83-508: The Ethiopian National Defense Force ( ENDF ) ( Amharic : የኢፌዲሪ መከላከያ ሠራዊት , romanized : Ye'īfēdērī mekelakeya šerawīt , lit. 'FDRE Defense Force'; Oromo : Rayaa Ittisa Biyaa ) is the combined military force of Ethiopia . ENDF is consisted of 10 command forces which is controlled by the Chief of General Staff . Commander in Chief – Abiy Ahmed Chief of
166-523: A holy language by the Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide. Early Afro-Asiatic populations speaking proto- Semitic , proto- Cushitic and proto- Omotic languages would have diverged by the fourth or fifth millennium BC. Shortly afterwards, the proto-Cushitic and proto-Omotic groups would have settled in the Ethiopian highlands, with the proto-Semitic speakers crossing
249-524: A pidgin as early as the 4th century AD to enable communication between Aksumite soldiers speaking Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages, but this hypothesis has not garnered widespread acceptance. The preservation in Old Amharic of VSO word order and gutturals typical of Semitic languages, Cushitic influences shared with other Ethio-Semitic languages (especially those of the Southern branch), and
332-528: A multi-ethnic defense force. This process entailed the creation of a new professional army and officer class and the demobilization of many of the irregulars who had fought against the military government. With the collapse of the Soviet Union Ethiopia again turned to the Western powers for alliance and assistance. However, many Tigrayan officers remained in command positions. This transformation
415-514: A powerful blow against the Italian army. The Ethiopian army had been able to execute the strategic plan of Menelik's headquarters, despite a feudal system of organization and adverse circumstances. A special role was played by the Russian military advisers and the volunteers of Leontiev's mission. Secondly, the Ethiopian army was based on a feudal system of organization, and as a result, nearly
498-571: A reign of terror by the Ethiopian army. In late 2011, Ethiopian troops returned to Somalia (coinciding with Kenya's invasion ) in large numbers for the first time since their 2009 withdrawal. In 2014 the Ethiopian troops that deployed to a buffer zone in some parts of southern Somalia were integrated into AMISOM . Amharic language Amharic ( / æ m ˈ h ær ɪ k / am- HARR -ik or / ɑː m ˈ h ɑːr ɪ k / ahm- HAR -ik ; native name : አማርኛ , romanized : Amarəñña , IPA: [amarɨɲːa] )
581-652: A unit, the Imperial Bodyguard only participated in the Battle of Maychew (31 March 1936), where they inflicted heavy losses on the 2nd Eritrean Division until the Ethiopian troops were forced to withdraw; the Imperial Guard thereafter served in the rearguard. Afterward, many of its members joined the various groups of the Ethiopian resistance . One of these was Kosrof Gorgorios Boghossian, a colonel in
664-450: A very high degree, with Imperial Russian Army officer Alexander Bulatovich writing thus: "Many consider the Ethiopian army to be undisciplined. They think that it is not in any condition to withstand a serious fight with a well-organized European army, claiming that the recent war with Italy doesn't prove anything. I will not begin to guess the future and will say only this. Over the course of four months, I watched this army closely. It
747-751: Is a South Ethio-Semitic language, along with Gurage , Argobba , Harari , and others. Due to the social stratification of the time, the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Ethio-Semitic language and eventually absorbed the Semitic population. Amharic thus developed with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum . The northernmost South Ethio-Semitic speakers, or the proto-Amhara, remained in constant contact with their North Ethio-Semitic neighbors, evidenced by linguistic analysis and oral traditions. A 7th century southward shift of
830-817: Is an Ethiopian Semitic language , which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages . It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas , and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns in Ethiopia . The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia's federal regions . As of 2020, it has over 33,700,000 mother-tongue speakers and more than 25,100,000 second language speakers in 2019, making
913-579: Is an abugida , and the graphemes of the Amharic writing system are called fidäl . It is derived from a modification of the Ge'ez script . Each character represents a consonant+vowel sequence, but the basic shape of each character is determined by the consonant, which is modified for the vowel. Some consonant phonemes are written by more than one series of characters: / ʔ / , / s / , / tsʼ / , and / h / (the last one has four distinct letter forms). This
