AHC: Colonised Ethiopia

With a POD early enough, is it possible to have Ethiopia as a long lasting European colony from some point in the 1800s, perhaps with extensive "white highlands"?

Which country would be best placed to do this?
 
Brits or better prepared Italy could do that. But there is other changes too depend about exact POD.
 
Brits or better prepared Italy could do that. But there is other changes too depend about exact POD.

Britain likely had too much business elsewhere to bother, although control of the Horn makes sense in the light of having India.
Italy would probably have a lot of trouble establishing the sort of foothold required to do that - conquering the place is feasible (not easy for a country with resources and political makeup similar to OTL's Italy, but possible) but the OP is asking for massive colonization in the highlands; while Italy certainly had the population to do that, I don't think that pulling an Algeria there is anywhere close to doable, barring other major changes.
France might do that if she establishes an earlier local presence. Won't be easy of course.
Wildcard candidate: Russia, going for the protectorate route and sending a lot of people there (Male Rising has a similar scenario, limited to Eritrea and ending very favorably to Ethiopia, but in a more "normal" late XIX century situation, you have this relationship tilting to more conventional colonialism).
 

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Certainly the Oromo would kill any mass migration of westerns moving through there lands.

The Habesha weren't east to conquer, the reality is that you'd have to near exterminate them to have European settlement.

Even then the effect of toppling down one of the few internationally recognized African Monarchies would possibly send who ever tried to conquer Ethiopia in a very bad position as there are European powers already there working with the Ras.
 
Certainly the Oromo would kill any mass migration of westerns moving through there lands.

The Habesha weren't east to conquer, the reality is that you'd have to near exterminate them to have European settlement.

Even then the effect of toppling down one of the few internationally recognized African Monarchies would possibly send who ever tried to conquer Ethiopia in a very bad position as there are European powers already there working with the Ras.

Why were these groups harder to conquer than the various groups in Tanzania, Uganda or Kenya?
 

Benevolent

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Why were these groups harder to conquer than the various groups in Tanzania, Uganda or Kenya?

Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya are largely farming Bantu who never densely populated the forest zones, folks tend to forget that Africans aren't really a tropical people. They only recently moved into those regions and relied on Banana as their main form of subsistence.

Ethiopia was densely populated with a very different terrain and people, it creates a very different scenario than say South Africa or Angola.
 
The English are obvious candidates but I would side with France.
That would allow them to pursue the dream of Dakar to Djibouti line as well as control Southern Sudan, an English possession.

As to how, I would go a different route and say through trade. Menelik was consolidating his kingdom at the same time the French got Djibouti, which transformed it into a good port. After the Italian got Erythrea, Djibouti would be the main port for Ethiopia. By playing on that and the desire of the noble to enrich themselves, the French could move in through trading companies and advisers and then effectively hold all Ethiopian resources in their hand.
The country would then be a de facto protectorate.
 
I think that many of the Italian ports had been taken form the Egyptians. Have the Egyptians do more of the heavy lifting before Europeans sweeped in.
 
Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya are largely farming Bantu who never densely populated the forest zones, folks tend to forget that Africans aren't really a tropical people. They only recently moved into those regions and relied on Banana as their main form of subsistence.

Ethiopia was densely populated with a very different terrain and people, it creates a very different scenario than say South Africa or Angola.

Not true about Kenya and Tanzania. Most of those groups are Nilotic.
 
The problem with this is the fact that by the time any European power took a real interest in Ethiopia, the country had already been more or less reunified after the Age of Princes and began modernization. Plus there's the fact of public opinion: Ethiopia's a Christian power, so the civilizing aspect is pretty much out (yeah I know Italy was Christian as well, but the Italians didn't really think their first attempt at conquest through, look at the lack of troop numbers and supplies). And there's the Russian support. I'm not sure when that actually started but it has to be taken into account.

As to the idea of Egypt tendering the Ethiopians up, its unlikely. Ethiopia is pretty far supply-wise to launch a land invasion, even from Sudan. Finally there's the fact that most colonial nations only initially wanted control over the coastal cities, not the inland territories. In all you'd need a much earlier interest in Ethiopia on the part of Europe. Maybe the 1868 British expedition turns Ethiopia into a client state with a permanent garrison (after all they controlled the capital and had Tewodros II's son and wife in custody)? Aside form that I can't think of another possibility.
 
Not true about Kenya and Tanzania. Most of those groups are Nilotic.

Are you talking about the farming groups, or the population as a whole?

In Kenya at least you have the Kikuyu, Kamba, and Luhya for Bantu, and Luo, Maasai, and Kalenjin as Nilotes. I think the edge numerically goes to Bantus but it should be noted that the Kikuyu population boomed tremendously in the first half of the 20th century.
 
Are you talking about the farming groups, or the population as a whole?

In Kenya at least you have the Kikuyu, Kamba, and Luhya for Bantu, and Luo, Maasai, and Kalenjin as Nilotes. I think the edge numerically goes to Bantus but it should be noted that the Kikuyu population boomed tremendously in the first half of the 20th century.

That was exactly what I was thinking regarding Kikuyu population explosion
 
The problem with this is the fact that by the time any European power took a real interest in Ethiopia, the country had already been more or less reunified after the Age of Princes and began modernization. Plus there's the fact of public opinion: Ethiopia's a Christian power, so the civilizing aspect is pretty much out (yeah I know Italy was Christian as well, but the Italians didn't really think their first attempt at conquest through, look at the lack of troop numbers and supplies). And there's the Russian support. I'm not sure when that actually started but it has to be taken into account.

As to the idea of Egypt tendering the Ethiopians up, its unlikely. Ethiopia is pretty far supply-wise to launch a land invasion, even from Sudan. Finally there's the fact that most colonial nations only initially wanted control over the coastal cities, not the inland territories. In all you'd need a much earlier interest in Ethiopia on the part of Europe. Maybe the 1868 British expedition turns Ethiopia into a client state with a permanent garrison (after all they controlled the capital and had Tewodros II's son and wife in custody)? Aside form that I can't think of another possibility.

A British attempt at permanent control after the OTL's expedition would, in OTL's conditions, backfire pretty spectacularly. The British never planned that, and the expedition was only succesful because it had a lot of local support from Ethiopian nobility, conditional on its almost immediate withdrawing.
Egypt tried, and failed. Twice, IIRC.
 

Benevolent

Banned
Not true about Kenya and Tanzania. Most of those groups are Nilotic.

So I don't know who you got your sources from but the Kikiyu, Wakamba, Luyha and Kisii are 4 of the top 5 ethnic groups in Kenya. Never mind the fact that Kikuyu make up the power group of the nation along with residual white and Indian peoples.

Tanzania is also majority Bantu and the Swahili speakers again a Bantu linguistic group hold most power in the nation.

Who taught you about African nations?
 
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