British Expedition to Abyssinia The British Expedition to Abyssinia was a rescue mission and punitive expedition carried out in 1868 by the armed forces of the British Empire against the Ethiopian Empire . Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia , also known as " Theodore , " imprisoned several missionaries and two representatives of the British government in an attempt to get the attention of the British government , which had been ignoring his requests for military assistance . The punitive expedition launched by the British in response required the transportation of a sizable military force hundreds of miles across mountainous terrain lacking any road system . Harold G . Marcus described the action as " one of the most expensive affairs of honour in history . " Background . By October 1862 Emperor Tewodros ' position as ruler had become precarious : much of Ethiopia was in revolt against him , except for a small area stretching from Lake Tana east to his fortress at Magdala . He was engaged in constant military campaigns against a wide array of rebels . As a final attempt to recover his standing , Tewodros wrote to the major powers for help . As Donald Crummey recounts , " Now came the definitive attempt , at the turning point of the Emperor ' s career . Success might stabilize the internal situation ; defeat would pull out the last prop . He proposed to send embassies with the ultimate objective of obtaining military alliances and agreements for technical progress . " Tewodros sent letters to Russia , Prussia , Austria , France and Britain . The French government responded with demands on behalf of a Lazarist mission in Hamasien , at the edge of Tewodros ' realm ; they were the only country known to have responded . However , the first European to cross his path after this lack of a response happened to be Henry Stern , a British missionary . Stern had also mentioned the Emperor ' s humble origins in a book he had published ; although the reference was not intended to be insulting ( " the eventful and romantic history of the man , who , from a poor boy , in a reed - built convent became . . . the conqueror of numerous provinces , and the Sovereign of a great and extensive realm " ) it proved to be a dangerous mistake . At the time Tewodros was insisting on the truth of his descent from the Solomonic dynasty , and Tewodros expressed his rage in many ways , including having Stern ' s servants beaten to death , and Stern , together with his assistant , a Mr Rosenthal , were " chained , severely treated , and the latter thrashed on several occasions . " The British consul Charles Duncan Cameron , along with the Abuna Salama and the group of missionaries based at Gafat , all interceded for the release of the imprisoned pair , and for a while it appeared that their efforts might succeed ; but on 2 January 1864 Cameron was seized along with his staff , and all put in chains . Shortly afterwards , Tewodros ordered most of the Europeans in the royal camp put into chains . The British government sent Hormuzd Rassam , an ethnic Assyrian Christian , to negotiate a solution to this crisis , but " security in Tigre , the King ' s indecisiveness , and continuing confusion about the envoy ' s instructions " delayed Rassam ' s arrival at Tewodros ' camp until January 1866 . At first , it looked as if Rassam might succeed in the release of the hostages : the Emperor showed him great favour , establishing him at Qorata , a village on the south - eastern shores of Lake Tana , and sending him numerous gifts , and having Cameron , Stern , and the other hostages sent to his encampment . However , about this time C . T . Beke , arrived at Massawa , and forwarded letters from the hostages ' families to Tewodros asking for their release . At the least Beke ' s actions only made Tewodros suspicious . Rassam , writing in his memoirs of the incident , is more direct : " I date the change in the King ' s conduct towards me , and the misfortunes which eventually befell the members of the Mission and the old captives , from this day . " Meanwhile , Emperor Tewodros ' behavior was becoming increasingly erratic , his actions included acts of friendship towards Rassam , paranoid accusations , and sudden violence upon whoever happened to be around him . In the end , Rassam himself was made a prisoner , and one of the missionaries dispatched with the news and Tewodros ' latest demands in June 1866 . The Emperor eventually moved all of his European prisoners to his fortress on Magdala , and continued to parlay with the British until Queen Victoria announced the decision to send a military expedition to rescue the hostages 21 August 1867 . The campaign . In the eyes of Alan Moorehead , " There has never been in modern times a colonial campaign quite like the British expedition to Ethiopia in 1868 . It proceeds from first to last with the decorum and heavy inevitability of a Victorian state banquet , complete with ponderous speeches at the end . And yet it was a fearsome undertaking ; for hundreds of years the country had never been invaded , and the savage nature of the terrain alone was enough to promote failure . " The task was given to the Bombay Army , and Lieutenant - General