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#1732765783999996-663: Is because these fidäl originally represented distinct sounds, but phonological changes merged them. The citation form for each series is the consonant+ ä form, i.e. the first column of the fidäl . The Amharic script is included in Unicode , and glyphs are included in fonts available with major operating systems. As in most other Ethiopian Semitic languages , gemination is contrastive in Amharic. That is, consonant length can distinguish words from one another; for example, alä 'he said', allä 'there is'; yǝmätall 'he hits', yǝmmättall 'he will be hit'. Gemination
1079-501: Is called an abugida ( አቡጊዳ ). The graphemes are called fidäl ( ፊደል ), which means "script", "alphabet", "letter", or "character". There is no universally agreed-upon Romanization of Amharic into Latin script . The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common among linguists specializing in Ethiopian Semitic languages. Amharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia, language of
1162-503: Is in Africa.' ልጁ Lǝǧ-u the boy ተኝቷል täññǝtʷall. asleep is ልጁ ተኝቷል Lǝǧ-u täññǝtʷall. {the boy} {asleep is} 'The boy is asleep.' ( -u is a definite article. Lǝǧ is 'boy'. Lǝǧu is 'the boy') አየሩ Ayyäru the weather ደስ däss pleasant Imperial Bodyguard The Kebur Zebenya ( Amharic : ክቡር ዘበኛ , romanized : kəbur zãbãňňya , lit. 'honorable guard')
1245-469: Is mostly heard as the affricate sound [ t͡sʼ ]. The rhotic consonant is realized as a trill when geminated and a tap otherwise. The closed central unrounded vowel ⟨ə⟩ /ɨ/ and mid-central vowel ⟨ä⟩ /ə/ are generally fronted to [ ɪ ] and [ ɛ ], respectively, following palatal consonants , and generally retracted and rounded to [ ʊ ] and [ ɔ ], respectively, following labialized velar consonants . The Amharic script
1328-416: Is not indicated in Amharic orthography, but Amharic readers typically do not find this to be a problem. This property of the writing system is analogous to the vowels of Arabic and Hebrew or the tones of many Bantu languages , which are not normally indicated in writing. Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu , who was an advocate of Amharic orthography reform , indicated gemination in his novel Love to
1411-399: Is unique in the world. And I can bear witness to the fact that it is not quite so chaotic as it seems at first glance, and that on the contrary, it is profoundly disciplined, though in its own unique way. For every Abyssinian, war is normal business, and military skills and rules of army life in the field enter in the flesh and blood of each of them, just as do the main principles of tactics. On
1494-481: The M1 Garand .30-06 , M1 carbine .30 and some had M1911 .45 ACP pistols. "It remained the elite force of the empire," notes historian Bahru Zewde, "until discredited in the wake of the attempted coup of 1960 ." That unsuccessful coup had been planned by its commander Brigadier-General Mengistu Neway , and his brother Germame Neway . In 1961 it numbered nine battalions ; in 1969 some 7,000 men. During
1577-652: The Ottoman Empire 's attempt to expand from a coastal base at Massawa during the Ottoman conquest of Habesh was defeated. The Army of the Ethiopian Empire was also able to defeat the Egyptians in 1876 at Gura , led by Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV . Clapham wrote in the 1980s that the "Abyssinians [had suffered] from a 'superiority complex' which may be traced to Gundet, Gura and Adwa". Following
1660-534: The Sinai Peninsula into Asia . A later return movement of peoples from South Arabia would have introduced the Semitic languages to Ethiopia. Based on archaeological evidence, the presence of Semitic speakers in the territory date to some time before 500 BC. Linguistic analysis suggests the presence of Semitic languages in Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC. Levine indicates that by the end of that millennium,
1743-649: The Tekil Brigade ) as well as troops from Ghana, Morocco and Tunisia. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie raised some 3,000 Imperial Bodyguard personnel- about 10 percent of the Ethiopian army's entire strength at that time-and made it part of the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo, along with an air force squadron. This volunteer battalion from the Imperial Bodyguard were authorized by the Emperor. The Tekil (or "Tekel") Brigade
