By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-
Menilek’s reign witnessed the taking of a number of important steps
to ameliorate the country’s difficult communications, as well as to
reduce its isolation from the rest of the world.
Bridge-Building on the Awash River, and the Tamchi
The first of these innovations was the erection of a bridge over the
Awash river, in 1886, by Menilek’s Swiss engineer, Alfred Ilg.
This, however, was not the first such edifice built in nineteenth
century Ethiopia. A couple of years earlier, in 1884, King Takla
Haymanot of Gojam had erected a bridge over the Tamchi river, a
tributary of the Blue Nile. It was constructed under the direction of an
Italian, Count Salimbeni, and was a miracle of improvisation. Salimbeni
recalls that the workers did not take readily to the discipline of
manual work. However, the King, anxious to forward the project, himself
lent a hand. By carrying stones he succeeded in breaking down the
general reluctance to engage in manual work.
The supply problem was also difficult. Limestone had to be carried a
distance of three days’ journey. Trowels were made out of the engineers’
frying pans, hammers out of local ploughs, and rope out of twisted
cowgut, while bamboos were set in straw-strengthened mud to serve as
scaffolding.
Notwithstanding the success of the Tamchi bridge there is said to
have been much discussion before Menilek’s Awash bridge was subsequently
decided upon. According to Ilg, who may however exaggerated the extent
of the opposition in order to enhance his own role in the proceedings,
Menilek was at first skeptical when the Swiss engineer proposed the
erection of a bridge without poles.
The Royal Fist
Ilg therefore constructed a toy model to demonstrate his idea, but
the King hit it with his fist, whereupon it fell to pieces. A second
model shared the same fate, but a third, which was stronger than its
predecessors, withstood the royal fist, whereupon orders were given for
construction to begin.
Ilg describes the building operations in a humourous, though
revealing, letter which is reminiscent of Salimbeni’s efforts at
improvisation of a few years earlier. “Shoa,” he writes, “has advanced a
step forward . . . the beams had to be carried 15 kilometres on human
shoulders. For the bridgeheads I had to square up the stones on the
spot. I even had to burn coal in order to forge the nails, rivets,
screws and bolts required. Add to this a tropical sun with all its
dangers, heavy rains with resultant dysentery, intermittent fever, and
cyclones which almost pulled out my beard and carried the tent in all
directions. At night the hyenas almost stole our leather pillows from
under our heads, jackals and other rabble plundered the kitchen and
obliged me to obtain respect with strychnine.”
Ilg’s wooden bridge was soon afterwards destroyed in local fighting,
but was at once replaced by a second. When this wore out two French
engineers, Stevenin and Trouillet, erected a steel footbridge. The
construction work once again was by no means easy. The girders,
Trouillet observed, were brought up from Jibuti with “great difficulty,”
and to make matters worse, the King had used for other purposes the
cement sent from Europe with the result that the engineers had to make
their own lime from stone brought from Minjar province, a distance of
three days’ journey away.
The construction of the Awash bridge was followed, in the next few
decades, by numerous other bridges in other parts of the country.
Early in the twentieth century the old bridge over the Blue Nile was
repaired. Menilek’s chronicler, Gabra Sellassie, comments, doubtless
also with some exaggeration, that hitherto no one had dared to cross the
river during the ruins, but that henceforth everyone walked across in
safety, and blessed those who had built the bridge. They supposedly
declared: “May the Lord give long life to Menelik and Taitu ! May power
remain with their descendants ! May their Kingdom flourish eternally
like the plants at the edge of the water!”
A Similar Sentiment
A similar sentiment, it is interesting to note, was recalled to the
present writer half a century or so later by Dagnew Kendi, a student
from Begemder. He reported that he once saw an old woman crossing the
seventeenth century bridge of Fasiladas over the Angareb river near
Gondar. As she crossed, the water suddenly rose, whereupon she cried
out, “King Fasil is dead, gone for ever, never to come back and see
Gondar. But what he has done for us remains a symbol of the dedication
and love he had for Gondar. If it had not been for him I would have
joined my ancestors. God bless his soul! ”
She, for one, seems to have appreciated that innovation!
