Gugsa Araya Selassie was the Shum[nb 3] of eastern Tigray Province as well as the great grandson of Emperor Yohannes IV.

The strain between them was especially apparent when the Emperor insisted on bringing his daughter's body back to Addis Ababa for burial rather than allowing her husband to bury her in the capital of eastern Tigray, Mek'ele.

[citation needed] On 3 October 1935, as Dejazmatch,[nb 5] Haile Selassie Gugsa was the commander in the Mek'ele sector when the Italians invaded Ethiopia.

As the Italians advanced, Emperor Haile Selassie ordered Ras Seyum Mangasha, the Commander of the Ethiopian Army of Tigre, to withdraw a day's march away from the Mareb River.

Furious Ethiopian patriots in Mek'ele promptly set fire to Dejazmach Haile Selassie Gugsa's home in the town.

Either way, Haile Selassie Gugsa remained loyal to the Italians who, at a minimum, used him for propaganda purposes during the balance of the invasion and during the five years of occupation.

[citation needed] In May 1938, Haile Selassie Gugsa was in Italy to welcome German dictator Adolf Hitler when the Nazi leader paid a state visit to King Victor Emmanuel III.

Haile Selassie Gugsa watched as Mussolini's son, Bruno, led a squadron of twenty-eight bombers that sank two 23,000-ton empty freighters in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

British Brigadier Maurice Stanley Lush, Deputy Chief Political Officer for Ethiopia, placed him back in command of eastern Tigray Province, with the intention of separating Tigray from Ethiopia, joining it to Eritrea and establishing a new "Greater Tigray/Tigrign" monarchy under either Haile Selassie Gugsa or Ras Seyum Mangasha.

[citation needed] In 1974, the Derg toppled the Ethiopian monarchy and Dejazmach Haile Selassie Gugsa was freed.

Haile Selassie Gugsa remained under effective house arrest at Ambo in western Ethiopia from that point on although technically no longer a state prisoner.