Werner Munzinger
Werner Munzinger (4 April 1832 in
administrator under the service of the Khedivate of Egypt
.
Life and career
He was born in
Swiss Federal Council
.
In 1852 Munzinger arrived at
Atbara to Khartoum. There he succeeded von Heuglin as leader of the expedition, and travelled in 1862 to Kordofan, but failed to reach Darfur and Wadai
.
After a short stay in Europe in 1863, Munzinger returned to the north and north-east borderlands of Ethiopia. In 1865 Munzinger managed the
Khedive Ismail, serving as governor of the Keren region and Massawa (modern-day Eritrea). Once he reached his command, his first act was to place the Bogos once again under Egyptian rule and significantly develop the port of Massawa.[3]
During the
Egyptian-Ethiopian War, Munzinger was selected to command a small expedition intended to open up communication with Menelik II, king of Shewa, a potential ally of Egypt. In late 1875, he led an Egyptian force of 350 men from the port of Tadjoura towards Ankober with the objective of joining forces with Menelik. He planned to cross through the Danakil Desert and enter the Ethiopian Highlands through the Awash Valley. However on the night of November 14, warriors of the Afar and Issa tribes attacked the Egyptian force on the outskirts of Aussa. This resulted in the massacre of Munzinger, his wife, and most of the Egyptian soldiers. Only a few survivors managed to escape to back to Tadjoura. This defeat marked the end of the expansionist aspirations at the expense of the Christian empire.[5][6]
Writings
Munzinger published the following works:
- Über die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos (1859)
- Ostafrikanische Studien (1864; 2nd ed., 1883)
- Die deutsche Expedition in Ostafrika (1865)
- Vocabulaire de la langue de Tigré (1865)
He wrote numerous geographical papers, and a memoir on the northern highlands of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea for the Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde, new series, volume 3.
Notes
- ^ Royal Geographical Society (Great Britain) - Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society ..., Volume 20; Volumes 1875-1876
- ^ Royal Geographical Society (Great Britain)
- ^ a b Augustus B. Wylde, Modern Abyssinia (London: Methuen, 1901), pp. 21ff
- ^ S. B. Miles and M. Werner Munzinger, "Account of an Excursion into the Interior of Southern Arabia", Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 41 (1871), pp. 210-245
- ^ Tafesse, Habte Selassie (1996). "From Emirate to Egyptian Colony". Emirate, Egyptian, Ethiopian: A History of the Horn of Africa. Red Sea Press. p. 30.
- ^ Wylde, Augustus. Modern Abyssinia. p. 25.
External links
- . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
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