Malê Rising

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I just wish there were more Brazilian influences on the Sokoto Republic. How has Portuguese influenced the country linguistically? Does capoeira and feijoada become somewhat popular?

Feijoada's been mentioned - I wouldn't want to make the Malê live without it!

I hadn't thought of capoeira, but it would definitely exist, both as a martial art and a dance form. I'll have to work it into the story somewhere. The music of Sokoto would also be influenced by Brazil, and I've mentioned that some Portuguese expressions have entered the local languages.

Given that the Malê are Muslim, though, they wouldn't have Carnival (which the Afro-Brazilians in Benin and Togo still celebrate in OTL). Also, remember that the Malê are a minority, albeit an influential one, which means that their cultural influence will be limited and that there will be a considerable amount of assimilation the other way. The Fulani code of pulaaku, for instance, has by 1849 become widely accepted among Sokoto soldiers of all nationalities, including the Malê.

Glad you're enjoying the story - please keep reading!

 

[imperialaquila]

Looking good. We now appear to be getting in to the endgame of the Sokoto Republic. I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

... although if the Buganda are incorporated into the British empire in the ATL, I'd expect that they at least will benefit.

With your intention of having Egypt remain outside of British occupation, I think that Zanzibar will survive the partition it suffered IOTL in the hands of Germany, Britain and Italy. Prior, its influence extended deep into Africa as far as Kindu, in eastern today's DPR. Congo, at least before Leopold's Congo wrestled the region out from them, certainly not far away from the Victoria Lake. Without something like matter of Egypt for other powers like Germany to blackmail the British with, I can't think of any possible reason for the British to be willing to partition their client's domain and share it with others.

In that case, the Lake kingdoms will be up for Zanzibar and Egypt to deal with should Egypt be interested in expanding as far down to the Lake. Likely in that case that British will interfere. But it won't include British direct colonialism over Uganda.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

With your intention of having Egypt remain outside of British occupation, I think that Zanzibar will survive the partition it suffered IOTL in the hands of Germany, Britain and Italy. Prior, its influence extended deep into Africa as far as Kindu, in eastern today's DPR. Congo, at least before Leopold's Congo wrestled the region out from them, certainly not far away from the Victoria Lake. Without something like matter of Egypt for other powers like Germany to blackmail the British with, I can't think of any possible reason for the British to be willing to partition their client's domain and share it with others.

In that case, the Lake kingdoms will be up for Zanzibar and Egypt to deal with should Egypt be interested in expanding as far down to the Lake. Likely in that case that British will interfere. But it won't include British direct colonialism over Uganda.

You make a good point about Zanzibar. In the 1840s, Zanzibar was still part of the Omani sultanate; in fact, Sultan Sayyid Said bin Sultan made it the capital, and invited in merchants from Europe and India to cement the city's status as an entrepot. In 1856, a succession crisis arose between his two sons Thuwaini and Majid, which Britain was called in to arbitrate. The British arbitrator ruled, no doubt with some amount of glee, that the sultanate would be split up, with Thuwaini getting Oman and Majid getting Zanzibar. Afterward, Zanzibar's mainland holdings were gobbled up by the British, Germans and Italians, and the island itself was finally conquered in 1890.

So if we butterfly away the 1856 succession crisis, the sultanate might stay united. Let's see - given the steep decline of the Atlantic slave trade in this timeline, the Royal Navy will be able to direct more of its resources to the Indian Ocean (slave-trade suppression was also part of British Indian Ocean policy). In fact, in the 1850s, the navy will be able to shift substantially all of its anti-slavery squadron east, for reasons which will be made clear in the next series of updates. At the time, Britain had already signed an anti-slavery pact with Oman, but Sultan Said didn't really enforce it. So let's say that one of the two sons - Majid, probably, given that he controlled the capital - promises the British consul that if Britain recognizes his claim, he'll actually enforce the treaty. Britain agrees, and the sultanate remains a single state which includes Zanzibar, the Swahili coast, Oman and part of Baluchistan - one under British protection, but a much more powerful one than OTL, and better able to stand off the depredations of other colonial powers.

Majid would expand his domains into the interior much as in OTL, but instead of using slave-traders-cum-warlords to do so, he would expand inland in order to subdue the warlords. The interior might become a jointly administered colony - an "Anglo-Omani Tanganyika" much like "Anglo-Egyptian Sudan" of OTL. (Hmmm, Tippu Tip as the Mahdi? No, more likely an Omani general.) This would cause trouble later, when the white settlers start to come to the highlands - the plateau, and possibly a corridor to the sea, might be split off as a separate colony - but by then the system would be established. Also, while Oman wasn't free of racism by any means, racial categories were much more porous there than in the European world, and the nationalism that would develop along the coast during the early 20th century would be a combined Afro-Arab one. Buganda, here, would either be a more-or-less independent buffer or a protectorate, and wouldn't come under direct rule - even in OTL, the Buganda got a better deal than most other colonized African peoples.

The Omanis had an interesting career in Africa - they kicked the Portuguese out of most of the Swahili coast, after all - and I'd like to keep them in the game. Unless someone has a reason why the above sequence of events doesn't make sense, I think that's what will happen.

 

[B_Munro]

The slave trade was pretty big business, though. Even if the Sultan agrees to supress it, will he really go "cold turkey" on a major income source, or continue it to some extent on the sly? And besides ivory, what other incentives does Zanzibar/Oman have to expand further into the interior? What do they get in return for supressing warlords?

Bruce

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

The slave trade was pretty big business, though. Even if the Sultan agrees to supress it, will he really go "cold turkey" on a major income source, or continue it to some extent on the sly? And besides ivory, what other incentives does Zanzibar/Oman have to expand further into the interior? What do they get in return for supressing warlords?

Zanzibar did start enforcing the slave-trade ban after 1870, although compliance was spotty. Doing so in the late 1850s wouldn't be that much of an advance, and the Sultan would have a British subsidy as a sweetener; in this timeline, the alliance with Sokoto has led Britain to develop something of a "spend our gold and other people's soldiers" attitude toward slave-trade suppression, although (as will soon be seen) they'll still commit British troops when they believe it to be necessary. The subsidy will offset some of the lost profits from the slave trade, especially since it goes directly to the Sultan.

No doubt some under-the-table slave trading would continue with corrupt officials looking the other way, and some of the bribes might even find their way to the Sultan's coffers, but as long as he makes a good show of cooperation and the volume of the slave traffic is noticeably reduced, he might be able to get away with it.

