If anything, the TWP would be absorbed by the UNIA as a predominantly Americo-Liberian party and see prominent members, like William Tubman, join the UNIA. I believe @Mersechal has outlined the most accurate scenario in the Triumph of Africa: A Second Italo-Ethiopian War/Pan-African TL.
Sheba's Sons - Haile Selassie goes to Tokyo
- Thread starter Hagre
- Start date
According to Wilson J. Moses' Marcus Garvey: A Reappraisal, he envisioned a one-party African state and I don't think his inauguration as the President of Liberia would really change much of that. If anything, it's likely to be reaffirmed with Liberia's chaotic political climate and culture clashes that lead him to insist on homogeneity and one supreme authority.
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The Fall of Sheba's Kingdom
The Fall of Sheba's Kingdom
The Ethiopian successes from December to January of 1936 had been completely overturned with Italy's employment of chemical warfare that left Ethiopian forces reeling across the northern front and Italian forces quickly advancing toward the Imperial centre. In combination with the overwhelming might of Italian firepower that even the Imperial Guardsmen were unable to deal with, this had seen the Ethiopians retreat at Tembien and Shire as what was left of the Ethiopian armies and their commanders met with the Emperor at Qorem. Despite the pathetic state of the Ethiopian units before him, Haile Selassie was already planning a counterattack at Maichew and gathered his soldiers to spearhead an attack against the Italians' flanks on St. George's Day. The feudal levies of Ras Kassa and Seyoum were to be used in a series of attacks against the Italian centre in the hopes that their human waves could overwhelm their opponents, distracting Badoglio enough for some form of success with the assistance of the Azebu Oromo.
The Imperial Bodyguard prepare for the Battle of Maichew, March 1936.
To the surprise of Badoglio and his international observers, the Ethiopians had successfully pushed back the Italians from Maichew and inflicted a total of several thousand casualties, having virtually annihilated four battalions in the process and mauling a few others. The Azebu Oromo cavalry [3] was released for harassing the retreating Italians, keeping up the pressure as the Battle of Maichew ended in victory for the Ethiopians. Despite the victory at Maichew, Haile Selassie wasn't keen on losing more men to the horrors of chemical warfare and made the decision to withdraw his remaining soldiers toward Addis Ababa to see if they could be reorganized into guerrillas fighting in the Highland plateau, knowing that the complete collapse of Ethiopia was at hand. There was little complaint from his commanders and his soldiers who'd been exhausted by the near nonstop skirmishes and battling, all too happy to oblige the Emperor. On the road to Addis Ababa, the Italians followed and the RA's airplanes kept up the pressure on those same men, killing thousands more men of the disintegrating armies.
Exhausted Ethiopian soldiers begin the trek back to the capital, April 1936.
The Italian invasion of Ethiopia had sparked waves of outrage throughout Japan, allegedly even from Hirohito himself, and then excitement with the Christmas Offensive's advances. It led to the increasing popularity and prominence of Japan's pan-Asian nationalist organizations who'd already advocated for close Japanese-Ethiopian relations [4] and had been ecstatic when hearing of the news that Kuroda Masako had married Lij Araya Abebe in August 1934. To them, it seemed inevitable that the Ethiopians would replicate Adwa in December when the northern armies reclaimed land in Tigray and Ras Imru's Gojjame troops threatened to push into Italy's Eritrean colony. That was why it shocked them and the Japanese people when news of Italy's gassing of Ethiopian civilian and soldier alike made headlines across the international community, causing an international scandal when rumors of the Japanese-Ethiopian couple being subject to said gassing reached Tokyo. Fortunately, the royal couple were safe and Masako had begun taking advantage of her connections to Japan to assist the Ethiopians, although this would be in vain with the near complete collapse of the Ethiopian armies on the northern front.
The Japanese government was, understandably, hesitant about giving the Ethiopian Emperor asylum and attempted to maintain both a moderate policy toward Rome and somewhat favorable policy toward the Ethiopians with the outburst of pro-Ethiopia sentiment throughout the country. The Japanese ambassador to Rome, Sugimura Yotora, was trying to clam down on the rumors of Japanese armaments shipments to Ethiopia and on the growing fears of the "Yellow Peril" spreading to European Africa, especially with the Garveyite government's extensive network in West Africa. Ikki Kita was one of these nationalists who adopted not just a pro-Ethiopia stance with the royal couple's marriage in 1934 but the belief that the ruling classes of Ethiopia were connected to that of the Japanese Monarchy through distant ancestors in the Hebrew Solomonids. Expanding on that stance, Kita contemplated the possibility of achieving his Hakko Ichiu ideal as outlined in his An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan [5] through a Japanese-ruled East Asia uniting with an Ethiopian-dominated East Africa and even with an expanded Liberian state as imagined by Edward Wilmot Blyden [6] and Marcus Garvey.
