Ethiopian Empire

Imperial flag

### Head of State

Emperor Haile Selassie I, King of Kings of Ethiopia, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God

### Population (1936)

16,030,000

The **Ethiopian Empire**, also known as the **Abyssinian Empire** or more simply as **Ethiopia**, is an African monarchy situated primarily along the Ethiopian Highlands in the Horn of Africa region. Ethiopia has been ruled by the Solomonic dynasty since 1270, with Emperor Haile Selassie currently serving as absolute monarch. The nation includes a number of distinct ethnic groups and has historically resisted outright European colonisation, having repeatedly thrown back British and Italian invasions over a period of several decades. Christianity, Islam and traditional animistic beliefs are all practiced by the Ethiopian population, with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church enjoying a dominant status as the state church.

Ethiopia borders the Red Sea and the German colony of Djibouti to its north, the Boqorate of Somalia to its east, the German colony of Mittelafrika to its south and the Sultanate of Egypt to its west. At present, the nation is too preoccupied with domestic concerns to consider an ambitious foreign policy, with international objectives limited to managing Ethiopia's subordinate relationship with the German Empire and the reclamation of the Galla Land from Somalia.

### Politics and Society

#### **Social hierarchy:**

Having continuously sustained the apparatuses of state since the 13th Century, Ethiopia remains a predominately feudalistic society with a number of clearly-defined social classes. Most powerful are the *shimaglle*, Ethiopia's land-owning nobility. Nobles from the *shimaglle* enjoy varying amounts of influence in the Imperial Court, usually depending on the size of their estates and their personal ties to the Emperor and other nobles. Practically all arable land in Ethiopia is owned by the *shimaglle*, who employ *serfs* to work the fields in a system emblematic of pre-renaissance Europe. These *serfs* constitute another distinct class within Ethiopian society, making up the overwhelming majority of the nation's population. Those civilians who do not directly serve the *shimaglle* as *serfs* are usually either *artisans* or *merchants.*

Additionally, there is the traditional warrior class, known as the *chewa.* Men belonging to the *chewa* will typically serve in the private armies of the *shimaglle* or in the imperial military. Owing to Ethiopia's underdeveloped economy, most chewa are equipped with traditional weapons rather than modern military equipment.

#### **Imperial politics:**

Although the *shimaglle* enjoy significant influence at a local and regional level, national-level power is wielded by the Emperor and his Imperial Court. As has been tradition for centuries, the Emperor will appoint key noblemen as his ministers, with the most favoured/influential member of the court being appointed Chief Minister (equivalent to Prime Minister). Ethiopian politics are thus dominated less by political ideology and more by the personal loyalties and rivalries of the ruling aristocracy. Chief among these rivalries is that between the progressives (noblemen in favour of modernising and westernising Ethiopia) and the conservatives (noblemen supportive of the *status quo*). Though originally supported by both factions, Emperor Haile Selassie I has since come down firmly on the side of the progressives, leading painful-but-sustained efforts to modernise Ethiopia's underdeveloped economy and westernise its feudalistic society. This has generated considerable friction between the Emperor and the powerful conservative faction. Modernisation efforts have also heavily indebted the Ethiopian Government to foreign creditors, affording creditors from the German Empire significant political and economic influence across the country. Such is the depth of German influence that many have come to see Berlin as an even more powerful player in Ethiopian politics than the nobility.

**Ethnic groups:**

Ethiopia is in large part dominated by the Amhara people, who occupy much of the agricultural heartland and fill many positions of power. That said, centuries of rivalry between the region's many distinct ethnicities has created a careful balance in which the Gambela, Harari, Afar, Tigray, Oromo and southern ethnic groups enjoy considerable autonomy. Noblemen from these groups can just as easily participate in the Imperial Court, particularly in the case of the Oromo, who constitute the largest ethnic group in the country. Despite this balance, however, deep-seated ethno-religious tensions persist. This includes a small, Tigray-dominated separatist insurgency in Eritrea, known as the Eritrean National Congress, and an Oromo separatist movement in the highlands, known as the Oromo Independence Front. These insurgencies are small in scale, but could easily spiral out of control if inter-ethnic relations are ever mishandled by the Imperial Court. The same is true for Ethiopia's large Islamic minority, which has for centuries felt isolated and maligned by the Ethiopian Orthodoxy but is yet to organise around a singular political movement.

#### **Slavery:**

Despite its nominal abolition in 1924, slavery is still widely practiced across Ethiopia, thanks in large part to support for the institution among Ethiopia's conservative nobility. Slaves typically belong to *shimaglle* and nominally serve their lord as *'serfs'*, although in practice they are neither paid nor able to leave their estate. This has led some scholars to argue that slaves constitute a separate class within Ethiopian society, although this interpretation is repudiated by imperial law classing slaves as free serfs. As can be expected, the continued presence of slavery in Ethiopia has severely damaged the nation's reputation abroad.

### Economy

#### **Agriculture:**

Ethiopia's economy is made up almost exclusively by the agricultural sector, which dominates the nation's international exports and job market. Ethiopia's countless *shimaglle*-dominated estates produce a number of subsistence crops such as cereals, tef, potatoes, legumes and vegetables, as well as several cash crops, including coffee, khat, enset and sugarcane. Regrettably, an excessive focus on cash crops, combined with severe economic underdevelopment, poor infrastructure and unreliable rainfall has created a food insecurity crisis in Ethiopia. This has led to several famines in recent memory, with little standing in the way of further famines in the near-future.

