Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 265 - The Battle Of Adwa

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

Italy invades Ethiopia, gets churned into a chunky, sauce-like liquid. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: Raymond Jonas. The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire Greg Blake. The First Italo-Abyssinian War: The Battle of Adwa Greg Peduto. Italy's Failed African Gambit

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow today. And now back to the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe. And with me again is Tom. Back from exile. What's up, Tom? All good. All good. How the fuck do you not know what duty free is? Okay, hold on.

I know what duty free is, like in an airport. Invented in Ireland, most importantly. Fair. I know like duty free to me exists in an airport. You said you bought duty free okay we have to back up because we were talking about something we were talking about we were not recording Tom you just

flew from Ireland back to the UK and you said you first of all you said you brought back 800 cigarettes because you have the smoking habits of a 60 year old Bosnian man no it's so literally the way i work this out is because i go back to ireland maybe every couple of months or i go somewhere else in the eu and it actually works out if i only buy cigarettes

in the airport because if i buy enough that lasts me until i fly again then i won't have to pay full price for cigarettes and cigarettes are like 14 pounds in the uk whereas when i buy them in an airport i'm usually getting them for about five pounds a pack so this is you know this being economically smart you know i'll just i'm in my new apartment i've been here one day you know i got bills to pay got furniture to buy i'm thinking economically smart you're just gonna start selling lucy's out of your fucking window to people that walk by there's a there's a corner shop beside the tube station where i live that sells lucy's like you just go in and he has to kind of recognize you from coming in like frequently enough and you can just buy one cigarette from him oh yeah that was uh that was absolutely my corner gas station where i grew

up but you said okay you said you bought 400 cigarettes in ireland at the airport yeah in the airport and then you told me you bought 400 more cigarettes on the airplane yeah how the fuck did you buy 400 cigarettes on an airplane so um duty- flights, you can buy duty-free stuff on the flight. The flight had that many cigarettes on it? Well, I asked, and then she had to go and check. So it's just like two cartons. I have never seen anybody buy cigarettes on an airplane before. And I've flown some pretty shitty airlines living in the Caucasus.

Oh, boy. Yeah, you think it's a bit of a safety issue selling people cigarettes on the plane. But alas, you know, we got to love it. And like any flight that like because the UK isn't part of the EU anymore, because you used to not be able to buy them. Say if you're like flying to, I think, within the EU or but now you can flying from the uk to ireland so like say if i'm flying from say continental europe back to the uk i can generally buy them on the plane because we're flying outside of the european economic zone it's so strange the last so the last time i flew well last time i flew i was going to the us time I flew, well, the last time I flew, I was going to the US. So I flew mostly normal airlines. However, I have flown, when I was in Ireland, when we hung out, I then

had to fly Georgian Airways, which pro tip, do not fly Georgian Airways. It was a six and a half hour flight. Maybe a little bit more, a little bit less from the Netherlands to Tbilisi, Georgia. They didn't even have water. What? Yeah no water good luck um and then try to squeeze a few extra people in their shave and weight off by not bringing bottles of water yeah they're telling everybody who's from the caucuses myself included please shave your chest before you get on so we can save a few ounces here and there the cumulative weight of 200 armenians with full hair versus no hair i'm also click georgians in this they don't get off scott free um and then another time uh the the first time i flew in a plane that literally attempted

to sell duty-free stuff as we were flying was shock of all shocks moldova um and weirdly they took three different currencies only in cash but they were only trying to sell like shitty electronics they weren't trying to sell cigarettes this is the most moldovan thing i've ever heard yeah and i was like fuck i am hungry like i have this is like my third flight because like getting from the uk back to armenia is strangely difficult and uh i was like do you have any food and they're like i think we have a sandwich like you have one sandwich like yes you have to share with the rest of the plane yeah you have to pass around just lick on the top of it so everybody can get a piece and i was like well how much is it and uh they're like oh it's like this many rubles of like i don't

fucking have rubles and uh i was like well do you accept do you accept drum which is armenia's currency they're like yeah and i'm like well how many drum is it they're like we don't know so like i went in my pocket of like i have a thousand drum which is like depending on the day about two two and a half dollars okay and they're like that is fine they took it i was like all right and they handed me this like wet sandwich and it was why is it wet i don't know i don't know but i ate a fucking wet goddamn moldovan sandwich and i'm pretty sure i shaved several years off my lifespan like i remember flying to romania on i think it was whiz air and like whiz air is always a mistake it's better than

fly one but not by much yeah but like whiz Air is an airline that like you'd have maybe like the air hosts like bringing the carts up and down. But Wiz Air is the type of airline where you could fully expect someone to get up out of their seat and start selling stuff out of their jacket. I've seen that. I've 100% seen that on a Wiz Air flight. their jacket i've seen that i've 100 seen that on a whiz air flight i have seen i have seen a man sell another man a bottle of brandy out of his jacket on a on a fly one flight from tbilisi to yerevan which mind you is a 35 minute flight i mean yeah but see i think that makes sense because you will have such a sharp uh takeoff and landing that you're literally it's gonna look like a triangle yes that you need something for your nerves and because it was fly one it was delayed for five

hours for a 35 minute flight just fucking amazing um yeah yeah back to the cigarettes so if um i currently have 800 cigarettes plus another 200 that i bought a week ago that i went to ireland with so i i technically have a thousand cigarettes in this house that's gotta be violating some kind of old british law like oi mate you have a license for those cigarettes no irish man must carry more than this much tobacco at once. No Irish or cigarettes allowed. Now, Tom, actually, speaking of cigarettes, because we're talking about Italians today. Hey, I smoke the cigarettes.

I do the fascism. I will be also talking about early Italian fascism. The reason why I bring that up is we're talking about the Battle of Adwa. Adwa. And because I remember one time there was a story of an Italian parliamentarian who was hospitalized because he smoked like 150 cigarettes in a day.

Jesus. That's dedication. That's like one cigarette every two minutes. Yeah. Also, I want to point out as well i asked joe before we started recording what what episode are we doing and he said it and i was like oh i said this to you about six months ago we should do this and you had no recollection of it it's because that you cannot expect to remember anything from six months ago welcome to my life now um italy if you've a first-time listener of the show dear listeners

has something of a let's say checkered military history since the unification of italy as the roman republic and then empire were not italy as much as italy and especially you know benito musolini attempted to make that a thing uh italy has kind of tripped over their own dicks into defeat repeatedly, either ending in them retreating or having the Germans come and bail them out of a problem before eventually turning on the Germans or to save their own ass. Look, it's weird that that happened twice, okay? I mean, what can you expect where a country where their national work ethic is like doing three hours of

minor labor a day and then spending five hours drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and doing sexual harassment. I was about to say the three hours of labor is sexual harassment not only that but Italy also has something of a history when it comes to getting their blood

splattered across Ethiopia like so much marinara sauce on multiple different occasions. This, of course, leads us to today's episode, the Battle of Adwa and the Italo-Ethiopian War. The Battle of Adwa has its roots in the aftermath of Italian unification in 1871 and the rise of a guy named Francisco Crispy. Francisco Crispy. Crispy, yep. Hey, it's me, Francisco Crispy. We're going to do some colonialism. I suppose Lorenzo Pizza was his deputy prime minister.

