Talk:Battle of Magdala

Name of this Battle
This article is almost the only place where this battle is named for Magdala; this is understandable because many of the usual historians (e.g., Henze, Bahru Zewde, Rubenson, Marcus) refer to Magdala as where Tewodros met his end. However, this battle did not take place on the amba, but on the plain before it which is called Aroge, & writers like Sven Rubenson point out that the proper name of this engagement is the Battle of Aroge (The Survival of Ethiopian Independence, p. 263). Unless someone objects, I'd like to move the name of this article to its proper name. -- llywrch (talk) 06:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Object The battle may have started on the Arogye Plain, which is the open ground in front of the entrance to the gate of Magdala, see:- Image:1867-68 Abyssinia Expedition, 40 Magdala plateau.jpg. However it continued up into the fortress which was the objective of the expedition, not the Arogye Plain. It was inside the Koket Bir, entrance gate See:- Image:1867-68 Abyssinia Expedition, 41 Kokit-Bur Gate, Magdala.jpg and Image:1867-68 Abyssinia Expedition, (47), Magdala, sentry post over gate, (Custom).jpg, onto Magdala where Tewdros II shot himself, rather than be captured. If you type 'Battle of Arogye' into Google you will get 10 hits, Type 'Battle of Magdala' and you will get 40,000. Magdala is historically the place by which the expedition and battle is known. Most battles are fought on land around the place they are known by, as opposed to on or in it. See: Battle of Monte Cassino, Battle of Guilford Court House, Battle of Waterloo to name but three similar examples. Richard Harvey (talk) 09:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The principal -- if not decisive part -- of the battle occurred on the Aroge plains on Good Friday (10 April), 1868. A lull followed during which Tewodros vacillated amongst different options -- negotiations, flight, & a first attempt to kill himself. The British assaulted Magdala took part on Monday, 13 April, against a feeble resistance, & was over in about 15 minutes. When the British left Magdala on the 18th, their occupation was longer than the "battle" you describe, even including the lull in action. -- llywrch (talk) 19:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you are confusing events. The conflict on the Arogye Plain, 10th of August, was an additional and unexpected event that happened prior to the intended assault on Magdala, as Lord Napier reported in his Despatch to London:- "Yesterday Morning (we) descended three thousand nine hundred feet to Bashilo River and approached Magdala with First Brigade to Recconoitre it. Theodore opened fire with seven guns from outwork one thousand feet above us, and three thousand five hundred men of garrison made a gallant sortie which was repulsed with a very heavy loss and the enemy driven into Magdala. British loss, twenty wounded..."  It was 3 days later on the on Easter Sunday (13 April) that the assault on Magdala was launched. Your claim of 15 minutes for the assault on Magdala is somewhat misleading. It may have taken only 15 minutes for the defenders within the Koket Bir to surrender after the 33rd Regiment had gained access to the summit, however the assault itself took longer. It started with a preliminary bombardment of 18 guns and morters plus the rocket tubes manned by the Naval Brigade. Page 189 of the 33rd Regiments history, by JM Savoury and ACS Savoury, states that:- the 33rd was committed to leading the attack supported by a detachment of Madras Sappers and Miners, tasked to destroy the Citadels gates. The attacking force was assembled on a narrow rocky ledge. The only route to the summit 500 foot above them was up a steep boulder strew track bounded on one side by a sheer drop and on the other by a perpendicular basalt cliff. The track led to a gate consisting of a pair of massive timber doors set into a 15 foot long tunnel, over that was a thick prickly hedge strengthened with stakes. Beyond that they had to scramble up a 70 foot escarpment covered in thorn bushes and rocks, at the top of which was another thorn and stake hedge. Beyond which lay another boulder strewn slope and a second fortified gateway. Unfortunately the Madras sappers had forgotten to take their assault ladders and had then to return for explosives to blow up the first gateway. Whilst under fire the 33rd continued the assault and bypassed the first gate. after finally reaching the second gate Private Bergin helped Drummer Magnar scramble up the cliff to the side of it, then cut through the thorn hedged fence to allow sufficient troops through it, still under fire, to capture the gateway and open it to let the main force through.  Obviously this assault took considerably longer than 15 minutes. Had it not then I doubt Magnar and Bergin would have been awarded their Victoria Cross medals!  Note that even Seymour McClean, the Patron of the Magdala Campaign to return artifacts from the event to Ethiopia refers to the battle as 'The Battle of Magdala', in an interview for The Independant newspaper, in an article written by Adrian Cooper, April 1998 . Richard Harvey (talk) 00:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If I am confusing events, then so is the article for it combines the two separate engagements into one. If we were to split these engagements into two, then "Battle of Arogye Plain" would refer to the actions of 10 August, & "Battle of Magdala" to the assault on the amba. (As for the time the assault took, I'll concede the point to you, but note that Sven Rubenson appears to be relying on an Ethiopian version that differs from the British.) In any case, since there is evidence for the usage "Battle of Aroge", I will create a redirect for that.


