page_title: Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala
section_title: Abyssinia
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala / Abyssinia
caption_attribution_description: Men of the Day No.177: Caricature of Gen Lord Napier of Magdala GCB. Caption reads: "The British Expedition"
context_page_description: Robert Cornelis Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala GCB GCSI FRS was a British Indian Army officer. He fought in the First Anglo-Sikh War and the Second Anglo-Sikh War before seeing action as chief engineer during the second relief of Lucknow in March 1858 during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. He also served in the Second Opium War as commander of the 2nd division of the expeditionary force which took part in the Battle of Taku Forts, the surrender of Peking's Anting Gate and the entry to Peking in 1860. He subsequently led the punitive expedition to Abyssinia July 1867, defeating the Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia with minimal loss of life among his own forces and rescuing the hostages of Tewodros.
context_section_description: Napier achieved his greatest fame as an army officer when he led the expedition of 1868 against Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian ruler was holding a number of Protestant missionaries hostage, in his mountain capital of Magdala, as well as two British diplomats who had attempted to negotiate their freedom (Tewodros had unwisely taken them hostage as well). After months of planning and other preparations, the advance guard of engineers landed at Zula on the Red Sea to construct a port on 30 October 1867; Napier himself arrived in Zula on 2 January 1868, and on 25 January 1868 led his troops south into the Ethiopian Highlands.
  The expedition involved crossing 400 miles (644 km) of mountainous terrain lacking roads or bridges occupied by local people with a known history of hostility towards outsiders. The expedition overcame the first obstacle, the terrain, by thorough logistical planning and engineering ability. Shrewd diplomacy dealt with the second obstacle, local opposition. On the one hand, Napier made it clear to the Ethiopians that the sole intent of the British force was to rescue the imprisoned Europeans—not conquest; on the other, Napier met with local potentates such as Ras Kassa (the future Emperor Yohannes IV) and arranged to purchase needed supplies with the 4.35 million Maria Theresa thalers (the preferred currency of the area) the British had purchased from the mint in Vienna. What helped Napier was the general disaffection with, if not hostility to, Tewodros, and a desire to replace him, held by several native leaders, as well as a general sense that his hostage-taking was bound to lead to trouble.
  Napier's troops reached the foot of Magdala on 9 April 1868. The next day, Good Friday, he defeated the 9,000 troops still loyal to Tewodros at the Battle of Magdala for the loss of only 2 British lives. Although Emperor Tewodros surrendered his hostages and made repeated efforts for a negotiated surrender, the distrustful Napier pressed on and ordered an assault on the mountain redoubt on 13 April 1868. The British captured Magdala, and Emperor Tewodros killed himself, leaving a grandiose statement that he preferred to "fall into the hands of God, rather than man."  Napier then ordered the destruction of Tewodros' artillery and the burning of Magdala as retribution. This included the expedition and its troops looting many local artifacts, which they took back to Britain. The artifacts still reside in collections in the UK, despite representations by some for their return.
  After the Ethiopian campaign, Napier was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Freeman of the City of London. He was also elevated to the peerage as Baron Napier of Magdala on 11 July 1868 and granted an annuity for life.
caption: "The British Expedition". Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1878.
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