Menilik the Moderniser

Emperor Menilik II was a moderniser and expansionist. In a series of brutal raids on neighboring peoples, he tripled the territory of the empire. But he also managed to withstand the European 'Scramble for Africa', through a combination of cunning and brute force. He imported modern firearms in large numbers, and understood the rivalries that motivated the Western powers as they used Africa as a playing field for their power struggles.

Menlik II is the most controversial figure in modern Ethiopian history. Ethiopia owes its borders to his conquest, and also perhaps owes him its instability and ethnic disharmony. In trying to cement together a huge mosaic of peoples, he was storing up trouble for his own successors. He left behind a chaotic struggle for succession, and a country that had expanded but not consolidated its new territories.