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The Military Adviser to the Government was the title of the foreign military advisors appointed in Ethiopia from 1895 to 1935 to assist that country's military modernization and organization. All military advisers were officers of the Imperial Russian Army, and they imparted a significant Russian influence on the Ethiopian military that persists to this day, with the Ethiopians maintaining several pre-Revolutionary Russian military practices and traditions, not dissimilar to the Imperial German influence on the modern-day Chilean military.

History

Until the October Revolution of 1917, the position was filled by an officer of the Imperial Russian Army on secondment, nominated by the Stavka of the Supreme Commander with the consent of the Ethiopian government, taking the character of a permanent military liaison mission. Following the demise of Imperial Russia, the position, as with other advisory positions in the Ethiopian military, was filled on the basis by direct recruitment by the Ethiopian Ministry of War. The Ethiopians saw the presence of Russian military advisers as a useful counterbalance against the influence of Britain, France, and Italy, whose colonial territories otherwise entirely surrounded their national territory, just as they did with the presence of other European and world powers—including Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain, Japan, and the United States—in other domains.

The Russian role persisted even after the Russian revolution, by which time the Russian advisers had collectively acquired an essentially institutional character regarded as not worth disrupting. The Ethiopian military had adopted Russian practices with regards to training, uniforms, military organization, and other fields, and Russian officers were seen as best-placed for purposes of continuity

After 1917, the Military Adviser and his senior staff were invariably drawn from veterans of the White movement. However, some lower-ranked officials hailed from other countries, such as Germany or France, and the working language of the Military Adviser's Office was French rather than Russian. To reduce tensions, military advisers from different countries—particularly those that had been on opposing sides of the First World War—were largely kept in different branches, Germans for instance predominating in the artillery.

The Ethiopians used the surfeit of former Imperial commmanders to attract more senior officers to the post, and the Military Adviser, who before the war had been colonels or major-generals, was thus generally held by Lieutenant-Generals or generals of the branch. Ex-Imperial Russian officers and their families formed the core of the White émigré community, which was some 1,400 people strong in 1932.

The position fell into abeyance during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and was formally abolished by legislation after the war. It was not revived for a number of reasons. First was a belief that the Ethiopian Armed Forces had outgrown the need for formal military tutelage, which was however contradicted somewhat by the substantial presence of British advisers in the Ethiopian military during and after the war. Second was the opposition of the Soviet Union, with whom Ethiopia had not had diplomatic relations prior to the war but whose opinions had to be taken into account as one of the main Allied Powers, a factor exacerbated by the fact that several former White Russian advisers had served in Nazi-backed, anti-Soviet military formations during the war.

Lastly was the fact the White Russian community had by and large collaborated with the Italian occupiers, taking advantage of their privileged status as Europeans relative to the now-subordinated "native African" Ethiopians to serve in the Italian administration and accrue assets expropriated from Ethiopian notables. While the Ethiopian government generally refrained from taking systematic reprisals against the Russian community following Liberation, in line with its generally lenient attitude towards Europeans in Ethiopia, including Italian migrants, it was disinclined to restore their institutional privleges. However, individual Russian expatriates continued to serve as advisers or contractors in the military or security services into the mid-1960s.

Military Adviser to the Goverment

Russian medical forces dispatched to Harer and Addis Ababa in May 1896, led by Pyotr Shchusev.

From 1896 to 1908 Military Adviser to His Imperial Majesty. After 1908 directly subordinated to the Ministry of War.

Military Adviser

• Esaul Nikolay Leontiev (1895-1897)
• Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Bulatovich (1897-1899)
• Colonel Leonid Artamonov (1899-1903)
• Major-General Vladimir Olokhov (1903-1905)
• Major-General Nikolai Yudenich (1905-1907)
• (1907-1910)
• Major-General Vladimir Belayev (1910-1912)
• Major-General Aleksei Bayov (1912-1914)
• (1914-1915)
• (1915-1917)
• (1917-1918, acting)
• Lieutenant-General Nikolai Golovin (1918-1920)
• Infantry General Dmitry Shcherbachev (1920-1922)
• Infantry General Vasily Flug (1922-1925)
• Cavalry General Abram Dragomirov (1925-1929)
• Infantry General Vladimir Cheremisov (1929-1932)
• (1932-1934)
• Lieutenant-General Boris Shteifon (1934-1936)

Assistant Military Adviser

• Vice Admiral Mikhail Kedrov (1925-1928)
• Major-General Nikolai Ignatev (1928-1932)
• Lieutenant-General Boris Shteifon (1932-1934)

Second Assistant Military Adviser

• Colonel Alexander Barbovich (1930-1936)