Léon Chefneux (15 January 1853 at

Piatra Neamț Piatra Neamț (; ; ) is the capital city of Neamț County, in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in northeastern Romania. Because of its very privileged location in the Divisions of the Carpathians, Eastern Carpathian mountains, it is con ...

, Romania – 31 May 1927 at

Grasse Grasse (; Provençal dialect, Provençal in classical norm or in Mistralian norm ; traditional ) is the only Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur Re ...

, France) was a French

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

, businessman, and arms dealer.

Biography

From 1877, he travelled to Ethiopia with Pierre Arnoux for the Franco-Ethiopian Commercial Society, and later with

Paul Soleillet Paul Soleillet (29 April 1842 – 10 September 1886) was a French explorer in West Africa and Ethiopia. He was a strong believer in opening up Africa to trade through peaceful means, and thus bringing the benefits of French civilization to the na ...

for the French Society. In 1882, he set up in

Shewa Shewa (; ; Somali: Shawa; , ), formerly romanized as Shua, Shoa, Showa, Shuwa, is a historical region of Ethiopia which was formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire. The modern Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa is located at it ...

as an arms trader and became friends with

Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he s ...

. In 1885, he was in charge of delivering weapons to Négus Menelik and, together with Henry Audon, traversed Dankali and Choa, where they met Paul Soleillet. After a hunting accident, Audon was injured and had to have a limb amputated. Upon learning of the massacre of the explorer Léon Barral and his wife on 24 February 1886, he went to the sources of Amoïssa and found the unrecognisable bodies, which had been devoured by hyenas and birds of prey. He found the expedition's rifles and baggage. He was the manager of the Lake Assal Society (1896–1897), having received the concession in 1887,Colette Dubois, ''Djibouti's White Gold. Saltworks and Saltmakers (19th-20th centuries)'', 2003, and in 1896 he founded, with Alfred Ilg, the Imperial Company of Ethiopian Railways. As Ethiopia's consul general, Léon Chefneux was involved in establishing the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

between Djibouti and

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

. Chefneux left Ethiopia and returned to France in 1922, and he died in

in 1927.

Bibliography

David H. Shinn, Thomas P. Ofcansky, ''Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia'', 2013,

References

External links

{{Portal, Ethiopia People from Piatra Neamț French people of Romanian descent 19th-century French explorers 19th-century French businesspeople