The foreign policy of the Emperor Menelik (1896-1898): A Regjoinder

In contrast to Dr G. N. Sanderson's belief that ‘down to the collapse of the Mahdist state itself, the Mahdist alliance was the central feature of Menelik's diplomacy’, this article shows that Ethiopia's détente with the Sudan after 1896 was only one part of a carefully constructed, non-committal foreign policy designed to protect Ethiopia against all foreseeable eventualities. If there were anything central in the minds of Ethiopian policy-makers, it could only have been their uncertainty about the outcome of the events which were rapidly reaching a crisis point in the Sudan. Menelik therefore chose not to commit himself to any one policy toward the Sudan until the complicated situation there ran its course. At the same time, he pursued a line of diplomacy in the east and the south which would consolidate his victory over the Italians and which would materially strengthen his Empire.