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#17327657839991826-504: The total number of speakers over 58,800,000. Amharic is the largest, most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the second most spoken mother-tongue in Ethiopia (after Oromo ). Amharic is also the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic ). Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script . The segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units
1909-539: The "Nabalbal" ("Flame") force was created, subdivided into battalion-sized units of 400. Each battalion-sized unit was known as a hayl (force), and 20 were created within sixteen months. The "Nabalbal" units entered combat in 1977. When Ethiopian intelligence sources discovered Somali planning to seize the Ogaden, militia brigades were also created; first 30, then a total of 61 brigades totaling 143,350 by 1977–78. It appears that there were five regular line divisions active by
1992-692: The 1977–1978 Ogaden War . The Ethiopian army grew considerably under the Derg (1974–1987), and the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia under Mengistu (1987–1991), especially during the latter regime. The Library of Congress estimated forces underarms in 1974 at 41,000. By July 1975 the International Institute for Strategic Studies was listing a mechanised division in addition to three infantry divisions. Ayele writes that in November 1975,
2075-547: The Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, or the Derg ( Amharic "Committee"), was officially announced 28 June 1974 by a group of military officers to maintain law and order due to the powerlessness of the civilian government following widespread mutiny in the armed forces of Ethiopia earlier that year. Its members were not directly involved in those mutinies, nor was this the first military committee organized to support
2158-646: The Army. The three divisions seemingly included the Third Division in the Ogaden , seen as a hardship post. While technically the Imperial Bodyguard ( Kebur Zabagna ) was responsible to the Army Commander, in reality, its commander received his orders directly from the Emperor. Balambaras Abebe Aregai was one of the noted patriotic resistance leaders of Shoa (central Ethiopia) that rose to preeminence in
2241-641: The BMME from the jurisdiction of East Africa Command at Nairobi and made it responsible to the Ethiopian Minister of War. Ethiopia bought twenty AH-IV tankettes from Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s. They were based on the Romanian R-1 variant and arrived in Djibouti on 9 May 1950 after which they were carried by rail to Addis Ababa . They were used until the 1980s when they participated in
2324-572: The Derg was announced. The Derg, which originally consisted of soldiers at the capital, broadened its membership by including representatives from the 40 units of the Ethiopian Army , Air Force , Navy , Kebur Zabagna (Imperial Guard), Territorial Army and Police : each unit was expected to send three representatives, who were supposed to be privates, NCOs, and junior officers up to the rank of major. According to Bahru Zewde, "senior officers were deemed too compromised by close association to
2407-520: The ENDF and caused heavy losses, which had reached unsustainable levels by the end of 2007. Oxford Analytica observed at the that the Ethiopian military aimed to win a war of attrition against the Somali insurgency. ENDF troops were bogged down and facing a multi front war with no prospect of victory. By Autumn of 2008, the insurgency controlled more than 80% of the territory that had been previously lost in
2490-484: The ENDF. In early 2007, after the military occupation of Mogadishu and Somali insurgency began, Ethiopian troops launched major offensives in Mogadishu. Large scale bombardments were carried out on Mogadishu neighborhoods deemed to be insurgent strongholds. ENDF forces were primarily responsible for the large scale bombardment and significant civilian losses that occurred in the city. Human Rights Watch reported that
2573-588: The Emperor established the Imperial Territorial Army as a reserve force that provided military training to civil servants. In 1960 the U.S. Army Area Handbook for Ethiopia described the very personalized command arrangements then used by the Emperor: The Emperor is by constitutional provision Commander-in-Chief, and to him are reserved all rights respecting the size of the forces and their organization and command, together with
Ethiopian National Defense Force - Misplaced Pages Continue