Ikki Kita's influence amongst the IJA's junior officers saw an expansion of this concept to the violent radical nationalist factions, Kita being well aware of this and maintaining contacts with men like Sadao Araki and Jinzaburō Masaki who both led the Imperial Way Faction. Despite the former's resignation as Minister of War in January 1934, Araki continued to be an influential figure in the IJA and begun to listen to the advice of Ikki Kita, cooperating with him and beginning to plan out a coup to implement their respective ideas. Support from Prince Chichibu and even the Zaibatsu was forthcoming, making the Imperial Way's members confident enough to launch the coup on February 26 with the Righteous Army at the forefront. The Righteous Army launched attacks on the Prime Minister's home, Ministry of War building, General Staff Office, Makino Nobuaki's villa, Saito Makato's home, Admiral Suzuki Kantaro's home, Jataro Watanabe's home, the Tokyo Metropolitan HQ and finally, the Imperial Palace. It was there that the plotters of the coup dispatched a representative to the Emperor to deliver to His Imperial Majesty what amounted to an ultimatum of the implementation of a combination of the ideas advocated by Kita and Araki under a general Shōwa Restoration.
An officer of the Righteous Army issues orders to his men, February 1936.
It was in Tokyo where an Ethiopian government-in-exile was formed under Haile Selassie but this time, it included a growing number of Ethiopian intellectuals that had fled Italian-occupied Ethiopia and noted the international community of Italy's purges of educated Ethiopians. It convinced many Ethiopians being educated in Europe to move to Tokyo where they met with prominent members of the Japanese intelligentsia and begun absorbing their more radical ideas, especially those involving the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and "National-Socialism". This allowed Haile Selassie to dismiss his more feudal Ministers, those that hadn't been killed like Ras Mulugeta, and promote the modernist intellectuals into high positions of government. The emergence of an Ethiopian government-in-exile had enflamed European press' anti-Asian sentiments, Mussolini becoming a particular proponent and accusing the new Japanese government of supporting the rising Ethiopian resistance movement in the Highlands around Ras Imru.
It didn't help that the rise of radical nationalist groups in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Gold Coast, Arabia and the colonial world had been a prominent feature of the 1930s, setting the scene for a global race war that seemed to be inevitable . . .
Haile Selassie being personally received by Hirohito, June 1936.
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[2] "If Ethiopia would not be given gas masks, it would just have to make them. Lady Barton and Princess Tsehai started organizing again, and with sewing machines whizzing and chattering away, women in white overalls were busy throughout the spring, making masks for the soldiers out of flannel bags. They were crude but clever jobs - there were mica slits for eyes, and you exhaled through a rubber tube. By early April, Tsehai and Lady Barton's seamstresses had created eight hundred of them for the men going out to the northern front." -- Prevail: The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935-1941 by Jeff Pearce. IOTL, the gas masks that Lady Barton and Princess Tsehai produced were instead given to the Imperial Bodyguard, being utilized in the Battle of Maichew.
[3] The Azebu Oromos don't betray the Ethiopian troops at Maichew, the earlier successes convincing them to fight for Haile Selassie.
[4] ITTL, various Japanese nationalists and pan-Asianists advocated for solidarity with Ethiopia in the early '30s, especially during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Such organizations included the Black Dragon Society. See pg. 28 of Alliance of the Colored Peoples: Ethiopia and Japan before World War II by Joseph Calvitt Clarke for more.
[5] See this article for an English translation of the aforementioned work.
[6] Edward Wilmot Blyden was a prominent Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist who advocated for African-American emigration to West Africa, primarily Liberia, to assist in the development of a civilization in tandem with indigenous West Africans. He also pushed for an expanded Liberian Empire throughout West Africa. See Edward W. Blyden: Pioneer West African Nationalist by Hollis R. Lynch for more.
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I wonder if there’ll be Ethiopian troops serving in China alongside the Japanese?
It's a possibility with Ikki Kita's historical stance on annexing the USSR's Far Eastern holdings and territories in eastern China.
Well hopefully the Ethiopians won’t join their Japanese comrades in war crimes.
Could perhaps the free officers group start earlier under someone other than nasser?
I was planning on doing something with the Young Egyptians ITTL so maybe.
Haile Selassie went to Japan in '36, not in '40. As for that, you'll see why.
I know I was asking as why didn't he leave Japan and head to Britain in 1940 with Italian declaration of war on the Allies.
Are you planning on having an Allied Italy ? if so that heavily changes the war in Europe which in turn changes the war in Pacific
I don't think he'd be able to go to London, especially with the Japanese overrunning the British colonies in WWII.
No, I don't plan on having an Allied Italy.
49ersFootball
Banned
Wasn't Garvey considered a major national security threat to the US Government ?
