AHC : Ethiopian/Coptic Empire conquers Egypt before 1200AD

So yeah, I've not seen that much Ethiopia or Coptic love on the forums, so I figured I'd create a thread to show some :p

Choosing any Coptic Ethiopian, have them conquer Egypt and hold it as part of their Empire before and during 1200 AD.

(Bonus points if they are called Prester John).
 
I like that idea of an Ethiopian/Nubian empire ruling Egypt maybe they could also invade Yenen too.I hope it will be an longlasting Empire.
With Egypt as an christian empire the crusader states would maybe exist untill the later Middle ages ooh I like that
 

Deleted member 67076

Ethiopia can't really conquer up north since passing the Sudd from South-North is a death sentence.
 

Deleted member 67076

Why does the Sudd matter? Its way out west. Why would Ethiopia do that for a land march when they can mark NW from the highlands across the Savanna, and then march along the nile from there?
Because its a major block for parties going north and south. The Savanna is arguably just as bad for logistics given its dryness and diseases, but also lacks the accessibility of waterways. Additionally if I'm remember this right the Blue Nile is full of rapids and cliffs, which make marching thousands of troops additionally challenging if one decides to follow it up north.

I suppose a naval invasion could be done, but that brings up the challenge of sailing up the difficult Red Sea.
 
Because its a major block for parties going north and south. The Savanna is arguably just as bad for logistics given its dryness and diseases, but also lacks the accessibility of waterways. Additionally if I'm remember this right the Blue Nile is full of rapids and cliffs, which make marching thousands of troops additionally challenging if one decides to follow it up north.

I suppose a naval invasion could be done, but that brings up the challenge of sailing up the difficult Red Sea.

But Ethiopia doesn't have to go anywhere near the Sudd. The Blue Nile doesn't go into the Sudd at all. That is the White Nile.

Unless we have different maps for the Sudd o_O

Now, I'll happily concede that something that Ethiopia would need to have is a road that allows easy travel along the Blue Nile, partially to make traversing it easier. (I.e. Carved stone roads as in the Khyber Pass).

You'd probably ignore most of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, instead going west from Lake Tana until you hit the Blue Nile. After which it seems reasonably navigable.

After that, a fortress at the confluence of the Blue and While Nile and a city there is certainly a useful thing to have (I dunno what there is to exploit there though, so... eep)

I fail to see how the 300km trip (ok, admittedly a long trip) is in any way impossible. Especially if the Ethiopians create a proper road and waystations to facilitate it.
 

Deleted member 67076

Now, I'll happily concede that something that Ethiopia would need to have is a road that allows easy travel along the Blue Nile, partially to make traversing it easier. (I.e. Carved stone roads as in the Khyber Pass).

You'd probably ignore most of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, instead going west from Lake Tana until you hit the Blue Nile. After which it seems reasonably navigable.

After that, a fortress at the confluence of the Blue and While Nile and a city there is certainly a useful thing to have (I dunno what there is to exploit there though, so... eep)

I fail to see how the 300km trip (ok, admittedly a long trip) is in any way impossible. Especially if the Ethiopians create a proper road and waystations to facilitate it.
Hmm, how long would it be to transport and resupply soldiers via the Blue Nile in Sudan to the last major fortress needed before an invasion?
 
Hmm, how long would it be to transport and resupply soldiers via the Blue Nile in Sudan to the last major fortress needed before an invasion?

I imagine it depends on where the supplies are coming from - if it is launched from the confluence of the nile, but the resources are from Ethiopia proper, it'd be a 10 day trip one way at the very least with fast cargo. I'm going to ballpark 20 days to be reasonable - to take troops from Tana to OTL Khartoum.

But if you source the supplies locally, from local crops, you save that 20 day trip which makes logistics easier.

Beyond that - I couldn't really tell you, I'm not an expert in these matters. But I'd ballpark 30-40 days from Lake Tana to the front by land.

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I won't lie, I am of the opinion that the land route isn't the best route for anyone - but for a nation without many ships - it is probably the better one. Now if Ethiopia managed to ship wood from the White Nile (I think there is a significant amount of wood there - and I wouldn't want to go closer than that to the Sudd, on top of its own highland woods, this could be rectified, and then Ethiopia can focus on conquering the Egyptian Red Sea coast before any invasion further inland.

(This isn't to say a road from Khartoum to Lake Tana isn't a useful idea, you'd still need overland trade)
 
Kill off Zeno before he can take back power. Monophysite Byzantium royal marriage intermarries with Axum. Succession crisis in Byzantium after death of unpopular emperor is taken advantage of by Ethiopian king, who had made at least vassals out of the Nubian states during relative time of peace. Thus, you have "Ethiopia" from Bulgaria to Somalia, though an empire of this size would not last too long. The Book of Enoch, Book of Jubilees, and other books of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Bible will probably become far more established in Europe due to this.
 
I think had there been a Christian Ethiopian empire that had borders that got close to touching the Crusader states, I think there would have been open conflict between the African and Europeans re the Holy Land's territory rather than the Europeans having a curiosity re Prester John's far off Christian kingdom on the edge of the known world.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
wouldn't Makuria/Nubia wank easier ? they seem strong in 7th-9th. Unfortunately they non-Coptic. perhaps they could convert after conquering Egypt.
 
