On 5 May 1941 Emperor Hayalla Sellase I, recently restored to the throne of Ethiopia, delivered a stirring message of hope, triumph and future expectations from the steps of his imperial palace in Addis Ababa. Within his speech, the Emperor of Ethiopia declared, It is my firm wish and purpose to merit the blessing with which God in His mercy has visited us, first, by sharing our gratitude to our Allies, the British ...secondly, to do work beneficial to the people and the country by establishing in our Ethiopia a Government which will protect the Faith and cause it to be respected, and by guaranteeing liberty of the people and Freedom of conscience.

However, from 1941 to 1944, Emperor Hayalla Sellase I realized that the price of British aid was far more costly than mere gratitude and that the liberty and freedom of his people hard won from Italian rule would have to be re-won from British rule. But why was he able to succeed in removing British rule from Ethiopia by the end of 1944? What strategy and tactics did the Emperor of Ethiopia utilize to systematically remove British administrative, economic, territorial, infrastructural and informational control of Ethiopia? In an effort to answer these questions this study will argue that Emperor Hayalla Sellase I regained de facto control over Ethiopia prior to his signing of the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement of 1944 by engaging in a pre- Cold War variant of flexible response which employed the tactics of obstructionism, opportunism, brinksmanship, leverage and propaganda to compel the British to surrender control of Ethiopia to its emperor.2