There was about a year and a half between the Italian declaration of war and the Japanese attack on Allies. So it's not much of an issue unless the Japanese keep him under house arrest.
Owing to the prominence and popularity the UNIA enjoyed in the '20s, yes. Many other Black nationalists at this time were also considered similar threats.
That was actually an initial plan of mine when drafting the timeline but with the Japanese having already been confirmed to support an Ethiopian government-in-exile and a Free Ethiopian force down the line, I doubt the Allies would be all too happy to accept Haile Selassie.
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In any event I doubt any Ethiopians would be fighting for the Japanese at least willing given they would fighting on the side of an Italian ally and against the liberator of Ethiopia.
Japan lacks any power projection in Africa and putting Selassie back on the throne would endow him to the west and encourage Ethiopian resistance against Italy while the fighting is going on.
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The Continent's Destiny
The Continent's Destiny
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism [1] by Paul Gilroy
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism [1] by Paul Gilroy
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War had inflamed anti-colonial sentiment across the African Continent, Egypt having been reminded of the British dominance and 6,000 South African Blacks gathering in Cape Town to organize amongst themselves a mercenary force that was to go fight in Ethiopia. There were widespread hopes that, despite her countless hurdles, Ethiopia could replicate the victory she'd gotten in 1896 as Italian columns pushed further into Tigray and these hopes were falsely raised with Haile Selassie's Christmas Offensive. Owing to Italy's overwhelming advantage in firepower and manpower, it was inevitable that the Ethiopians would've eventually collapse, although some entertain the notion that Ethiopia would've become "Finlandized" if Badoglio had made the decision to retreat in the face of the Ethiopian attacks and abandoned large quantities of Italian equipment in doing so. The fall of Ethiopia certainly crushed these hopes but ironically enough, led to a wave of radicalism sweeping the Continent and Garvey's Liberia was at the center of it.
On charges of mail fraud, Marcus Garvey had been deported in 1927 and made the fateful decision to not emigrate back to his Jamaican homeland, but to Liberia where he set up shop in Monrovia. The upper echelons of the Universal Negro Improvement Association joined him and so did the several thousand African-Americans that had been selected in the UNIA's Back-to-Africa program. The deportation had only radicalized Garvey, the man now fervently advocating for African repatriation and seeing Africa as the only place where the Negro race could prosper. It was in Liberia where Garvey gained ground against the hegemonic True Whigs Party by promising to the various tribes equity alongside their American brethren and delivering on said promise by establishing multiple national development programs. This earned the UNIA a near-universal support base that horrified the already-wary Americo-Liberian elite, guaranteeing the former an astounding victory in the 1931 Liberian general election and allowed Marcus Garvey to become the President of the Republic of Liberia.
Marcus Garvey and UNIA leaders observing the marching soldiers of the Universal African Legion, 1931.
The ascendance of Tafari Makonnen to the Ethiopian throne had been met with much fanfare in Liberia, especially by Marcus Garvey, where he had been viewed as the saving grace of Ethiopia. Haile Selassie's modernization programs had garnered him much favor amongst the Universal Negro Improvement Association, particularly the Emperor's decision to attract African-American immigration [4] to Ethiopia. This led to the formal establishment of relations with Liberia and attempts by the UNIA to establish an arm in Ethiopia, although this failed due to Addis Ababa banning any sort of political parties. Compensation was offered to the Garveyite government by providing the Negro Factories Corporation with economic concessions that would give Ethiopia the opportunity to overhaul its agricultural sector and form an industrial backbone as had been done in Liberia. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia was to put a sudden halt to this, the Ethiopian government shifting its attention to the war effort and preventing Ethiopia from collapsing.
Garvey responded to the Italian invasion by denouncing Mussolini and organizing a volunteer expeditionary force to be sent to Ethiopia to fight for Africa's last independent Empire, whipping up pro-Ethiopia sentiments throughout West Africa and even in the Americas where the UNIA still maintained its links. The Black Star Regiment was sent to Ethiopia via the Black Star Line, consisting of the experienced officers of the Universal African Corps and the radical Black nationalists that had enlisted in the Liberian Frontier Force who were reminiscent of men like Charles Young. This was a convenient way of sacking those who were just a bit too radical and outspoken for the Garveyite government's taste, the future Liberian President Carlos Cooks having been a veteran of the war in Ethiopia. With the assistance of Nazi Germany in bribing French officials in the Somaliland colony, the BSR made its way to Addis Ababa on the Addis-Djibouti Railway and after its officers met with Haile Selassie himself, was dispatched to the frontlines on the beginning of the Christmas Offensive.
The Black Star Regiment arrives in Addis Ababa, November 1935.