And Mario Mario and Luigi Mario. He was a man, so Francisco Crisp crispy is a man so italian he was accused of bigamy on three different occasions okay like it and it was all true each time but like in italy a country where extramarital affairs are only rivaled by the french How can you actually be taken to court for bigamy and lose? Look, this man is so Italian that he decided to go above and beyond and cheat on his wife with other wives of

his own. This is some Tony Soprano shit right here. He was also a hard-lined Italian nationalist with the goal of expanding Italian colonial holdings, especially in Africa. The small problem for Italy, though, they had spent so much time doing hand gestures at one another, trying to get their country unified and wearing the worst clothes anybody has ever fucking seen,

that they completely missed the imperialism train going in Africa. This made it a lot harder for them because then they started claiming the same chunks of Africa that France had been, which ended up with Crispy considering. I'm still trying really hard not to laugh at this last name being Crispy. He considered France to be Italy's like eternal enemy, which like they deserve one another. But it's very funny because Italy can't even come close to competing with France at this point, nor could they ever. I mean, like, but this is, like, that Don Draper meme of, like, I never think about you, you know, like, France's, like, real rivals in Europe are, like, Germany, the UK. They don't care about the Italians. They're, like, they're buffered away from them by Switzerland,

so they don't need to worry about them. Nobody cares about the Italians, except the Austro-Hungarians, and we all see how that one ends in a couple decades. Yeah, they're just looking at Italy saying, ah, they're just mountain Spaniards, we don't need to worry about them. Now, this was resolved somewhat

before unification was complete with the infamous Berlin Conference of 1855, the meeting that we end up talking about seemingly every other week on this show. So for people who have never caught one of these episodes before, that is when Africa was kind of officially divvied up by European colonial powers. That is what gifted the Congo to King Leopold of belgium like this is legitimately one of the most evil meetings of people to have ever occurred like you know one of like these things the reason we talk about them the whole time is because it's almost like these things have consequences oh no there's actually there's consequences to my actions well at least if you're italy in this situation not so much belgium since everybody just gives them a pass maybe like the italians just gave us pasta maybe

if they gave us a nice sweet dish like waffles we would care less now italy was given rights to the fine territory of ethiopia which this is kind of an underhanded fuck you to italy from everyone else at the meeting because ethiopia was known for two very important things they had not been conquered by anybody and they were populated by men who are more than capable of throwing back european and other armies that came their way they're big up big up the kingdom of Ethiopia. Ah, ah, ah. Empire of Ethiopia. They're an empire. Ah, true.

Better sprinkle some respect on that fucking name. Someone's going to be really mad at me saying, oh, Tom's no longer anti-imperialist. He loves the empire of Ethiopia. Look, we're going to give him a pass on this one. In the context of this episode, they're fine.

Ignore all of the awful crimes that committed in order to create this empire. Or all the awful crimes that continue to be committed in Ethiopia to this day. Because what was that? Imperialism has consequences. They'd already kicked out a British expeditionary force. They'd kicked out an Egyptian army. They'd kicked out the Mahdi army. force they'd kicked out an egyptian army they'd kicked out the maadi army the fact that like european powers like yeah sure crispy or you know uh fucking mario linguini please take ethiopia

it's all yours like pasta pasta they're absolutely fucking with them because they knew that italy was going to fuck it up you know and so when ethiopians weren't busy driving out whoever was invading them they fought one another the ethiopians were known for being the best soldiers and fighters on the entire continent of africa and they were made this way just through their way of life ethiopia was not unified really like there was the empire of ethiopia but they were mostly ruled by regional kings who technically answered to the emperor of ethiopia who struggled to keep all these kings from murdering one another but also he it was in his best interest for them to do so, because if they're shooting at one another, they left the emperor alone.

They can't go for him. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of like semi-autonomous regions that got to kick some up to the emperor then. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, the constant rolling warfare meant that none of them could really get too powerful to challenge him.

And not to mention these kings, on top of of fighting one another also expanded the empire's borders so it was a win-win for the emperor for the most of the time um these constant wars led a jesuit priest who preached in the country because for people unaware ethiopia is one of the oldest christian countries on earth um i think second only to Armenia. They have one hell of a tradition of Christianity there that most people don't really know about for some reason. What if an Ethiopian man was Armenian? Funny story.

The same guy who made our alphabet in Armenian wrote the Amharic alphabet in Ethiopia as well. That kind of happened. Who who says we'd never learn anything on this show um now a jesuit priest who was working in the country said quote in war they're they're reared as children and in war they grow old for the life of all who are not farmers is war in short do not fuck with ethiopians yeah of course nobody's ever gonna convince a european

power they should leave africans alone so years later with crispy now in charge in italy unified he assumed his glorious italian army would make short work of the ethiopians based mostly on racism okay crispy also fancied himself the Italian Otto von Bismarck, despite the fact he was a fucking idiot. He often hung out with Bismarck in order to pick his brain and kind of absorb his knowledge through osmosis. Oh, he's one of these guys. And Bismarck hated him.

