Abyssinia

**Abyssinia**, the Abyssinian Empire or the Ethiopian Empire or just Ethiopia, is a powerful African nation, and the only independent state in all of the Horn of Africa. It borders Egypt, France, Italy, and Kenya through their African colonies.

# History

## 1890s-1918: Adaptation through the Scramble for Africa

In 1890, it had been several years since Abyssinia united under the ruler Zemene Mesafint. But their problems of a unified Abyssinia would be far from over. Due to the Scramble For Africa, Italy set its sights on Abyssinia, and hoped to exploit the country before the eventual colonization of state, shown by Italy colonizing Eritrea, initially controlled by Abyssinia. However, as with any European power in Africa, the Italians were not happy with their land expansion and hoped to expand into all of Abyssinia. But, miraculously Abyssinia was able to hold off the Italians and won the Italo-Ethiopian war. This would come at a cost however as a great famine swept through the countryside, killing over 30% of Abyssinia’s entire population. As the rest of the world was plunged into several wars, from Asia to Europe to Africa, Abyssinia remained staunchly neutral during the Great War, mostly due to the fact that they had their own internal issued to take care of. But in 1916 everything began to change. That year, the ruler Lij Iyasu was deposed in favor of his aunt, Empress Zewditu. Zewditu was a conservativist and strong religious devotion. 2 years later, the empress would prove to be a good fit for the country as the strong conservatism created a sense of national pride and nationalism.

## 1919: Participation In The Cairo War

Due to the nationalism, many began to urge the Empress to embark on territorial expansion, especially in the Italian colonies. However, when the Cairo War broke out, Abyssinia debated who to join. Both Britain and the Italians wanted to get Ethiopia to join their side. At first, Abyssinia was going to join against Italy, but the war quickly turned against Britain. But when Abyssinia was going to join in the Suez Canal fell, and as a result Zewditu seriously contemplated what to do. In October Malta fell and that was enough for her to make her final decision. Despite an uproar from Abyssinian nationalists calling for Abyssinia to reclaim Eritrea, Zewditu on the 16th declared war on Britain. Despite their differences, the Italians played the diplomatic card by promising the Abyssinians almost all of British somaliland, including the port Berbera giving Abyssinia access to the sea. The Italian armies were stuck in British somaliland and couldn’t take anymore land, and the Egyptians were stuck in northern Sudan, but with Abyssinia entering the war it was a pivotal moment for the enemies of the British.

The Abyssinian armies immediately broke the stalemate, where as a few divisions were put in the British border to force British forces to redirect to the borde. This strategy worked out, as the Egyptians broke the stalemate and entered Khartoum and Port Sudan. At the same time, British forces in Somalidand were quickly overrun and the Abyssinian forces captured Berbera in November.

The remainder of the war was marked by a stalemate as Abyssinian forces couldn’t enter into British Kenya and neither could Britain enter Ethiopia. For another year the war dragged onward, but it began to take a toll on the Abyssinians. The Abyssinians didn’t even have any convoys to take in supplies, and as a result they heavily relied on Egyptians and Italians for support. But mostly the Egyptians as Abyssinia knew what would happen if they began to draw economically close to Italy. But because supplies were limited the looming Spector of a famine in the Horn of Africa was a possibility and many began to demand that the war come to an end. Thankfully though, the demand came in the last months of the war, and when the demand grew stronger by the day the Empress was saved by Britain’s surrender. In the end, Abyssinia attended the Treaty of Valletta, and they along with the Italians partitioned British Somaliland with the grand majority going to Abyssinia including Berbera.

The Italians kept their promise, and also in the treaty Abyssinia gained border territories from Sudan and British African colonies. Also in the partition was war reparations, but the British were able to allow Abyssinia to soften their grip on gaining the money after Britian offered to lease about 1 dozen convoys to Abyssinia. This in turn allowed Abyssinia to trade with Nejd, Persia and many other states they couldn’t get through a land border which averted the spector of famine. The chance of a famine totally ended in 1921.

## 1921-1929

Abyssinia for the rest of the 20s would be ruled by the Empress, and throughout the 20s Abyssinia began to change. In 1921 the Empress declared British Somaliland an integrated province of the Empire. With their deep water port Abyssinia began to involve itself in world politics, obviously mostly in African European politics. Despite many peoples’ pleas to “liberate” European colonies in the Horn of Africa, the Empress declined. Abyssinian nationalism grew though, and many in the government bang to distance themselves from Italy and any sort of Abyssinian-Italian politics. But their problems were far from over. Slavery, the “free” market and Somalian nationalists undermining the Abyssinian occupation caused much exploitation in the country and many crack downs in Ethiopian Somaliland. In 1927, the London market crashed. Although Ethiopia didn’t have a big relation with the British they had trade relations, and with the crash it slowed down the trading between both countries causing economic stagnation for Abyssinia. The Empress would try, in vain to bring the country out of the stagnation. And due to this stagnation, many Somalians, not only in the newly integrated provinces but also in the mostly Somalian Ogaden were able to weaken Abyssinian pacification efforts in those regions.

## 1930-1935

In late 1930, the Empress Zewditu died peacefully, and as a result, Haile Selassie succeeded her. Haile unlike Zewditu was a reformist and liberal. But, his liberalist policies clashed with the high amount of conservatism in Abyssinia, due to the fact that since 1916 Abyssinia stayed a relatively conservatist state, but Haile knew reforms had to be made. He began to cut ties with the European powers especially Italy. Abyssinia grew closer to Egypt and began to fund the air force and navy. But the navy needed huge sums of money to form a proper navy, and as a result the navy is relatively small and if war breaks out they could easily be obliterated. But the air force was vastly improved as with the army.

As the French Revolution escalated and after Communard forces landed in Algeria and Corsica, Abyssinia saw an opportunity to expand their territory and occupied Djibouti in the Summer, facing little resistance in doing so.

But land reforms, modernization and industrialization has not been improved upon in the slightest. Abyssinia remains largely agrarian as land owners are hugely opposed to industrialization and will do anything to hold onto it. Additionally, slavery has only been slightly reformed and not abolished. This resulted in vast criticism when in 1934 the emperor announced slavery would not be abolished after all. Not entirely to his fault, Abyssinia has only gone down hill after Zewditu died and unrest in the province of Berbera has escalated. As 1936 approaches, Abyssinia will need to find a way to solve their problems or they will collapse, and the decades of progress made will all be for nothing. Not to mention, Somalian nationalists has been escalating their operations in the Ogaden. Although Abyssinia secretly has been preparing for an invasion into Eritrea and beating the superior Italian army, if Eritrea is invaded, it will undoubtedly cause a full scale rebellion in Italian Somaliland. And yet if the rebellion succeeds, it might spread into Abyssinia proper. If Abyssinia wants to keep its gains from the Cairo War as well as be the most prominent Horn of Africa power, they will need to play their cards right with the Italians.

## Country Overview

Abyssinia is, in many ways, a backwater state. The country still has not industrialized, far from it. It still remains reliant on old feudal lords and principles. Despite their influx of trading through several trading treaties signed from the Treaty of Valletta as well as through the Indian Ocean through Berbera, the situation has remained the same. Abyssinia is still quite divided no matter the attempts at assimilation or modernization.