Eduard Ferdinand Freiherr von Callot (1792 to 1855) - k.k. and later Egyptian officer - propagated the establishment of an Austrian colony on the Red Sea and in eastern Sudan. This is related in the period of time to the colonial ideas of Finance Minister Karl von Bruck, which he developed in 1857 with the support of national economist Lorenz von Stein and explorer Karl von Scherzer.
At that time, people were thinking primarily in the direction of the Pacific: New Guinea was to become the centre of the Austrian colonial possessions to be acquired. A chain of bases was to secure the sea route to East Asia (through the Suez Canal, in the planning of which Austria played a leading role). Trade and naval bases were planned in the Horn of Africa (for example the acquisition of a port near Massaua, today Mitsiwa in Eritrea) as well as a place for deportations. Bruck found a supporter above all in the young Archduke Ferdinand Max, later Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, then Commander of the Navy and Governor General of Lombardy, who himself had already visited Egypt in 1855. In 1857/58, the liner lieutenant Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, the later admiral - successful at Lissa in 1866 - actually explored the Red Sea and the island of Sokotra.
However, these plans did not last very long. The k.k. did undertake a number of projects. Frigate "Novara" from 1857 to 1859 undertook its famous voyage around the world (for which a new occupation of the Nicobar Islands as well as an exploration of islands in the Indian Ocean was planned), but the lost war against France and Sardinia (1859) and the changed balance of power in Europe made these ideas even more unrealistic. Moreover, they did not fit into the foreign policy ideas of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Buol, and his successor, Count Rechberg. This marked the end of the colonial spirit of optimism for the time being. Only in connection with the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) - which was also the occasion for Emperor Franz Joseph I's trip to Jerusalem and Egypt (his only trip outside Europe) - similar projects reappeared, albeit without the chance of realization.
Until 1872, the acquisition of territory in southern Somalia was considered several times - East Africa continued to be of potential interest to Austria. Some plans, such as those of Theodor Hertzka from 1890, to found a colony called "Freiland" in the "hitherto abandoned" (sic!) highlands of Kenya, seem rather utopian, as does the idea born in 1903 to establish Theodor Hertzka's "Jewish state" not in Palestine but in Uganda. Around the turn of the century, Mozambique and the Spanish Western Sahara also emerged as possible Austrian colonial ambitions.