The main incentives for the Sultan to expand inland, other than ivory, would be threefold: the British would want (and pay) him to do it, he'd want to avoid being outflanked by the Portuguese in Mozambique and by whoever takes the Congo basin, and he'd be able to reward his supporters with land. There would be plenty of good coffee and cotton land to parcel out, and a Sultan who's still worried about plots from his brothers could help seal the nobles' loyalty by giving them feudal estates.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Brig. Murtala Bello, A Military and Political History of the Malê Wars (Yola: Adamawa War College, 1979)


… The idea for the Dahomey War began to percolate through the British military establishment as early as 1848. During the preceding six years, the new strategy of attacking the Atlantic slave trade from the supply side had met with unprecedented success. By 1846, Adamawa had joined Sokoto in accepting a British subsidy to suppress slave raids, and the following year, Umar Tall hoisted the anti-slave-trade banner on behalf of the Toucouleur. In effect, the three most powerful Sahelian states had committed themselves to suppress slave raids within their spheres of influence and enforce an end to endemic warfare among middleman kingdoms.

The “interior strategy,” as it was called in Whitehall, wasn’t without embarrassing lapses. One corrupt Adamawa officer, for instance, was found to have sold captured slave-raiders to an Ouaddai merchant of his acquaintance, and while some characterized the incident as poetic justice, many others wondered whether it was the best use of the government’s money. Such incidents aside, however, the supply of slaves in the ports along the Guinea coast and the Niger Delta shrank to the point where no profitable trade could be conducted.

At the same time, the ports themselves were coming under increasing British domination. In 1844, the petty kingdoms of the Gold Coast ceded control of their military and judicial policies to Britain in return for protection against the Asante confederacy; three years later, the British Crown bought out the Dutch and Danish forts to bring that stretch of coastline under its sway. By the late 1840s, Britain had also seized the ports of Lagos and Warri, and wielded increasing influence in the kingdoms of Bonny and Calabar. The middleman kingdoms were caught in a vise between the Sahelian states on the one hand and the British coastal forts on the other.

It is hardly surprising that, in this environment, senior British military commanders and government figures began to wonder if they might end the Atlantic slave trade once and for all, enabling the Royal Navy to redirect its resources against other threats. One major obstacle stood in the way, however: the kingdom of Dahomey.

Dahomey was a well-armed and well-organized state, beyond the easy reach of the Sahelian powers, and it controlled its coastline rather than leaving the littoral to petty chieftains and city-states. It had become rich as a middleman in the slave trade, and King Ghezo, who ruled from 1818, had no intention of forgoing those riches; he appointed a notorious slave merchant as governor of the port of Whydah and sent his army on annual slaving expeditions. Indeed, the elimination of almost all competing markets had made the slave trade enormously profitable for Ghezo, and financial inducements proved unpersuasive in getting him to fall into line.

Ghezo of Dahomey
​

With persuasion and bribery having failed, the British began to consider more direct methods. By mid-1848, the design had begun to take shape: to close the vise on Dahomey, with Britain invading from the south and Sokoto from the north, and replace Ghezo with a compliant noble who would agree to abolish slavery.

In early 1849, after some debate within the corridors of Whitehall, the plan was approved, and overtures were sent to Sokoto. The proposal was put before the Sokoto government in terms calculated to appeal to Paulo Abacar’s messianic anti-slavery sentiments, and as a sweetener, Britain offered to guarantee its annual subsidy for twenty years and modernize Sokoto’s artillery. Left unspoken was the threat that if Sokoto declined the offer, the subsidy would be cut off altogether.

The debate in the governing council was a close-run one. Many even among the Malê - anti-slavery almost to a man, but most of them not messianically so - were wary of mounting an overland invasion with long and uncertain supply lines against a well-armed kingdom, and some also disliked the notion of being “Britain’s mercenaries.” Others, in contrast, noted the growing British presence along the coast and argued that deepening Sokoto’s alliance with Britain was the path to a prosperous future.

Abacar himself was deeply conflicted. His mind was increasingly on his theological reforms, he was looking to the long-term future of Africa and all Islam, and he had no desire to risk Sokoto’s troops in a foreign war. But a war against the slave trade was a holy war, and opposing it had been his life’s mission, and now there was a chance to end it forever…

In the end, Abacar threw his moral authority - somewhat eroded, but still considerable - behind the proposal, and it passed with a bare majority in the legislature. Sokoto would fight, and the ensuing battle would prove to be as decisive for the Republic as for the slave trade.

The Dahomey War began soon after the end of the 1849 rains. On October 22, the Royal Navy began the bombardment of Whydah, and by October 27, Britain was in control of the city. Other landings were made at Porto Novo and the fishing village of Cotonou. These landings were largely uncontested by Dahomey’s armed forces, which withdrew to fortified strongpoints in the interior. By the end of the month, there were 6000 British troops committed, and they began the march north to the capital.

In mid-November, an 11,000-strong Sokoto field army reached the northern marches of Dahomey and opened the second front. The core of this army consisted of four Malê regiments with a strength of about 5000, although by this time, the Malê formations included many Fulani, Hausa and even Yoruba recruits. The remainder was Hausa infantry; the Fulani units were largely left behind, as horses could not survive in the tropics and much of the terrain was impassable to cavalry.

Female Regiment of Dahomey
​

At first, the Sokoto advance was rapid, as the bulk of Dahomey’s army had shifted south to face the British assault. As they entered the kingdom proper, however, resistance began to stiffen and the going became difficult. The Sokoto troops were better-armed than the Dahomean military, but not overwhelmingly so; moreover, the terrain made it impossible for them to bring more than a few small field artillery pieces with them. The defenders had also established fortified positions along the main access routes which had to be overcome by bayonet assaults in which the superiority of Malê firearms meant little. And Dahomey’s northern army - which included several of its famed amazon units - was able to concentrate its forces at key points along the broad front that Sokoto had opened, and to push several of the advancing columns back across the Oueme River.

Abacar responded by adapting the guerrilla tactics he had learned from the Spaniards for offensive use, deploying small skirmish units of riflemen behind enemy lines to harass supply trains, raid provincial towns and wreck roads and palm-oil plantations. By this means, he succeeded in drawing the defending troops away from the front, and after a series of probing attacks, was able to outflank one of the strongpoints and recross the Oueme. The going was still not easy, especially once the retreating Dahomean forces began to use scorched-earth tactics, but by late February, the Sokoto field army had entered the central provinces. In fact, it reached the outskirts of Abomey, the capital city, several days before the smaller British army, which had encountered similar trouble reducing the strongpoints in the south.