Ethiopia's agricultural sector also includes a proud pastoralist tradition, with the nation boasting large herds of cattle, sheep, goats and camels, used to produce meat, milk, leather, cheese and several niche products. Much of this industry is dominated by the informal sector, which often sees pastoralists trade with trusted local partners across national boundaries in Somalia, Mittelafrika and Egyptian Sudan.

#### **German influence:**

After years of slow-paced modernisation efforts, what little industry the Ethiopian economy possesses has fallen under the near-total control of German investors, who maintain unrivaled influence in the Imperial Court. This, together with the massive public debt incurred to German creditors and the presence of the Trans-Afrikan railway linking German Mittelafrika to Djibouti via Ethiopia has placed Addis Ababa firmly within the German economic sphere. Germany's influence has proven extremely unpopular in Ethiopia; a nation which prides itself on having never been colonised by the European powers. Progressives decry the national debt and German industrial ownership, seeing these developments as insults to Ethiopian sovereignty and counter-productive to modernisation plans. Conservatives, meanwhile, see the nation's dependence on Berlin as punishment for attempting to modernise, believing that Ethiopia must instead chart an isolationist and traditionalist course free from modern industry and overseas interests. Despite these sentiments, however, it is difficult to see an economic future for Ethiopia without continued German influence.

#### **Mining:**

Beyond Ethiopia's gargantuan agricultural sector and meagre industrial base, the country also possesses a relatively large mining industry. Mining exports are dominated by gold, with copper mines in the highlands and Eritrea also providing major contributions to the international market.

#### **Modernisation:**

Ethiopian modernisation efforts have increased in intensity since 1936, following unprecedented state intervention in the agricultural sector. This was best demonstrated by the establishment of a large-scale research institute known as the Imperial Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Studies, as well as the financing of a state-owned firmed focused on modernising agricultural machinery, the Imperial Abyssinian Agricultural Corporation. International observers have labelled these efforts as indicative of a wider campaign to leverage increased an agricultural output as a means of funding a capable industrial sector and continued political centralisation.

### Foreign Policy

Owing to Ethiopia's 1918 entry into the Weltkrieg on the side of the Central Powers (which saw Ethiopia's re-annexation of Italian Eritrea), Addis Ababa maintains close ties to Berlin. Military cooperation between the two powers remains a priority for Ethiopia, with much of the Ethiopian military equipped with German equipment and Emperor Haile Selassie I even serving as an honourary *Generalfeldmarschall* in the *Deutsches Heer* (German Army). High-level military cooperation of this variety is necessary to offset Ethiopia's neighbours in Somalia and Egypt, who are each distrusted by strategists in the Imperial Court. German economic and political cooperation also remains a top priority for the Imperial Court, which must balance Berlin's overriding economic influence, dominant regional presence and extensive lines of credit as part of its day-to-day management of the nation.

Ethiopia maintains frosty relations with Somalia, which occupies large tracts of territory claimed by Ethiopia (known as the Galla Land). Although open war between the two states is always a possibility, a number of crucial factors have combined to keep the peace between the regional powers for the time being. These include Germany's mediating influence in both countries, which has unofficially bound the two rivals within the same economic/political sphere, as well as the relative strength of the Somali military, which despite its low manpower poses a significant threat to Ethiopia. Similarly frosty relations exist between Ethiopia and Egypt, which share a mutual mistrust in the Blue Nile region dating back centuries.

Since 1936, as part of a more generalised push to increase its diplomatic footprint, Ethiopia has engaged in extensive cooperation with the Ottoman Empire and Persia.

### Military

Ethiopia's military, like its society, has remained remarkably feudalistic in nature. Only 4,000 infantrymen in the entire country are trained and equipped to a modern standard. This cohort of elite troops is known as the *Kebur Zabagna* (Imperial Guard) and reports directly to the Emperor. The *Kebur Zabanga* includes three battalions of trained regular infantry armed with rifles, machine guns and mortars, one ceremonial battalion known as the *Mahal Safari* and one heavy machine gun battalion. *Kebur Zabagna* troops receive constant training from the Ottoman Empire's permanent military mission in Addis Ababa, which provides the force with a small amount of up-to-date artillery, machine guns and small arms.

Another 40,000 infantry and cavalrymen with varied degrees of training serve in the private armies of the *shimaglle*, being members of the *chewa* warrior class. *Chewa* troops are predominately equipped with outdated rifles and traditional Ethiopian weaponry such as swords, spears and bows, with only a small number equipped with modern weapons of war. The outdated command structure and equipment of the *chewa* armies is believed to have been behind Ethiopia's appalling record in the Weltkrieg, which saw Ethiopian troops struggle to defeat a small, isolated outpost of Italian and Tigrayan troops in Eritrea. Significant reform is required if Ethiopia is ever to overwhelm its numerically-weaker but modernised Somali neighbour.

In times of total war, it is estimated that a further 500,000-950,000 Ethiopian men could be rallied to arms by imperial order.

As far as air power is concerned, Ethiopia possesses 22 German post-war interceptors, which are stationed a few kilometres from Addis Ababa and are technically part of the *Kebur Zabanga*. Due to its crippling debt and the arid, under-populated nature of the Eritrean coastline, Ethiopia is yet to develop a navy.

Kebur Zabanga commissioned officers, 1932.Ethiopian chewa, 1930.Chewa bearing traditional arms, 1936,Mounted chewa, 1929.Aerial roundel, 1936.