country. He also used the Italians 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 power so you don't have to fight the big war, right? 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 1893, Italy announced to the rest of Europe that Ethiopia was their protectorate. They did not bother making an announcement to Menelik. He found out during the course of his normal diplomatic correspondence when he reached out to a European nation and was informed by their emissary that they would not treat. Them 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 of 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 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, OK. Lay down the light like I love the respect being commanded. This is amazing. You know what else is a king of Italy? Is the King of Italy the sovereign of Italy? Is it, is it the ads? Yes. We are supported by the Italian crown. I thought last our only spot in here. OK, alright. Yeah. I mean, they're looking, they they like to be kings of other things. So, you know, if you're looking for a king, you know, if you if you would like to be a king 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 some. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we'll take it. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for none of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family. And it meant. Families start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any mint mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Just switch to Mint mobile and get premium wireless service starting at 15 bucks a month. Get premium wireless service from just $15.00 a month and no one expected plot twists at mintmobile.com/behind. That's mintmobile.com/behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy at Mint Mobile. Com slash behind my name is Erica Kelly and I am the host and creator of Southern Freight true crime. There are so many people that just have no idea about some injustices in the world and if you can give a voice to them you can create change. To be able to do it within podcasting is just such a gift. I believe it was 18 months after I got on with Spreaker that I was making enough that I could quit my day job. It was incredible. I always feel like an ambassador for speaker. But that's because I'm passionate about podcasting. It's really easy to use. I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with spreaker, and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love. Spreaker from iheart this fall on revisionist history. Is there anything that we haven't talked about or or that I should have asked you or you'd like to add that seems relevant? You should have asked me why I'm missing fingers on my left hand. A story about sacrifice. I think his suffering drove him to try to alleviate suffering. And the shocking discovery I made where I faced the consequences of writing a book I thought would help people? Isn't that funny? It's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Revisionist history is back with more. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've never seen less enthusiasm for a great idea in my life. Ah, we're back. I hope you all enjoyed. I hope you all enjoyed this. Those ads from the King of Italy. 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 metallics rivals to try and turn other kings against him. They tried to trick him into further treaties with tricky language, but everywhere they're out maneuvered because metallic is just smart as ****. Like it seems silly to me to be like that first contract mistake, this one. Maybe let's try it again. The thing that I love about this dude. Well, this is such a cool story. This part of it is such a cool story, because this whole period is all of these different African leaders just getting completely ****** over by Europeans and and and and with huge body counts as a result. And this, this guy though, he's just so much ******* smarter than them. Like he's just running circles around these ************* and it's beautiful. 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, so I don't know, you take the wins when you get them. Victory somewhere? For sure, yeah. So he outmaneuvers them and finally, in 1896, Italy decides they have no option but to invade with a real *** army, and they assemble a full modern European army of 25,000 men under the command of a general named Bara Tieri, and they invade from Eritrea. Now, unbeknownst to Italy, Menelik had started preparing for war in earnest. In 1893, he had ordered the creation of food depots across the country, leading to a place called Adwa, where he believed the Italians. But advance towards next from a write up in Quartz. On September 17th, 1895, Menelik declared a total mobilization of war against Italy. He called on all Ethiopians to defend their country, family and religion. He ordered every capable person to fight and those incapable to pray for Ethiopia's victory. Ethiopians from every tribe, culture and community answered Milliken call. Regional leaders from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds responded unanimously, creating an army of 100,000. They had inferior weapons but a strong cause the first showdown. Occurred at Ambag Alagi on December 7th, 1895, where a relatively smaller Italian army was wiped out. The next encounter was at Mckelly, where the Italians were stationed behind a strong Fort. The Ethiopians surrounded the Italians for two weeks and, upon impress Titus advice, cut off the fort's water supply. The Italian commander agreed to surrender if they would be allowed to leave with their firearms. Menelik agreed that they could leave the Garrison unharmed, but the Italians remained in their strongholds, fortifying their position at Adigrat and Saria. Milik was not in a hurry to attack these forts. After two weeks of inactivity, General Barr Atiri decided to advance for a surprise attack. It was March 1st, 1896, or according to the Ethiopian counter YAKATA 231888, the day of Saint George. The priests carried the Tabeau, a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, a religious icon that symbolizes the sanctity of Ethiopia to the battlefield. The 20,000 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, the, you know, there's this kind of like ongoing war and it comes to a head at this place of Ottawa and the The Ethiopians smash this Italian army of 20,000 people. This is we'll talk about that in a second. So it is worth 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 makes them unique. But one of things worth noting is that there are a significant number of women fighting in the Ethiopian army. This is a thing in Ethiopian military history, including etage taitu. The tool, the Empress who led a unit of 6000 cavalry into battle. And also, as we talked about, she was a major strategic leader of the army. She has all these plans for like cutting off water supplies and stuff. She's a big part of this. The Battle of Adowa. Sorry, I was just gonna say I love how all of the these, like high-ranking monarchs or Queens and kings and emperors are like dying on the battlefield, which seems very unique to history too. 