Almost Sacrosanct
Ethiopia’s early bridges were considered almost sacrosanct. Because
of the difficulty, and expense, of construction and maintenance, the
rule was established for most bridges that they should be used only
during the rains, when it was not possible to ford the river. At all
other times the bridges were barricaded and, closed to the public.
Russian Engineers
The importance of even such “part-time” bridges cannot, however, be
under-estimated. The great inconvenience resulting from their absence,
particularly during the rains, is vividly described by Gabra Sellassie.
He states that in Addis Ababa the judges refused to call guarantors or
witnesses between the feasts of Gabra Menfus Qeddus in Hamle and
Maskaram, i.e. from July 12 to September 15 or 16, because of the
immense difficulty of crossing the swollen rivers, and that many
litigants, in trying to go to court, were in fact carried away while
crossing rivers. It was quite common in those days, the Georgian Dr.
Merab confirms, for two or three Europeans, and perhaps a score of
Ethiopians, to be drowned attempting to cross rivers every year in the
capital.
Addis Ababa’s first stone bridge was in fact built by Russian
engineers, after one of their compatriots had perished trying to cross
the Kabana river.
The First Modern Roads
Early in the twentieth century, the first modern roads were
constructed between Addis Ababa and Addis Alam, and between Harar and
Dire Dawa. This was done with the assistance of Italian and French
engineers respectively. Other roads followed in the next few years.
Road-building was an especially significant development in the
Ethiopian context, for it marked an important step towards economic and
political unity, as well as the breaking down of parochial ways of
thinking.
Contemporary attitudes to road-building may be seen from the fact
that Menilek’s chronicler likens the Addis Ababa-Addis Alma road to
those of the ferenge, or Europeans. The British Ethiopicist
Armsbruster, however, roundly declared: “The fact is the Abyssinians
object to the construction of roads.”
In support of this statement he explains that Menilek had sent an
engineer to Semien to improve the track, but that the local ruler,
Dejazmach Gessesse, had “put so many obstacles in his way that he had to
return without affecting anything.” The Dejazmach, we are told, had the
full support of the local population, who declared, “If this road is
improved, it will be all the easier for the Moslems and heathen to come
up and attack us.”
The Jibuti Railway
Menilek’s reign also witnessed the advent of the railway, the bicycle, the steam roller and the motor car.
A concession for the construction of a railway from the Ethiopian
capital to the French Somali port of Jibuti was granted by Menelik to
Ilg as early as March 1894. The technical, financial and political
difficulties involved were, however, so great that the line, which was
constructed largely with French capital and skill, did not reach Dire
Dawa until the end of 1902, and Aqaqi, 23 kilometres from Addis Ababa,
until 1915.
The first train services from the coast to the capital were inaugurated only in 1917.
“Shoa Will be No Longer Yours”
Though Menilek’s perseverance and determination eventually ensured
the success of the railway project, the idea of initiating so
revolutionary a means of transport aroused much heart searching.
According to the Italian observer Felter, Menilek had no sooner signed
the railway concession than he began to have second thoughts about it.
Empress Taitu and Ras Makonnen were both also reputed to have been
worried about the project. Makonnen was supposed to have said to
Menilek, “When the railway reaches Harar, Harar will be no longer yours;
and when it reaches Addis Ababa, Shoa will be no longer yours.”
Opposition to the railway was taken for granted in British official
reports for 1897 and 1898. Colonel Sadler, the United Kingdom resident
in Aden, wrote: “It is reported that Menelek said all his Rases are
against the railway.” Harrington, the British envoy in Addis Ababa,
likewise quoted one Ras, who had said of the railway, “This is idiotic,
Menelek has given away the key to his treasury.” Count Gleichen, who
participated in a subsequent British mission to Ethiopia, drew a similar
picture, observing: “A large number of the chiefs, at all events in the
more western portion, would strongly object to such a new-fangled idea,
on the grounds that it would introduce into the country the
all-pervading white man.”
British official reports state that there were even popular
demonstrations against the railway, though these were thought to be
officially inspired. In April 1898, Harrington, wrote of a “popular
meeting at the capital to protest against the Railway.” Shortly
afterwards an Ethiopian nobleman, somewhat naively, observed to the
British envoy, Rennell Rodd, “We don’t want rapid communication with the
coast; the railway will be very useful to us in the interior; we shall
wait till it is finished and then destroy its connection with the sea.”
But they didn’t!
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
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