The Lion of Judah;: A life of Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia

This is both a biography of Ethiopia's great ruler, Haile Selassie I, and a portrait of the country over which he rules. Protected by grand and towering mountains, Ethiopia, a Christian country ringed sound by militant Islam, had maintained its independence for more than a thousand years. Then in 1945, the country was savagely invaded, not by Islam but by Mussolini's Italy. Haile Selassie led his troops into battle against enormously superior forces, and when further resistance was clearly useless, he fled the country. He went first to Geneva to appeal to the League of Nations, of which Ethiopia was a member, to take effective action against Italy. He, "Apart from the Kingdom of God, no nation on this earth is higher than any other. If a strong government con destroy a weak people, then the hour has struck for all weak peoples. I appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgement....." Although Haile Selassie's appeal moved the hearts and troubled the consign aces of many individual men and women, the governments of the world took no action. Whereupon Haile Selassie said these prophetic words: "It is us today; it will be you tomorrow." It was five years before he saw his country again, and in 1940, after Italy entered the Second World War, Great Britain flew Haile Selassie tot he Anglo-egyptian Sudan to rally his people. In January 1941, he reentered Ethiopia and in May regained his throne at Addis Ababa. Haile Selassie, said to be the 111th descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, was once more, in fact as well as name, Emperor of Ethiopia, King of Kings, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah.