January-March 1948

In response to the unrest throughout southern Ethiopia in the aftermath of Ethiopia’s massive arms imports and land tax reforms, Addis Ababa made the decision to crack down hard. Five regiments, numbering some 15,000 men in total, stormed south into the restive provinces, looking to impose the central government’s will against the armed groups that roamed the countryside.

The first army units to arrive in the restive countryside received a warm welcome from the local nobility, who believe they were there to assist them in putting down the tenant militias that threatened their lives and livelihood. After all, Addis Ababa had always put their interests above those of the impoverished. The fact that the army units were actually there to disarm the nobility was quite a shock. Even more of a shock was the heavy-handedness of their orders: surrender your arms and pay your taxes, or we will kill you and your entire family, then take your land for the government.. The choice, the Emperor thought, was clear. Presented with the threat of the overpowering force of the military, the nobility would surely lay down their arms and order would be restored.

These orders seemed so barbaric that the first nobles to receive them often doubted they were real. With no public decree from the palace announcing this new policy, some nobles thought that the army units had gone rogue and were acting of their own accord, and refused to surrender their arms. They and their families were promptly executed.

The treatment of Ethiopia’s nobility is particularly heavy-handed in comparison to the army’s treatment of the tenant militias that opposed the nobility. These militias, expecting that the army was there to put them down, were instead greeted with calm respect. While the army wanted them to put down their guns, they were not quite as deadset on obtaining the militia’s weapons as they were the nobles. In fact, the army was even willing to look the other way while the militias exacted their vengeance on their former landlords--so long as they surrendered their weapons after their bloody deeds were done. This policy, combined with the army’s policy of disarming the nobility and their guards, meant that on several occasions the army disarmed a noble’s retinue, turned a blind eye while their tenants massacred the freshly-disarmed nobles, then disarmed the tenants.

With a social class as tight knit as Ethiopia’s nobility, the news that the government was executing noblemen and seizing their estates spread like wildfire. The news that the army was standing by and watching while tenants slaughtered their landlords spread even faster. What policymakers in Addis Ababa thought they were presenting the nobility was an obvious choice between surrendering their arms and living, or retaining their arms in dying. In reality, it was more a choice between surrendering your arms and dying to the tenant mobs, or retaining your arms and maybe dying to the army. Whether out of self-preservation or out of a resentment for the way the government was suddenly treating them, most armed nobles chose the latter.

Even though the nobility had lost much of their armed influence under the reign of Haile Selassie, their political influence was still substantial; the nobility and their families made up the bulk of Ethiopia’s political leadership. Even though many in Addis Ababa had their political disagreements with the nobility in the countryside, they still had close family ties with them. They certainly didn’t want the government to execute them--or worse, let the peasantry get any bright ideas about “killing all landlords” and “revolution.” Many of Ethiopia’s military leadership in particular were from a noble pedigree, and took issue with the policy. This was only exacerbated by the ethnic dimensions of the issue: the nobility and the military were overwhelmingly from the Amhara ruling class, while the tenant militias were overwhelmingly from politically marginalized minority groups. Why was the army wasting its time killing their own?

By March, it is increasingly clear to Haile Selassie and his advisors that the policy towards the landed nobility is deeply unpopular. His closest advisors have called for him to reach some sort of political settlement with the regional nobility to allow him to better focus on external threats--namely, the Italians in the north and the Somalis in the east. Failure to do so is likely to have serious consequences.

Rounding Up Other Places

Ogaden

The Ethiopian government’s policy of fortifying settlements has lackluster results--mostly because people don’t really want to move away from their kin to ranch cattle and get shot at in the Ogaden. Raids against army supply lines continue, but the decision to move away from the border has shortened the supply lines, which has made raiding more difficult and less profitable. Aerial reconnaissance has confirmed that large groups of Somalis are moving across the border with frightening regularity, many of them with guns. This is not really surprising, though: Somalis are a nomadic people who have never really acknowledged the border, and cross over it frequently during their seasonal migrations. Many of these nomads also happen to be armed in order to defend their clans and herds from raiders and bandits.

Djibouti - Addis Ababa Railway

Efforts to uncover the source of the sabotage are unsuccessful. Ethiopian military engineers assigned to fix the bridges come under fire from Somali nomads every so often, but the military presence is significant enough to prevent serious disruptions to their repair efforts. The railway is operational again by March.

Ethnic Violence in the South

The sudden arrival of thousands of mostly Christian army soldiers in southern Ethiopia has made the ethnic violence die down temporarily, though resentment is building. Having thousands of Christians with guns show up has made people even more certain that the resettlement program is part of a concerted effort to displace the existing populations in the south. However, most of the ethnic militias are convinced that the army isn’t there for them, and is willing to wait them out. For now.