Osman Reborn; The Survival of Ottoman Democracy [An Ottoman TL set in the 1900s]

[Hawabin]

Ehh,

South Korea shouldn't be as Militarised.
South Asia shouldn't be as Militarised (if there is no indo-pak hostility going on in this TL)
How would Ottoman empire compare with the Militarised Middle East of OTL?

Same would go for other regions.

Being more prosperous than OTL doesn't necessarily translate to being more Militarised.

 

[alternateeffect123]

Ehh,

South Korea shouldn't be as Militarised.
South Asia shouldn't be as Militarised (if there is no indo-pak hostility going on in this TL)
How would Ottoman empire compare with the Militarised Middle East of OTL?

Same would go for other regions.

Being more prosperous than OTL doesn't necessarily translate to being more Militarised.

You're not wrong, though i don't think this would always apply to countries with Superpower status. Russia, US, China, and UK would have needed massive military to project power across their entire sphere of influence.

Ottoman probably have a significantly larger military than any country in current OTL Middle East imo. Projecting power in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, etc, would need a significant amount of military expenditure.

 

[Hawabin]

You're not wrong, though i don't think this would always apply to countries with Superpower status. Russia, US, China, and UK would have needed massive military to project power across their entire sphere of influence.

You don't need a super large force to project influence.
You can at least fit, 5 US size armies between OTL India, china, Pakistan, Iran, north Korea, south Korea.

Ottoman probably have a significantly larger military than any country in current OTL Middle East imo.

I am not talking about a single Middle Eastern country.
I am saying combine all the middle Eastern countries (and countries from other regions) that are under TTL's ottoman empire and then compare their military.

I feel like they might be more or less equal.

 

[alternateeffect123]

You don't need a super large force to project influence.
You can at least fit, 5 US size armies between OTL India, china, Pakistan, Iran, north Korea, south Korea.


I am not talking about a single Middle Eastern country.
I am saying combine all the middle Eastern countries (and countries from other regions) that are under TTL's ottoman empire and then compare their military.

I feel like they might be more or less equal.

Yes you do, it's not just about the armies. You can have as big of an army as you'd like but if you doesn't have the means/equipment to project them then its pretty useless. With the exception of China and India, most of the countries you mentioned there have large standing army for defensive purposes primarily, not power projection. For example, considering the UK is still a Superpower ITTL, the amount of military logistics needed to protect their dominions/commonwealth alone would've been comparable to the current US military. Their entire trade network are based on shipping routes which presents a matter of national security for them, not to mention they're most probably the leading power in the Commonwealth itself, which means a lot of their allies relied on them. I'm not saying other superpowers should have like 5-10 million people as their standing army, merely saying that with how multipolar this world should've been, their military would've been around the same level as current US military, which is still more militarized than our own world, above 10% at the least.

 

[Mayukh]

Ottoman Supreme Court in Izmir

When was it founded? Where can I find more about it?

 

[Wydo]

Hey, @सार्थक (Sārthākā)


I’ve recently started rereading this TL and notice a discrepancy. In chapter 61 it is stated that Pancho Dorev, the new leader of the CUP, died when he was campaigning in Hejaz for the upcoming election. Yet he is still named as the parties leader in chapter 64 during the election taking place then. Did the CUP somehow manage to resurrect him, or did you forget you killed him off?

 

[Sarthak]

Chapter 68: African Rumblings.

---

The Ottoman Dream in Africa by Henry Johnson

“……. The First Great War changed the face of Africa, even though more attention has been given to the political events in Europe, America, and Asia at the time. The German and Italian colonies on the continent were extinguished in return for new Colonial overlords in the form of the British, French, and the Spanish. Resistance against colonialism brought with it ferociously ruthless and brutal attacks on the colonial populace that was essentially impossible to resist. As the Zaian Confederacy in Morocco soon found out, it was an impossibility of the highest caliber to resist France, even with tacit Ottoman support that came towards them from time to time before the Franco-Ottoman Rapprochement in the late 1910s and early 1920s. After the Rapprochement, Ottoman support dwindled, and the Zaian Confederacy was extinguished when the French captured their bases of operation in 1921.