​

The combined British-Sokoto force invested Abomey on March 22, 1850. It was plain that storming the city would be no easy task. The capital was protected by an earthen wall six miles in circumference, topped by a wooden palisade and surrounded by a five-foot-deep ditch filled with acacia thorns. Within were several farming villages which fed the soldiers and courtiers of the palaces, and barracks for the 20,000 defending troops. The attackers had been reduced by casualties and garrison deployments to 11,500 effectives, and many of the British troops were sick.

The attackers pushed siege trenches close to the earthwork at several points, defeating sorties from the city. But without sufficient artillery to force a breach before the rains started, they would have to carry the walls by assault. In the predawn hours of April 6, the battle for Abomey began…

*******
​

Henry C. Sandler, A People’s History of Africa (New York: Random House, 1942)

… Generals, or so they say, never stop fighting the last war. Sometimes that’s also true of heads of state, and Paulo Abacar’s crusade against the Atlantic slave trade is a case in point.

There can certainly be no questioning of the horrors of the slave traffic. There’s no way to know for certain, but our best guess is that between 1600 and 1850, ten million human beings were kidnapped from their homes, shipped across the ocean in conditions unfit for cattle, and made to work under the lash. Many would die in transit, others would succumb to the harsh conditions in the plantations and slave camps, and those who survived would suffer a fearful toll in broken families and shattered dignity. And this doesn’t count the endemic warfare that occurred in many parts of Africa in order to get slaves to sell, which resulted in the death of more millions, the destruction of villages and nations, the debasement of entire cultures. Africa in 1850 had scarcely more people than in 1750, despite the world population growing by half during the same period.

In parts of Africa during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the economy revolved completely around slaving, and no one was immune from its misery. The reach of the slave trade extended deep into the interior, causing warfare, death and destruction among tribes that had never seen a white man. The slave trade must rank as one of the great crimes of history, and one from which the African continent is still recovering.

But by the time the Malê conquered the Sokoto Caliphate, the Atlantic slave traffic was on the decline. The Royal Navy had been acting forcefully against slave ships since early in the century, the British empire had freed its slaves in 1833, and even the countries that still retained slavery had largely banned the importation of slaves. Only in Brazil and Cuba was the slave trade still legal, and even there, a declining number of captains were willing to risk the Royal Navy’s wrath for diminishing profits.

This was the environment in which Abacar committed the Sokoto Republic to a British-instigated invasion of Dahomey. To be sure, the invasion accomplished its goal. The last slave ship left the African coast on October 16, 1849, shortly before the British seizure of Whydah. Within months, Dahomey had been subdued, King Ghezo had been exiled to Sierra Leone, and a new monarch had been put in his place who compliantly outlawed slave-raiding. The Atlantic slave trade was over.

But for what, and at what cost? Had the Dahomey War not been fought, the slave trade might have continued for another ten or even twenty years, but it would eventually have fallen of its own weight. And in hastening the end of a declining traffic, Sokoto helped Britain subjugate a proud and independent nation, and enabled it to advance from its coastal holdings and establish its first foothold in the African interior. In closing the door on the slave trade, the Dahomey War opened it for the colonial era, from which the peoples of Africa are only now beginning to emerge.

Paulo Abacar killed the dying beast of the Atlantic slave trade - by all means, give him credit for that. But how does that weigh against the introduction of capitalism and colonialism to a region that had hitherto been free of both? History must judge, and its judgment may not be kind…

*******
​

Philip Acheampong, “The Dahomey Invasion: A Reassessment,” African History Quarterly 29:11-23 (Spring 1975)


… Sandler has emerged as the dean of those who view the Dahomey War as a disaster for Africa, and to be honest, he does have a point. When the dust cleared at war’s end, Britain owned Dahomey’s coastline outright and had established a client relationship with the remainder of the kingdom; although the interior didn’t lose its independence right away, it agreed not to make war without British permission. Contemporary West Africans viewed this as a neutral or positive development - Dahomey, the “African Sparta,” had a nasty reputation among its neighbors, and British colonial ambitions at the time were relatively confined - but it was, as Sandler has stated, a foot in the door of the interior. Also, while the Malê thought of themselves as British allies, and the British commanders in the field appear to have shared that view, the mandarins of Whitehall considered them colonial subalterns, much like the Indian princely states which had sided with Britain during its long conquest of the subcontinent. The Malê were to become favored subjects, it is true, but the notion of them as subjects was already starting to take hold.

So what’s wrong with Sandler’s analysis? First, the counterfactual hypothesis implied in his argument - that colonialism would never have taken hold in Africa if Sokoto hadn’t helped it in - is nonsense. By the time of the Dahomey War, Britain had already established quasi-colonial dominance over the petty kings of the Gold Coast and Calabar, and had controlled South Africa and Sierra Leone for more than a generation. The Quatre Communes of Senegal had been French for a century, and by the laws of 1848, they and the nascent freedmen’s colony in Gabon were made integral parts of the French republic. Portugal and Spain, of course, also had long-standing possessions. To be sure, the European-controlled areas in 1850 were almost entirely along the coast, but the expansion into the interior had already begun, and it was inevitable that the imperial powers would seek to control the resources of the last area open to them. The most the Dahomey War may realistically be said to have done is advance the timetable, and even that, probably not by much.

Sandler’s other counterfactual assumption - that the slave trade would have ended in ten to twenty years even if Dahomey had stayed in business - is also suspect in my view. As long as slavery existed in the New World - especially in the Caribbean and Brazil, where the natural increase of the enslaved population was negative - there would be a demand for imported slaves, and there would be merchants willing to fill that demand for the right price. The illicit trans-Caribbean slave traffic of the 1850s and early 1860s, in which surplus North American slaves were sold to Cuban and Brazilian plantations, is proof enough of that, as is the fact that there are enough English-speaking descendants of slaves in Pernambuco to form a distinct community even today. There is no reason to doubt that Dahomey, left to itself, would have continued to prosper from the Atlantic slave trade, and would indeed have continued to use its near-monopoly profits to modernize its army and increase the efficiency of its slave-raids. The notion of a strong Dahomean state modernizing on the back of the slave trade may be an intriguing one, and it would have been no worse a sin than most of the imperial powers committed, but it wouldn’t have been the alternative past that Sandler envisioned.

And last, even if we were to assume that the Dahomey War only hastened the end of the Atlantic slave trade by ten or fifteen years, what of the men, women and children who would have been enslaved during those years? What of those who would have died or been impoverished by the endemic slave-raiding wars that would have occurred in Sandler’s history but didn’t in ours? We can never know how many people would have been so victimized, but it’s safe to assume that the figure would at least have been in the hundreds of thousands. Surely they must count for something.

