What the colonial case of Eritrea shows was the weakness and the problem of the Rist Gult system to withstand the increasing challenge of colonial aggression. The interplay of factors specific to a given polity govern the way in which it formulates strategy. The way modern Ethiopia makes strategy differs from the way Menelik's Ethiopia made it. The form of the economy, the fiscal and military organization of the state was different. It is erroneous, thus, to judge the past with the influence of the present day military strategic thinking and concept.
Military strategy is a peculiar national culture belonging to a definite historical period.
The Attempt to Establish a Protectorate over Ethiopia. In its broadest definition the term logistic signifies the total process by which the human and material resources of a country are mobilized and directed toward the accomplishment of military ends. Logistic deals with the fundamental problems of mobilizing, moving and supplying the large and disparate body which constitutes an army. The logistic base of warfare comprise the elements of manpower, provisioning, and supply of war materials. Identification of the essence of the period and analysis on the type of social system will appear in a forth coming work titled The Evolution of Ethiopian Absolutism.