Yohannes IV, the Mahdists, and the Colonial Partition of North-East Africa

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Periodical article

Title:	Yohannes IV, the Mahdists, and the Colonial Partition of North-East Africa
Author:	Caulk, Richard A.
Year:	1971
Periodical:	Transafrican Journal of History
Volume:	1
Issue:	2
Period:	July
Pages:	23-42
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Sudan Ethiopia
Subjects:	scramble for Africa History and Exploration colonialism Religion and Witchcraft
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/24520253
Abstract:	Deals with the episode of the European scramble for predominance in Africa, when after occupying Egypt in 1882 the British tried to dispose of the Nilotic Sudan and the Italians in the first Italo-Ethiopian war (1887-9) penetrated into Ethiopia. In the Nilotic Sudan and in the Ethiopian highlands, proto or rather religious nationalism welded larger groups together under a central authority than in other parts of Africa, very large armies could thus be put into the field against the Europeans. Nevertheless, partition was only delayed (by the Mahdists) in the Sudan, and restricted geographically in Ethiopia. By September 1898 the Sudan was added to Britain's empire and the Italians had annexed the northern Ethiopian highlands. The latter circumstance was due to the death of Yohannes IV in 1889 which shifted the Ethiopian centre of power from Tigre to Shoa. Ref.