Abyssinian War Medal

 

The British Expedition to Abyssinia 1868.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

The Abyssinian War Medal was a British Empire campaign medal presented for service in Abyssinia. The medal was instituted in March 1869 and was awarded for service between 4 October 1867 and 19 April 1868 to those who participated in the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia.

 

This expedition, which was led by Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Napier, was undertaken by armed forces of the British Empire against the Ethiopian Empire. Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia,who had imprisoned several missionaries and two representatives of the British government.

 

The expedition launched by the British in response required the transportation of a sizeable military force hundreds of miles across mountainous terrain lacking any road system.

 

 

The medal is circular (but surmounted with a large Queens Crown), 33mm in diameter and was struck in silver. The obverse of this medal bears the small head of Queen Victoria within a 9 pointed star with the letters making up the inscription; ‘ABYSSINIA’ appearing between the points.

 

The reverse contains the embossed name of the recipient often including his number and regiment or ship within a laurel wreath - however some issued to native troops were engraved.

 

Because the recipient's names were stamped in relief on the reverse of the medal. this required that the dies for the reverse had to have a removable centre so each recipient's name could be embossed.

 

Because of this and the embossed nature of the naming requiring a die to be cut for each individual medal’s reverse, this made the medal expensive to produce.

 

Although the medals were struck at the Royal Mint (with a blank reverse) the naming was carried out by the firm of G. Austin who used an unrecorded method of punching mild steel cylinders with the name which was then used to hammer the reverse of the medal.

 

This resulted in flattening of the obverse which is evident on most examples encountered today.

 

The ribbon suspender takes the shape of a ring attached to a crown which surmounts the medal.

 

 

 

The ribbon is 38mm wide and red in colour with a narrow white stripe along either edge.

 

 

None were authorised for this medal.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

 

* It should be noted that the values quoted above reflect the average price that a medal dealer may expect to sell this medal for - please see the ‘things you should know’ web page for more details about valuing medals.

 

 

This section contains information on:-

 

- The British Expedition To Abyssinia.

 

The British Expedition To Abyssinia - The British Expedition to Abyssinia was a rescue mission and punitive expedition carried out in 1868 by the armed forces of the British Empire against the Ethiopian Empire. Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, also known as 'Theodore', imprisoned several missionaries and two representatives of the British government in an attempt to get the attention of the British government, which had been ignoring his requests for military assistance.

 

The punitive expedition launched by the British in response required the transportation of a sizable military force (which consisted of 13,000 British and Indian soldiers, 26,000 camp followers and over 40,000 animals, including the elephants) across hundreds of miles of mountainous terrain lacking any road system.

 

Harold G. Marcus described the action as '…one of the most expensive affairs of honour in history'.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.