Battle of Wayna Daga
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| Battle of Wayna Daga | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Combatants | |||||||
| Ethiopia | Adal Sultanate | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Emperor Galawdewos | Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 8,000 Ethiopian infantry, 500 Ethiopian horse, 70 Portuguese musketeers, 60 Portuguese horse |
14,000 infantry, 1200 horse, 200 Ottoman musketeers | ||||||
| Casualties | |||||||
| unknown | extensive, but not precisely known; 160 Ottoman musketeers killed |
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The Battle of Wayna Daga (Amharic for "Grape-cultivating altitude") took place 21 February 1543, somewhere east of Lake Tana. Led by the young Emperor Galawdewos, the combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated the Muslim army led by Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi. Imam Ahmad was killed by a Portuguese musketeer, who had charged alone into the Muslim lines. This caused his army to break, and as the soldiers learned of the Imam's death, they fled the battlefield.
His wife Bati del Wambara managed to escape the Ethiopian forces with the forty surviving flintlockmen and return to Harar, but her son was captured in the aftermath and later exchanged for the Emperor's brother, Menas.
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