Bismarck did not like this man. Of course he fucking did. Of course he fucking hates these guys. Otto von Bismarck hated his own family. There wasn't a single person that Otto von Bismarck liked. But I mean, it's just more so like this dude is just like a clinger on. He's trying to like gather

his 48 laws of power to like try and fucking figure it out. I bet this guy was just like this like 5'5 dweeb. Nothing wrong with being 5'5 just like one of those like small sniveling dweeb. Nothing wrong with being 5'5, just, like, one of those, like, small sniveling dweebs. To harken back to an

old viral video, he's the Bagel Boss guy. Oh, god. R.I.P. Bagel Boss. Yeah, yeah, it's true. And as far as we know, that man never invaded Ethiopia, but we can't be sure. Yes, yes. Our stance on Bagel Boss's invasion of Ethiopiahiopia remains

unclear yeah i i vote to abstain from this un vote which is something armenia often does put the put the ghost of the bagel boss on the un security council in a permanent seat i'll accept that yeah it's better than anybody else's on it uh so one of the times these two assholes are hanging out um he brought up crispy brought up his idea for his future plans for ethiopia and bismarck spat one of the finest diplomatic burns i have ever heard in my life and i do not mean to say that i respect on bismarck but this man could roast he said quote italy has a large appetite but poor teeth i roasted like absolutely red for failed this man just ruined his whole career crispy had been taking notes from more successful colonial empires and rather

than simply just invading the country he went to politic his way into power, doing something that the British or the Germans would often do, which is turn one warring faction against the other and ride that one into power. At the time, Ethiopia was ruled by Emperor Johannes IV, though like I point out, his empire was hardly united. His regional kings often fought one another and gathered their own amounts of power within the empire's borders while simultaneously expanding it. One of the kings who was fighting the other kings

against the wishes of the emperor was King Menelik, who quickly became easily the most powerful regional king in the entire empire. And most people probably assumed that it was not going to be long before menelik and johannes went at it over the imperial throne enter count pietro anatelli hey oh uh it's a me count pietro uh he was sent to ethiopia to make contact with menelik

to promise him that they would recognize his claim to the imperial throne if he would then establish diplomatic ties with Italy. The idea, of course, was to support him in the coming war against Johannes and then fuck him over and steal power. Then Johannes died randomly during an invasion from Sudan. This had nothing to do with any of this backdoor politicking or Menelik or Count Pietro Anatelli. He just caught a stray round in the chest. Now, of course, Italy thought that goddamn they had lucked out. The guy they picked to support was just going to walk into the imperial throne without them having to expend any real capital in order to do so.

And then they could still fuck him over. It's a win-win for Italy. And he was made emperor in 1889 and Italy quickly delivered a treaty for him to sign. This became known as the Treaty of Uccele. And on its surface, it was

an even and fair trade. However, we'll get to why this is not the case. Now, Menelik gave Italy the area we know today as Eritrea in exchange for a $400,000 in cash loan and an equal

amount of that in modern guns and ammunition. Now, the reason he did this was a pretty good idea for Menelik because he did not have any control whatsoever over the eritrean area it was like he's like look man if i'm actually going to secure this i'm going to have to go to war it's the italians problem now so he didn't really lose anything per se now the treaty translating to the amharic language also also read, quote, King of kings of Ethiopia may, if he so desire, avail himself of the Italian government for any negotiations he may enter into with other powers and governments.

So that sentence, in a nutshell, accepts Ethiopian independence and sovereignty and Menelik as the king of Kings, otherwise known as the Emperor of Ethiopia. However, that is the version that Emperor Menelik received. What Italy did probably goes down as one of the most ruthless rat fuckings in diplomatic history. The Italian version, of which Menelik had to sign both, said something completely and utterly different and count anatelli knew it their version said king of kings of ethiopia consents to avail himself of the government of his majesty the king of italy for all negotiations and affairs which he may have with other powers and governments it made ethiopia an italian. It forced them to defer all matters of foreign relations to the king of Italy. Do you know what?

Like, in terms of consequences of events in history, it's kind of funny. Well, funny and not funny that, like, this will directly lead to the birth of Rastafarianism. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because, I mean, it's certainly like,

obviously Italy loses this or wouldn't be talking about it. But, you know, obviously Mussolini invades about 30-ish years later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When Emperor Selassie is on the throne, who is the... Ja Rastafari, King Selassie, the lion lives in the sky, I live, I ja.

Yeah, exactly. So if this never happened and Italy never fucked around and found out, there's a good chance that Mussolini doesn't try to get revenge and therefore drive Haile Selassie into becoming an international figure of renown for standing up against him at the League of Nations.

Actually, even more importantly, this decision will directly lead to Bad Brains recording Band in D.C., which to me is an incredible consequence of history. Let's not thank Crispy for anything, though.

Okay, not yet, not yet. Now, the Italians were under the impression that they pulled a clever ruse, and by the time Menelik figured out what happened, he would have no choice but to accept the treaty because for fear of military consequences

and the international community turning against the sovereign and independent nation, right? Menelik, of course, immediately rejected and the international community turning against the sovereign and independent nation right menelik of course immediately rejected the the treaty told the italians to fuck off back to the cocaine nightclub where they lived and began to prepare for the inevitable war that they knew they're going to bring his way do you know what like as just a tangent you know one thing obviously this this will drive a international diplomatic wedge between the two countries but tangent you know one thing obviously this this will drive a international diplomatic wedge between the two countries but do you know what eventually reunites italy and ethiopia oh no what

disco music it's hollow disco and ethiopian disco incredible two two two countries reaching across the mediterranean you know holding hands although Although I suppose Italy kind of needs to go around either the Horn or like go over North Africa. But, you know, disco unites us all. Don't make me credit disco for anything good, Tom. I'll never forgive you. Now, the Italians claim that the mistranslated version that Menelik had was fake.

It was a forgery. And Menelik was lying to the entire world about this. They demanded that Emperor Menelik follow the treaty. And when he rightfully refused, Crispi decided they would have to use military force in order to bring what they consider their new subjects to heel. It was at this point, however, that the Italians were probably kicking themselves. You see, because remember a key part of that treaty? Money and guns and ammo? Yeah. They had already given it to the Ethiopians.

This is like, you know, when you lend someone a fiver and you're like, and you try and dictate APR terms to them. It was like, yeah, yeah no it's actually 12 percent interest on that uh fiver every five minutes so you know it's been a couple hours so you owe me a million pounds and remember like another key part of the treaty was like give them eritrea which menelik didn't really lose he couldn't control it or didn't control it and he completely disregarded the rest of the treaty so he had been given a fucking massive stockpile and weapons for free like as as a country well as a people who conquered so

much of the world how are they this shit at diplomacy i mean you have to remember that romans and italians are two completely different concepts um I know, I know. I'm being facetious. Like, how can a country be this bad at diplomacy? I mean, if I was to argue, I would say that if any European power tried to pull one on the Ethiopians, they were going to catch hands regardless. And Italy just happened to be by far

the weakest power in Europe attempting to create African colonies. They weren't the weakest power, so to say, in Europe. I would argue that the Austro-Hungarian Empire and even the Ottoman Empire by this point is as weak or worse. But they're not trying to pop up fucking colonies in Ethiopia.

So they started out with absolutely nothing to scare anybody. At this point, they're a country that's only a couple decades old, for the most part, as a nation. That's not trying to murder one another. Um, their military is completely fucking ass backwards and we'll get into it, but they are not, they're absolutely in no way prepared for an actual war, which is why crispy did it. Cause he didn't see this as being an actual war.

