War, Disease, Famine, Destruction, 1883–1893

Serels, Steven

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-94165-3_4

War, Disease, Famine, Destruction, 1883–1893

Steven Serels³

Chapter
First Online: 24 August 2018

161 Accesses

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies ((IOWS))

Abstract

The alliance between the Egyptian colonial state, on the one hand, and the traditional pastoral leaders and the Islamic new religious, on the other, further destabilized pastoralist society by breeding widespread discontent and, ultimately, precipitating an extremely violent civil war in the 1880s. During the war, continued violence became the only viable economic strategy. The leaders of the various militias used the conflict to gain access to external sources of arms, ammunition, provisions, and money primarily by building new relationships with the European officials that were seeking to establish their colonial presence in the region. In turn, these militias became conduits for ensuring that dependents were taken care of during the war. This unstable war economy collapsed into a devastating famine after the 1887 introduction of rinderpest, a deadly cattle disease previously unknown in the region. The epizootic and famine led to the complete collapse of pastoralist society.

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Notes

1.
Pankhurst, The Great Ethiopian Famine of 1888–1892, 39.
2.
In the late 1870s, Diqna was imprisoned by the Turko-Egyptian authorities for participating in the slave trade. Imprisonment left Diqna disgraced, impoverished and bitter toward the Turko-Egyptian government. Shortly after his release from prison, Diqna made his way to al-Mahdi’s camp on the White Nile. Richard Hill, ‘Uthman Aby Bakr Diqna,’ in A Biographical Dictionary of the Sudan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 367–368.
3.
Moncrieff to Baring, 4 November 1883 FO407/28/276, NA.
4.
Granville to Egerton, 22 May 1884 FO407/66/309, NA.
5.
Baker to Egerton, 17 May 1884 FO407/61/348, NA.
6.
Molyneaux to Hay, 16 December 1884 FO407/64/26, NA. The accounts of these night attacks are contained in FO407/61; FO407/62; FO407/63; FO407/64; FO40/66; FO407/68; and FO407/72, NA.
7.
A W M Correspondence Respecting Egyptian Evacuation of the Somali Coast. 28 February 1885 IOR/L/PS/20/MEMO41, BL.
8.
Moncrieff to Baring, 4 November 1883 FO407/28/276, NA.
9.
Government of Italy, Agordat: Note e Documenti (Rome, Tipografo delle LL MM il Re E La Regina, 1894), 10.
10.
Cochran to Jones, 10 September 1885 FO407/67/16, NA.
11.
Deposition, 25 August 1885 FO407/66/191, NA.
12.
Watson to Nubar, 10 June 1886 FO407/88/79, NA.
13.
Jago to Baring, 17 February 1887 FO407/70/88, NA.
14.
Memorandum by Major Chermside Respecting the Situation of Affairs at Suakin and the Proposed Measures to be Taken to Open the Berber Road, 29 March 1884 FO407/61/61, NA.
15.
Consual Reports. Suakin. Commercial, No. 6 (C4657, 1886), 215.
16.
Government of Italy, Agordat, 10.
17.
Baring to Granville, 16 October 1884 FO407/63/42, NA.
18.
In 1882, a British force conquered Egypt and brought an end to the Urabi Revolt. Though the conquering British force confirmed the Khedive as the head of the Egyptian state, British political advisors seized control, over the following years, of various state functions. Roger Owen, Lord Cromer: Victorian Imperialist, Edwardian Proconsul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 204, 239–240.
19.
Giorgio della Croce, Note sul Commisariato Regionale di Cheren [n.d. 1920s] FASC3123, IAO.
20.
Molyneux to Hay, 4 October 1884 FO 407/63, NA.
21.
Molyneux to Secretary of the Admiralty, 27 December 1884 FO 407/63, NA.
22.
Nadel, ‘Notes on Beni Amer Society,’ 52.
23.
Serels, Starvation and the State, 61.
24.
Traite, 11 March 1862 FM SG CFS//6, ANOM.
25.
For French officials, adding an economically viable Red Sea port to their expanding empire had the added benefit of acting as a check on British dominance in the Indian Ocean. France’s control over its Asian empire had recently become vulnerable to British interference. Following the opening of the Suez Canal, steamships traveling between Europe and Asia via the Red Sea stopped to take on coal at British-controlled Aden. In 1884, Britain used this control to intervene in the Sino-French War. British officials prevented the French Navy from procuring necessary provisions at Aden. To prevent this from recurring, French officials developed Obock into a strategic coal depot. Service des Douanes, Cote Française des somalis, Note sur les répercussions de l’occupation de l’Ethiopie et sur le trafic du port de Djibouti procédée d’un bref historique, 10 October 1936 FM 1AFFPOL/704, ANOM.
26.
Serels, Starvation and the State, 54–57.
27.
Baring to Granville, 6 December 1884 FO407/63/244, NA.
28.
Granville to Baring, 21 March 1884 FO407/60/746, NA.
29.
Kitchener to Baring, 19 February 1887 FO407/70/80, NA.
30.
Wolff to Iddesleigh, 7 October 1886 FO407/69/102, NA.
31.