Abd Al-Kerim
Self-Declared President of Morocco​

But French Morocco was not the only place that felt the Ottoman influence. Spanish Morocco from 1924 had erupted into a violent conflict known as the Rif Rebellion as the Republic of Northern Morocco led by Abd Al-Kerim who called himself the President of Morocco. The Ottoman government had a strict policy of non-interference with European colonies in Africa, looking after their own holding in Libya and conducting simple trade with the Europeans. But as the Caliphate, it was obvious that Arabs and Muslims in Africa fighting for their freedom would turn to the leader of Sunni Islam for aid. This put the Ottomans in a tough position. They could not be seen throwing fellow Muslims to the proverbial bus, but at the same time they did not wish to damage relations with an European power. Though Spain was a weak power in comparison to the Ottomans who were undergoing a renaissance, the precedent of the Ottomans openly supporting a colonial rebellion in Africa would set a dangerous tone for the future, both domestically and internationally. Britain and France in particular would not feel comfortable in their colonies if the Ottomans acted in such a manner, and the Ottomans themselves felt that it would give further credence to the claims of Greeks, Bulgarians and the other nationalistic groups of the empire that the Empire cared more about foreign posturing rather than its own domestic affairs.

Furthermore, Abd Al-Kerim was a noted Turkophile in Spain which had raised eyebrows before. He had joined in on the 1924 Islamic Conference held in the Ottoman Empire, and he had been a prominent supporter of greater Ottoman involvement in the Maghreb. Though Moroccan rulers had never had a stable relationship with the Ottomans in the past, the Ottomans had been the traditional supporters of Moroccan independence against the encroaching influence of the Spanish, Portuguese and French. However, Ottoman weakness in the late 19th century had allowed Morocco to become a colony. Al-Kerim believed that the Ottomans could renew their roles as the guarantor of Moroccan independence. Al-Kerim was woefully naïve about geopolitics to believe that. No formal Ottoman aid was forthcoming, as the aforementioned reasons from the previous paragraph made the Ottomans halt any such ideas.

Nevertheless, while the Ottoman government made it clear that they were not going to aid anti-colonial campaigns, Ottoman citizens were far more friendly to the anti-colonial ideals of many in Morocco at the time. Mustafa Sherif Pasha, who had previously served as the Ottoman Consul in Ceuta from 1905 – 1909 proved to be an essential helper to the Moroccans in the Rif War, using his contacts at home to smuggle weapons and vital food supplies to the Moroccan guerillas, and bringing in Ottoman journalists to write about the various warcrimes committed by the Spanish against the common Moroccan peoples. The mass brutality committed by the Spanish Army, especially with the sacks of various ruined and burning villages that were left behind by the advancing Spanish Army did much to turn public opinions throughout Europe against Spain. Prime Minister Jose Martinez of Spain could do little about the affairs of the Spanish military in Africa. He was facing riots in Spain over the economic inflation faced by the Spanish economy, and there was also the fact that the Spanish Armed Forces had so much autonomy that they were basically running their entire organization by themselves, ignoring governmental orders left, right and center based on the mood and the attitudes of the local generals in the field.

Berber Volunteers from Ottoman Libya fighting in the Rif War. ​

Ottoman influence manifested in Africa in the post-Great War Era in other places as well. French Tunisia also was a place that experienced large scale Ottoman influence, both formal and informal. Tunisia had been liberated from the Ottomans in 1881-82, and though Tunisia had always remained mostly autonomous even when under direct Ottoman rule, it retained good memories of Ottoman rule. The Ottoman capture of Tunis from the Christian Powers was celebrated every year with a massive celebration in Tunis, much to the irritation of the local European settlers, who had much more in common with said European powers who had been defeated in Tunis centuries before. French rule however, was mostly regarded with disdain. Though it is undeniable that health standards had gone up under French rule, the open policy of France in regards to settling white Europeans in Tunisia to turn it into ‘another Algeria’ was frightening to the local Tunisian Arabs and the constant oppression of free speech for Tunisians under France made the region bristling with nationalist sentiment. The greatest of these oppressions came in 1912 when the French reacted to a peaceful protest against French rule by deciding to open fire. The nationalists in Tunisia were forced underground until they resurfaced in 1917.

