Of Rajahs and Hornbills: A timeline of Brooke Sarawak
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To anyone who's wondering, the latest update is on the previous page.
Hmm… let’s see. From what I’ve gathered, there was already a consciousness of Catalan identity among some parts of society before 1890, but it seemed to be more of an intellectual movement than a popular one. Catalan mass politics was just getting started, and there was also some pushback among industrial bosses in Barcelona as they feared anything that could upset their protectionist industries.
ITTL, the averting of colonial dismemberment would avert the national shock that OTL Spain went through, and the continued business between the metropole and overseas dominions (which would have first-favoured status in trade) would keep the factories running and the money flowing. So Catalan identity would be pushed back for the time being until the Great War, but I’m willing to change if corrected.
Oh wow, didn’t realise the term was bastardised!
Teddy’s going to be known as more an adventurer than a politician ITTL. But that said, the U.S. is still a rapidly industrializing nation, and the idea of reform in social, economic, and administrative terms hasn’t changed. Perhaps there shall be an alternate Progressive Era, with another person who will put through the anti-trust reforms Roosevelt did. There would still be problems in the army, though, especially since they haven’t got to test their mettle in Cuba ITTL.
As for the coming war… you’ll see.
So far, there’s some mention of alliances: The Siamese posts #981 and #1027 inferred how Russia and France are connected in a deeper level than mere diplomacy. But most of the political agreements are more informal ITTL and relate to more tangential issues, such as the Oil Policy that was agreed between Sarawak, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary. There will be a few more agreements of the sort coming up, and they would include some… odd members.
You are right in that Southeast Asia and Africa will be more contested between the Great Powers, as would the Balkans (near-unavoidable, given the mess of relations there). As for the Great Game, there has been some politicking in Afghanistan and Persia so far, but no more than OTL; the Wakhan Corridor is still gifted to Kabul as a buffer between India and Russia while Persia is increasingly courted at the meantime.
For East Asia, it’s… complicated. China wants to industrialize and retain what influence it still has, but the main pivot is still on Korea. Both Japan and Russia seek to influence it and are using the Seoul court as pawns, while simultaneously keeping one eye on Manchuria and the resources there. To say regional diplomacy down there is more doggerel than class is an understatement.
That will be partly answered in the pre-Great War updates, but its suffice to say that both empires are having pains of their own.
Hmm… let’s see. From what I’ve gathered, there was already a consciousness of Catalan identity among some parts of society before 1890, but it seemed to be more of an intellectual movement than a popular one. Catalan mass politics was just getting started, and there was also some pushback among industrial bosses in Barcelona as they feared anything that could upset their protectionist industries.
ITTL, the averting of colonial dismemberment would avert the national shock that OTL Spain went through, and the continued business between the metropole and overseas dominions (which would have first-favoured status in trade) would keep the factories running and the money flowing. So Catalan identity would be pushed back for the time being until the Great War, but I’m willing to change if corrected.
Oh wow, didn’t realise the term was bastardised!
Teddy’s going to be known as more an adventurer than a politician ITTL. But that said, the U.S. is still a rapidly industrializing nation, and the idea of reform in social, economic, and administrative terms hasn’t changed. Perhaps there shall be an alternate Progressive Era, with another person who will put through the anti-trust reforms Roosevelt did. There would still be problems in the army, though, especially since they haven’t got to test their mettle in Cuba ITTL.
As for the coming war… you’ll see.
So far, there’s some mention of alliances: The Siamese posts #981 and #1027 inferred how Russia and France are connected in a deeper level than mere diplomacy. But most of the political agreements are more informal ITTL and relate to more tangential issues, such as the Oil Policy that was agreed between Sarawak, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary. There will be a few more agreements of the sort coming up, and they would include some… odd members.
