How did Russian advisors and weapons get into 1890s Abyssinia?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Abyssinia was landlocked in advance of the Italian invasion that culminated in the latter's defeat in Adua. What route did Russian people and shipments take to get into the country.

I would have to assume the Russians did not transit men and materiel via Italian Somalia or Eritrea---unless the Italian administrations there had the most extreme corruption problems.

To the west was the Mahdi state, which I think was pretty unfriendly to Abyssinia. But maybe they let people and supplies pass for a price. Non-followers of the Mahdi would have to be pretty gutsy to transit his territory.

The British controlled Kenya, Uganda and Somaliland. Perhaps some traffic went through there, but I think that Britain leaned to a pro-Italian stance at the time, even if she did not provide practical help to Italy.

That leaves French held Djibouti. Why would France risk the hostility of its neighbor in Europe to allow help for an African Kingdom? Did France and Russia both think Italy was politically weak and easy to defeat? Were they trying to bring about the fall of the Italian government? And what did Russia have against Italy, a country she shared no border or territorial disputes with?
 
Abyssinia was landlocked in advance of the Italian invasion that culminated in the latter's defeat in Adua. What route did Russian people and shipments take to get into the country.

I would have to assume the Russians did not transit men and materiel via Italian Somalia or Eritrea---unless the Italian administrations there had the most extreme corruption problems.

To the west was the Mahdi state, which I think was pretty unfriendly to Abyssinia. But maybe they let people and supplies pass for a price. Non-followers of the Mahdi would have to be pretty gutsy to transit his territory.

The British controlled Kenya, Uganda and Somaliland. Perhaps some traffic went through there, but I think that Britain leaned to a pro-Italian stance at the time, even if she did not provide practical help to Italy.

That leaves French held Djibouti. Why would France risk the hostility of its neighbor in Europe to allow help for an African Kingdom? Did France and Russia both think Italy was politically weak and easy to defeat? Were they trying to bring about the fall of the Italian government? And what did Russia have against Italy, a country she shared no border or territorial disputes with?

France was absolutely supporting Abyssinia. I have no knowledge of a master plan, but I am fairly positive that Russian support reached Ethiopia largely through French-held territory... in company with substantial direct French help, especially in the form of modern firearms. France and Russia were already allied (more or less) at that time.
Russia was never directly hostile to Italy because of Italy itself, but her geopolitcal visions happened to be largely at cross-purposes with Italy's.
 
Abyssinia was landlocked in advance of the Italian invasion that culminated in the latter's defeat in Adua. What route did Russian people and shipments take to get into the country.

I would have to assume the Russians did not transit men and materiel via Italian Somalia or Eritrea---unless the Italian administrations there had the most extreme corruption problems.

To the west was the Mahdi state, which I think was pretty unfriendly to Abyssinia. But maybe they let people and supplies pass for a price. Non-followers of the Mahdi would have to be pretty gutsy to transit his territory.

The British controlled Kenya, Uganda and Somaliland. Perhaps some traffic went through there, but I think that Britain leaned to a pro-Italian stance at the time, even if she did not provide practical help to Italy.

That leaves French held Djibouti. Why would France risk the hostility of its neighbor in Europe to allow help for an African Kingdom? Did France and Russia both think Italy was politically weak and easy to defeat? Were they trying to bring about the fall of the Italian government? And what did Russia have against Italy, a country she shared no border or territorial disputes with?

France and Russia were both allies, and neither of them considered Italy particularly scary.
 
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Redhand

Banned
I get the feeling France just wanted to screw with Italy and by extension their allies while Russia genuinely was concerned about helping their Orthodox brethren.

This answers the question asked about what Russia had against Italy. Nothing really, but they supported Abysinia as they were an Eastern Orthodox nation in a continent without Orthodoxy as they took the whole Third Rome and Orthodox Church stuff quite seriously as to go against conventional European standards of racism at the time.
 
I get the feeling France just wanted to screw with Italy and by extension their allies while Russia genuinely was concerned about helping their Orthodox brethren.

This answers the question asked about what Russia had against Italy. Nothing really, but they supported Abysinia as they were an Eastern Orthodox nation in a continent without Orthodoxy as they took the whole Third Rome and Orthodox Church stuff quite seriously as to go against conventional European standards of racism at the time.

And the fact that Italy was allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary didn't hurt matters. I mean when Ethiopia defeated the Italians it was a huge upset in Europe and deeply embarrassing for Italy and her allies. And the Russians were never really racist towards Ethiopia, probably because of their shared religious heritage.
 
Abyssinia was not 'Eastern Orthodox': Its church was linked to the 'Egyptian Orthodox' one, which the actual 'Eastern Orthodox' had been defining as heretical since the 5th century AD.
 
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