 * As for the Independant article you point to, there are some obvious errors in it: one that I noticed off the bat is that "Abuna" is a title, not the name of a person as the article suggests; another is that "Kwer'ata Re'esu" is a major religious icon of Ethiopia, whose importance the article minimizes, & someone involved in creating this article did not perform enough research to explain how it left Ethiopia. (At least that's how it reads to me; the article's formatting falls apart only a little way into the text. Another Englishman, though, has the answer: the Ethiopian expert, Richard Pankhurst. I would be wary of relying on that interview alone to source any facts. -- llywrch (talk) 20:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Apologies for the delay in responding, I seem to have accidentally deleted the article from my watch list. I think the question here is purely down to interpretation of what is and is not considered a 'battle'. I don't really feel that the action on the arogye plain was a separate battle in the strictest sense of the word. More of a pre-emptive attack by Tewdros to stop the column reaching Magdala in the hope he could catch the British off-guard. The Arogye plain is the land below the escarpment on which the fortress sits. Perhaps putting it in perspective against a WW2 event may put it into perspective:- In 1943 the allies invaded Anzio which was a 'battle'. After winning that the allies moved on to Rome, expecting to have a 'battle' there. Enroute they came under a significant German counter attack at Campoleone, though this turned into a series of intense counter attacks from the 3rd to the 18th of February (15 days) none is classed as a 'battle'. However to the east a separate column, was enroute to Cassino they expected to make a surprise attack on a relatively undefended Cisterna which was in fact an assembly point for troops. That engagement lasted from the 30th of January to the 2nd of February (3 days) and is classed as a 'battle'. The attack by Tewdros's forces on Napiers advancing column lasted only long enough for his cavalry and ground troops to charge forward across the plain, before the British artillery and infantry volleys decimated them and caused the survivors to retreat inside the gate to the fortress. Richard Harvey (talk) 09:28, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem about the delay; I have an off-wiki commitment which keeps me from responding as swiftly as I would like. (And since my proposed move was based on "if no one objects", & you did...) However, I am confused about your response. First you write that "I am confusing events", & when I try to make them distinct into two battles, you then argue that they the same battle. What exactly am I confused about here? I believe that I have found evidence that some people call this the "Battle of Aroge", so I would like to create a redirect with that name to this article: at this moment, this is the only change I am proposing here. (And I had interpreted your silence as a lack of interest on this specific point, since you achieved the goal of preventing me from moving this article to a new name.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi! I noted your commitment, family should always come first, more so the little ones! :) I think we are probably getting at cross purposes here. My only objection was to renaming this article as Battle of Aroge I have no problem with you creating a redirect to the article, perhaps adding: (also referred to as the Battle of Aroge) in the header of this article, with a reference for its use would also be appropriate. Richard Harvey (talk) 23:31, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Burning and looting
It is important to the understanding of this battle and its aftermath that the burning of the city and the vast amount of loot collected be included in this article, especially since this remains on ongoing issue between the governments. If an editor feels otherwise, let us discuss on the Talk page. rewinn (talk) 18:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If no-one objects, I'll put a qualifier into the article noting that the bit about the elephants is from an historian (I haven't read the actual diary myself ...must put it on the list of things to do... that Pankhurst edited.) He seems to have done quite a lot of historical work on Ethiopia, see rewinn (talk) 19:34, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The Black Watch not mentioned?
Ferguson notes that the Black Watch were essentially the vanguard of the battle, they are not mentioned? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.81.225 (talk) 20:29, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Different campaign, different century. The 2nd Battalion, The Black Watch, fought in Wavell's Abyssinia campaign of 1941

In 1868, the 42nd Royal Highlanders (The Black Watch) were either about to leave or already on their way home from India to Britain. The 73rd Perthshire Regt, who would later from 2nd Bn., Black Watch), were in Hong Kong. JF42 (talk) 21:07, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Casualty figures.
The casualty figures cite Nial Fergusons book, Empire : how Britain made the modern world. He clearly states there were 2 dead on the British side. The causality figures are being vandalised and infalted to huge numbers with no source cited. 213.123.215.169 (talk) 19:28, 2 February 2023 (UTC)