Sep 13, 2026 · 1 hr 13 min · 22 segments
Who was Emperor Tewodros II, the colourful and controversial Emperor of Abyssinia? Why did he brutally imprison a number of British emissaries, and how did Queen Victoria respond? And, how would this…
Dominic SandbrookHost
Tom HollandHost
So that is from a memoir by one of Victorian Britain's most decorated officers, General Sir Harry Flashman VC, recalling his part in what he, in his memoir, calls the strangest campaign in the history of British arms.
And this is the subject of today's episode and our next episode, the Abyssinian Expedition of 1868.
And I think it's fair to say that this isn't an expedition that is particularly well-known, not one of the kind of the classic Victorian expeditions, but it is a banger.
Uh, and if you go to pretty much any of Britain's leading museums, so the British Museum, the British Library, the V&A, the Bodleian, you will find, uh, manuscripts or relics or jewels or treasures that were brought back to Britain from this expedition.
And Dominic, we get complaints sometimes, don't we, from Canadian listeners that we don't have enough mentions of Canada on this podcast.
But I gather that some of this loot even found its way to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
So that's a lovely little nod to our Canadian listener, Mark Harney there, because I know he's a big fan of The Rest is History, and he will enjoy that, that moment.
And as you say, it's not a terribly well-known, um, Victorian escapade, but it is surely the maddest.
So in Sir Harry Flashman's memoirs, he recalls, and I quote, "The screaming charge of long-haired warriors swinging their hideous sickle blades against the Sikh bayonets.
Above all, he recalls, and I quote, "The transformation of an urbane, cultivated monarch into a murderous tyrant, shrieking with hysterical glee as he slashed and hacked at his bound victims."
I mean, I don't want to rain on the parade, but- Obviously, this is from a novel.
He's an invented character by George MacDonald Fraser, for the avoidance of any doubt.
A little bit of it is exaggerated, but there's an awful lot of truth in this.
So, uh, among the war correspondents who went- who were embedded with the British troops, the British expedition that went to Magdala, one was Henry Morton Stanley, and another was the future imperial novelist G.A. Henty.
And Henty said this was an expedition to rank alongside the adventures of Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, which we've done on the show, and he's not wrong.
Do you think this inspired him in his novels? Because as I remember, I read some of them.
So that is from a memoir by one of Victorian Britain's most decorated officers, General Sir Harry Flashman VC, recalling his part in what he, in his memoir, calls the strangest campaign in the history of British arms.
And this is the subject of today's episode and our next episode, the Abyssinian Expedition of 1868.
And I think it's fair to say that this isn't an expedition that is particularly well-known, not one of the kind of the classic Victorian expeditions, but it is a banger.
Uh, and if you go to pretty much any of Britain's leading museums, so the British Museum, the British Library, the V&A, the Bodleian, you will find, uh, manuscripts or relics or jewels or treasures that were brought back to Britain from this expedition.
And Dominic, we get complaints sometimes, don't we, from Canadian listeners that we don't have enough mentions of Canada on this podcast.
But I gather that some of this loot even found its way to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
So that's a lovely little nod to our Canadian listener, Mark Harney there, because I know he's a big fan of The Rest is History, and he will enjoy that, that moment.
And as you say, it's not a terribly well-known, um, Victorian escapade, but it is surely the maddest.
So in Sir Harry Flashman's memoirs, he recalls, and I quote, "The screaming charge of long-haired warriors swinging their hideous sickle blades against the Sikh bayonets.
Above all, he recalls, and I quote, "The transformation of an urbane, cultivated monarch into a murderous tyrant, shrieking with hysterical glee as he slashed and hacked at his bound victims."
I mean, I don't want to rain on the parade, but- Obviously, this is from a novel.
He's an invented character by George MacDonald Fraser, for the avoidance of any doubt.
A little bit of it is exaggerated, but there's an awful lot of truth in this.
So, uh, among the war correspondents who went- who were embedded with the British troops, the British expedition that went to Magdala, one was Henry Morton Stanley, and another was the future imperial novelist G.A. Henty.
And Henty said this was an expedition to rank alongside the adventures of Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, which we've done on the show, and he's not wrong.
Do you think this inspired him in his novels? Because as I remember, I read some of them.
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