You are right in that Southeast Asia and Africa will be more contested between the Great Powers, as would the Balkans (near-unavoidable, given the mess of relations there). As for the Great Game, there has been some politicking in Afghanistan and Persia so far, but no more than OTL; the Wakhan Corridor is still gifted to Kabul as a buffer between India and Russia while Persia is increasingly courted at the meantime.
For East Asia, it’s… complicated. China wants to industrialize and retain what influence it still has, but the main pivot is still on Korea. Both Japan and Russia seek to influence it and are using the Seoul court as pawns, while simultaneously keeping one eye on Manchuria and the resources there. To say regional diplomacy down there is more doggerel than class is an understatement.
That will be partly answered in the pre-Great War updates, but its suffice to say that both empires are having pains of their own.
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As I am new to this timeline, before plunging in, what are your timeline's East India Company's situation? Is Mr. Dalhousie forcing sepoys to serve abroad in your Burma War?
The East India Company went under as OTL, at around 1857-1858. Back then, the POD was still centered around Sarawak and the butterfly net was wound up in Borneo, so Marquess Dalhousie did force sepoys to serve in Burma. The resulting discontent among the troops ended up contributing to the rebellion.
After the Indian Rebellion, yes. But now, the timeline has moved to the 1890s and the POD has reached both India and Great Britain, so the current viceroy is now up in the air (speaking of which, I need to think about India now
).Dreadfully! I could cite hundreds of posts where it is used to mean 'knock-on'.
International snippets of the 1890's: 5/5
Sharif Ramadani, Across the Ages: A Social History of the Nile (Gulbahar: 2012)
On the 21st of April 1896, a small detachment of the German Expeditionary Corps began marching past the fortified town of Bor. They were reaching for a place called Malakal, by the While Nile, answering the pleas sent from there by an entrenched group of explorers whom were surrounded by, from one account, “fanatic men on horseback, with rifles and spears on their hands.”
They would never get there.
The grisly fate of the ‘Munich Company’ and the equally ill-fated group of explorers awaiting their rescue encapsulated the appalling state of the lands surrounding the Dervish Caliphate. For almost a decade, the rogue state had lashed out at its immediate neighbours, sending punitive raids and slave expeditions to capture Abyssinian towns, Darfuri communities and indigenous tribes to fill the slave markets of El-Obeid. Those who were fit were sold to the armed forces, or to the agricultural domains set up to feed the state. Lesser folk were sold off to various interests. Everyone knew what happened to the women.
But by 1890, the surrounding polities wised up. The sultanates of Darfur and Ouaddaï bargained for modern weaponry to be hauled from Ottoman Tripolitania, with the former state successfully using them to repel repeated Dervish attacks on its capital, despite massive odds. The close-fought victories of Darfur would later morph the sultanate into the ‘Western Bulwark’ of the Nilotic Sahel, but it came at the cost of almost half the state being overrun by Dervish forces. Recovering them would be slow and grinding, with small amounts of territory being exchanged for blood and corpses on both sides. In all, it is estimated over 17,000 Darfuris died battling the Dervishes from 1888 to 1894. Nevertheless, the royal court managed to win back a quarter the lost territories and the military agreement agreed between them and Kostantiniyye in 1895 saw the arrival of Ottoman army advisors to oversee the sultanate’s war.
With expansion stalled to the west, the rogue caliphate turned east, only to find an equally resurgent Abyssinia. While the death of emperor Yohannes IV during the Second Battle of Gondar plunged the state into civil war, the resulting conflict was surprisingly brief, if bitter. The idea of a unified state with a strong modern army had become ingrained in the otherwise fractious royal court, especially in the face of such a dire threat from the west. With this, the matter of succession quickly tipped in favour of his legitimate son, Araya Selassie Yohannes [1], who quickly imprisoned his younger half-brother and made sure any nobles who opposed him were a head shorter. By early 1886, even the powerful king Menelik of Shewa bowed down to him and Araya Selassie was later crowned on March 3 as emperor Yohannes V.