He thought Africans were subhuman and so stupid they wouldn't be able to use rifles, which like he could have just asked the british about yeah and the british would have been like oh no bro they can use them fucking things real well they could fucking throw hounds like a motherfucker yeah um now so ethiopia armed to the teeth no shortage of weapons to speak of before this as well but now they have modern weapons and they will get more in a little bit. That did not slow the Italians down though. Italy began annexing small little bites of Ethiopia while an Italian army under the command of General Oreste Baratieri began to prepare for an actual invasion of the northern area of Tigray.

began to prepare for an actual invasion of the northern area of Tigray. Bartieri was a seasoned soldier, and when he showed up in Eritrea, Italian Eritrea, which is like their jumping off point, to take command, he was horrified at the army that the government had given him in order to conduct this operation. Their rifles... They had no faith in this guy at all. I mean, their rifles were decades out of date. They were worse than the ones

they had just given ethiopia for free the soldiers were all conscripts with barely any training and he begged crispy for more money and better soldiers which he did kind of get they sent their like their sharpshooter battalions in and mountain troops which you know were probably the best soldiers they had which isn't saying much, but they're the best soldiers that could have been given to them. And they gave them 4 million more lira to spend on things that the military

would need. So 4 million lira, like 5 quid? Yeah, pretty much. They gave them 4 million lira in cocaine and white jeans. Well, you don't like my white jeans. They're an Emporio Armani. And they also sent them artillery and machine guns.

But it was a small problem with this, though. What the fuck is he going to do with cash? Is he just going to go down to the local arms bazaar and get modern rifles? He can't really do much with it. He can try to plug gaps with like logistical problems like buy more horses from the local economy buy more wagons whatever but like he's not going to be able to be like we got you these brand new mausers like it's not gonna happen you know what they should have done should have given that money to sudan yeah they

they should have used that money to get on boats and go the fuck home. Yeah. Like, in terms of, like, military tactics, like, being deployed on a foreign continent with just cash and not enough weapons, the most reasonable thing to do would be to hire mercenaries, would it not be? They kind of did. So they raised local battalions of Eritreans. But they, again, super fucking racist. They don't bother to train them. Half these guys don't even get guns.

And instead, they're like, here's a sword. You ever hear that adage of, you know, bringing a knife to a gunfight? Like, I will say that traditionally, like, ethiopians prefer to use swords as well but they're like no we'll use guns until we get close enough for our swords which we'll talk about later but like they still had guns meanwhile the eritreans that found themselves under the italian banner like and we found the sword in the fucking dumpster take it now at this point with italian forces amassing on their borders international lines began to be drawn. England sided with Italy over the issue, while Russia sided with Ethiopia, which isn't that surprising when you look at the dates of the war.

Russia is always going to find themselves against England. However, what is weird is that this is when France decided to show up like, hey, Italy, remember all that bullshit you pulled on us earlier? We're back in Emperor Menelik. Fuck you. Yeah, the first time the French were ever back in Africa. So they used their nearby colony in Djibouti to begin flooding Ethiopia with rifles and most importantly, modern artillery that was much better than what the Italians had. modern artillery that was much better than what the italians had within a few weeks the ethiopian army was significantly better armed all around than the italian military not only that but france forward thinking is like they're gonna need

training and advising in order to use these correctly to kill the most amount of italians possible we will train them. The Russians will directly lead them in combat. It's just like a French guy with a really long cigarette, and it's like 1892, and he's like, so you want to kill some Italians?

Put rat poison in the cocaine. To be fair, that'd also wipe out France. Yeah, true. Spider and the frog, motherfucker! Or scorpion poisoning the cocaine. To be fair, that'd also wipe out France. Yeah, true. Spider and the frog, motherfucker. Or scorpion and the frog. Spider and the frog. I'm stupid.

And the only thing that will kill the Russians is lots of lead in about 23 years. Yeah, the Russians will be chugging like lead-laced vodka and be like, we prefer it this way. Sir, stop drinking the liquid laudanum no i will do no such thing um now so like russia didn't send like infantry combat like leaders in they sent specifically artillery commanders because despite all of the times that we have absolutely

incorrectly dunked on the russian imperial army and then later the soviet union one thing that they were very good at and they no longer are is artillery yeah just uh look at the news for some more context for that joke yeah if in case you've been sleeping under a fucking rock for the last year year and a half yeah um now they not only sent Field officers But they like The French trained Ethiopian gun crews Taught them how to speak French And then Russian officers Directly led the artillery batteries

Because The French love going and teaching people To speak French that's probably why they get involved In most wars But the military language For the Russian nobility was French. What?

Had been for decades. History is so stupid. It's very stupid. You can actually blame Napoleon for that in a long enough timeline. Now, France and Russia were not backing them by the kindness of their hearts menelik had to pay those tabs so we raided gold mines in somalia in order to pay them

off as well as stole massive quantities of grain so he could feed his army that he knew that he was gonna have to field ethiopia's does not exactly have a logistical system to speak of uh their standing army is effectively ran by the kings who act as warlords. So it's like, I'm going to have to give these guys fistfuls of grain to carry with them. So what are the

wagon manifests looking like, Joe? Oh, it's mostly pockets. Bartieri and the Italian general staff thought, at best, Menelik would be able to muster 30,000 men of varying qualities, and it would take him a long time in order to do so. They saw these men as backward savages and

brains not developed enough to fight a European superpower such as Italy. As Italian forces slowly crept across the Ethiopian border, Menelik sent word to every corner of the empire, calling a full call to arms, saying, quote,

an enemy has come across the sea. He has broken through our frontiers in order to destroy our motherland and our faith. He undermines our territories and our people like a mole. Enough. With the help of God, we will defend the inheritance of my forefathers.

Despite Ethiopian politics being a literal fucking minefield and the previous emperor's son, Ras Mengish of Tigray, still laying his own claim to the throne, absolutely nobody disobeyed Menelik's rallying cry. How do you fuck up this, Bob? obeyed menelik's rallying cry how do you fuck up this italian italy ran head first into the grand unifying theory of fuck that guy um the like it is one the likes of which i don't think i've previously seen like to be honest like is ethiopia france and russia as an alliance the weirdest group of homies we've seen so far.

