AH Challenge: Ethiopia is the most pwoerful nation on Africa's East Coast

Wth a POD after 1900 your mission should you choose to accept it is to find a means for Ethiopia to become the Strongest nation in East Africa

Brownie points if the Emperor is still in power.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
This is actually reasonably easy. Get France, Britain, Italy, Germany or even the Ottomans to decide that a moderately-powerful Ethiopia would be good for their position(Britain wanting a good 'Native Standing' to deal with their colonies in the case of a major war?).
 
1900
-Menelik decides to go all-out on modernisation, and brings in multiple advisors from Japan and the West, particularly the US, both of whom are not in the general attempts by Europe to keep Ethiopia down and open for colonising.
1901
-After hearing of the terracing techniques used in East Asia, the emperor decides that this would be the best way to make use of the hilly highland terrain.
-Menelik establishes the Ethiopian Parliament, although its members are appointed by the local rulers, it is a step foward.
1903
-A railroad connecting Gondar to Addis Ababa is finished.
-Menelik, reversing a policy of his, seizes large tracts of land and declares them to be the property of the state.
-The first popularly elected MPs are elected to Parliament, from Addis Ababa.
1904
-The government melts down all Maria Theresa Thalers in its possession and mints new Ethiopian Taleri. The coins are smaller, 30 mm instead of the 39.5 mm, allowing for some 30% more coins. A few paper bills are printed, but are used exlcusively within royal circles, except for some which slipped out.
 
1906- Large potash deposits are discovered
- Menlik continues his policy of land centralization, devoting much of the new acreage to the cultivation of cotton, ground nuts and flax seeds
- Italian merchants become a ready buyer of the new cash crops, establishing the beginnings of a seed oil industry in Eritrea

1907

1908-The July rebellion is the beginning of a failed civil war between conservative and modernizing factions of the aristocracy. Rebellion begins amongst the Somali tribes and Italy begins sending overtures towards the Conservatives in the hopes of placing a more "compliant" emperor on the throne.

1909- Menelik rebuffs rebel attempts to siege Addis Ababa as he consolidates power amongst the loyalists. The italians fail to establish a steady supply line towards the rebels who are gradually pushed to the south east.

1910- The war ends with the surrender of the last rebel generals. The rebelious aristocrats are forced to lose much of their ancestrial land which is largely devided between the state and loyalists. Due to the devastation of the war and the shift towards cash crop agriculture a famine begins.
-American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sends relief operations to ethiopa, and much to Menelik's chargrin protestan missonaries

1911- The british acquire mining rights for the newly discovered potash, building rail lines to connect the mines to Asmara.
-The famine continues and more and more peasants leave the countryside for the city
-Inorder to help relive the famine missionaries begin teaching improve techniques of farming and animal husbandtry to the peasants in the countryside

1912-The famine finally ends, there is a bumber crop of cotton
-Lebanese merchants establish a small cotton mill in Adis abbaba
-Preybetrian missionaries found the American university in Gondar
-Nestle looks into Ethiopia as an alternative source for Coffee
 
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