The messianic view of Paulo Abacar held by many Sokoto nationalists is a false one; he was only a man, and like all men, he was flawed and made mistakes. The Dahomey War may well have been such a miscalculation, in view of both its impact on colonial history and the unintended consequences within the Republic itself. But to hold Abacar responsible for ushering in the colonial age, or to discount his role in putting the trans-Atlantic slave traffic to an end, is a ridiculous over-reaction to the hagiographers. History’s judgment on him, while critical, must ultimately respect his role as liberator.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Abomey
April 1850


Major John Alexander checked his pocket-watch for what seemed the thousandth time. Twenty past two in the morning; the attack would begin in forty minutes.

Few of the soldiers in the positions around the city had slept, and many of those in the British encampment were drunk. Here in the Sokoto camp, where the major was liaison, the men were denied that solace, and cast about for others. Some were praying, although the hour of fajr was still far away. Others were dancing - nearby, two men stood inside a circle of their comrades, weaving an intricate web of strikes, kicks and evasions that were almost too fast to see, pulling back each strike an instant before it became lethal. Around them, other soldiers beat on drums and chanted a responsive song - something in Fulfulde about a cattle-herder who risked all to love the chieftain’s daughter, a ballad that seemed strangely out of place on the eve of battle.

“Soon enough,” he said out loud. “At least we burned most of the thorns away,” he added, although doing so under fire from the city walls had been a fearful task.

“They say those amazons of theirs do their training runs on the thorns,” answered Paulo Abacar, standing by his side. “They’re tough enough, no mistake about that.”

“Never thought I’d say so, but I agree.” Both of them had fought against Dahomey’s female battalions during the battles outside the city, and they’d been as fierce as the men and twice as ruthless. “Almost as formidable as your Nana, I’d say. I wonder what she’d think of them.”

Paulo laughed. “I doubt she’d approve. Nana Asma’u thinks women should be strong, but she thinks they should be women. An army of teachers, yes; an army of soldiers, I very much doubt.” He trailed off for a moment, thinking of something. “Although we’ve had our share of warrior queens, up north. After the battle, remind me to tell you about Amina of Zaria…”

The conversation was cut short by the whistling of canister overhead, fired by the three-pounders in the siege trenches. The shot stood little chance of harming the warriors on the wall itself, who were protected by the palisade, but hopefully it would clear enough of the area immediately behind the wall so that, after the palisade was carried, the invading soldiers would have room to form up and consolidate. More distant booms signaled that the bombardment was also taking place along other parts of the wall, in the hope of confusing the defenders about where the attack would strike home. The besieging armies had spent much of the night shifting soldiers from place to place along the wall, for much the same reason.

In front of them, the fighting-dance went on despite the cannon shots, with two new soldiers taking the place of the ones who’d been in the center before. The chant was different now, an unmistakable battle-song from the revolt in Bahia. A morte vale um centavo, nunca vou ser um escravo…

The watch-chain in his hand felt comforting, and he checked the time again. Two thirty-five. Not long now.

*******
​

Paulo Abacar kept his eye on the city wall, mapping out the route that his column would follow, searching the darkness for weak points although he knew he’d find none. This was the kind of battle he feared most, an assault on a fortified town: it wasn’t the kind of fighting either Malê or Fulani were made for. He’d fought sieges when he had to, and he’d won them, but victory had always come at a higher cost than he’d wanted to pay. He had no doubt that his troops would follow him - they had pulaaku, every one - but he’d lose far too many of them by sunrise.

He and his officers had spent the previous evening in the British command tent planning out the assault. Afterward, the discussion had drifted into a sharing of stories. Several of the British officers were old enough to have fought in the Peninsular War, and one or two claimed to have seen him, although memory was most likely playing them false. It had been a pleasant enough time - the closeness of the soldiers’ mess was like family, and soldiers’ stories were almost worth the soldiering - but now would be the time when new stories were made, and that would be much less so.

He let his eyes fall to his own watch: ten minutes. Around him, sergeants were breaking up the dances and conversations to chivvy their men into line; soldiers were putting away their Korans and mess-kits and picking up their weapons. British Pattern 1842 muskets, most of them; Britain had at least kept its promise to modernize Sokoto’s weapons.

“I’m getting too old for this,” said the British major beside him.

Paulo, sixty-five and white-haired, laughed out loud. “Too old, John? How old are you, now?”

“Thirty-four until May.”

“Then you shouldn’t talk like that to someone who could be your father. But I’ll tell you, no one’s ever young enough for this.” He laid a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Everyone’s scared, and it doesn’t matter how many battles you’ve fought. Trust in God.”

“I’ll try,” John answered.

The Malê general clapped his shoulder again. “That’s the best you can do. Let’s take our places.”

*******
​

The touch of Paulo’s hand lingered, and the major found it a comfort. It wasn’t that he was a stranger to fighting - any political officer who ventured into uncharted territory was bound to get in a fight or two. But those had been short and sharp, involving few men and over in minutes. He’d never been in a real battle before, never had to storm a city wall, and he knew he was out of place among veterans.

The column began to move forward, slowly and silently; to his left and right, he could see others doing the same. The encircling ditch was scarcely more than a hundred yards away, and he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. What had Paulo said the night before? Get to where you must go, and you’ll do what you need to do.

Eighty yards, and the crackle of musket fire came from the loops in the palisade. Men in the front rank were falling, and secrecy was useless now; Paulo signaled to his officers, and they urged the soldiers into a run.

“Sokoto!” Paulo shouted. “Death to the slavers! Allah and the Malê! Allah and the Malê!”

“Allah and the Malê!” came the answering shout from thousands of throats, including those who were not Malê - including, to John Alexander’s surprise, his own.

Paulo’s face was unreadable, transported. He looks like an avenging angel, the major thought, and realized that this must be the battle that the Malê leader had waited his entire life to fight.

The fire continued as the first troops poured into the ditch and threw ladders against the wall. Down in the trench with them, the major remembered what he’d been taught. Climb fast; the higher your weight is, the harder the ladder will be to shift. Ignore the smoke and musket fire. Ignore the men above you falling off. Ignore the men you passed on the way here with half their faces missing, and the ones trying to hold their guts in with their hands…

He climbed. The defenders were slinging rocks covered with flaming pitch over the palisade, and one struck him in the back of the neck before bouncing its way down. Ignore the pain. The ladder wobbled as the soldiers on the wall tried to shift it, and a musket-ball whistled past him as he climbed past the loops. But now he was at the top, and suddenly realized that he held the high ground: that he stood on the palisade and the defenders behind it were below him.

