In February 1842, on 7 February according to the historian Sven Rubenson, two of the most powerful lords of Ethiopia met near Debre Tabor: Ras Ali II, the regent who ruled in the name of a powerless emperor, and Dejazmach Wube Haile Maryam, master of Semien and Tigray. Wube's musketeers broke Ali's army and Ali fled the field. Then, while the victors scattered in pursuit, a small band of Ali's horsemen rode into Wube's camp and took him prisoner. Even contemporaries found the result hard to explain.
An empire without an emperor
From 1769 to 1855 Ethiopia went through the Zemene Mesafint, the Era of the Princes. Emperors still sat in Gondar, but power had passed to regional lords who fought one another for control. The strongest of them in the 1830s and 1840s was Ras Ali II of the Yejju Oromo dynasty, chosen as their leader by the chiefs at Debre Tabor in Begemder in 1831, when he was only 12 or 13, while a council and his mother Menen guided the state.1
Wube Haile Maryam set out to replace him. In 1841 a new Coptic bishop, Abuna Salama, arrived in Ethiopia and joined Wube's cause, which helped him recruit soldiers and win allies. Wube allied himself with Birru Goshu, the young ruler of Gojjam, and denounced Ali as a Muslim at heart who threatened the Church. To bind Birru to him, Wube had his own daughter, Ali's wife, taken from the church of Mahdere Maryam where she had sheltered, and married her to Birru.2
Victory, then capture
The allies marched on Debre Tabor, Ali's seat, and Ali hurried back to meet them. The French officers Ferret and Galinier, who were in Gondar at the time, put Wube's combined army at 18,000 to 20,000 men; the historian Mordechai Abir gives Ali nearly 30,000 men, mostly Oromo. Ali's army was made up largely of Oromo cavalry, and Wube's many guns gave him the advantage. Ali's line broke, he fled, and his army scattered.3
What followed is told in slightly different ways. Plowden, a British consul who arrived a few years later, writes that Birru Goshu, fearing that Wube meant to chain him after the battle, suddenly left the field with his cavalry. Ferret and Galinier and Plowden agree that Birru Aligaz, a commander of Ali's whom Ferret and Galinier call Ali's uncle, rode with a few horsemen to Wube's camp, found it almost unguarded and captured Wube, and Rubenson also names Birru Aligaz, a relative and vassal of Ali, as the man who took him. Plowden adds that the bishop was taken with him. Plowden and the traveler Mansfield Parkyns both say Wube was drunk when he was taken. As the news spread, Ali's men rallied and Wube's army fell apart.4
A strange aftermath
Ali himself did not know he had won. Plowden says he stayed away for seven days and Parkyns for eight before he returned to Debre Tabor. He gave Wube's provinces to Wube's brother, Dejazmach Merso. Under pressure from Abuna Salama he then freed Wube, who according to Ferret and Galinier paid a ransom of 2,000 thalers, and soon even helped him win back his lands from Merso. The historian Sven Rubenson calls the outcome a puzzle even to contemporaries.5
The victory settled little for Ali. Rubenson notes that Birru Goshu still openly defied him, and that Ali invaded Gojjam year after year without ever capturing him. In 1853 he was overthrown by Kassa Hailu, who was crowned Emperor Tewodros II in 1855 and ended the Era of the Princes. Ethiopia's later wars, including the victory over Italy in 1896, are told in our article on the Battle of Adwa.6
Which day?
The exact date is uncertain. In a later book Sven Rubenson gives 7 February 1842, while Mordechai Abir gives 6 February. In his biography of Tewodros, Rubenson says only February 1842. Ferret and Galinier, who were in Gondar during the campaign, write that Wube's army broke camp on 10 February 1842 and describe several more days of marching and waiting before the battle, which would place the fighting later in February. None of the sources consulted here settles the question, and Ethiopia at the time reckoned dates by its own calendar.7