I was actually considering making a thread about the possiblity of a state that manages to unify the peoples of the Horn of Africa building an intricate irrigation system on the southern (mainly southestern) Nile river basin. While I don't have enough knowledge on the exact conditions that would allow or hinder such effort, I have found during my brief research some information that could be very useful for this particular scenario. First, there is a fairly dense network of tributaries around the white, blue and souther part of the main Nile river (though most of those around the white are within the Sudd) [Image 1 & 2]. If a state with enough capital could invest in irrigation and other ways to promote the deveopment of intensive agricultural practices, it may had been able to become a net exporter of agro produce. Second, a problem faced by the early Solomonids (starting 1270, but you might be able to make the Zagwe fall some decades earlier) was that while they achieved significant cultural development, urbanization remained underdeveloped, partially due to their lack of a permanent capital. And third, there are exactly 6 major cataracts in the Nile that delimitate its navigable sections, with the main one being, of course, the one that goes from lake Nasser to the delta [Image 3]. This means that if you want to support an invasion northwards and supply it by river, your supply line should begin in Nubia proper, which in my opinion is only feasable if you a)control that territory and b)you supplies get there in the first place by the Red Sea.

So that we know what we are talking about:

nile-map-large.jpg

Image 2

Image 3

But military logical practicalities aside, getting a Christian state to amass that amount of power and territory while surrounded by islamic states is not going to be easy (though not impossible). I personally would have them expand south while avoiding conflict with the Somalians. The thing is that just having a large navy in the Red Sea when nobbody else does means that you have virtual control over all the transit that goes through it, which would automatically make every other state around you set on destroying you. So have them take as much of the decent agricutural land to the south and encroach around the Somalian coast, once they have built a decent powerbase, go north and conquer all of the blue Nile (the ideas for a road and a fortress are very good). What the Ethiopians have going for them is that their territory has pretty good defensive natural features. Because of the cataracts mentioned earlier, suplying an attack from egypt implies a lot of dessert marching, which is a logistical headache, whereas the coastal areas to the east are overwhelmingly mountanous terrain. So after managing to win a few defensive wars, building a sizable powerbase, and getting a souce of income (as discussed earlier), they should be ready to take the coastline and start building a navy that both puts them into contact with the east and allows them to project power into Yemen and further north of the Red Sea coast. It would probably be a good idea to get a foothold in Yemen, as by this point they already have the emnisty of Egypt, and during this period nobody else is really strong enough to matter. After that comes the takeover/vassalisation of Sudan/Nubya, because, as I already mentioned, the cataract on the north end of Lake Nasser marks the begining of the longest, most important, and most navigable tram of the Nile River. What it come down to is, in reality, Egypt is particularly vulnerable to attacks from the south, its just that IOTL there were no powerful states in Nubya during this period, but the Nubyan dinasty of antiquity and the Nubyan ocupation of Cairo to realease the Patriarch of alexandria from the sultan during the early islamic period (I think) did not come out of nowhere: its very easy to ship stuff downstream on one of the most navigable rivers of the world, the only chalenging part is getting those supplies from your powerbase to the final tram.
 
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The Kingdom of Jerusalem held Aqaba, a Red Sea port. They manage to make contact with Ethiopia and form an alliance at some point, in one of their perennial attempts to take Egypt. Something something, the Ethiopians end up doing the best of any of the attackers, and they get an Ethiopian noble crowned as king.
 
Axum something something Roman Collapse something something Muslims fail something something Coptic Egypt something something :closedeyesmile:

The Kingdom of Jerusalem held Aqaba, a Red Sea port. They manage to make contact with Ethiopia and form an alliance at some point, in one of their perennial attempts to take Egypt. Something something, the Ethiopians end up doing the best of any of the attackers, and they get an Ethiopian noble crowned as king.

I'm going to start having to use Something Something. It is quite popular apparently!
 

ben0628

Banned
Your best bet is to go back before Ethiopia and have Axum do it. Here are the pods.

-2/3rd century AD: Axum army conquers Meroe and permanently occupies Nubia. Begins to culturally assimilate the Nubian people.
-6th century AD: Axum general Abraha betrays the emperor and sets up his own kingdom in Yemen like otl. But the pod here is that he is able to sack and destroy Mecca, thus screwing Islam.
-6/7th century AD: Have the Sassanid Empire do a better job in the Sasanian-Byzantine Wars, thus crippling the Byzantine Empire which begins to lose control of Egypt.
-7/8th century AD: With control of both Ethiopia & Nubia and unable to reconquer Yemen, the Kingdom of Axum decides to invade upper Egypt in an attempt to reestablish trade ties with the Mediterranean.

Or as a different option (this isn't what you really want) have Nubia (Kingdom of Kush) conquer both Egypt and Ethiopia (Kush was able to temporarily conquer and hold Egypt, I assume they could do it to Ethiopia as well).
 
I'm going to start having to use Something Something. It is quite popular apparently!
Well, when you just want to sketch out the broad outlines of an idea, it certainly is useful.

Something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something something Cesare Borgia.
 
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