He chose his target quickly, felt his hand run along his bayoneted musket - far better than an officer’s sword for this kind of assault - and leaped down screaming. The Dahomean soldier tried to parry, but the force of his leap drove the defender’s musket aside, and he felt his bayonet go home. He shouted again and stabbed forward at another enemy; this one parried, but another soldier had come up alongside and finished his thrust where the major had not. He looked to see who it was, and saw that Paulo had also gained the wall.

The resistance atop the wall was becoming scattered now, and the attackers were starting to pour down into the city. There was no more canister fire - the risk of hitting their own men was too great - and the Dahomean troops below were beginning to regroup. They were still scattered, but they outnumbered the attackers; most of the besieging force was still making its way into the city, and if the Dahomeans were able to sort themselves, they could pin the men already inside against the wall.

The first men down, fighting as skirmishers, attacked the scattered Dahomeans, pushing them back just enough for those behind them to shake out into a line. “Back!” someone shouted, and the skirmishers retreated through the line; the major could see that they had formed two ranks and that the first rank had knelt. “Fire!” Paulo shouted, and six hundred muskets delivered the volley.

The defenders returned fire, and more men fell, but their response was disorganized; the shock of the volley had broken their attempt to form up, and the riflemen on the wall had begun to pick off their officers. “Ten paces forward and another volley!” Paulo commanded, and already, some of the soldiers on the fringes of the Dahomean force were starting to run.

*******
​

The second volley broke the defenders beneath the wall, and Paulo ordered his men to advance in line at double-time. There was a farming village nearby, and many of the Dahomeans were running for it, but Paulo left it well alone; there would be nothing inside but street fighting and deadly ambushes. Victory depended on reaching the palace quickly, before the defending troops in other parts of the city could come together. The attackers were still vulnerable, all the more so because many of them would mistake carrying the walls for victory.

The columns to his left and right - one British, one mostly Malê - were advancing in much the same fashion. He estimated that there were about eight thousand troops marching on the palace - fewer than the total number of enemy soldiers in the city, but more than there were defenders in any one place.

The palace compound was about a quarter-mile away, surrounded by a lower earth wall; within were barracks, servants’ quarters, and the great building which housed the court of King Ghezo. If they were lucky, they’d be able to carry the walls with another determined assault, and then all that would remain would be the seizure of the palace itself.

Major Alexander was trotting along gamely beside him, and he favored the officer with a smile. He’d come to think of the major as a friend during the eight years they’d known each other, and it was good to see him alive and thus far unhurt. That the major would be brave, he’d had no doubt, but bravery wasn’t always enough.

Seventy yards from the wall, the defenders offered proof: a sharp volley of musket fire, and holes were torn in the front of the Malê ranks. Paulo felt the wind of a musket ball as it whistled past his head, and murmured a quick prayer for the man who it would strike. The soldiers advanced without slackening speed, stopping only to pick up ladders from the fallen and slam them against the wall.

And now it was time for another assault - no palisade here, and they could pay back musket fire in kind, but the troops atop the earthwork were thicker. Paulo knew he was far too close to the front of the attack for a commander, but he also knew that soldiers would follow if he went where they did. He heard the sounds of clashing steel above him, and then he was atop the wall himself, and he was fighting for his life as a Dahomean warrior woman tried to skewer him. But more and more attackers were coming up behind, and suddenly the enemy began to fall back from the earthwork. The palace itself was in sight.

*******
​

John Alexander tried in vain to keep his balance as he skittered down the wall; he let his feet slide, and dropped into a roll at the bottom. He came up, on his guard, and saw that he wasn’t the only one, but enough soldiers had kept their feet to hold the line, and now they were forming up for the advance.

They were across a courtyard from the palace, close enough that he could see the great wooden door carved with reliefs of muskets, knives and hunting trophies. From within, soldiers wielding real weapons fired out the windows, and next to him, a musket ball struck someone’s face and flung his corpse backward. It wasn’t enough; soldiers’ hands pulled the door open, troops poured into the palace, and the gunfire became more scattered as defenders started to throw down their arms.

“We’ve got them, Paulo!” he shouted, but when he looked to his side, the Sokoto general was no longer there.

The Malê had the victory, Abomey was conquered, and Paulo Abacar lay quiet and still on the ground.

 

[B_Munro]

There would be plenty of good coffee and cotton land to parcel out, and a Sultan who's still worried about plots from his brothers could help seal the nobles' loyalty by giving them feudal estates.

Hmm - isn't the coffee growing area in the highlands? I forsee some conflict here with British settlers, if the area gets 'em...

Bruce

 

[Tsao]

So you killed off Abacar?

 

[B_Munro]

BTW, great update. So Abacar was the "indispensible man" for the Sokoto Republic? Well, at least this way he gets a martyrdom, rather than the more problematic deaths [1] that might have been his if he lived to see his project crumble..


Bruce


[1] And lives - how many liberators have ended up tyrants when they lived too long?

 

[Ridwan Asher]

You make a good point about Zanzibar. In the 1840s, Zanzibar was still part of the Omani sultanate; in fact, Sultan Sayyid Said bin Sultan made it the capital, and invited in merchants from Europe and India to cement the city's status as an entrepot. In 1856, a succession crisis arose between his two sons Thuwaini and Majid, which Britain was called in to arbitrate. The British arbitrator ruled, no doubt with some amount of glee, that the sultanate would be split up, with Thuwaini getting Oman and Majid getting Zanzibar. Afterward, Zanzibar's mainland holdings were gobbled up by the British, Germans and Italians, and the island itself was finally conquered in 1890.

So if we butterfly away the 1856 succession crisis, the sultanate might stay united. Let's see - given the steep decline of the Atlantic slave trade in this timeline, the Royal Navy will be able to direct more of its resources to the Indian Ocean (slave-trade suppression was also part of British Indian Ocean policy). In fact, in the 1850s, the navy will be able to shift substantially all of its anti-slavery squadron east, for reasons which will be made clear in the next series of updates. At the time, Britain had already signed an anti-slavery pact with Oman, but Sultan Said didn't really enforce it. So let's say that one of the two sons - Majid, probably, given that he controlled the capital - promises the British consul that if Britain recognizes his claim, he'll actually enforce the treaty. Britain agrees, and the sultanate remains a single state which includes Zanzibar, the Swahili coast, Oman and part of Baluchistan - one under British protection, but a much more powerful one than OTL, and better able to stand off the depredations of other colonial powers.