Photo of Araya Selassie, also known as emperor Yohannes V
But such developments were overlaid with the issue of the Dervish threat, and as such there was little time to lose. After a lull in fighting on both sides, war resumed on October 1886, with the Abyssinians regaining influence in some border territories but losing them in others. The state’s mountainous core lent well for defence, but the fields of the Sahel gave advantage to light Dervish cavalry. This see-saw of border conflicts continued for the next two years until the 16th of December 1888, when Yohannes went on another anti-Dervish campaign in the southwest. Travelling down from the highlands of the empire, it was inevitable for disease to take hold and the emperor fell ill with malaria even as his forces brought a resounding victory at the battle of Gambela. Delirious and feverish, Yohannes did not make it back to court.
If the Dervishes were hoping for a long succession crisis, they were bitterly disappointed. King Menelik of Shewa immediately claimed the imperial throne upon hearing of the emperor’s death, ascending as Menelik II after a 3-month interregnum. With connections to the outside world through a lifetime of networking, and with a pruned nobility standing beside him (thanks to his predecessor), resistance was few. Showing his mettle, the new sovereign quickly took up repeated campaigns to expand the empire and safeguard it against its unholy neighbour. By 1889, Abyssinia was on the march.
In the caliphate itself, this was unwelcome news. The conquest of new lands was central to prop up caliph Al-Zayn’s legitimacy, especially since his jihad for a purified Muslim powerhouse now turned into an administrative morass. The state was losing money, guns and ammunition were beginning to run low, Egypt’s border closure increased the price of foreign goods to obscene levels, and the army was losing more men than it could replace. A new direction was needed, and Al-Zayn quickly found one: south.
The Dervishes were already expanding down the White Nile till then, but the victories of their western and eastern neighbours brought new urgency to the conquest of Equatorial Sudan [3]. Scores of men were unleashed upon the region, raiding village after village for land, plunder, and slaves. Communities were uprooted, some doing so intentionally to escape the threat from the north. Whispers of Dervish brutality travelled to the Great Lakes, where frightened emissaries pleaded for the courts of Bunyoro and Buganda to provide help. The markets of El-Obeid grew as centres of forbidden trade and Al-Zayn’s reputation was restored in the eyes of his fanatical supporters.
Map of the Dervish Caliphate at it's greatest extent, circa 1890
But going south presented new challenges, especially in transport. Soldiers on horseback riding into wetter climes quickly found some of their steeds falling lethargic and sick, dying after weeks of heavy pain. After years of warfare, the rogue state has finally met an enemy that no sword or prayer could ever defeat: nagana, carried by the bites of the tsetse fly.
Worse was yet to come; in March 1893, another plague began infecting the region’s cattle population. The animals would disdain eating, become feverish, and release discharges from the nose and eyes. Lesions would appear on the mouth, with profuse diarrhoea quickly following. Within six to twelve days, the cattle dies. It was rinderpest, arriving to East Africa from ships stationed in British India [4]. The horror was leavened with reports that both Darfur and Abyssinia were all suffering from the cattle plague, but that was cold comfort for the Dervishes as their meat supply spiralled into crisis. Starvation spread, with food crops and border raids becoming the caliphate’s only lifeline against true famine.
And all this was topped with the arrival of a new player to the game: The German Empire. The 1885 Conference of Brussels bequeathed a large swath of East Africa to Germany, and Berlin sought to avoid the mistakes of some of their clumsier neighbours. Explorers were sent far and wide into Equatorial Sudan, and it wasn't long before they found the region under assault from, as one explorer called it, “the last black heart of Africa”. Hostility was immediate, and it took little to convince the Great Lakes kingdoms to accept German protection, or to sell the colonial mission in Germany as a heroic effort against a slaving polity.
