At no time before the conquest by Menelik was the present day Ethiopia a single country. What existed were independent polities--kingdoms in Abyssinia to the north, various confederacies in Oromia.The critical role played by the European armament and technical assistance in the subjugation of the Oromo was recorded by Earl Lytton, a British diplomat then in Ethiopia, who wrote in his book The Stolen Desert-Firms:
"Without massive European help, the Galla (Oromo) would not have been conquered at all. Menelik seems to have operated with French technicians, French map makers, French advice on the management of a standing army, and more French advice as to holding captured province with permanent garrisons of conscripted colonial troops. The French also armed his troops with firearms and did much else to organize his campaigns. The Galla (Oromo) were thus conquered by Abyssinians for the first time in recorded history."