Sir Robert Napier was given command of the expeditionary force . Intelligence was carefully gathered about Ethiopia while the size of the army was calculated and its needs estimated before a massive effort begun to meet them . " Thus , for example , forty - four trained elephants were to be sent from India to carry the heavy guns on the march , while hiring commissions were dispatched all over the Mediterranean and the Near East to obtain mules and camels to handle the lighter gear . A railway , complete with locomotives and some twenty miles ( 32 km ) of track , was to be laid across the coastal plain , and at the landing place large piers , lighthouses and warehouses were to be built . " The expedition took Maria Theresa thaler s with them to pay local expenses . The force consisted of 13 , 000 British and Indian soldiers , 26 , 000 camp followers and over 40 , 000 animals , including the elephants . The force set sail from Bombay in upwards of 280 steam and sailing ships . The advance guard of engineers landed at Zula on the Red Sea , about south of Massawa , and began to construct a port in mid - October 1867 , and by the end of the first month they had completed a pier , long ; they completed a second one by the first week of December and the railway was already reaching into the interior . At the same time an advance guard , under Sir William Lockyer Merewether , had pushed up the dry bed of the Kumayli River to the Suru Pass , where again the engineers were busy at work building a road to Senafe for the elephants , gun - carriage s , and carts . From Senafe , Merewether sent out two letters from Lieutenant - General Napier : one to Emperor Tewodros , demanding the release of the hostages ( which Rassam intercepted and destroyed , afraid this ultimatum might enrage Tewodros against the prisoners ) ; the other to the people of Ethiopia , proclaiming that he was there purely to free the captives and that he had hostile intentions only towards those who sought to oppose him . Napier arrived at Zula on 2 January 1868 , and put the finishing touches on his plan of advance before leaving on 25 January for Senafe . It took the British forces three months to trek over of mountainous terrain to the foot of the Emperor ' s fortress at Magdala . At Antalo , Napier parleyed with Ras Kassai ( later Emperor Yohannes IV ) , and won his support , which the British badly needed in their single - minded march to Magdala ; without the help , or at least indifference , of the local peoples , the British Expedition would have never reached its goal deep within the Ethiopian highlands . On 17 March , the army reached Lake Ashangi , from their goal , and here , to further lighten their loads , the troops were put on half - rations . At this point , Emperor Tewodros ' strength had already been dissolving . At the beginning of 1865 he controlled little more than Begemder , Wadla , and Delanta ( wherein the fortress of Magdala lay ) . He struggled to keep up the size of his army — which Sven Rubenson points out was his only " instrument of power " — but by mid - 1867 defections from his army had reduced its size to 10 , 000 men . Harold Marcus observes , " For a total cost of about £9 , 000 , 000 Napier set out to defeat a man who could muster only a few thousand troops and had long ago ceased to be Ethiopia ' s leader in anything but title . " At the same time the British marched south to Magdala , Tewodros advanced from the west , up the course of the Bashilo River , with the cannons ( including his prize creation , the massive Sebastopol ) that he had induced the European missionaries and foreign artisans to build for him at Gafat . The Emperor intended to arrive at Magdala before the British , and although he had a shorter distance to cross and had started his journey ten days before Napier left Zula his success was not certain , and he only arrived at his fortress ten days before his opponents . Rubenson notes that it was Tewodros , not the British expedition , which had to travel through hostile territory , for Tewodros ' soldiers Tewodros provided one last demonstration of his lack of diplomatic skills on 17 February , when after accepting the submission of the inhabitants of Delanta , he asked them why they had waited until he appeared with his army . When they answered that they had been prevented by rebellious Oromo and Gobeze , " he told them they were as bad as the others , and ordered them to be plundered . . . . Consequently , when the King [ Tewodros ] further ordered them to be attacked , they all fought bravely , and , in conjunction with the inhabitants of Dawunt , killed a great number of his soldiers and seized their arms and mules . " Not only had Tewodros isolated himself for several days in a hostile territory within sight of his last stronghold , a deputation from the Yejju , who were coming to him to offer their submission , upon hearing Tewodros ' savagery promptly turned around . On 9 April , the lead elements of the British force reached the Bashilo , " and on the following morning , Good Friday , they crossed the stream barefooted , stooping to fill their water - bottles on the way . " On the afternoon of that Good Friday , the decisive battle began