Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement - Under The Agreement

Under The Agreement

After the return of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie to the throne, an interim Anglo-Ethiopian agreement was signed 31 January 1942 between the two governments; Major General Sir Philip Euen Mitchell, Chief Political Officer of the East African British Forces High Command signed on behalf of the United Kingdom. Great Britain sent civil advisers to assist Selassie with administrative duties and also provide him with military advisors to maintain internal security and to improve and modernize the Ethiopian army. The terms of this agreement confirmed Ethiopia's status as a sovereign state, although the Ogaden region, the border regions with French Somaliland (known as the "Reserved Areas"), the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad, and the Haud, would remain temporarily under British control. The British also assumed control over currency and foreign exchange as well as imports and exports. It also reconfirmed the Klobukowski agreement of 1906, which had exempted foreigners from both Ethiopian law and her justice system, as well as giving the British minister precedence over the other diplomatic missions to Ethiopia. Lastly, the agreement contained a clause which permitted the Ethiopians to end the agreement by giving three-months' notice.

The Ethiopians soon found the implementation of this agreement oppressive, although a slight improvement over the previous attitude of the British who treated Ethiopia as occupied enemy territory. As Haile Selassie describes one aspect of the prior relationship, " took all the military equipment captured in our country...openly and boldly saying that it should not be left for the service of blacks." Another tangible example of this oppression was through British control of Ethiopia's banking and finance, which required all letters of credit to be opened in Aden and required all exports to be cleared through that port, yielding an official profit margin of 9-11%; in addition, all dollars earned by exports to the United States were required to be automatically converted to the British Pound. The Emperor and his ministers soon began to direct their efforts to three specific points: a new treaty to replace this one; a new currency to replace the East African Shilling which the British had imposed on Ethiopia; and a source for military aid which would free Ethiopia from dependence on the British.

A British-trained police force eventually replaced the former police who were in the service of local provincial governors. There were two revolts during this time: the Woyane rebellion in eastern Tigray Province, which was suppressed with the assistance of British air missions; and the other in the Ogaden which was put down by two battalions of Ethiopian forces.

Meanwhile Haile Selassie had made additional territorial demands; while his demands for the annexation of Italian Somaliland might have been a bargaining tactic, he was serious about the return of Ethiopian territories in the Ogaden and the annexation of Eritrea. These requests were ignored by the British, who were in favor of a separate Eritrean entity, and wanted to combine the Ogaden, Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland into a "Greater Somalia".