[2] On 11 July 1871, Dejazmach Kassay Mercha defeated Nəgusä Nägäst Tekle Giyorgis and reinstated Ras Desta in Gojjam.

[5] The followers of Negus Tekle Haymanot Tesema attempted to extend his control over the Kingdom of Kaffa.

[5] In January 1887 Negus Tekle Haymanot defeated the Mahdists at the Battle of Madana between Gederaf and Gallabat.

[6][7] The In revenge, the following year the Mahdists under the command of Abu Anga campaigned into Ethiopia with an Army the size of 81,000 men.

[9] Austrian Catholic missionary Joseph Ohrwalder, who witnessed the battle, said that Tekle Haymanot's forces fought with "the courage of Lions" to protect their country and religion from the Muslim invaders, but they were overwhelmed by the larger and better equipped Mahdist army.

[10] As a result of this loss, northwestern Ethiopia was open to the Mahdists who followed up their victory by entering, sacking, and burning Gondar.

It was a march of only thirty miles from the battlefield, and was soon reached; sacked, plundered, and reduced to ashes; the churches were pillaged and then burnt; priests were thrown down from the roof and killed; the population massacred, and women and children dragged in hundreds into slavery.

[12]Emperor Yohannes IV ordered Negus Menelik and his Shewan army into Gojjam and Begemder.

Sensing a shift in power, Negus Tekle Haymanot Tesema negotiated a defensive alliance with Menelik.

British historian Lord Edward Gleichen states Tekle Haymanot "smote [Abu Anga] hip and thigh".