Emperor Haile Sellassie's Arrival in Britain: An Alternative Autobiographical Draft by Percy Arnold

Emperor Haile Sellassie arrived in Britain as an exile on 3 June 1936. During his subsequent stay in the country he wrote the first volume of his Autobiography. In it he devotes scarcely more than a page to his arrival and residence in England, and he concludes with his famous speech to the League of Nations at Geneva at the end of the month. Thirty years later, when considering the writing of the second volume, he engaged an editorial adviser, the British journalist-cum-historian Percy Arnold, to write a draft text. Arnold, who arrived in Addis Ababa in December 1963, was duly installed in the Menilek palace. He began work shortly afterwards but, being unfamiliar with Ethiopian history, had to devote much of his time to background reading.

The emperor at that time was much preoccupied with governmental affairs, including state visits, and had little time to spend with the editorial adviser. The latter was therefore obliged to work with only limited access to his employer, who, in reply to his inquiries, nevertheless provided him with an important personal memorandum, of 27 quarto pages, now referred to as "The Continuous Narrative."¹ Arnold also made use of the National Library of Ethiopia, and he discussed various aspects of his work with members of the Ethiopian Chronicles Department. In this way he wrote a draft opening chapter and the draft of a never-completed second chapter. These two draft chapters were intended to follow immediately after the first volume of the Autobiography. Arnold regarded the latter as constituting section A, and in consequence identified his new chapters by the letters B and C. These were respectively entitled "Arrival in England—June 1936," and "The Battle of Geneva, June–July 1936."

Arnold's contract expired, however, in December 1964, and it was not renewed. The editorial adviser therefore left Ethiopia shortly afterwards, without writing any further chapters. He nevertheless retained a keen interest in the country and subsequently wrote a historical study of the relations between Emperor Téwodros and the British. Entitled Prelude to Magdala: Emperor Theodore of Ethiopia and British Diplomacy, this was published posthumously in 1992.

After Arnold's departure, the Autobiography project fell into abeyance until 1972, when an Ethiopian Editorial Committee was appointed, and duly produced the second volume of the Autobiography.

Arnold's two chapters, which draw heavily on the emperor's "Continuous Narrative" and cover a significant period in the Ethiopian ruler's life, are still extant. Though they never received the emperor's official imprimatur, they are not without interest, the more so as the emperor's arrival and first months in Britain are touched upon only in passing in the two published volumes. These two chapters, written in the palace, with some consultation with the emperor as well as his Chronicles Department, draw heavily on Haile Sellassie's "Continuous Narrative" and might well have been adopted as the opening of volume 2, as their (ghost) author had intended. These chapters are, moreover, of intrinsic interest, in that they help to illumine important events in Ethiopian, League of Nations, and hence world history.

Arnold's narrative differs from both volumes of the Autobiography, as one might expect, in that it was written by an English journalist well versed in British and European history, though relatively unfamiliar with the Ethiopian scene. Arnold's account is thus largely Europe-oriented and in particular Britain-oriented. His chapters include detailed profiles of the British and French ministers involved in the Ethiopian and League of Nations issues, and they graphically describe the unfolding of Anglo-French foreign policy in relation to Ethiopia as well as to sanctions.

Arnold, writing with experience as a journalist-historian, sought to produce an essentially readable, even dramatic text. As an independent writer, he was probably more willing than the emperor would have been to pass candid judgments on the contemporary European politicians and statesmen involved in Ethiopian and League of Nations affairs. The editorial adviser's text is thus written in a more lively and journalistic style than that...