2656-519: The Emperor, Haile Selassie , which included the power to arrest not only military officers but government officials at every level. Soon both former Prime Ministers Tsehafi Taezaz Aklilu Habte-Wold , and Endelkachew Makonnen , along with most of their cabinets, most regional governors, many senior military officers, and officials of the Imperial court found themselves imprisoned. When the Derg gained control of Ethiopia, they lessened their reliance on
2739-687: The Eritrean insurgents. By the beginning of 1981 recruitment for the 21st and 22nd Mountain Infantry Divisions was underway; soon afterward, preparations for the large Operation Red Star were stepping up. In April 1988 the Derg reorganized the army. The restoration of relations with Somalia meant that forces could be transferred from the First Revolutionary Army in the Ogaden, to the Second and Third Revolutionary Armies ,
2822-402: The Ethiopian army extensively utilized BM-21 Grad rocket shelling to bombard densely populated Mogadishu neighborhoods. The ENDF characterized the violence in this period as being part of a 'final push' against the rebels, but the fierce fighting in Mogadishu during the first half of 2007 failed to quell the growing insurgency. Urban warfare in Mogadishu proved to be especially difficult for
2905-610: The Ethiopian military, which included the Kebur Zabagna. The unit was organized in three battalions of trained regular infantry armed with rifles, machine guns and mortars; one battalion consisted of men from the earlier mahal safari . The Kebur Zabagna also had one heavy machine gun company. It was commanded by Ethiopian graduates of Saint Cyr , the French military academy, at the time of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia . As
2988-469: The Ethiopianist tradition they are often transcribed with a dot below the letter. The notation of central vowels in the Ethiopianist tradition is shown in angled brackets. The voiced bilabial plosive /b/ is phonetically realized as a voiced labial approximant [β̞] medially between sonorants in non- geminated form. The fricative ejective / sʼ / is heard as a fricative ejective [ sʼ ], but
3071-638: The First Division had its headquarters at Addis Ababa (First, Second, Third Brigades, 5,300 strong); the Second Division was headquartered at Asmara , with the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Twelfth Brigades (4,500 strong); and Third Division Harar (with the Fourth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Brigades, 6,890 strong) respectively. The three divisions had a total of 16,832 troops. In May 1959,
3154-563: The General Staff – Field Marshal Birhanu Jula Deputy Chief of the General Staff – General Abebaw Taddese Notable High Commanders – The Ethiopian army's origins and military traditions date back to the earliest history of Ethiopia . Due to Ethiopia's location between the Middle East and Africa, it has long been in the middle of Eastern and Western politics and has been subject to foreign invasion and aggression. In 1579,
3237-523: The Grave by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated, but this practice is rare. Punctuation includes the following: One may construct simple Amharic sentences by using a subject and a predicate . Here are a few simple sentences: ኢትዮጵያ ʾItyop̣p̣ya Ethiopia አፍሪካ ʾAfrika Africa ውስጥ wǝsṭ in ናት nat is ኢትዮጵያ አፍሪካ ውስጥ ናት ʾItyop̣p̣ya ʾAfrika wǝsṭ nat {Ethiopia} {Africa} {in} {is} 'Ethiopia
3320-621: The Italians. During the Scramble for Africa , Ethiopia remained the only nation that had not been colonized by European colonial powers , due in part to their defeat of Italy in the First Italo-Ethiopian War. However, with Ethiopia surrounded by European colonies, the necessity of ensuring that the Ethiopian army was well-maintained became apparent to the Ethiopian government. The Ethiopian government trained its troops to
3403-622: The Kebur Zabagna and of Armenian descent, who was the father of noted artist Skunder Boghossian Following the return of Emperor Haile Selassie to Ethiopia, the Kebur Zabagna was reconstituted, and a Swedish military mission aided in its training. Men for the Kagnew Battalion , which fought in the Korean War , were drawn from the Imperial Bodyguard. During the Korean War they were armed with American weapons which included
Ethiopian National Defense Force - Misplaced Pages Continue
3486-514: The Spartakiad, which became operational in 1987 under the preparation and guidance of North Koreans – seven BM-rocket battalions, and ten brigades of paramilitary forces. Forces underarms were estimated at 230,000 in early 1991. Mengistu's People's Militia had also grown to about 200,000 members. The mechanized forces of the army comprised 1,200 T-54/55 , 100 T-62 tanks, and 1,100 armored personnel carriers (APCs), but readiness