Clarke to Salisbury, 8 June 1887 FO407/70/200, NA.
32.
Cameron to Baring, 12 December 1887 FO407/71/107, NA.
33.
In June 1885, al-Mahdi died. He was succeeded by Abd Allahi Muhammad Turshain, who ruled the developing Mahdist State from Umm Durman with the title of al-Khalifat al-Mahdi. Al-Khalifa was suspicious of the senior Mahdist leadership. He feared that officials appointed by al-Mahdi could lead a palace coup and force al-Khalifa out of office. As a result, he took moves to limit their power. The Baqqara force was commanded by Abu Qirja and therefore not under the command of Dinqa. Al-Khalifa hoped this would limit Diqna’s local influence. Al-Khalifa was similarly suspicious of the Mahdist leaders that were waging the war on Sudan’s northern frontier. So, al-Khalifa withheld provisions from ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Najumi, the amir of Northern Nilotic Sudan because al-Khalifa feared that al-Najumi would use the military force under his command to lead an armed coup. Shundi Pasha to Baring, 23 January 1887 FO407/70/58, NA.
34.
Paul, A History of the Beja Tribes, 115; Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 187.
35.
Bradford to Baring, 5 October 1888 FO407/75/13, NA.
36.
Baring to Salisbury, 20 December 1888 FO407/75/118, NA.
37.
Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 188–189.
38.
Gouverneur de la Colonie d’Obock to Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies, 31 October 1887, FM SG CFS//1, ANOM.
39.
Schema di dichiarazione da firmarsi da Kantibai Hamed, 5 June 1887, reprinted in The Nakfa Documents, 149–151.
40.
Traité entre la France et le Sultan de Gobad (Amed Loïta), 9 August 1884 FM SG CFS//6, ANOM.
41.
Even European imperial officials recognized the payment of tribute as an act of submission. In 1901, Reginald Wingate, the Governor-General of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, wrote to ‘Ali Dinar, the Sultan of Dar Fur that the payment of tribute “would tend to show your submission and obedience to [the government’s] orders, as well as your connection with it.” Letter from his Excellency the Governor General to Sultan Ali Dinar reproduced in full in Intelligence Department, Egyptian Army, Sudan Intelligence Report, No. 83 (1 to 30 June 1901), 10, SAD.
42.
The arms trade grew out of French and Italian efforts to gain influence in the Ethiopian highlands. In the early 1880s, French and Italian officials came to recognize that the first step in penetrating the highlands was securing the loyalty of Menelik, the most powerful rival of Emperor Yohannes. Menelik believed that acquiring modern weapons was necessary for defeating Yohannes and establishing supremacy over the highlands. French and Italian officials believed that providing Menelik with his desired weapons would be a relatively cheap and effective way of securing his loyalty. Officials also hoped that opening their ports to the arms and armament trade would pave the way for the expansion of the trade in other European manufactured goods. The trade in European manufactured weapons quickly flourished because it was very lucrative, with profits as high as 200 percent. Grant, Rulers, Guns, and Money, 49–50; Oberlé and Hugot, 95.
43.
The pattern in the ARSL mirrored that of neighboring Southern Yemen. Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 203–209.
44.
Pankhurst, The Great Ethiopian Famine, 39.
45.
The Center for Food Security and Public Health and the Institute for International Cooperation in Animal Biologics, ‘Rinderpest’ (Iowa: Iowa State University, 2008).
46.
Clements Robert Markham, A History of the Abyssinian Expedition (London: Macmillan and Co., 1896), 163; Henry M. Stanley, Coomassie and Magdala (London: S. Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1874), 344; Henry Montague Hozier, The British Expedition to Abyssinia (London: Macmillan and Co., 1869), 175, 178; Baker, The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, 717; Guebere Sellassie, Chronique du regne de Menelik II (Paris: Maisonneuve Frères, 1931), 11, 414; Augustus Blandy Wylde, Modern Abyssinia (London: Methuen and Co., 1901), 344; Frederick Harrison Smith, Through Abyssinia (New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1890), 118–120.
47.
Gaetano Conti, ‘Il Servizio Veterinario in Eritrea’ in Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Comitato per la documentazione dell’opera dell’Italia in Africa, Italia in Africa: Serie Civile, Volume Secondo, Il Servizio Veterinario Nell’Africa Italiana (Rome: 1965), 6.
48.
Le Gouverneur de la colonie d’Obock to le Ministre de la Marine et des colonies, 25 December 1888 FM SG CFS//6, ANOM.
49.
Richard Pankhurst and Douglas Johnson, ‘The Great Drought and Famine of 188–192 in Northeast Africa,’ in The Ecology of Survival; Case Studies from Northeast African History, Douglas Johnson and David Anderson, ed. (Colorado: Westview Press, 1988), 63.
50.