But as the example of the Munich Company showed, enforcing ground rule was easier said than done. Nagana and rinderpest forced German troops to march on foot in unfamiliar terrain, and the wildcat nature of Dervish attacks forced colonial officers to set up fortified towns. To save manpower, foreign commanders began to hire leading warriors from local tribes to create a defence force, which the latter surprisingly took up with gusto; if becoming a solider meant beating back the northern invaders, then nothing could halt the men who saw a chance to strike back. The village of Mongalla quickly became a defensive capital, flushed to bursting with men from many tribes training to become part of the new Sudanesische Schutztruppe (Sudanese Protection Force).
Slowly, the Germans and local forces began to push back. Resistance was tough; the Dervishes had created fiefdoms out of their conquered domains, and they were in no mood to relinquish their new supply of food and slaves to a perceived competitor. For much of the 1890’s, Equatorial Sudan was a roiling cauldron of war, but the time where Sudanese fanatics could freely trample and terrorise the Sahel is slowly beginning to pass…
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Estifanos Deneke, The Birth of Ethiopia, (Gondar University Press: 1978)
…Emperor Menelik II and his court were also feeling the brush of European colonialism. The British and French ports along the coast had begun a creeping expansion into the interior, but none went so far as Italy, whom used the succession crises of ‘85-86 and ‘88-89 to push into Eritrea. Despite protestations from the court, the monarch decided to make peace with their northern neighbour and signed the Treaty of Aksum barely a year into his reign, granting the northernmost regions around Asmara to Italian Massawa. However, through oral misinterpretation and some creative sleight of hand, Menelik managed to weave a clause in the Amharic version stipulating how Abyssinia could interact with other Great Powers through Italy. The Italian version stipulated that Abyssinia must interact with the world through Italy.
Needless to say, tensions quickly rose. It was rumoured that the Italian ambassador, upon being informed of the different clauses by Menelik’s wife, tore up the treaty in front of her face [5]. More seriously, the Eritrean colonial government began expanding past agreed borders, hoping to expand into the Nile river valley and claim Abyssinia as a protectorate. They also encouraged several vassals to revolt so as to sow discord against Menelik and his court. In response, the emperor abrogated the agreement in 1893, sent soldiers to watch over the vassal states, and ordered for more guns and ammunition from other nations, knowing that conflict was inevitable.
His prediction would come true just three years later, on the very day the infamous Munich Company began their march from fortified Bor. On the dawn of the 21st of April 1896, Menelik and his court saw their combined armies of 100,000 men face off a 17,000-strong Italian force near Aksum. What happened next would be the stuff of legend, especially since the empire had just began to crawl out from the biting rinderpest outbreak. Overconfidence, supply shortages, bad marshalling, and a (un)lucky bout of food poisoning saw the Italian front collapse under the roar of Abyssinian-brought cannons, cavalry, and maxim guns. When the sun finally set, over 6,500 Italian soldiers and their local askari allies lay dead, with the rest fleeing to Eritrea.
The Battle of Aksum shocked the world. It was a slap in the face to Italian prestige, shattering the myth that African races were inferior to Europeans in thought and action. Within months of the defeat, a new treaty was signed in the now-official capital of Filwoha Ketema: Italian Eritrea must return a few border territories and accept the newly renamed Ethiopian Empire as an independent state. To sweeten the deal, Menelik acquiesced to give Italian Somaliland most of the Ogaden, which was never fully conquered by his armed forces in the first place. Within months of the new treaty, numerous agreements were signed between the empire and its colonial neighbours, and it even gained a narrow coastal strip and the Arab seaport of Zeila from British Somaliland, who viewed an Ethiopian buffer to French Obock an acceptable case for the loss of one seaport.
However, there were two cities who were unhappy with the new status quo: Paris and Kostantiniyye. France never truly accepted Ethiopia’s free status as it sought to connect their Red Sea port of Obock to their portion of Ubangi-Shari. The Ottoman Empire was more incensed at the handover of Zeila, which they saw as a potential (but admittedly, neglected) stopover point for ships heading to Aceh. Now the only stopover port that was open to the Sublime Porte was Alula, capital of the Majeerteen Sultanate, on the very tip of the Horn of Africa.