It is then not surprising that a wave of radicalism swept the entire Continent after the fall of Ethiopia and subsequent failures of the League of Nations to seriously punish Rome. In Egypt, the Young Egypt Party won an overwhelming victory in the May 1936 general elections due to the Wafd Party's inability to adequately deal with the Great Depression, failure to mobilize the discontent youth and the signing of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty that displayed the Wafd Party's complacency with its parliamentary predominance and willingness to collaborate with the British. In Tanganyika, the Tanganyika African Association begun advocating for further independence and the promotion to a Class A Mandate, exploiting its countrywide branches in both the countryside and urban areas to apply pressure on British officials. To up the ante, the Nazi German government had turned its eye to its former colonial empire in the Near East and dispatched a man by the name of Fritz Delfs to organize a base there, National Socialist ideals finding an ear amongst the White settler community and educated Tanganyikans. In occupied Ethiopia, the Black Lions movement combined influences from Japanese Fascist, National Socialist and Garveyist thought. The same was happening in the educated circles of Black Africans in the Union of South Africa, Belgian Congo and Cameroon as well.
Members of Young Egypt's Green Shirts on drill, May 1936.
Monrovia and Berlin were not the only ones covertly supported African independence movements - Tokyo was also privy to supporting such movements as well. Japanese support for nationalist movements was not necessarily restricted to Asia or Africa and this showed with the growth of pro-Japan Black nationalist organizations [5] in the USA. This can be seen in organizations such as the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World, Nation of Islam and Peace Movement of Ethiopia who were directly supported by Satokata Takahashi who funneled financial support from the Black Dragons Society to these movements. The Ikki Kita administration also maintained close links with the Garvey government in Monrovia who resembled the Black Dragons Society and was similar in that it possessed an extensive network of agents pushing a pan-racial narrative. Quite a few in the UNIA liked the Hakko Ichiu ideal and sought to mimic it in the Pan-Negro Empire that Marcus Garvey had often spoke of in the early to mid-twenties. This call for an African Imperium was also a tenet of Imru's Black Lions Party and their foremost proponent was Malaku Bayan [6], a fervent Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist who would also become a close friend of Marcus Garvey, who was the representative of the Ethiopian government-in-exile in the affairs of Pan-Africanism.
Speaking of the exiled Ethiopians, Haile Selassie had been lobbying for the Japanese government to help train a force of Ethiopians to partake in the reclamation of Ethiopia and former lands from Italian rule. It was only answered with the Japanese invasion of China in July 1937, several thousand men from the Ethiopian emigre community being mobilized and organized into the Sheba Legion. They were to be sent to the Chinese front for the purpose of "gaining experience" and "any means of practice," according to Sadao Araki but the Provisional Ethiopian Government knew - they were rapidly becoming puppets of Japan's new government and integrated into the new totalitarian system that the Japanese intellectuals of the Shōwa Restoration had imagined.
Speaking of the exiled Ethiopians, Haile Selassie had been lobbying for the Japanese government to help train a force of Ethiopians to partake in the reclamation of Ethiopia and former lands from Italian rule. It was only answered with the Japanese invasion of China in July 1937, several thousand men from the Ethiopian emigre community being mobilized and organized into the Sheba Legion. They were to be sent to the Chinese front for the purpose of "gaining experience" and "any means of practice," according to Sadao Araki but the Provisional Ethiopian Government knew - they were rapidly becoming puppets of Japan's new government and integrated into the new totalitarian system that the Japanese intellectuals of the Shōwa Restoration had imagined.
A young Ethiopian receives training under the eye of the Imperial Japanese Army, early 1937.
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[2] The Universal Negro Improvement Association had firmly entrenched itself in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and to a lesser extent, the British Gold Coast. See The Garvey Movement in British West Africa by R.L. Okonkwo for more.
[3] In pg. 74-76 of The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Marcus Garvey describes the Ideal State as a model to replace the failed ideologies of the 1920s and '30s. In essence, it was intended to be a nationalistic and authoritarian state with proto-Fascist characteristics. For more, see the link.
[4] IOTL, Haile Selassie focused on attracting African-American immigration to Ethiopia in the hopes of gaining some skilled labor for modernization. See Ethiopia and Afro-Americans: Some Historical Notes, 1920-1970 by William A. Shack for more.
[5] IOTL, many African-Americans and Black nationalists looked on the Japanese modernization and nation as something to be admired as well as the Empire of Japan as something to emulate. For more, see Facing the Rising Sun: African-Americans, Japan and the rise of Afro-Asian Solidarity by Gerald Horne, When Japan Was "Champion of the Darker Races": Satokata Takahashi and the Flowering of Black Messianic Nationalism by Ernest Allen Jr. and "Champions of the Darker Races" - The African-American View of Japan (1905-1941) by Omri Reis and Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America by John Roy Carlson for more.
[6] See Ethiopia & Black America: The Forgotten Story of Malaku and Robinson by Ayalew Bekerie for more.