3569-491: The Third (TRA) being responsible for the provinces of Assab, Tigray, Wello , Gondar , and Gojjam . The very small Fourth Revolutionary Army became responsible for protecting the border with Kenya and those with Somalia and Sudan. In the place of the previous commands, thirteen corps were established instead, distributed amongst the army headquarters. Intensive efforts were made to enlist additional personnel. Total manpower after
3652-474: The US to station military advisors at Camp Hurso . Part of the training at Camp Hurso has included U.S. Army elements, including 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry , training the 12th, 13th and 14th Division Reconnaissance Companies, which from July 2003 were being formed into a new Ethiopian anti-terrorism battalion. Approximately 50,000 to 60,000 ENDF troops backed by tanks, helicopter gunships and jets were involved in
3735-610: The West. Instead, they began to draw their equipment and their sources for organizational and training methods from the Soviet Union and other Comecon countries, especially Cuba . During this period, Ethiopian forces were often locked in counter-insurgency campaigns against various guerrilla groups. They honed both conventional and guerrilla tactics during campaigns in Eritrea, and by repelling an invasion launched by Somalia in
3818-552: The administration of Prime Minister Endelkachew Makonnen : Alem Zewde Tessema had established the Armed Forces Coordinated Committee on 23 March. However, over the following month's radicals in the Ethiopian military came to believe he was acting on behalf of the hated aristocracy, and when a group of notables petitioned for the release of several government ministers and officials who were under arrest for corruption and other crimes, three days later
3901-449: The alphabet used for writing the Geʽez language. There are 34 basic characters, each of which has seven forms depending on which vowel is to be pronounced in the syllable. There are also 49 "wa" letters, which form compound sounds involving "w." All together, the alphabet has some 280 letters. Until 2020 Amharic was the sole official language of Ethiopia. The 2007 census reported that Amharic
3984-495: The armed forces was interrupted by mobilization for the war with Eritrea. The former allies EPRDF and PFDJ (former EPLF) led their countries Ethiopia and Eritrea, respectively, into the Eritrean-Ethiopian War of 1998. The war was fought over the disputed region of Badme . During the course of the war, some commanders and pilots from the former army and air force were recalled to duty. These officers helped turn
4067-612: The battle. Despite such qualities, because of its impetuousness, it is much more difficult to control this army than a well-drilled European army, and I can only marvel at and admire the skill of its leaders and chiefs, of which there is no shortage." In obedience to the agreement with Russia and the order of Menelik II, First Ethiopian officers began to be trained at the First Russian cadet school in 1901. 30 to 40 Ethiopian officers were trained in Russia from 1901 until 1913. Under
4150-602: The capital was now under the control of Islamist factions. Ethiopia had redeployed much of its army out of Somalia by the end of the year. On 16 January 2009, Ethiopian troops withdrew from Mogadishu. Under the command of Colonel Gabre Heard , nicknamed 'Butcher of Mogadishu', the ENDF routinely bombed civilian areas and killed thousands of civilians. Reports of atrocities by forces under his command have made him infamous in Somalia. American reporters touring rural Somalia reported that in village after village, locals had described
4233-537: The center of gravity of the Kingdom of Aksum and the ensuing integration and Christianization of the proto-Amhara also resulted in a high prevalence of Geʽez sourced lexicon in Amharic. Some time after the 9th century AD, Amharic diverged from its closest relative, Argobba , probably due to religious differences as the Argobba adopted Islam. In 1983, Lionel Bender proposed that Amharic may have been constructed as
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#17327657839994316-498: The core inhabitants of Greater Ethiopia would have consisted of dark-skinned agropastoralists speaking Afro-Asiatic languages of the Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic branches. Other scholars such as Messay Kebede and Daniel E. Alemu argue that migration across the Red Sea was defined by reciprocal exchange, if it even occurred at all, and that Ethio-Semitic-speaking ethnic groups should not be characterized as foreign invaders. Amharic