The Somali state had already acquiesced to Ottoman suzerainty following the Brussels Conference, but the new state of affairs meant that Alula was the last stronghold of Ottoman power in the region, which did not sit well with some of its neighbours…
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Muhammad Yahaya bin Mahmud, Sokoto: Our History, (MPH Asa: 2016)
By 1899, the Sokoto Caliphate faced an uncertain future.
While the polity was still an intellectual centre of scholarly learning, the last decade had been far from kind. First rocked by a succession crisis in the Kebbi emirate, then facing years of starvation from the rinderpest outbreak introduced to the continent, it was clear that the old hegemony of Fulani power was slipping away. With reduced food and trade, the independent emirates that had once collectively pledged to the sultan of Sokoto began to lose cohesion. The western emirate of Gwandu, already a large state in itself, began distancing from the metropole and its conflicts. On the east, the emir of Adamawa did the same.
But in doing so, the two emirates were edging closer to destruction. West Africa was now a contested region and the vultures of Europe were circling ever closer. Perhaps the most visible of these was the British Empire, whom had entrenched themselves in Lagos lagoon and the Niger delta. British emissaries had even reached Sokoto in the mid-decade, ostensibly to give court to the new sultan Muhammadu Attahiru [6] but in actuality was an assessment mission on the state of the caliphate. For the moment though, British expansion to the north was halted due to the resilience of a surprising little lowland state, but no one was under any illusions that it would last forever.
Equally ominous as the British, and perhaps even more so, was the French presence closing in from Senegal. Across the decade, rumours had filtered into the royal court of old states, venerable neighbours, falling to a new power that was creeping across the Western Sahara. One by one, the list of conquered kingdoms went longer and longer: Futa Jallon. The Kingdom of Kaabu. The Toucouleur Empire. Perhaps the greatest jolt was the fall of Borgu; a confederacy of states whom had long resisted to Sokotan expansion and had successfully kept themselves free despite numerous wars. Their fall, culminating in the French storming of Nikki in 1897, drove the point home that the polity's days may be numbered.
And so, the caliphate began to search for protectors. The only Great Power that could aid their independence with no scruples were the Ottomans, but Hausaland lay at the far end of the trans-Sahara trade networks, and in any case the former polity was more engaged with aiding Darfur and Ouaddaï against the rogue Dervishes. But with conditions being what they were, there were few other options. In 1898, a delegation of emissaries from Sokoto and Bornu travelled to Ottoman Tripolitania, exchanging trade and tribute for modern weaponry.
For their part, the Ottomans were already having their hands full with aiding the Nile sultanates, handling unrest in the Balkans, and maintaining their hold in Libya. But there were some voices in the Sublime Porte that were sympathetic to the region and permanent diplomatic contact was established between the empires in 1899, with a cache of modern weaponry sent to Sokoto as down payment for their trouble. While the number of armaments given was far from large, especially when compared with the supplies headed for Darfur, their presence and the contact with Kostantiniyye was enough for the Sokotan court to feel placated.
That is, until the German invasion of Adamawa in June 1904. The state had long clashed with the foreign presence to the south since the 1880’s, but the urgency of claiming native lands during the decade added fuel to the fire. Germany wanted a colonial state that stretched all the way to Lake Chad, and the emirate stood in its way. After a series of uprisings across multiple towns, an expeditionary force was assembled to march to the Adamawa plateau and take care of the matter once and for all. It was only through British diplomacy that the capital of Yola escaped destruction, and only because Lagos posited that the polity was still part of the British-influenced Niger region. Nevertheless, Adamawa lost almost all its territories to the south and west.
