Sebastopol (mortar)
large artillery mortar
Sebastopol was the name of a large artillery mortar commissioned by the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II (1818–1868). The name was taken from the Crimean town of Sevastopol, the site of a battle during the Crimean War. The mortar weighed approximately 6.7 tons, and was capable of firing off half-ton artillery rounds.
In an attempt to speed up industrialisation, Tewodros had welcomed British and French officials and a group of German missionaries into his kingdom. In 1866, following a series of diplomatic misunderstandings and the king's increasingly erratic behaviour, all foreigners were taken prisoner. Tewodros ordered the artisan-missionaries, led by Theophilus Waldmeier, to construct a brass cannon capable of firing a 1,000-pound (450 kg) cannon ball. It took seven months to construct and two furnace were built for the casting. When it was transported to Magdala a special road had to be built. At times 800 men were needed to move it; the 200 mile journey took six months. Meanwhile the British expedition to Abyssinia was sent to free the captives, which resulted in the Battle of Magdala.
“Sebastopol (mortar)” enters the record as large artillery mortar. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sebastopol, mortar and large can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sebastopol (mortar)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.