4399-574: The courts, the language of trade and everyday communications and of the military since the late 12th century. The Amhara nobles supported the Zagwe prince Lalibela in his power struggle against his brothers which led him to make Amharic Lessana Negus as well as fill the Amhara nobles in the top positions of his Kingdom. The appellation of "language of the king" ( Ge'ez : ልሳነ ነጋሢ ; "Lǝssanä nägaśi," Amharic : የነጋሢ ቋንቋ "Yä-nägaśi qʷanqʷa") and its use in
4482-416: The entire army was a peasant militia. Russian military experts advising Menelik II suggested trying to achieve full battle collision with Italians, to neutralize the superior firepower of their opponent and potentially nullify their problems with arms, training, and organization, rather than engaging in a campaign of harassment. In the battle that ensued wave upon wave of Menelik's warriors successfully attacked
4565-522: The fascist Italian force after the 1941 East African Campaign of World War II with the help of British , South African and Nigerian forces. This made Ethiopia the only country in Africa that has never been colonized. After the Italians had been driven from the country, a British Military Mission to Ethiopia (BMME), under Major General Stephen Butler, was established to reorganize the Ethiopian Army. The Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement of 1944 removed
4648-487: The fighting against Somalia. In keeping with the principle of collective security , for which Haile Selassie was an outspoken proponent, Ethiopia sent a contingent under General Mulugeta Buli , known as the Kagnew Battalion , to take part in the Korean War . It was attached to the American 7th Infantry Division , and fought in several engagements including the Battle of Pork Chop Hill . 3,518 Ethiopian troops served in
4731-403: The formation of the Imperial Bodyguard (previously known as the Mehal Sefari ) to 1917, when the Regent Ras Tafari (later the Emperor Haile Selassie ) assembled a unit under his direct control from men who had trained in the British army in Kenya as well as a few who had served under the Italians in Tripoli . In 1930 as Negus he invited a Belgian military mission to train and modernize
4814-413: The high numbers of soldiers maintained on the border by each side – a debilitatingly high number, particularly for the Eritrean side – means that the two countries are effectively still in conflict. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Ethiopian army began to train with the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) established in Djibouti . Ethiopia allowed
4897-450: The invasion. As the situation rapidly deteriorated for the military occupation in mid-2008, Ethiopian troops started experiencing desertions. The ENDF began to draw down its forces deployed in Mogadishu and across towns in Somalia. The occupation had a 'corrosive effect' on the ENDF and the Somalia deployment was viewed as a hardship post . By November 2008, insurgency had effectively won. The majority of south and central Somalia, along with
4980-406: The march, each soldier knows how to arrange necessary comforts for himself and to conserve his strength; but on the other hand, when necessary, he shows such endurance and is capable of action in conditions which are difficult even to imagine. You see remarkable expediency in all the actions and skills of this army, and each soldier has an amazingly intelligent attitude toward managing the mission of
5063-517: The military offensive against the Islamic Courts Union during December 2006. Colonel Gabre Heard , a senior ENDF officer and Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) official, was commander-in-chief of Ethiopian troops during the invasion. During 2007 military experts estimated 50,000 Ethiopian troops were occupying parts of Somalia. During the war, US Special Forces, CIA paramilitary units, and Marine units, supported by American AC-130s and helicopter gunships , directly intervened in support of
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#17327657839995146-420: The number of geographically distinct Cushitic languages that have influenced Amharic at different points in time (e.g. Oromo influence beginning in the 16th century) support a natural evolution of Amharic from a Proto-Ethio-Semitic language with considerable Cushitic influences (similar to Gurage, Tigrinya, etc.). The Amharic ejective consonants correspond to the Proto-Semitic " emphatic consonants ." In
5229-414: The order of the emperor of Ethiopia, Nikolay Leontiev directly organized the first battalion of the regular Ethiopian army in February 1899. Leontiev formed the first regular battalion, the kernel of which became the company of volunteers from the former Senegal shooters, which he chose and invited from Western Africa, with the training of the Russian and French officers. The first Ethiopian military band