Majid would expand his domains into the interior much as in OTL, but instead of using slave-traders-cum-warlords to do so, he would expand inland in order to subdue the warlords. The interior might become a jointly administered colony - an "Anglo-Omani Tanganyika" much like "Anglo-Egyptian Sudan" of OTL. (Hmmm, Tippu Tip as the Mahdi? No, more likely an Omani general.) This would cause trouble later, when the white settlers start to come to the highlands - the plateau, and possibly a corridor to the sea, might be split off as a separate colony - but by then the system would be established. Also, while Oman wasn't free of racism by any means, racial categories were much more porous there than in the European world, and the nationalism that would develop along the coast during the early 20th century would be a combined Afro-Arab one. Buganda, here, would either be a more-or-less independent buffer or a protectorate, and wouldn't come under direct rule - even in OTL, the Buganda got a better deal than most other colonized African peoples.

The Omanis had an interesting career in Africa - they kicked the Portuguese out of most of the Swahili coast, after all - and I'd like to keep them in the game. Unless someone has a reason why the above sequence of events doesn't make sense, I think that's what will happen.

Some things that I'm in doubt about. That there will a sort of co-dominium over East Africa interior and the arrival of white settlers, and that Buganda will not come under either Zanzibari or Egyptian sphere. My doubt about the last part is shaky though : it will depend who between them will be more reliable for the British regarding that matter. But since Egypt seems to be bigger in expressing its independence, I think the Brits will choose Zanzibar over Egypt. But even then, it won't be a direct control of Zanzibari-Omani over them, just some form of suzerainty and vassalage.

Intact Zanzibari-Omani Sultanate I think won't be much different then OTL only-Zanzibari counterpart. It will be primarily for the British, a convenient wagon to expand their business interest to Africa interior. Their (and to lesser extent, Indians') influence and investment will be paramount over the sultanate's dominion and the later will be pretty much a semi-colony.


On the latest updates, I'd like to say that I'm rather relieved to see Abacar's ending of life on a battlefield as a soldier instead of dying tragically as an overthrown tyrant. I don't usually sympathize with radical ideologues but frankly this Paulo Abacar figure and his life story has kind of touched my soft spot.

And also, that a heroic death of an ideological champion will only cement his ideal's legitimacy, instead of undermining it.

 

[Neoteros]

Damn... at least, he died as a true warrior would do, leading his troops to victory. I suppose that now the Sokoto Republic will begin its downward spiral...

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

So Abacar was the "indispensible man" for the Sokoto Republic? Well, at least this way he gets a martyrdom, rather than the more problematic deaths [1] that might have been his if he lived to see his project crumble...

[1] And lives - how many liberators have ended up tyrants when they lived too long?

I'm not sure if I'd call him the indispensable man. The wheels would have come off soon enough even if he'd lived - let's face it, a minority-dominated French Revolutionary republic in the middle of the 19th-century Sahel isn't likely to be very stable, even with the Islamic foundation to bind it more closely to indigenous traditions. Several things have combined to make it survive as long as it has - military superiority, economic growth, the support of Nana Asma'u's itinerant teacher corps, the fact that prophetic reformers are a recent part of Fulani tradition, and Abacar's personal authority - but even the combination of these wasn't going to hold the edifice together forever. Removing Abacar's moral authority from the equation will only speed up the timetable.

As you and others have said, however, the manner of his death will have important consequences for the future. He will be remembered as a hero, not as a tyrant or a failed reformer, which means that his ideology will retain its luster. Thawra would have been a disaster if used as a pattern of civil government, but its premise - that there is a right of resistance against regimes which deny human rights and democratic rule - will be a perfect starting point for anti-colonialism. This will be the foundation for Malê doctrine transforming from a personal and localized movement into a "liberation theology" with influence throughout Islamic Africa and ultimately in many other places.

Also, the timing of Abacar's death means that the fall of republicanism, rather than the republicanism itself, will be associated with decline. Republican government will retain its appeal, which will eventually lead to a Second Republic emerging as heir to the First.

And... in company with Ridwan, I'm fond of Abacar's character, and I didn't want him to end as an exile or failure (although certain mistakes he has made - one in particular - will contribute to the Republic's fall). I wanted him to have a soldier's death, fighting for the cause to which he'd dedicated his life and knowing he'd succeeded - a death that he might not have regretted if it had been foretold to him.

Call it authorial privilege, if you like; authorial vanity if you don't. Either way, this wasn't an easy episode to write.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

And as to Oman and Zanzibar:

Hmm - isn't the coffee growing area in the highlands? I forsee some conflict here with British settlers, if the area gets 'em...

There will be white settlers - both historically and in this timeline, the highlands will be too good to pass up - and there will be conflict. This won't begin until the very end of the 19th century or possibly the early 20th, though, and at least some of the Zanzibari planters will be well-established by then - even in OTL, warlords such as Tippu Tip reinvested their slave-trade profits into plantations, and I'd expect the ATL's feudal class to be no different in how they spend their subsidies/tax revenues.

Some things that I'm in doubt about. That there will a sort of co-dominium over East Africa interior and the arrival of white settlers, and that Buganda will not come under either Zanzibari or Egyptian sphere. My doubt about the last part is shaky though : it will depend who between them will be more reliable for the British regarding that matter. But since Egypt seems to be bigger in expressing its independence, I think the Brits will choose Zanzibar over Egypt. But even then, it won't be a direct control of Zanzibari-Omani over them, just some form of suzerainty and vassalage.

The Buganda kingdom is a bit far afield for Egypt, which never had firm control over southern Sudan and might still face a Mahdist-type revolt (which, in OTL, began before the British occupation). Its supply lines to Buganda would run through a long stretch of hostile and poorly-developed country. Oman/Zanzibar, on the other hand, would be a lot closer, and the British would prefer semi-vassalized Oman rather than fully independent Egypt to control the interior. Thus, I would expect the Buganda to become either an Omani-British vassal (but not a colony) or to retain nominal independence as a buffer between the British sphere, Egypt, and Ethiopia, although even in the latter case, there would be a lot of great-power meddling as there was in OTL Afghanistan, Iran and Thailand.

Intact Zanzibari-Omani Sultanate I think won't be much different then OTL only-Zanzibari counterpart.