Up until we talk about like the Angolan Civil War, the Biafra War. Yeah, probably. Okay, so it's appropriate to say. I should have never gave you control of the soundboard. board now the italian army was much smaller but they assumed that they don't need numbers they have white supremacy they like that's all they need um they were they figured they would be able to move quicker than menelik could muster his forces and at first they did the much smaller italian forces easily marched and took the cities of michele and then amba agale a month after that it was it was around there that italy looked off into

the distance and realized we have seriously fucked up um actually um as a tangent since nate isn't here i have to derail the show. Speaking of white supremacy, I was watching that documentary Pumping Iron. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, I was watching that last night. Don't ruin this documentary for me, please. You're about to do it. You're going to fucking do it.

Totally forgot that there's a whole section in the last 40 minutes where they're in South Africa in the 70s. Oh, goddammit. i forgot about that shit yeah there's just like shit like all of the servants and i was like oh my god this is this feels real weird also isn't that arnold schwarzenegger's father allegedly a nazi so i mean yeah but arnold himself wasn't yeah true i mean he arnold is at best simply old-timey racist i mean the man is in his like 70s yeah his dad was probably a piece of shit but i don't know his dad was the police chief in his local town in austria oh that's not good that's not good. That's not good at all. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born

in 1949. Well, at least he dodged the worst of it, I suppose. Let's do a seance to ask Arnold Schwarzenegger's dad what he was doing specifically between the years 1936 and 1945. He was on vacation in Poland.

Ah, shit. Ah, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Now, the first unit that Emperor Menelik raised was his imperial bodyguard, which alone was 30,000 men. More than the entire Italian invasion force. Now, these were not the backward savages that Italy thought they were. They were fully outfitted and trained with modern repeating rifles. They wore coats of male armor, carried javelins, and a sword. Because you're running around like a Skyrim character with an encumberment cheat code on,

you might as well go all the way. Hittin' em with our foothold, ah. Soon, the lords of Tigray sent their army of 21,000. The Oromo, under the the command the famous emperor holly sassily's father said another 15 000 10 000 more cavalry came from somewhere else and before long menelik commanded over 100 000 men which was more than the entire italian military anywhere in the world combined more italians are about to get fucked in a burlesconi sex party god damn it i think that's the only time i've said something where you visibly gagged i quit i quit the show i've done it I've done it. I've done it.

Now, however, as unified as their hatred for the Italians were and who could blame them, they were not really that unified. Menelik knew that despite all the food they had stockpiled, there was no way he could feed so many people for so long. So he ordered his forces to most importantly ignore the strongholds that the Italians had captured in order to avoid a prolonged siege. Of course, a command of Ethiopian troops under Ras Makonnen, Ras generally means prince, so it's not like his first name,

Ras Makonnen, numbering around 30,000 men headed towards Amba Alagre I'm so sorry in order to make sure the Italian soldiers inside stayed there inside the Italian commander Major Toselli

had only 2,300 conscripts who barely knew how to fire their rifles and a couple out of date cannons I feel bad for the conscripts i always feel bad for conscripts but it's like imagine being some like 17 year old like italian like boy and you just see a hundred thousand ethiopians coming over the horizon the wind cries i'm hor I mean, that's probably what not fucking Berlusconi, Mussolini's granddaughter

probably sees in her dreams. If only those stories end the same way. Now, go ahead and hang this podcast upside down. Maconin told the subordinate commanders that despite what they looked like, it would be hard to take the fortress and the emperor's orders were for them to do nothing.

So everybody just sit tight and be cool. So as soon as the meeting was over, two of his subordinates took a small war party and charged the fortress, where they were immediately blown to shit by artillery, because a siege is the one point that a half-trained conscript can truly shine. Yeah, like, you know,

telling a bunch of soldiers to be cool always works well it had something to do with the masculinity of Ethiopian war doctrine this put Makonnen in a very bad spot according to his men the battle

had begun by that war party and if he avoided it by insisting they follow the emperor's orders his men would think he was a coward and then he avoided it by insisting they follow the emperor's orders his men would think he was a coward and then he might get shot okay uh so he sighed and order a full fucking attack the next morning now toselli was immediately in a hopeless position knowing that his only hope for victory and maybe his survival was for reinforcements under general giuseppe aramondi to come from his aid from the city of Michele.

Anybody called Giuseppe is just instantly funny. Yeah, it's a funny name. Yeah. You cannot take a man named Giuseppe seriously. My name is Giuseppe Tomato. I am the commander. If your name is Giuseppe, you might as well just wear a clown paint at all times.

The thing is... No, that's Pagliacci. I hear no difference. my ears hear no difference the thing is mcconough knew that too so he sent a large force of his men to set up an ambush on the only road that connected the two cities before long an italian column from mckelly did appear and a cheer went through the ranks of the defenders assuming their superior force of arms would win the day because their comrades had come to save them. And then they watched them all get torn to fucking shreds by the ambush. This happened so close to the city they had a front row seat.

Organized defense quickly collapsed within the Italian units, now seeing their utter and complete hopelessness. Toseli got clapped by a shot to the face, and the rest of the men had to run for their lives with over half of them dying. The Ethiopians then moved on to Mekelle, where the Italians were much better prepared. Italian soldiers had spent the last four months reinforcing the city, but because it was ancient, it was mostly made out of adobe, which is not exactly what you want your modern fortification to be built out of. They strung barbed wire all over and broke out windows in the city so they could scatter broken glass on the approaches because they knew Ethiopian soldiers tended to fight barefoot. They also turned an old Coptic Christian church in the middle of the city into an artillery blockhouse because of its location and height, and it could fire on every approach towards

the walls. So this has literally all of the makings for a horrifically catastrophic siege, right? Well, here's the problem. Eremondi only had about 1,300 men, and the city's water supply was a river that flowed into the city from outside. So Empress of Ethiopia, Titu, simply led a detachment of her forces towards that river, dammed it up, and waited. The Italians no longer had water.

