Participants and Observers of the British Intervention in Abyssinia (1867/68) according to k.u.k. Major Kodolitsch - the Austrian Observer

In 1868 the era of the unifier of the Christian Ethiopian kingdom, atse Tewodros II, ended following the intervention of the Bristish-Indian army led by General Napier. Even if this intervention is mentioned in every work on the history of modern Ethiopia, the intervention itself is not well studied. Many sources remain to be rediscovered. This prosopographic article is focussing at one forgotten source, never quoted by modern authors - the report of the official Austrian military observer to that military expedition. This source provides detail information on the individual role of virtually every officer of the intervention army, without any index, however. Therefore this article provides a full list of the persons mentioned, together with a summary of everyone's role, character and activities. This gives us the occasion to get a deeper insight in how this enormous military machinery worked and illustrates very well this crucial encounter between two fundamentally different worlds, which has marked modern Ethiopia.