5312-451: The post-liberation period. He became Ras, a general and minister of defense of the Imperial Ethiopian Armed Forces until his death in the 1960 Ethiopian coup attempt . Ethiopia contributed troops for the United Nations operation in the Congo – the United Nations Operation in the Congo - from July 1960. By 20 July 1960, 3,500 troops for ONUC had arrived in the Congo. The 3,500 consisted of 460 troops from Ethiopia (later to grow into
5395-414: The power to appoint, promote, transfer and dismiss military officers. He seeks the advice and consent of Parliament in declaring war. Traditionally, he assumes personal command of the forces in time of war.' The Office of the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Ethiopian Armed Forces directed the Commanders of the Army, Air Force, and Navy, and the three army divisions were directly responsible to the Commander of
5478-523: The regency of Tafari Mekonnen, the army was modernized. He created an Imperial Bodyguard , the Kebur Zabagna , in 1917 from the earlier Mahal Safari who had traditionally attended the Ethiopian Emperor. Its elite was trained at the French Saint-Cyr military academy or by Belgian military advisers. He also created his own military school at Holeta in January 1935. Ethiopian military aviation efforts were initiated in 1929 when Tafari Mekonnen hired two French pilots and purchased four French biplanes. By
5561-429: The regime." The committee elected Major Mengistu Haile Mariam as its chairman and Major Atnafu Abate as its vice-chairman. The Derg was initially supposed to study various military units' grievances, investigate abuses by senior officers and staff, and root out corruption in the military. In the months following its founding, the power of the Derg steadily increased. In July 1974 the Derg obtained key concessions from
5644-438: The reorganization reached a reported 388,000. In May 1988 the Derg decided that before it could concentrate on destroying the EPLF, it would have to first eliminate the TPLF. Thus Operation Adwa was devised to seize the main TPLF base at Adi Ramets in Gondar Province . The Third Revolutionary Army 's 603rd and 604th Corps were to play the main role, while the 605th Corps secured the rear, in Wello . The TRA's command structure
5727-422: The royal court are otherwise traced to the Amhara Emperor Yekuno Amlak . It is one of the official languages of Ethiopia , together with other regions like Oromo , Somali , Afar , and Tigrinya . Amharic is an Afro-Asiatic language of the Southwest Semitic group and is related to Geʽez , or Ethiopic, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church; Amharic is written in a slightly modified form of
5810-420: The state visits of Elizabeth II and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Ethiopia, Emperor Hail Selassie's Silver Jubilee Golden State Carriage was drawn by team of six Lippizaner horses and accompanied by 100 Imperial Guard on horseback in red and green uniforms. The Kebur Zabagna was disbanded after the Derg consolidated their hold on Ethiopia. The first permanent military band in the country to be established
5893-431: The tide decisively against Eritrea in 2000. Following the war's end, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, a body founded by the UN, established that the Badme region had in fact belonged to Eritrea. Although the two countries are now at peace, Ethiopia rejected the results of the international court's decision, and continued to occupy Badme. Most observers agree that Ethiopia's rejection of international law, coupled with
5976-517: The time of the 1977 Ogaden War, and the Library of Congress estimated the force size at the time as 53,500. With significant Soviet assistance, after that point the army's size grew rapidly; in 1979 it was estimated at 65,000. The 18th and 19th Mountain Infantry Divisions were then established in 1979-80 originally to seize Nakfa , in the Sahel Mountains , one of the remaining strongholds of
6059-429: The time of the Italian invasion of 1935, the air force had four pilots and thirteen aircraft. However, these efforts were not sufficient nor instituted in enough time to stop the rising tide of Italian fascism . Ethiopia was invaded and occupied by Italy during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia of 1935–36, marked for Ethiopia's first time being occupied by a foreign power. Ethiopia's patriots managed to resist and defeat