Once again, you can mark this off on your bingo sheets, guys. Guys, gals, everyone in between that's listening. People need water. A recurring theme on this show. What a concept. Within two weeks, the Italian soldiers inside were so desperate for water, they began

breaking into churches and smashing open barrels of communion wine so they had something to drink. It didn't work. You can't stay hydrated on wine, but if anybody's gonna fucking try, it's an Italian. You're gonna get real close to Christ. Yeah. Finally, they surrendered on January 21st,

1896, and Menelik allowed them all to march back to the Italian positions in Ad de Grunt, unharmed, even supplying them with giraffe animals to carry their wounded. It was there that Baratieri was waiting for Menelik, with over 17,000 men in a position so reinforced the possibility of it failing was pretty slim. He wanted to break Menelik's forces on his defenses. It's a much easier battle to fight. So of course, Menelik just didn't attack it. Instead, he led his forces to the Adwa Mountains towards Italian Eritrea. Bartieri was more than fine waiting, knowing that if Menelik hoped to keep his forces unified, he would eventually have to attack him, either

from internal dissent or their logistical system which is mostly pockets full of grain eventually running out on them pocket grain it's what they least expect so if he managed to keep them at bay and in the field long enough menelik's men would eventually run out of food and be forced to just go home that is when crispy shows back up and ruins everything. He sends an angry letter to Bartieri demanding that he go and attack the emperor's army. He said what was happening wasn't even a war and quote, a waste of heroism without any corresponding success. With the prime minister breathing down his neck, the Italians went on the march, chasing after Menelik as he

went into the mountains. Things immediately go wrong for the Italians, because in the rush to get out of the gates, the quartermasters only had enough time to pack about 10 days worth of rations for travel. Furthermore, it was becoming clear that the reinforcements he had asked for were given complete shit in the form of equipment and uniforms. Their boots were rotting off of their feet. Their rifles, thought to be better, were failing in the environment of dirt and dust. The soldiers, having no experience in the colonies, immediately began falling sick left and right. Yeah, you're going to get like, what, yellow fever, malaria. I mean, you're going to get everything.

Shitting disease. Shit ass blow up disease. Shatter kidney. I don't know. Mark that on your bingo card. However, the quick march out of McKellie did bring one advantage.

Baratieri's forces were able to move into a good position to a series of hills outside of the town of Adwa. A few days later, on February 14th, Menelik came in

and occupied the town itself, about 16 miles away from where the Italians were. Baratieri thought that this entire situation was under control, having a terrain advantage on hills, and he, once again, wanted to just wait Menelik to have to be forced to attack him, or some short-tempered subordinate commander to kick off a battle without the emperor's approval again but it didn't happen then bar terry was reminded fuck we're running out of food and water so he figured it'd be a good idea to withdraw behind the mereb river where they could at least

get some water and wait for their supply train to catch up with them that is until crispy came in contact with him again he told hey he He told Bartieri if he didn't go on the attack immediately, he would be fired and ruin his career. And at this point, he had been threatened so much by Crispy that he knew that his life was over if he did not win a crushing victory over Menelik and save himself. So he planned a nighttime surprise attack for March 1st. In order to do so, he had to split his army into five different parts, which you don't want to do, and take three different hills, beginning at 9 p.m. with the goal of taking the hills before first light. Problems, of course, started immediately. One of the columns under General Matteo Albertone, sounds like a soup, had completely mislabeled his map. So instead of heading towards

his designated spot, which was undefended, he marched four miles in the wrong direction and towards a mountain that was held by Ethiopians. The force under Ras Alua shot them to pieces, but the force under Albertone was able to chase them off via a bayonet charge. So Italians won the first skirmish, but it was still in a complete wrong spot and they ruined the element of surprise. Soon, the various Ethiopian leaders,

Menelik included, were receiving messengers telling them that get them in. We got fucking Italians over here. Hey, we got fucking Italians. Menelik deployed his tried and true Ethiopian war tactic known as Afena, sometimes nicknamed the Barefoot Blitzkrieg, which sounds vaguely racist to me. But it could also be a solid band name.

So during an Afena, Ethiopian artillery would suppress the target while infantry would move in and surround it, slowly closing in closer and closer, keeping the artillery on target, and they would only lift the artillery once the men were so close to the explosions that they were almost

at risk. Then they'd lift the artillery and they would immediately be on top of the enemy. So close they could use their swords, which is what they preferred in close combat. Slice and dice, baby. Better than a bayonet, I suppose. Especially if you know how to use it. I mean, yeah, like a

bayonet, there's plenty of poking you can do with it, but you can't really slice with it. Yeah, you can't just poke. You need variations. Now, it was only around 6am that Bartieri heard gunfire. He looked over to where Albertone was supposed to be and noticed he wasn't there.

Confused, he ordered another column commander, General Vittorio D'Abramita, again, sounds like a soup, to go and join forces with him. So D'Abramita packed up all of his shit and began marching, leaving his position. This position also happened to secure the Italian right flank. Bartieri had meant for him to send just a few soldiers to make contact and report his location.

He was not supposed to uproot everything and leave his position, but he didn't write that down and just assumed that D'Abramito would know that. So almost immediately, the entire Italian right flank is exposed and D'Abramito goes scampering off into the night. Another problem popped up, though. Nobody could find Albertone because only Albertone's map was incorrect. Everybody else's map was correct. How do you fuck up this, bud? you just can't read a map i've seen it a dozen times but they weren't generals so i don't know it was just some idiot fucking private

or something or a lieutenant who you're not supposed to expect could read a map so like so like dabramita had no idea where he was so he's like okay i'll follow the map to where he's supposed to be he should be over there then he immediately got lost in the adwa mountains because the adwa mountains are like a fucking maze of ravines and valleys by 7 30 a.m albertone's four still fighting on their own had been broken smashing the entire out of place italian left flank barteri's first hint of what the hell was going on over to where his left flank was, was when survivors appeared,

running for their lives away from the tens of thousands of Ethiopian soldiers that were on their heels. So of course Baratieri, now commanding the center without a single flank secure, one destroyed and the other completely lost, ordered his artillery to fire on his own fleeing men because the Ethiopians were now so close he'd hit them both. 4D chest, baby! Now, this is where things start to go bad for Dabra Mita, because Metalik realized this motherfucker's lost, and he knew the Adwa Mountains, and he set a detachment to make sure the lost formation could never rejoin with the center, cutting them off.

In a show of insanity, stupidity, and probably a lot of good old-fashioned confusion, a force of around 200 Italian sharpshooters charged forward at bayonet point to try to break through and make contact with Dabramida, Oh my god. Only 40 sharpshooters survived the encounter and made it back to the center. Like, of all the ways to die, a lance to the chest is not high up there on what you want. I just want to know, how did 200 guys think they were going to pull this off? I don't know. I genuinely don't know.

There's Imperial Hubertus, and then there's just this. I just think it's like... I think Imperial Hubertus probably plays a major role in that, and just shit tactics. But I do think they're probably like, oh, these people are savages. We'll be able to take them pretty easily yeah they did generally think that they would break at the first like volley of european gunfire but like at this point of the battle they should probably know that's not gonna happen yeah but yeah no one ever claimed that imperial armies are smart now da da ramita now

realizing he was completely and totally lost attempted to lead his men back towards barteri in the center only to get lost again this time he led his men directly into a dead-end canyon once there they were set upon by ethiopian cavalry under the command of Ross Mikhail, who charged forward, telling his men, quote, reap them as if they were wheat. So many just like incredibly hard lines drop during this episode. His entire brigade was slaughtered. They were so confused and tired they didn't even put up a defense as they died. According to the Ethiopians, the battle lasted seconds and the killing lasted 15 minutes. Ah. You know, if there's one thing I enjoy, it's just like, like battalions of dudes getting destroyed by like someone that they assumed inferior.

