Commemmorating The Battle of Adwa | Emperor Haile Selassie Attends Church Service | March 1974

Описание: Saturday, March 2nd 1974.

Footage of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I attending a morning church service at which the Battle of Adowa (or Adwa) was commemmorated. This military engagement between the army of King Menelik II and an invading force from Italy was defeated in Tigray Province on March 1st 1896.

Reuters reported that the Emperor was guarded by hundreds of fully armed troops from the Imperial Guard.

Source: Reuters News Archive.

Note:

Security around the Emperor was very tight because of the series of mutinies which had broken out among units of the Ethiopian Army (Nagelle) and Air Force (Debre Zeit) in February 1974. This came to be known as the "Popular Revolution".

The background to the unrest which spread from the military to the general population stemmed from the Selassie regime’s failure to undertake economic and political reforms. There was high inflation, corruption and drought-related famine in northeastern provinces.

Then on September 12, 1974 a coup d'etat was staged against the Emperor who was arrested and imprisoned. The Provisional Military Administrative Council (The Derg), took control of the government and established Marxism-Leninism as Ethiopia’s ideology.

The monarchy was later abolished. Emperor Haile Selassie died in August 1975.