Flag of French Tunisia​

Prominent Tunisian Nationalist and Modernist Islamist, Abdelaziz Thaalbi went to Paris in 1917 during the peace processes to end the First Great War to openly petition the French government to reduce its control over the Tunisian protectorate to simply military and foreign affair related matters. The French government initially heard out Thaalbi’s case before rejecting his ideas completely. In fact, the French government did exactly opposite of what Thaalbi had intended, as the last remaining nominal powers of the Tunisian Bey was stripped by the French in the coming months. As the Tunisian Bey was related by blood to the Ottoman Imperial Family, this upset opinions in Constantinople, and a protest was lodged by the Imperial Family and not the government, against this move. Though Kemal’s government made no comment on the new developments in Tunisia, public sentiment in the Ottoman Empire, especially in its Arab Vilayet’s was definitely pro-Tunisia. Arab newspapers attacked the French government ferociously and some companies in the Empire ran by Arabs refused to work with the French companies coming into the nation. Though these complaints did little to further the cause of the Tunisians in Paris, as it was seen as a mere formality by both the Ottoman and the French governments, it did raise the spirits of the Tunisian Nationalists, if by just a bit.

The Constitutional Liberal Party formed in 1920 by Thaalbi, intended to remove French rule from Tunisia also had echoes of Ottoman influence. Salah Farhat, one of its leaders and founders had lived in the Ottoman Empire from 1912 to 1916 and he believed that that the Ottoman model of constitutional governance was an absolute key goal of the Young Tunisians movement against the French. Together with Thaalbi, Farhat argued for reconciliation with the Tunisian Bey to form a full constitutional monarchy under an Arab democracy. This form of governance advocated by Farhat and Thaalbi was directly influence by the Ottomans. Though the Ottomans had formal influence in Tunisia through such means such as the aforementioned political ones, the Ottomans also enjoyed indirect influence in Tunisia. Though the borders differentiated Ottoman Libya from Tunisia, to the local Bedouin and Arab tribes in the region, those borders meant little. Libyan and Tunisian tribes crossed the borders frequently to trade with one another and to settle in the other’s lands and sometimes even fight tribal wars against each other. The Senussi – who were the regional oligarchs in Ottoman Libya – were also sympathetic to the plight of the Tunisians, and many Tunisian Nationalists wishing to flee from French persecution found themselves being given refuge in Ottoman Libya.

Map of the Sultanate of Darfur. ​

But perhaps the region that held the most Ottoman influence was that of the Sultanate of Darfur. Located on the borders of British Sudan and French Chad, this region was a place that was essentially left by the British and French colonialists as a buffer zone between themselves in the late 1800s. Egypt’s monarchy claimed that Darfur was a part of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, however neither Britain nor Egypt really did anything to enforce that claim. This was partially because the Sultanate of Darfur was a very curious case in the field of international legalities. When in 1898, the Sultanate had been re-established, its sultan Ali Dinar declared himself to be a loyal vassal and tributary of the Ottoman Sultan, which was accepted by Sultan Abdulhamid II. Indeed, Ali Dinar would continue to send tribute every year or two to Constantinople in his capacity as tributary and vassal. Ali Dinar was a quiet and patient monarch, and held the respect of the local people of Darfur. He had single handedly restored the independence of Darfur in the midst of the Mahdist War after all, taking advantage of the cracks between British troops, and Egyptian authorities in the region. He had changed the region economically, and he was bankrolled by Abdulhamid II who sent him money for developmental aid almost every fiscal year. After Abdulhamid II’s deposition in 1909, the Ottoman Empire continued to send aid to Darfur, even though the country was rather disconcerted with the revolution in Ottoman territory, not knowing how to react to the emergence of a modern western inspired government in Constantinople.