John Rowe and Kjell Hødnebø first posited that the rinderpest epizootic spread into Eastern Sudan in the late 1880s. John Rowe and Kjell Hødnebø, ‘Rinderpest in the Sudan 1888–1890: The Mystery of the Missing Panzootic,’ Sudanic Africa, 5 (1994): 149–179. The timeline for this epizootic was first laid out in Steven Serels, ‘Famines of War: The Red Sea Grain Market and Famine in Eastern Sudan, 1889–1891,’ Northeast African Studies, 12:1 (2012): 73–94.
51.
For a comprehensive history of rinderpest, see Clive A. Spinage, Cattle Plague: A History (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003).
52.
Serels, Starvation and the State, 77.
53.
Pankhurst, The Great Ethiopian Famine of 1888–1892, 39.
54.
Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 72; De Waal, Famine that Kills, 63; Serels, Starvation and the State, 36.
55.
James McCann, People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800–1990 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 40–42.
56.
Pankhurst, The Great Ethiopian Famine of 1888–1892; Ferdinando Martini, Nell’Africa Italiana (Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1925), 31; A. B. Wylde, ‘The Starving Soudanese and Our Responsibilities,’ Anti-Slavery Reporter, 4:10 (May and June 1890): 92; Barnham to Baring, 5 March 1890 FO407/99/83, NA.
57.
Wingate to Grenfell, 12 February 1890 FO407/99/58, NA.
58.
Martini, Nell’Africa Italiana, 29.
59.
Ghino Valenti, ‘Introduzione,’ in La Colonia Eritrea: Condizioni E Problemi, Omodeo, A., V. Peglion, and G. Valenti, eds. (Rome: Tipographia Nazionale di G. Bertero, 1913), 67.
60.
Ezio Marchi, Studi sulla Pastorizia della Colonia Eritrea, 2nd edition (Florence: Istituto Agricolo Coloniale Italiano, 1929), 113.
61.
Amrita Rangasami, ‘Failure of Entitlements’ Theory of Famine: A Response,’ Economic and Political Weekly, 20:41 (12 October 1985): 1750.
62.
Serels, Starvation and the State, 73.
63.
Wylde, ‘The Starving Soudanese and Our Responsibilities,’ 92.
64.
Barnham to Baring, 5 March 1890 FO407/99/83, NA.
65.
Martini, Nell’Africa Italiana, 26–34.
66.
Wylde, ‘The Starving Soudanese and Our Responsibilities,’ 92.
67.
At the end of April 1891, Ferdinando Martini, who would subsequently become the Governor of Eritrea, traveled to Massawa and was shocked by the government’s callousness to the plight of the starving refugees. In his account of this voyage, Martini recounts attending a lavish official party in Massawa to salute the king of Italy while officials did nothing for “the living dead” camped in Otumlo. Martini would later write that the memories of his visit to the camp gave him nightmares for year. Martini, Nell’Africa Italiana, 31.
68.
Pankhurst, The Great Ethiopian Famine of 1888–1892, 42–46.
69.
Baring to Salisbury, 27 February 1890 FO407/99/55, NA.
70.
Baring to Salisbury, 2 March 1890 FO407/99/70, NA.
71.
Barnham to Baring, 31 March 1890, FO407/99/83, NA; The currency conversion is based on figures in Alamanni Ennio Quirino Mario, La Colonia Eritrea e i suoi commerci (Turin: Fratelli Bocca Editori, 1891), 276.
72.
Barnham to Baring, 31 March 1890 FO407/100/15, NA.
73.
Barnham to Baring, 18 October 1890 FO407/102/10, NA.
74.
Hall to Haskins, 8 October 1890 FO407/102/26, NA.
75.
Francis Reginald Wingate, Mahdism and the Egyptian Sudan, 2nd edition (London: Frank Cass, 1968), 449–450.
76.
Intelligence Department, Egyptian Army, Staff Diary and Intelligence Report, Suakin, No. 116 (2 to 20 September 1890), 2, SAD.
77.
Intelligence Department, Egyptian Army, Staff Diary and Intelligence Report, Suakin, No. 103 (4 to 17 March 1890), SAD.
78.
Portal to Salisbury, 22 July 1890 FO407/101/13, NA.
79.
Intelligence Department, Egyptian Army, Staff Diary and Intelligence Report, Suakin, No. 97 (December 11 to 23, 1889), SAD.
80.
This position had been created by the Turko-Egyptian colonial government and was vacant since Mahdist forces had killed the previous nazir. Intelligence Department, Egyptian Army, Staff Diary and Intelligence Report, Suakin, No. 100 (January 21 to February 4, 1890), SAD.
81.
Portal to Salisbury, 13 August 1890 FO407/101/25, NA.
82.
Herbert Kitchener, ‘Memorandum’ in Intelligence Department, Egyptian Army, Staff Diary and Intelligence Report, Suakin, No. 116 (September 2 to 20, 1890), 2, SAD.
83.
Holled Smith to Grenfell, 26 January 1891 FO407/106/20, NA.
84.
Intelligence Department, Egyptian Army, Staff Diary and Intelligence Report, Suakin, No. 123 (24 December 1890 to 6 January 1891), SAD.

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Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Regionalstudien, Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
Steven Serels

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Serels, S. (2018). War, Disease, Famine, Destruction, 1883–1893. In: The Impoverishment of the African Red Sea Littoral, 1640–1945. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94165-3_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94165-3_4
Published: 24 August 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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