Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, has constructed…

Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, has constructed a number of buildings on the top of the mountain redoubt at Magdala, including a church and a palace.

Fearful of northerly Muslim powers, he had written a letter to a fellow Christian monarch, Queen Victoria, asking for British assistance in the region.

Tewodros had asked the British Consul in Ethiopia, Captain Charles Duncan Cameron, to carry a letter to Queen Victoria requesting skilled workers to come to teach his subjects how to produce firearms, and other technical skills.

Cameron had traveled to the coast with the letter, but when he informed the Foreign Office of the letter and its contents, the Foreign Office had instructed him simply to send the letter to London rather than bring it himself, and to proceed to the Sudan where he was to make inquiries about the slave trade there.

After doing this, Cameron had returned to Ethiopia.

On Cameron's return, the Emperor had become enraged when he found out that Cameron had not taken the letter to London personally, had not brought a response from the Queen, and most of all, had spent time traveling through enemy Egyptian and Turkish territories.

Cameron had tried to appease the Emperor, saying that a reply to the letter would arrive shortly.

Unfortunately, the Foreign Office in London had not passed the letter to Queen Victoria, but had simply filed it under Pending, where the letter had stayed for a year.

The Foreign Office next sent the letter to India, because Abyssinia came under the Raj's remit.

It is alleged that when the letter arrived in India, officials filed it under Not Even Pending.

After two years had passed and Tewodros had not received a reply, he had imprisoned Cameron, together with all the British subjects in Ethiopia at the time and various other Europeans, in an attempt to get Victoria's attention.

Among the Europeans he had imprisoned is a missionary by the name of  Stern, who had previously published a book in Europe describing Tewodros as a barbaric, cruel, unstable usurper.

When Tewodros saw this book he had become violently angry, pulling a gun on Stern, and had had to be restrained from killing the missionary.

Tewodros had also received reports from abroad that foreign papers had quoted these European residents of Ethiopia as having said many negative things about him and his reign.

A British military expedition led by Sir Robert Napier had landed at the Gulf of Zula on December 4, 1867, and had set up a base camp at Zula before advancing on Magdala, which they reach in April, 1868.

Abandoned by the nobility and his followers, and after his remaining troops engage the British forces at the Battle of Magdala, Tewodros withdraws into the fortress on Amba Mariam and kills himself with a pistol a few days later as the final assault begins.

The British enter the capital, where they rescue the diplomats.

Before departing from Abyssinia, Sir Robert allows his troops to loot and burn Magdala, including its churches.

The expedition loots a large number of treasures and religious items such as tabots, which today can still be see in various museums and libraries in Europe, as well as in private collections.

A few items will be returned to Ethiopia, the most important being the crown of Tewodros II, which King George V will personally present to the future Emperor Haile Selassie on his visit to England in 1925.