General Dabramita hurts himself in confusion. The tattered remains of Albertone's forest had finally been finished off, with he himself getting shot off of his horse but not dying. Now the full force of the Ethiopians, probably around 100,000 men, turned their full attention towards Baratieri at the center. The Italian artillery fired at the center. The Italian artillery fired at the oncoming attackers, but had already burned through most of their ammo. Their soldiers, panicking, tired, thirsty, and starving, fumbled what little ammo they had left

as a vast force of Italian soldiers, sensing their victory and the lack of fire coming from the Italian line, slung their rifles over their shoulders and drew their swords preparing to end the battle at close range aramonde caught a sword between the fucking ribs as the italian center collapsed barrett barrettieri and the survivors fled across the border into italian eritrea of the around 15 000 italian and native soldiers over 6 000 were killed and another 1600 were captured in their panicked flight to safety the italians left behind all of their artillery and machine guns and anything they couldn't carry with them more italians had been killed during the battle than the entire process of italian unification sudan better fucking watch out ethiopia's got cannons

now oh they already had cannons well they got even more cannons they're they just became the most powerful country in all of africa yeah like like casualties like i'm just looking at this like 15 000 people killed 15 15,000 Italians died. Like, obviously, there is a kind of comparable number of estimated casualties for Ethiopia

between 7,000 and 10,000. But they had 196,000 soldiers. Now, what's kind of surprising here is in most situations like this, these Italian POWs would have a very short and violent end at the hands of their captors. But that's not what happened. They were all treated completely fine. Fed, watered, medical wounds tended to the best that they could.

But this is the thing that keeps cropping up whenever you look at any of the campaigns in Africa during the scramble for Africa in the Imperial Age. Like, European prisoners of war were treated generally well. The same could not be said for the Eritreans that they captured. Yeah, true. They had their right hands and left feet cut off as punishment. Most of the time this killed them, of course. A journalist wrote that when he visited the battlefield months afterward, the pile of severed hands and feet was still visible.

Quote, a rotting heap of ghastly remains. Now, when news of this battle reached Rome, people protested under the slogans, Death to the King, which we could all support, and long live the Republic. As King Umberto had vocally supported Crispy's drive for an empire, very publicly, mind you, even if he personally hated Crispy to the point he once said, quote, Crispy is a pig, but a necessary pig.

So like, hey, he's just like me for real. Yeah, I mean, like every like the king had vocally and publicly supported this military campaign. So Crispy gets a lot of the hate, but so does the king. Menelik did not drive into Eritrea and retake it. Rather, he simply demanded that the treaty that started this entire thing be thrown out

and offered Italy peace. Crispy refused, saying it was beneath the Italians to sit down and negotiate with barbarians. God, thank God Anarchist fucking shot King Umberto like four years he said he would be sending more troops to africa to continue the war which led to more protests when someone asked him about the thousands of italian pows that might be killed if they invaded ethiopia again crispy remarked quote their lives are less important than our glorious national project.

The king finally fired Crispy, taking his government with him and then ended the war. That's that's that's what happened. Now, the real blame for all of this, Crispy got fired. But Baratieri was brought up on charges for the failure of the battle, a battle he didn't want to fight. Crispy made him do that. Don't feel too bad for him though it's i mean the fact that he that he was kind of ordered by the prime minister to to undertake a very stupid battle that's as much credit as i'm willing to give him because his

defense that he did nothing wrong he was failed by his soldiers who were all cowards and the fact that his his allies were black. Have you ever heard about Crispy's downfall before his death? I did not. So a man who survived such an incredible military failure as this, do you want to know what his eventual downfall

was? What's that? Embezzlement. That's the most Italian of crimes. Yep, it is the most Italian of crimes. It is the most Italian of crimes. It was essentially the cabinet after that government essentially decided to prosecute Crispy on embezzlement charges. He

resigned in 87 and then was elected with a massive majority in 1898. Walked back into the halls of power with his horde of wives behind him. But like, obviously, that is not being done for embezzlement. That's the most Italian thing. It's being done for embezzlement, resigning, and then being re-elected is the most Italian thing ever. He's literally

ye olde Berlusconi. Berlusconi sex party. Now, oh, by the way, Bartieri acquitted of all charges and retired. Of course. Finally, Italy agreed to accept that Ethiopia was a sovereign empire and signed the Treaty of Addis Ababa in 1896, ending the war or hitting pause for 40 years.

And this is actually how Addis Ababa becomes the capital of Ethiopia because before this, the emperor didn't have a capital. It just was his camp that sprung up around him as he moved. Yeah. And his war camp was so fucking big that it ended up just kind of becoming a town.

And then Addis Ababa, the capital, which it is still today. Yep. And 84 years later, Bad bad brains would put out band in dc as a direct result of this war full circle baby now tom we do a thing on the show called questions from the legion i believe we've been asked this one before by this one can evolve over time what is one of your pet peeves oh i can give you a personal one and then if you want to peek behind the curtain you can get a work one i want both now because they don't tell me your weaknesses i will i will click onto them um i would say like a pet peeve of mine is when you're in a bar and like someone gets a pint and they're like oh that's

not right oh can you can you pour that again can you do whatever unless the pint is like really bad i can honestly say i've never done that just like drink it um no like it's a thing now with like guinness obviously becoming like a lot more of a kind of kind of statement piece to a lot of people's personalities that they're like oh the quality to get it so like there is good guinness and there's bad bad guinness and that's down to uh diageo not making a very consistent product but also that most pubs don't really maintain their shit but you're not cleaning their lines and whatnot i mean i've definitely i've definitely got a pint of beer here before that tasted like absolute garbage because like it was clear that the bar just didn't clean anything like this is

gonna give me some fun gut virus i don't know yeah i suppose my pet peeve is just like people taking kind of any excuse to make like a hospitality worker's life a little bit miserable so all that pint isn't good like pour it again like if it's a busy bar just drink your pint and come back and get another one or go somewhere else charges them for both oh they usually do but um a so this is much more personal as like someone who makes podcasts for a living um is so when people edit stuff but but they don't. So when you cut stuff, generally what you do is you either cut after a breath or before a breath if you have to make a cut. But it's like people who like, and this is maybe like just a learning thing. People maybe don't know about it, but who will cut but not fade the breath. So it sounds like someone's breathing in and out in and out at the exact same time

just gasping before every word but you'll be no but it's not even at that it's not like the end of a sentence and you'll be surprised at how often it happens it's a really really small thing and i kind of hate that like because of my job i don't enjoy podcasts as much anymore because i'm like when i'm listening to them i can just immediately. I mean, just for a peek behind the curtain, I guess since both of my co-hosts now, you and Nate are audio professionals, more than once, like I think I may have said this once before,

when Nate and I were recording the Taiping Rebellion series a while back, he did the first episode at his house, not in the studio. And he's like, oh, I'm going to have to schedule it so I record every episode at the house not in the studio and he's like oh i'm gonna have to schedule it so i record every episode at the house so it always sounds the same i'm like nate you're the only person that's going to notice that nobody else is going to notice that apart from me apart from you yeah um i'm trying okay so i got one i had i'll do a personal one and a professional one as well.