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 1000 years before, right? The Battle of Hastings, a monarch dies in the field. That happens in European history a lot earlier. But yeah, like ******* Menelik is on the field, as is his wife. They're both fighting in this battle bad, which I've never heard of before. Like it. Like a like an emperor and Empress fighting like sight, like, I don't know, side by side. She was leading the cavalry. I think he had another gig, but like they're both fighting in the same battle, which is pretty ******* rad. So the battle of Adowa is the first defeat, military defeat, like major military defeat 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? Right, right. That doesn't happen here. They win the war. And this is the only time that happens. This is a huge victory, not just within. You know, African military history, but within the annals of global military history, minoli's campaign against the Italians covered more miles than Napoleon's advance into Russia. This is like a really fascinating, extremely influential battle. The news of the Italian defeat spreads rapidly, and this is this hits European news like a bomb because a full European army has just gotten ******* annihilated by an indigenous army. Be afraid. Yeah, BF. 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 WE B Dubois and Benito Sylvain of Haiti. And this is in spite of the fact that many Ethiopians themselves didn't see themselves as part of like, 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. Elevator. But when Benito Sylvain, who was a Haitian Pan Africanist, got to sit down 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 dimensions here. Yeah, yeah. Sir, you laugh. Sorry, but you look good. You look really and got a pretty face for an emperor who's actually doing battle on a battlefield. He could have been, you know, a wealthy Prince who was like, I'm not going to 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 consider themselves different because they were never colonized, right? They were never, like, taken out of their homeland and mass or anything like that. Also the the Kings of Ethiopia. I don't know if you could say this is genealogically true, but they they are they 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 so mentalic himself doesn't really see himself as like a a representative of this global struggle against white imperialism. But he's seen that way in this battle, is seen that way internationally in a very big way. The first Afro Brazilian newspaper was named O Menelik. The green, yellow and Red Ethiopian flag was later adopted by multiple African nations when they finally threw off the colonial yoke and of course Atowa. Yeah. So yeah, that's why that is that. That's why that flag means what it does is the battle of Athens, because it's this time where the where Africans stopped a colonial power from from, you know, *******. And of course the Battle of Ottawa had a great but much darker significance to Europeans, to fairy Wright's quote. In some quarters in Europe the news was received. 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 lamented in an editorial, you may be sure that from one part of Africa to the other, the defeat of Italy is already known, or will be tomorrow, that Africa has conquered Europe. This is the 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. You're Europe. Let's let's sidebar and have a quick conversation. One smaller sized country defending itself is not a conquering and I think you know that because you did a lot of conquering you. You're very weird way to define conquering is someone broke into their house and they kicked him out. Like I don't know if they're conquers the right word. Ohh, remember, just defeated Italy. Like, let's really get some context here. Yeah, wild. So Italy gets beaten so badly. And again, one thing 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 the Ethiopia that officially recognizes Ethiopian independence. Obviously, of course, the fact that this happens means nothing to the other crowned heads of Europe, right? They don't care that Ethiopia has been is independent. That same year, or or sorry, not, that's that's 1896. In 1906, Britain, France and Italy meet to hold a conference to decide the fate of Ethiopia. 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 to Ethiopia next, Britain, France and Italy agree, they have to all come to an accord before doing anything. So again, 0. Recognition of Ethiopian independence by European governments, right? Although there is a treaty with Italy, right? So they've, you know, as we end part one. This is maybe the the the the brightest spot. We've ended. One of our episodes on, they've defeated the Imperial Power. Things are looking great. Going to be a real bummer in Part 2. I'm sorry to say no. It is behind the ********. It's still a really important story and 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 2. Listen, as a a fantasy writer and lover a fantasy I'm, I'm really big on pulling from monarchs of the past to create, you know, modern fantasy. As we've seen happen across, you know, you know, the Lord of the Rings. You can look at any of the George RR Martin stuff. This guy is brilliant, and I really hope to pull him into some of my fantasy. First of all, this style is banging. I know he's ******* rad looking right. Listen, not only does he 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. He's got Fuego style and I would, I would just and I would smart empires and sort of be funny in his cunningness like I just feel like I would like to learn. I'm going to learn more about. Men like he's a ****** yeah. Yeah, he's ******* rad. Umm. So that's going to do it for us here at behind the ******** 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. Really? Sock it to an Italian, find an Italian. And no, don't make him pay. What, Sophie? Robert? Look, they're never gonna learn if we don't all start fighting back against Italy. Give him a spicy meatball of their own. That's all I'm saying. There it is. Knew it was coming. OK. We needed one more. Alright, alright. Go. Oh yeah. I have a Joelle. You get out. You got ruggles? Ruggles? Oh, sure. Yeah. Y'all already know me. I'm Dominique. You can find me all over the Internet at Jewel. Monique, it's JOELEMONIQUE. IU. So many podcasts. We come to my Twitter and you will learn about them. 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'll be there. You can also find the full text uploaded of three new chapters every week at ATR book.com as an epub, again, a trbook.com. You can find the book there, so check it out please. You can also find it on Reddit at R Slash after the revolution. There's a fan Reddit open. People are talking about it if you want to chat with people about my novel. So there you go. Alright, we'll be back whenever at some point. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. If you could completely remove one phrase from your vocabulary, which phrase would you choose? I don't know. Correct answer. No, I meant I don't know which phrase, and the best way to banish I don't know from your life is by cramming your brain full of stuff you should know. 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