The partition of the state shocked Sokoto and its vassals. That one of the largest emirates of the caliphate could be cleaved off so quickly and suddenly was a bucket of cold water to defensive aspirations. Perhaps then, it could be said that the caliphate actually welcomed the tumult that came the very next year…
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Henrietta Osunde, From Empire to Empire: Benin during the Colonial Era (Siluko: 1989)
On October 13th 1895, a lone ship sailed up the murky Benin River in the black of night. Arriving at the port of Oghara, it was greeted by a column of armed men led by the austere general Asoro, acting under secret instructions from the Oba himself. Upon docking, porters quickly hauled the ship’s cargo of wooden boxes and raced to the capital under heavy guard, with nothing but hand-held torches lighting their way. Runners at certain intervals replaced those whom were worn out from the trek, and the whole assemblage rested only at dawn to refresh themselves. By mid-morning, the armed group faced the outer city wall. By the next hour, the porters were led to the main palace…
…For inside those boxes were the laws and constitutions of Hawaii and Johor.
While the diplomatic mission to London in May 1895 brought more time for the besieged empire, it was meeting the Johorean delegation that truly changed everything [7]. Here, at last, was a native state that managed to not just keep itself afloat from the western Powers, but also become rich and powerful in the process; a Johor that was recognised by the world and respected as such. Besides that, the Johorean sultan Abu Bakar was a close friend of the monarchs of Hawaii, another native state respected by all. It was serendipitous that both Johor and Benin sent their delegations to London within the very same month, though rumours have abounded that the Oba intentionally timed the Beninese mission to England with the sultan’s to court the latter.
Whatever the case, the meeting of the two polities was beyond invaluable for Benin. Aside from learning different ideas of statecraft and commerce, The Beninese learned that both Johor and Hawaii have codified their laws and promulgated new ones to handle the influx of foreigners to their domains. To this day, traces of their influence can still be seen in the Benin Law Code: the rulings regarding foreign settlement and business bears several hallmarks to Johor’s Kangchu System, and Hawaii’s Law of the Splintered Paddle forms the bedrock of the empire’s modern human rights clauses. The constitutions themselves were a matter of much debate for the Benin court, especially since Johor and Hawaii placed differing ideals and scales of importance to matters such as sovereignty, power, administration, and religion.
The discourse between Johor and Benin was also invaluable in other ways. Prince Ovonramwe, the head of the London mission, remarked to his home court how states like Johor and Siam participated in global exhibitions to showcase their wealth and culture. Through their dances, plays, histories, and literatures, they were able to charm the world that their kingdoms are worth being globally included, rather than invaded. That was enough persuasion for the Oba and the court, with troupes of dancers, musicians, and storytellers all quickly sent to London by early 1896 onwards to impress the British public of Benin’s cultural status.
Such were the lengths the empire went to preserve its independence, and it wasn’t without good reason. To the west, British Lagos had all but swallowed the ancient city-states of the Yoruba, with Ilorin being the only town that escaped conquest due to being an emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate. To the east, the Igbo of the Niger delta were also being enveloped, taken apart piece by piece into the arms of the Royal Niger Company. By the fall of 1899, Benin was the only state in the lower Niger that was still independent, and time was running out.
Unfortunately, not even their incredible effort could fully break the attitudes many Europeans had towards sub-Saharan Africans for the time. Plenty of Londoners thought of the empire’s dancers and musicians as a quaint curiosity, with some simply showing up to lampoon the performances on stage. Discrimination also played a part in Benin’s participation in the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900. While Johor and Siam were permitted to build their pavilions, Benin was denied a place beside them and was forced to hold a small presence right next to the British Africa exhibition. Indeed, many exposition visitors thought of Benin as a part of the British exhibits!
Colored representation of the 1900 Paris Exposition.
