Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897

The Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897 (sometimes called the Rodd Treaty) was an agreement negotiated between diplomat Sir Rennell Rodd of Great Britain and Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia primarily involving border issues between Ethiopia and British Somaliland. It was signed on 14 May 1897 in order to "strengthen and render more effective and profitable the friendship between the two kingdoms", according to its preamble.

The treaty consisted of several articles, including:

• Article I: allowed subjects from Ethiopia and British Somaliland to have full liberties in regards to commerce with each other.
• Article II: defined the geographical boundaries between Ethiopia and British Somaliland.
• Article III: specified keeping open the caravan route between Harar and the colonial port of Zeila.
• Article IV: Ethiopia granted Great Britain favoured rights in respect to import duties and taxes.
• Article V: allowed Ethiopian import of military equipment through British Somaliland.
• Article VI: dealt with problems concerning Sudanese Mahdists.

This treaty was one of several concerning the borders of Ethiopia which were negotiated and signed in the ten years that followed the Ethiopian victory at the Battle of Adwa.^[1]

The boundary defined in this treaty was not demarcated until 1932, in response to Ras Tafari Makonnen's desire, which he expressed during his visit to Europe in 1924, to demarcate all of the boundaries of Ethiopia. E.H.M. Clifford explains that "negotiations to this end proceeded slowly but on the whole surely, and at the end of 1930 reached the stage of definite preparations; but the Boundary Commission did not actually meet until 8 January 1932, at Berbera."^[2] Clifford afterwards participated in the subsequent demarcation, which extended from the Italian-British boundary demarcated in 1929-1930 at 9°N 44°E / 9°N 44°E, west to the trijunction point where the boundaries of French Somaliland met Ethiopia and British Somaliland. Clifford describes the terrain and work of demarcation, with a map, in a paper he presented to the Geographical Society in 1935, yet strangely he omits any mention of the most significant event of this project—the Walwal Incident.^[3]

Notes

1. An overview of these treaties is provided by Harold Marcus, The Life and Times of Menelik II: Ethiopia 1844-1913 (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1995), pp. 179-190
2. E. H. M. Clifford, "The British Somaliland-Ethiopia Boundary", Geographical Journal 87 (1936), p. 290
3. Clifford, "The British Somaliland-Ethiopia Boundary"

Sources

• Excerpts from the "British Embassy, Addis Ababa" by Richard Pankhurst