It will and it won't. On the one hand, Zanzibar was the richest part of the Sultanate in the 19th century - that's why Said ben Sultan moved the capital there - and Oman didn't add much economically. On the other hand, Oman was where most of the troops came from. The post-1856 Zanzibar sultanate was very weak militarily, which is part of why there were so many warlords in the interior and why it was dismembered so easily; Oman, in contrast, was British-influenced but managed to keep most of its independence. The ATL sultanate will combine the wealth of Zanzibar and the military strength of Oman, and while British control might be somewhat greater than OTL Oman (because the British will want the economic benefits of the African territories), it won't be reduced to an outright colony like OTL Zanzibar. I'm envisioning British Egypt as the model, which means that your "semi-colony" characterization is about right.

I'm now wondering about two things - Somalia and Aden. Southern Somalia, including Mogadishu, was Omani-controlled until it was first leased and then sold to Italy, but central and northern Somalia consisted of independent sultanates. Where would these go when the scramble for Africa begins? Italy, as in OTL? France, looking to compensate its partly-frustrated West African ambitions? Some other power? The British won't be able to control everything, and Somalia was marginal land - they might settle for the territory opposite Aden, as they did in OTL.

Aden itself was British from 1838, and would still be so in this timeline - it's too strategically important for Britain to give up. In OTL, though, Aden was administered as part of British India until the early 20th century. If the Britain of this timeline has an earlier and larger East African hegemony, and if the Omani/Zanzibari sultanate remains united as a British client, I wonder if the hinterland of Aden might be incorporated into the sultanate, while the port itself and the naval station remain as extraterritorial British possessions. I also wonder if, in this timeline, South Asians might find their way to Oman proper during the early 20th century or even the late 19th, and what role they would play in its development.

And the Congo basin - what happens there? It will be brutal whoever ends up in charge - the cash crop was rubber, and rubber colonialism is about as vicious as it gets. What happens there will affect what happens in East Africa and, possibly, the course of colonial rule as a whole. I have some ideas about who will rule the Congo and what will happen, but all thoughts are welcome.

 

[imperialaquila]

Excellent. I like how Abacar died; the best way to preserve his ideas as a major force.

Maybe, instead of a Mahdist revolt or something like it, have it be inspired by Abacar's ideas?

I suspect Italy will take over those Somali states; the French were always looking for an east-west axis across Africa, while Italy seemed to go for random spots for prestige purposes. If the French can't even begin that east-west design because of the British involvement in West Africa, they likely won't go for many other spots. Italy seems like the power to try to conquer them.

 

[Ceranthor]

Is Tippu Tib going to make an appearance in this TL? The Zulu kingdom? It would be interesting to see how Male ideals would influence their society.

 

[Shevek23]

Agreeing that Abacar's death is about the best one could hope for, given the foreknowledge that the Republic will not last much longer.

You've got me worrying about the fate of his wife and child though.

I should think that Major Alexander, hopefully backed up by the military hierarchy above him, will do his best to protect them, seeing as how Abacar died carrying out a mission on behalf of Her Majesty, one he was doubtful the Republic's forces were capable of winning handily. He made the supreme sacrifice for the sake of ending the slave trade and while stretching the point to claim he did it in Her Majesty's service might not have sat well with him (and his scrupulous respect for the truth) it would not be unreasonable for Alexander to harp on it anyway, in the matter of protecting Abacar's family.

But would they want British protection? They might need it, but again with the foreknowledge the First Republic is doomed to have the book closed on it in that name anyway, and that the place and an unknown number of its neighbors will wind up some kind of British protectorate in short order, the most plausible and on the whole benign scenario I can envision for Sokoto's immediate future is, the British are the ones who set about abolishing all this "Republic" nonsense, favoring instead some kind of more-or-less puppet Sultanate.

It might work out very well to set young Usman up as said sultan, under his mother's regency or the regency of Nana Asma’u. Except that Usman has been raised to abhor the notion of being a monarch; either he will stick to those guns and thus disqualify himself, or we have the sad spectacle of him succumbing to British imperialist blandishments and betraying his father's principles. Assuming the former, and that his mother and great-aunt back him, the lot of them might have to wind up exiles instead, maybe with less benefit of British support since they would have spurned what the British generally would regard as a handsome offer, and created inconveniences for the smooth running of the protectorate too. (Alexander might have more understanding and sympathy for that principled position, but in this I think he'd be a voice crying in the wilderness, and what little help the family gets being spirited away to somewhere more viable for them might be out of his personal pocket, or very grudgingly extracted from the colonial machinery by his perhaps career-ending pleas and machinations. Or conceivably Alexander wouldn't get it either though the way I read him, he certainly ought to!)

So, no more Republic, because now it's a Sultanate again--one that probably gets about the best paternalist deal any comparable protectorate of its age got, one whose new Sultan is probably quite pro-British by inclination and whose successors will be trained to be even more so. One which, unlike most such protectorates, has a substantial pro-industrial element of its populace already and is thus well situated to adopt remarkably advanced industrial methods early and extensively. Unless the British authorities get nervous about it and throw up active roadblocks to Sokoto economic development--but I'd think at this stage they might be rather more grateful than otherwise at an expanding tax base and a good source of diverse supplies and services for the RN and other government enterprises on the African coast; by the time some monopolist clique gets the notion that Africans are there to be exploited and Sokoto and neighbors are worth squeezing, they might have too many allies within the British system to treat so highhandedly.

This is what I meant by being colonized and liking it; industrial development, even of a rather light kind, means creating ties within the larger British system, means fostering ambitions on too great a scale to be contained in the one republic or even a larger republic built around it. West Africans are going to include people who want to stay in the Empire for its global-scaled opportunities--provided those opportunities are not closed to them by their race or other background considerations (like being Muslims, for instance.) That was the sense in which I meant less British racism--not "of course my daughter can marry one!" (though certainly while that kind of caste-racism was common in the OTL colonists, during WWI as well as WWII, African-American soldiers had relatively little trouble acquiring English girlfriends--the trouble they had was when their white US officers found out about it--so that sort of acceptance might not be quite as ASB after a few generations as Americans might assume) but simply accepting that West African businessmen with dark skins who happen to worship Allah can nevertheless be among the top commercial men of London and the Empire broadly speaking, and this is good for the Empire rather than any kind of scandal.