Despite their discomfort with the new democratic government of the Ottoman Empire, Darfur continued its interesting link with the Ottomans, and remained a loyal allied state to the Ottomans, even if their actual contribution to the geopolitical schemes of the Ottomans was very little. Sultan Ali Dinar eventually warmed up to the new government of the Ottoman Empire when he visited the Empire after the Balkan War in 1916 and soon afterwards used his personal connections with the Imperial Family to bring in even more investment from Constantinople into Darfur. Darfur for the Ottomans, was the picture perfect case of a semi-independent polity doing extremely well for itself under Ottoman suzerainty and they hoped that it would soon be replicated by other powers nominally under Ottoman suzerainty. Much to Ottoman frustrations, this did not happen, especially with the fall of the Rashidi Dynasty in Inner Arabia, but nevertheless, the fact remained that Darfur was the Ottoman’s best public face in Africa.

Ali Dinar’s acceptance of the Ottoman constitutional system within Ottoman borders at least, was perhaps a mistake on his part domestically. The Sultanate of Darfur was dominated by the Fur People. The great offices of the state, such as Abbo Konyunga, or Kamni were held only by the Fur, and even when non-Fur’s were recruited to high places, there was a limit to what position they could attain. Though the old Sultan’s popularity across ethnicities remained high, the popularity of this system had always been in doubt, especially considering the demographical dominance of the Taman, Masalit, Tama, Sungor and Zaghawa languages and ethnic groups. With the heavy presence of Ottoman officials in Darfur, and this pre-existing flawed system in place, it is no surprise that the Ottomans ideals of democracy, constitutionalism and modernism began to seep into Darfur and slowly become more and more popular in the region.

In particular, the Zaghawa people took up Ottoman ideals almost religiously and more importantly a small resistance movement called Nascent Darfur in English cropped in Darfur established on July 17, 1919 as an organization committed to the establishment of a semi-constitutional democratic monarchy alongside inter-ethnic unity and equality in Darfur. Members of the Nascent Darfur were from the various non-Fur ethnicities of Darfur, but even then, a good amount of Fur people enthused by the idea of constitutionalism joined the group as well. When in 1921, Sultan Ali Dinar found out about this group, the Sultan was not amused and ordered that every member of the group in the capital of Al-Fasher to either renounce their membership or be executed for treason against the state. Nascent Darfur as such was forced underground, in a situation very reminiscent of the Young Ottomans and Young Turks during the absolutist rule of Abdulhamid II in the Ottoman Empire. The leaders of the group obviously saw the parallels and decided to lobby for Ottoman aid. Abdullah Bol, the leader of the Nascent Darfur went to the Ottoman Empire in 1923 to lobby for key diplomatic and economic aid. Though he found the Ottoman government to be empathetic to his needs, he found that the Ottoman government was not willing to jeopardize their position in Darfur simply to prop up his group – a group that had not made significant inroads into the political spectrum of Darfur.

For the next four years, with private donations from the Ottoman Empire funding his group, Bol started to spread the message of the group to the various peoples of the Sultanate, and included the wish for full independence from the overlapping claims of Egypt and Britain within his famous Bol Manifesto as well. Sultan Ali Dinar did not take kindly to the perceived threat to his rule, and in his old age, the Sultan had slowly become increasingly paranoid as well. Nevertheless, despite his paranoia, Ali Dinar never went to the lengths that Abdulhamid II went to secure his rule, and instead made it clear that as long as the group was not involved in the political apparatus of the government of Darfur, they could do whatever they wanted. Unfortunately for absolutists in Darfur, this meant that the manifesto written by Bol about importing the new Ottoman constitutionalism into Darfur with Darfurian characteristics made it into the hands of Ali Dinar’s heir and grandson, who was also named Ali Dinar. This became important when Sultan Ali Dinar died on December 6, 1925 and was succeeded by his grandson as Sultan Ali Dinar II of the Sultanate of Darfur.