outside Magdala Fortress . The British had to get past the plateau at Arogye , which lay across the only open route to Magdala . The way was barred by thousands of armed Ethiopian soldiers camped around the hillsides with up to 30 artillery pieces . The British , not expecting the Ethiopians to leave their defenses and attack them , and paid little attention to them as they formed up to deploy . Tewodros , however , ordered an attack , and thousands of soldiers , many of them armed only with spears , charged the British positions . The British quickly deployed to meet the charging mass , and poured devastating fire into their ranks . During the fighting , an advance guard unit overpowered some of the Ethiopian artillery crews and captured their artillery pieces . After a 90 - minute chaotic battle , the Ethiopians retreated back to Magdala . After repelling the Ethiopian attack , the British force moved onto Magdala the following day . As the British approached , Tewodros released two hostages on parole to offer terms . Napier insisted on release of the hostages and an unconditional surrender . Tewodros refused to unconditionally surrender , but released the European hostages over the next two days , while the native hostages had their hands and feet amputated before being thrown over the edge of the precipice surrounding the plateau . The British continued their advance , and laid siege to the fortress of Magdala . The British attack began with a bombardment with mortars , rocket s , and artillery . Infantry units then opened fire to provide cover for the Royal Engineers as they blew up the gates of the fortress . British infantry then poured in and opened fire , and advanced with fixed bayonets , forcing the defenders to retreat to the second gate . The British then advanced and took the second gate , where they found Tewodros dead inside . Tewodros had committed suicide with a pistol that had originally been a gift from Queen Victoria rather than face captivity . " When Tewodros preferred self - inflicted death to captivity , he deprived the British of this ultimate satisfaction and laid the foundation for his own resurrection as a symbol of the defiant independence of the Ethiopian . " When Tewodros ' death was announced , the defenders ceased all resistance . Tewodros ' body was cremated and his ashes buried inside a local church by the priests . The church itself was guarded by soldiers of the 33rd Regiment , who looted it , taking away a variety of gold , silver , and brass crosses , as well as filigree works and rare tabot s . Before the British departed Ethiopia , Sir Robert allowed his troops to loot and burn Magdala , including its churches , as a punitive measure . British troops looted many historical and religious artifacts , which they took with them back to Britain . Napier also ordered the destruction of Tewodros ' artillery . Aftermath . Following the destruction of Magdala , The British began to retrace their steps back to Zula , " an imposing procession , with the bands playing and the flags leading the way , but the army soon learned that they had earned no gratitude in Ethiopia ; they were treated as simply another warlike tribe on the move , and now that they were going away like weak and defeated men they were an obvious target for attack . " At Senafe , the British rewarded Ras Kassai for his services with a formidable quantity of supplies , which Marcus estimates were worth " approximately £500 , 000 " : six mortars , six howitzers , about 900 muskets and rifles , stocks of ammunition which included 585 , 480 percussion cap s , and other goods and supplies . These later aided his rise to Emperor , against such talented rivals as Wagshum Gobeze and Menelik of Shewa . By 2 June Napier had reached Zula , and as the men were loaded into the ships , the base camp was dismantled ; Napier boarded the " Feroze " on 10 June , and set sail for England by way of the Suez Canal . In London , Napier was created Baron Napier of Magdala in recognition of his achievement . At Gibraltar , where he served as governor from 1876 to 1883 , there is a battery named in his honour , Napier of Magdala Battery . The British expedition took a large amount of treasure , manuscripts and many religious items such as tabot s , some of which are in private collections and some of which one can view today in various museums and libraries in Europe . The manuscripts ignited an interest in Ethiopic studies in the West . A few of the items have since been returned to Ethiopia . The most important of these was the crown of Tewodros II , which George V ( the British King - Emperor ) personally presented to the future Emperor Haile Selassie on his visit to England in 1925 . Battle honour . The success of the expedition led to the institution of a battle honour , Abyssinia , which was awarded to units of the British Indian Army that had participated in the campaign . The units that participated from the campaign belonged , with the exception of the Madras Sappers , to the Bengal and Bombay Presidency Armies . In fiction . The 1868 Expedition forms the backdrop to George MacDonald Fraser ' s novel " Flashman on the March " and Mason McCann Smith ' s " When the Emperor Dies " .