Emperor Tekle Giyorgis II

Gobeze Gebre Medhin was born in 1825 at the Lasta province in the central Ethiopian highlands, the son of Wagshum Gebre Medhin of Lasta — the principal noble of the Wag-and-Lasta district of the Begemder province — and Woizero Tirungo, of the Lasta Solomonic line. He was raised at the Lasta court of his father at Sokota.

He received the classical Ge'ez and Amharic literary education of the Lasta-and-Begemder Solomonic nobility under the monastic clergy at the Sokota and Begemder monasteries — and was instructed in the military arts at the camps of his father.

He was elevated to the imperial throne by acclamation on the eighth of June 1868 at Adwa at the death of Emperor Tewodros II (placed in this archive) at the Battle of Magdala of the thirteenth of April 1868 — and was crowned at the Cathedral of Aksum on the eleventh of July 1868.

He consolidated his imperial authority across the years 1868 and 1869 against the principal Tigrayan rebel Kassa Mercha — the future Emperor Yohannes IV (placed in this archive) — and the principal Shewan and Gojjami nobility of the period.

He convened the principal Lasta Wagshum imperial coalition of 1869 to 1872 — and held the imperial authority through the early stages of the Tigrayan-Tewodrosian succession crisis of the post-Magdala period.

He lost the principal Battle of Assam of the eleventh of July 1871 against the Tigrayan forces of Kassa Mercha — at the principal Mereb river engagement of the Tigrayan-Wagshum-Lasta succession war of 1871. His army was defeated by the British-supplied Tigrayan artillery of Kassa.

He was captured at Assam by the Tigrayan forces and held in prison at Adwa from July 1871 to the date of his death.

He died at Adwa under Tigrayan imperial custody on the second of June 1873 of complications of a long imprisonment, at forty-seven.

He is honored here as the Wagshum claimant to the post-Magdala imperial throne.