So I walk 99% of the places that I go in my daily life. I've adopted a walkable city, and I love it. But it's a city that's thousands of years old. There's only so much modernization they can do to it. So we have really small sidewalks. And this isn't unique to yorovan as well like i have i have encountered this in the united states and in europe and the caucuses um georgia not so much actually i they get a pass on this one um but

if you're what so you have a sidewalk you have a building on your left and a fucking busy street on your right um there's no traffic control in yerevan period it's it's complete chaos right do not step out into the roads you will die um and there'll be as you say that as someone who's been hit by a car multiple times in yerevan that's right uh to be fair i was in the middle of a crosswalk with a green light on one of those occasions and the other time i was in the parking lot of my apartment building and mind you like we don't really have parking lots these areas were not originally meant for car parking it was just a park in the middle of a commie block um and it's since been turned into

a parking lot uh but i remember when you got you got hit by the car crossing the street i was like talking to you like on whatsapp and then like i didn't hear from you from like half an hour and then you're like oh i got hit by a car and i'm like what i beat the shit out of that guy's car by the way um and uh so like people have a tendency to again this is not just here walk shoulder to shoulder in like groups of friends and take up the entire sidewalk and do not see that there's a large group of people coming the opposite way and refuse to like break their friend phalanx so it's like bro i'm either going straight through you or i'm stepping out into traffic and i i know which chance i'm going to take on this i'm going

to walk through you yeah you need to form like a tortuga with your friends and break their phalanx yeah like and when you do that they like this has happened to me in the u.s this has happened to me in germany this happened to me in georgia uh like when you do that they like give you a dirty look i'm like fucking move just move over yeah yeah um yeah like i guess lack of of decency uh and i guess my professional one if i was to have one is not necessarily um podcasts as a whole but my i guess it is because podcasts are massively corporatized now it's that when you listen to a show and they have so many fucking ads in it um like just so many fucking ads dude like you have an hour-long podcast and there's eight fucking ads in this thing.

Um, like this is mostly like, uh, I think I've said this before. There was some podcast I was listening to that sounded vaguely interesting to me, but it was on one of the bigger networks like Wondery or something like that. I didn't notice that before I started listening to it because it was just on my normal podcast app and it had no shit five minutes of ads before it even started it would have like a minute of ads every 10 minutes and then like a mid-break ad that was another several minutes like it was completely unlistenable yeah just like ads like does your dick not work why don't you try come nutties that would at least make me chuckle like it's always commercials for other podcasts on the same network which it's like okay fine but like

you're owned by clear channel or whatever you don't need to do this you have literally infinite money you could do whatever you want um someone someone please give us infinite money yeah i don't want the ads. So I was approached by... I will create a separate podcast that is just ads. It will be picked up by Wondery, I swear to God. And I'll close this by saying, I will not say which network approached me to buy the show. I think it was like two years ago.

And of course, when someone like a network approaches you you're like oh god i could like make a lot of money i could like have a retirement or something perhaps so like of course it was interesting for me back then um it may have been more than two years ago now i think of it um and they're like oh yeah we we want six to eight ads per hour of podcast and i was like yeah no absolutely not there's not like i can't like the fuck that just ruins the show i think we've done ads twice ever and one was for a friend of mine's uh company i think we did it for like three episodes and i felt weird even doing that. Instead we're getting dark money from Fall to Ireland to advertise going to Ireland. That's right. Yeah, I actually work for the

Ministry of Culture and Tourism. No, I think it's I actually think the Fall is the culture heritage in tourism. I don't even think that we have a Ministry of Tour tourism doing great for a tourist country, but that is 99% of the people who go to Armenia are just American Armenians. That's not wrong.

That is our show. Tom plug your stuff. Beneath the skin show about the history of everything told through the history of tattoos, whether you have tattoos, you love tattoos, or you don't have tattoos and you like history uh we talk about interesting stuff like russian prison tattoos we um released an episode recently with one of the world's foremost kind of combination egyptologists and tattoo people she has been discovering bodies in the Nile Valley

that were tattooed like thousands of years ago. It's a really cool conversation. That's sick. And yeah, we also, I think it was the other day, put out an episode

which talks about this little frog illustration that was from a Hokusai painting that became one of the most ubiquitous design motifs that was on everything from like fine china to like wallpaper

to tattoos and subsequently influenced the invention of the word cockamamie by Hasidic kids in New York in the 50s alright the immortal frog everybody thank you so much for listening to the show Tom thank you as always kids in New York in the 50s. All right. The immortal frog. Everybody, thank you so much for listening to the show.

Tom, thank you as always for joining us. If you like what we do here on the show, consider supporting us on Patreon. You get five plus years of pack content, pack bonus content. You get regular episodes early. You get access to our Discord, stickers, discounts on the store. I will mail you Tom's finger.

I need that for editing, Joe. You don't need all 10. You don't need all 10. I do. Importantly, the new merch coming up. New sweet merch. We do. We will have pre-orders for merch coming up um we're kind of

reworking our merch from being on teespring to being a more like quality product um and like better shirt quality better print quality better everything honestly it looks very very cool um and we will put pre-orders up. It might be up by the time this episode is out. And if they are... It might be closed by the time this episode is out. And if they are up, you can check the show notes and you will be able to find the link there

if the pre-orders are open. We have two designs. One is the Immortal Hong Christ from the Taiping Rebellion. And the other one is from a premium episode about the Battle of the Bees. Yeah, so support the Patreon and understand where a joke shirt comes from.

If you want to own a shirt that has a large bee with a mouser and a pith helmet, you can buy it. I want it. And until next time, don't invade Ethiopia.