ABSTRACT
This chapter presents answer to questions; was the Foreign Office responsible for the creation of Britain’s Abyssinian difficulty, and why did the Conservative government decide to resolve that difficulty by a resort to arms? Rassam arrived at Massawa in June 1864 and Theodore ignored him. During the first half of 1865 a well informed and bitter press campaign in the Pall Mall Gazette, followed by a strong parliamentary attack on the Foreign Office’s handling of the Abyssinian problem, developed. The escalation of Egypto-Abyssinian rivalry in the seventies meant that there was considerable pressure on the Foreign Office to act as an arbiter on the Sudanese border, while on the coast the search for a more efficient client than the unruly Abyssinians or the indigent Turk led Russell to accept the transfer to Massawa to the Khedive Ismail in 1865 and Lord Granville to invite the Italians to annex the port in the eighties.