6142-473: The war, of which 121 were killed and 536 wounded. On May 22, 1953, a U.S.-Ethiopian Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement was signed. A U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group was dispatched to Ethiopia and began its work by reorganizing the army into three divisions. On 25 September 1953, Selassie created the Imperial Ministry of National Defense that unified the Army, Air Force, and Navy. By 1956,
6225-893: Was disrupted when Major General Mulatu Negash, the army commander, was supplanted by the arrival of Mengistu's favorite, Captain Lagesse Asfaw . Cuba provided a significant influx of military advisors and troops over this period, with the largest escalation during the Ogaden War with Somalia, supported by a Soviet airlift: Gebru Tareke listed Ethiopian ground forces in 1990 as comprising four revolutionary armies organized as task forces, eleven corps, twenty-four infantry divisions, and four mountain divisions, reinforced by five mechanized divisions, two airborne divisions, and ninety-five brigades, including four mechanized brigades, three artillery brigades, four tank brigades, twelve special commandos and para commandos brigades – including
6308-531: Was estimated to be only about 30 percent operational, because of the withdrawal of financial support, lack of maintenance expertise and parts from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and other nations. The army commands consisted of the: To these armies were assigned the operational forces of the army, comprising: Ethiopian soldiers have also committed many atrocities in the region of Tigray. They have used food and rape as weapons of war. In 1991 Mengistu's government
6391-562: Was organized at the same time. The Battle of Adwa is the best-known victory of Ethiopian forces over foreign invaders. It maintained Ethiopia's existence as an independent state. Fought on 1 March 1896 against the Kingdom of Italy near the town of Adwa , it was the decisive battle of the First Italo–Ethiopian War. Assisted by all of the major nobles of Ethiopia, including Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam , Ras Makonnen , Ras Mengesha Yohannes , Mikael of Wollo , and Menelik II struck
6474-556: Was overcome by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ, former EPLF ), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and other opposition factions. After the defeat of the military government, the provisional government disbanded the former national army and relied on its own guerrilla fighters. In 1993, however, the Tigrayan-led government announced plans to create
6557-647: Was provided with training and equipped from different foreign countries "to assure reliability and retention of power." The military consisted of the following: Imperial Bodyguard (also known as the "First Division", 8,000 men); three army divisions; services which included the Airborne, Engineers, and Signal Corps; the Territorial Army (5,000 men); and the police (28,000 men). Among reported U.S. equipment deliveries to Ethiopia were 120 M59 and 39 M75 armored personnel carriers. The Coordinating Committee of
6640-475: Was spoken by 21.6 million native speakers in Ethiopia. More recent sources state the number of first-language speakers in 2018 as nearly 32 million, with another 25 million second-language speakers in Ethiopia. Additionally, 3 million emigrants outside of Ethiopia speak the language. Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic. Furthermore, Amharic is considered
6723-543: Was stationed in Stanleyville . Aman Mikael Andom commanded the Third Division during the 1964 Ethiopian–Somali Border War . He later became chief of staff of the Armed Forces in July 1974, and then Minister of Defense. He then became chairman of the Derg from September to December 1974. Emperor Haile Selassie divided the Ethiopian military into separate commands. The US Army Handbook for Ethiopia notes that each service
6806-420: Was still underway when war with Eritrea broke out in 1998, a development that saw the ranks of the armed forces swell along with defense expenditures. Although the armed forces have significant battlefield experience, their militia orientation has complicated the transition to a structured, integrated military. Ranks and conventional units were only adopted in 1996. A United States-assisted effort to restructure
6889-720: Was the Ethiopian imperial guard . Also known as the First Division , this unit served the dual purposes of providing security for the Emperor of Ethiopia , and being an elite infantry division . It was not, however, part of the organizational structure of the Ethiopian regular army as it was part of the Zebagna , the Addis Ababa Guard. The Kebur Zabagna was based in Addis Ababa . Richard Pankhurst dates
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