This paper examines the contention that between 1896 and 1898 the main object of Menelik's foreign policy was expansion westwards in collaboration with the French. It concludes, from both European and African evidence, that on the contrary Menelik subordinated his territorial aspirations in the Nile Valley to the promotion of good relations with the Khalifa; and that he frustrated rather than assisted the French missions to the Nile. The overriding anxiety of the Negus was that ‘Abdallāhi should not be distracted from his struggle with Kitchener by fears for security of his eastern frontier. Menelik saw in a Mahdist victory the best insurance against a renewal of European aggression in Ethiopia, fearing as he did that the subjugation of Ethiopia was the ultimate objective of British action in north-east Africa.

Roger Casement's role as Irish patriot has obscured his role as Congo reformer. Travelling in the interior of the Congo in 1903 as British consul, Casement gathered evidence that enabled the British government to attack the Congo State on grounds of maladministration. He did not however regard mere diplomatic action as sufficient to redress the wrongs of King Leopold's rubber trade. Convinced that only a humanitarian crusade could abolish the evils of the Leopoldian regime, Casement inspired E. D. Morel to found the Congo Reform Association. Through his dual capacity of civil servant and humanitarian, he attempted, in his own words, to choke off King Leopold ‘as a “helldog” is choked off’. His apocalyptic vision of evil in the Congo may have been exaggerated, but his influence was of the first magnitude in bringing about Belgium's annexation of the Congo in 1908.