The Battle of Anchem was fought between two factions of the Royal family in the Ethiopian Empire. The battle was fought to determine who would rule the empire, Empress Zewditu or King (Negus) Tafari Makonnen.

Zewditu was Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 until her death in 1930. The first female head of an internationally recognized country in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the first and only empress regnant of the Ethiopian Empire, her reign was noted for the reforms of her Regent and designated heir Ras Tafari Makonnen, about which she was at best ambivalent and often stridently opposed, due to her staunch conservatism and strong religious devotion. She is the most recent empress regnant, as well as the last female Ethiopian head of state until the 2018 election of Sahle-Work Zewde as president.