Intervention Quotes
We generally associate expansionism in Africa with the European powers, but under Menelik, Ethiopia expanded its empire greatly while the Europeans were carving up other parts of Africa. When the Italians who didn’t take Ethiopia seriously, tried to grab the territory that Menelik had already grabbed, Menelik’s forces repulsed then in a humiliating defeat for Italy at Adowa in 1896. As a Christian Empire, Menelik thought Ethiopia had a right to African expansionism along with the Christian European powers as bringing Christianity to the pagans was one of the major moral justifications of African expansionism.
The report was from Heinrich von Tschirschky, the German ambassador to Austria-Hungary. He recommended that Germany persuade Austria-Hungary to not attack Serbia, not realizing the German leaders had already planned a war with Russia and saw the issues between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia was a good excuse to implement their war plans (see {642092}).
This admission of policy failure is very unusual—especially when the speech is given abroad.