Postby gurey25 » Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:12 am
[quote="MAD MAC"]Gurey, yes and no. The Tigres can not put more Tigres in the field, but they control the Army and that's what matters. Furthermore, they have a deep seated military culture that the Oromos lack.[/quote]
MM i was not talking population wise, i meant how many active soldiers they can bring to the battle field.
The TPLF was not as capable as thier mentors the EPLF and unlike them were not able to mobilize anything like the 200,000 out of a population of 3 to 4 million that the EPLF did.
Neverthless the TPLF i believe did mobilze close to 100,000, add that to
the reconstructed ethiopian army including Amharas, forcibly conscripted Oromos and other nationalities, they command quite a force.
The OLf never managed to even approach 10,000 even in thier heydays in the 1070's.
The funny thing is that the ORomos did have a millitary culture, their Gada social system also includes milliatary organization like the age grade system, inwich every man was put into specialised units according to the age bracket.
The Oromos have been defeated and mentally enslaved, that is why today they are docile and weak, when in the past they were an expansioninst millitaristic people.
The Tigray on the other hand never had much of a milliatry culture,
thier millitary culture consists of conflicts between fuedal lords and thier levees of peasants.
The tigray are better organized and militarized because they were good students of thier cousins the Eritreans, who had 30 years of war to learn how to fight.
