On March 1, 1896 Ethiopia defeated the Italians at the Battle of Adwa, perhaps the single most important event in modern Ethiopian history. News penetrated even to the small town of Katha in northern Burma where Wärqenäh was district medical officer. Then and there he decided to return to Ethiopia in order to help take care of the casualties from the first war between Ethiopia and Italy. During the second war between these two very different countries from 1935 to 1941, he would play a much more significant role. In both wars, he was forced to think deeply about where his loyalties lay, whether to Britain and its empire or to Ethiopia. The Ethiopia of his infancy had changed dramatically. When Wärqenäh was picked up on the battleground in Mädäla in 1868, Emperor Téwodros had committed suicide, and the British had successfully invaded and conquered Ethiopia, then swiftly left. Four years of division and brutal civil war followed. Before Wärqenäh returned to Ethiopia thirty-one years later in 1899, Ethiopia had been ruled by three Emperors: Täklä Giyorgis (1868–1872), Yohannes (1872–1889) and Menilek (1889–1913). Täklä Giyorgis came from Lasta in central Ethiopia, Yohannes from Tegré in the north and Menilek from Shäwa in the south. Wärqenäh would become Menilek's personal physician, but he neither knew nor had much contact with the other two emperors, although he named a son Téwodros.