But the cultural magic of the empire was just enough to tip the balance. Through migration and exploration, West African music had permeated Great Britain over the last decade, and there was a class of interested men and women whom viewed the Beninese performances positively. Reviews of their musicians always graced the London papers, and it wasn’t long before a “musical fetishism” took root amongst the public and intellectual class. Besides that, the selected materials presented during the Paris Exposition spoke of how much the empire had reformed: Photographs of a semi-modernized army, armed with rifles; a complete book of law codes for public viewing and discussion; and even a draft constitution based on Beninese concepts of kingship.
Some have posited that it was public fascination with Beninese culture that ended up altering the empire’s fate. Due to failing to counter French interests in the Sahel, the Royal Niger Company was revoked of its charter by the British government in 1901. Taking over the affairs of the region, an ultimatum was sent to the Oba and to Benin City: enter the British Empire as a protectorate, or be taken apart by force. Intended to rile the locals into fighting, the measure was surprisingly criticised by a hitherto unknown group of Beninese sympathisers in England, whom accused the government of being devious and imperious. Their ranks included music lovers, public officials, explorers, and intellectuals, and they implored for a softer approach between Britain and the state.
With public pressure stacked against them, the government searched for an exit, only to be flat-footed with Oba Ovonramwe’s response of accepting the protectorate offer (the previous Oba having died the past year). His acceptance remains a matter of question, though some have claimed it was due to the knowledge that their extraordinary luck has run out, or that there was a Royal Navy squadron stationed just downstream of Benin City, waiting for attack. Still, the empire’s quick acquiescence stunned both its critics and sympathisers.
Hoping to save face and to appear magnanimous to both the British and Beninese public, London gifted Benin with a stunning amount of autonomy for a British African protectorate: Aside from a British ‘advisor’ who shall oversee the economy and foreign affairs, the polity would retain much of its self-government. It would become a separate entity within the newly formed South Nigeria Protectorate, and greater leeway would be given in directing civil rule, thereby giving Benin the cultural privileges and administrative oversight as an Indian or Malay princely state.
These terms, encapsulated in the Benin City Treaty on 1902, would influence the empire in ways unexpected from both within and without…
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Notes:
[1] IOTL, Araya Selassie Yohannes died of smallpox around 1889, around the same time his father fell in battle, complicating the succession crisis and allowing Menelik of Shewa to take the imperial throne. ITTL, he lived and was able to make his own stamp on Abyssinia/Ethiopia, however short.
[2] Filwoha Ketema = OTL Addis Ababa
[3] Equatorial Sudan = OTL South Sudan. It should be noted that the OTL Mahdists also reached this far south.
[4] In OTL, the rinderpest virus arrived in the Horn of Africa in 1889 through Italian Eritrea and contributed to a famine in the region that was already hit by drought. ITTL, the drought was less severe and the virus arrived much later.
[5] A few second-hand accounts remarked that this actually happened, only with Menelik II as the person whom saw the treaty being torn apart.
[6] IOTL, the sultan of Sokoto at the time was Abdur Rahman Atiku, who was poor in handling judgements and instigated a civil war in Kano. ITTL, he died early before any lasting damage could be done to Hausaland.
[7] See post #967 for the meeting between prince Ovonramwe and Abu Bakar.
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I'm glad to see that Ethiopia has a bit of coast now, being respectable is cool and all, but it's a bitch being landlocked. I may be wrong but ultimately becoming a protectorate of Britain may be for the best for Benin, having a light hand to steadily industrialize may be for the best. Good riddance to the Dervish. Was Sarawak at the Paris Exhibition?
Interesting the way the ottomans are written in this by the ttl sources. Their perception as a major power in africa is very different to otl's view of the same period.
A lovely post. This timeline covers plenty of areas I previously knew little if anything about. How divergent was this caliphate OTL?
The Ottomans' fall from #1 world power was a lot slower than that of several other states in history. It is likely than a late 19th century mindset would struggle with coming up with ways that the empire might end up divided.
The Ottomans' fall from #1 world power was a lot slower than that of several other states in history. It is likely than a late 19th century mindset would struggle with coming up with ways that the empire might end up divided.