I accept that this pro-Empire lobby loses out, probably because the British are imperfect at best in their acceptance, also because structurally speaking the Sokoto industries will be seen as competitive and not integral to British industry (though I do think they will have their advocates in London who hold the competition is bracing and salutary and the goods and services they supply are complementary and useful--they just don't always win the debates). In West Africa, these internationalists have to settle for operating internationally rather than within an Empire-preference system; perhaps they can get most of the benefits of that by keeping West Africa in the Commonwealth or by means of bilateral treaties. So they are easily consoled, whereas perhaps a much broader sector of the populace is clearly better off with independence and anyway it is more dignified; I daresay patriotism might win over some leaders who otherwise would most rationally be Imperialists.

But I still think that if only the British played their cards right (which might admittedly be difficult to do flawlessly) they could hang on to West Africa indefinitely; playing their cards right implying of course that open door and evolution to a collective Empire, not a clearly British one!

Knowing there are future Sokoto Republics down the line and eventual independence, pretty well demonstrates the British do an imperfect job.

And it certainly gratifies me to have more republics, if they are good ones, and less of an Empire (unless it were a perfect one, which seems to be a long shot at best and ASB more likely.)

 

[Ridwan Asher]

1) There will be white settlers - both historically and in this timeline, the highlands will be too good to pass up - and there will be conflict. This won't begin until the very end of the 19th century or possibly the early 20th, though, and at least some of the Zanzibari planters will be well-established by then - even in OTL, warlords such as Tippu Tip reinvested their slave-trade profits into plantations, and I'd expect the ATL's feudal class to be no different in how they spend their subsidies/tax revenues.



2) The Buganda kingdom is a bit far afield for Egypt, which never had firm control over southern Sudan and might still face a Mahdist-type revolt (which, in OTL, began before the British occupation). Its supply lines to Buganda would run through a long stretch of hostile and poorly-developed country. Oman/Zanzibar, on the other hand, would be a lot closer, and the British would prefer semi-vassalized Oman rather than fully independent Egypt to control the interior. Thus, I would expect the Buganda to become either an Omani-British vassal (but not a colony) or to retain nominal independence as a buffer between the British sphere, Egypt, and Ethiopia, although even in the latter case, there would be a lot of great-power meddling as there was in OTL Afghanistan, Iran and Thailand.



3) It will and it won't. On the one hand, Zanzibar was the richest part of the Sultanate in the 19th century - that's why Said ben Sultan moved the capital there - and Oman didn't add much economically. On the other hand, Oman was where most of the troops came from. The post-1856 Zanzibar sultanate was very weak militarily, which is part of why there were so many warlords in the interior and why it was dismembered so easily; Oman, in contrast, was British-influenced but managed to keep most of its independence. The ATL sultanate will combine the wealth of Zanzibar and the military strength of Oman, and while British control might be somewhat greater than OTL Oman (because the British will want the economic benefits of the African territories), it won't be reduced to an outright colony like OTL Zanzibar. I'm envisioning British Egypt as the model, which means that your "semi-colony" characterization is about right.

4) I'm now wondering about two things - Somalia and Aden. Southern Somalia, including Mogadishu, was Omani-controlled until it was first leased and then sold to Italy, but central and northern Somalia consisted of independent sultanates. Where would these go when the scramble for Africa begins? Italy, as in OTL? France, looking to compensate its partly-frustrated West African ambitions? Some other power? The British won't be able to control everything, and Somalia was marginal land - they might settle for the territory opposite Aden, as they did in OTL.

Aden itself was British from 1838, and would still be so in this timeline - it's too strategically important for Britain to give up. In OTL, though, Aden was administered as part of British India until the early 20th century. If the Britain of this timeline has an earlier and larger East African hegemony, and if the Omani/Zanzibari sultanate remains united as a British client, I wonder if the hinterland of Aden might be incorporated into the sultanate, while the port itself and the naval station remain as extraterritorial British possessions. I also wonder if, in this timeline, South Asians might find their way to Oman proper during the early 20th century or even the late 19th, and what role they would play in its development.

5) And the Congo basin - what happens there? It will be brutal whoever ends up in charge - the cash crop was rubber, and rubber colonialism is about as vicious as it gets. What happens there will affect what happens in East Africa and, possibly, the course of colonial rule as a whole. I have some ideas about who will rule the Congo and what will happen, but all thoughts are welcome.

1) White settlers will not be a possibility if Kenya won't be an outright colony.

2) Then again, if you can plausibly avoid Egyptian campaign to Ethiopia ITTL, I think that can save quite amount of energy and resources to be used for the future. Maybe in time of TTL's Mahdi Revolt equivalent breaking out, if any, the Egyptians will be in a better position to face it.

I think they will at least reach as far as Bunyoro, maybe even gobble up a portion of Orientale region, depends on the situation surroundings.

3) Good point about Omani man-pool. I'm confident they will have more freedom then British Egypt even without Oman though. Just as much as they had IOTL before partition and then occupation. They will be economically intensely dominated by Britain but in the end of calculation, remain the master of their own domain and retain a semblance of sovereignty.

4) Indeed, that, the hinterland of what is now Somaliland is actually pretty productive, which was why the British took it IOTL. They only took it however, because of OTL Egyptian decline. Prior, since 16th century, the region had been part of Ottoman sphere and an Egyptian colony. As for South Arabia, I don't think British will do much about it and will largely ignore it. It seems that ITTL, the Brits will invest more in building and consolidating South Africa. It was what they were into IOTL before occupying egypt anyway, which while granted them immense economical advantage, rendered them vulnerable to be held hostage by other powers, particularly Germany.

5) Well, before some Belgian king suddenly intruded the region, it was nominally Portuguese zone of concern. Without anything like Congo Free State project, it will eventually fall to Portuguese control but possibly very slowly, and Zanzibar will likely be able to push inland further than IOTL, maybe as far as Kasai ?

The primary concern of the great powers will most likely be that none of them will get it, and thus it will end up colonized by a minor colonial power.

 

[B_Munro]

Aden itself was British from 1838, and would still be so in this timeline - it's too strategically important for Britain to give up. In OTL, though, Aden was administered as part of British India until the early 20th century. If the Britain of this timeline has an earlier and larger East African hegemony, and if the Omani/Zanzibari sultanate remains united as a British client, I wonder if the hinterland of Aden might be incorporated into the sultanate, while the port itself and the naval station remain as extraterritorial British possessions. I also wonder if, in this timeline, South Asians might find their way to Oman proper during the early 20th century or even the late 19th, and what role they would play in its development.

So OTLs South Yemen would be part of a Greater Oman? What with South Asians immigrants, Arabs of Oman and Yemen, Swahili-speakers of various shades and Bantu of the African interior, racial politics are likely to get complex in the Oman/Zanzibar Empire when (if?) democratic forces become important.

Bruce

Bruce