And IOTL the Dervish are an important part of the Sufi tradition within Islam.
There was a Dervish state in Somalia later on IOTL; I suspect TTL's state is a combination of this and the Mahdist caliphate.
Confession time: I wanted to give Ethiopia a break on the coastline dilemma
. Plus, gaining Zeila and a bit of the sea helps Ethiopia get involved in oceanic commerce without the hassle of going through British or French ports, which would definitely demand concessions for usage.My writing may not be clear there, but Benin did became a protectorate under the British. The major change ITTL is that it now enjoys a considerable amount of internal autonomy than its neighbours, more akin to an Indian or Malay princely state. Britain still plays a strong hand in the local economy, but the royal court has more leeway to enforce civil law, which could protect more of Beninese culture from being washed out and spur the development of local industries and education ahead of OTL. On the flipside, it could also entrench the local elites to London and promulgate rules that bind the people to hard labour. Everyone’s holding their breath to see what happens now.
A few entrepreneurs would also see Benin’s autonomy as potential to wheel-and-deal illicit trade with Sokoto, but no one’s figuring that out just yet…
On another flipside, Benin’s ‘enlightened status’ would grate the Yoruba and Igbo to no end.
The Germans and Equatorial Sudanese would nod with you. As for Sarawak, I’ve mentioned before that Charles Brooke would be too much of a penny-pincher to participate in the World’s Fairs. But I suspect the British would build a sub-exhibit on Sarawak anyways to show a) the culture, and b) to show-off their naval reach. “The White Rajah’s our rajah, and he buys his ships from us! So what do you have?”
Africa is a place where a little money and weapons can go a long way, and the Ottomans know that. Plus, they need to enforce their North African claims unless they want alternate Libya to go the way of the Spanish Congo. Helping the Nile sultanates and Sokoto gives them extra credits as a Great Power without breaking too much bank.
For what it’s worth, the Ottomans ITTL are a (slightly) stronger polity, but it’s still hobbled by multiple issues such as Balkan nationalisms, low-lopsided development, Great Power intrigue, and financial constraints. It won’t be seen as the ‘Sick Man of Europe’, but the empire is far from being out of the woods.
It’s a combo, but not as much as you’d think. Sudan and the Horn of Africa was (and still is) one of the hotbeds of African Sufism, and the Whirling Dervishes are a part of that culture, hence the Dervish Caliphate. It’s based on the OTL Mahdist Revolt, but while the Mahdists coalesced on the Mahdi figure, the Dervishes ITTL are driven to a purification of Islam and the establishment of a ‘purer’ caliphate, against the tyranny and decadence of the faraway Ottomans.
But the ITTL Dervish Caliphate is an extreme state with an ideology that combines Sufism, puritanism, and millennialism into an unholy mixture. That’s why Darfur and Ouaddai are continuously fighting against it, and why the Ottomans are backing them. I suspect Sufis elsewhere would be torn on their opinions, especially in Somalia where colonialism is already underway. Some Somali Sufis are viewing the Sudanese Dervishes as an inspiration, but many more are appalled by their brutality.
BTW, I suspect TTL history students the world over would be immensely confused by the number of caliphates in this time period. “Wait, which one conquered the Sudan and made trade inroads with Benin? And which one invaded Romania and fought against the Germans?”
With this, we can finally move into the Great War, though not until I lay down a few more posts detailing how the world fell apart. A pre-Great War update(s), if you can say that.
When you want to plot the Great War and its aftermath but then stumble on how absolutely bonkers were the Balkans and the Levant...
...
Remind me again why these two places are so complicated?
...
Remind me again why these two places are so complicated?
When you want to plot the Great War and its aftermath but then stumble on how absolutely bonkers were the Balkans and the Levant...
View attachment 351191 View attachment 351192
...
Remind me again why these two places are so complicated?
Do you have a couple of weeks?