In his ceremonial speech to the representatives of the various nomads who had gathered to offer gifts to their new Sultan, Ali Dinar II called upon members of the Nascent Darfur to come out of hiding and ended the laws that persecuted them. Ali Dinar II was himself fascinated with the ideas and had seen the amount of progress the Ottomans had made and wished to emulate such progress within Darfur as well. Bol came out of hiding and presented his manifesto to Ali Dinar II in person on the 2nd of February 1926 which the Sultan accepted. Ali Dinar II then decreed that by 1930, the government of Darfur would be made up of a unicameral legislature voted in by the family heads of the country (~10% of the adult male population of the country) which would have power over taxation, and a myriad of other topics, though the Sultan still retained a great host of powers. Though this was an unimpressive reform by the standards of Europe, at the time, this was a revolutionary change in Darfur, and many had question marks hanging over them on what they would have to do next. Of course, being a vassal of the Sublime Ottoman State, Ali Dinar II asked Grand-Vizier Mustafa Kemal Pasha to send administrative aid to help Darfur transition as per Ali Dinar II’s reforms.

Sultan Ali Dinar II in 1945. ​

The first step made by the Darfur government was to establish the post of ‘Grand-Wazir’ which was inspired by the Persian and Ottoman models of the Grand Vizier. As Darfur entered 1926, they were finally starting to look into the future, shedding the stagnancy of the past behind.”

---

Ethiopian Irredentism: The Leadup to the African Front by James Ritchie

“…. In 1914, Iyasu was officially deposed by the Ethiopian government in favor of Zewditu I who became Empress of Ethiopia. Though Iyasu escaped captivity and conducted a small scale guerilla war in the northern portions of the country, Iyasu quickly became a non-factor when he died in a guerilla raid in early 1916, ending the threat of his restoration. Iyasu’s death was perhaps the last chance for Ethiopia to stop the path they were on. Foreign powers were mistaken that Zewditu’s government would serve Ethiopia to light the path to the future, and Zewditu herself would allow Ethiopia to walk a path of only despair and suffering in the future, especially in the Second Great War, which Ethiopia lost.

The ill-fated Iyasu V​

Iyasu’s ideas that had seen him deposed were largely inspired by European ideals. He had been a supporter of equality to all Ethiopians regardless of race, religion, ethnicity and caste. The governors of the southern Ethiopian districts proved to be hostile to such ideas, willing to maintain Amharic superiority at all costs, as their economic interests required a population that would serve them without question. Zewditu I initially believed in 1916 that with the death of Iyasu, she could conduct reforms on a slow and steady pace that would essentially do what Iyasu had wanted, only in a less radical manner. In this, she found herself stopped by the powerful local governors at all times. The new head of the Ethiopian Council of State, effectively the Prime Minister and Regent of Ethiopia at the time, Ras Tafari was unwilling to conduct any reform that would see the traditional hierarchy of Ethiopia lose its traditional superiority of power.

Ras Tafari​

Ras Tafari, in his position as head of the Council, and as the newly appointed Crown Prince became the power broker in Ethiopia at the time, being more visible than Empress Zewditu I, who was still struggling with the demands of the state. Tafari did try to take absolute power as the sole regent, but Zewditu managed to stop these attempts, much to the frustration of Tafari, who respected Zewditu but tried to manipulate her decisions to support his own cause forward.

Despite all that said, though Tafari was an opponent of radical reformism and modernism, Tafari did take a pro-cautious reform stance, and led Ethiopia through cautious advances in its development. The burden that fell on Tafari as the lead administrator of Ethiopia was immense. The army was poorly equipped, the finances of the country was mediocre, and Tafari’s position as the regent had become a double-edged sword, as he no longer held sway as Governor, thus ending the loyalty that the smaller governors held towards him previous to Iyasu’s deposition. Tafari decided to overstep the last hurdle by centralizing power in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia and Shewa, which in many ways acted as a second capital to Ethiopia. Together, the finances were concentrated in these two cities, centralizing the economic power of the nation in the capital, and giving himself more leverage when negotiating with the autonomous governors of the nation. Furthermore, Tafari made friends among foreigners, positioning himself as the Foreign Minister of Ethiopia alongside his normal duties, earning personal funding from various British, French and Ottoman magnates that visited him from time to time.

Ethiopian Troops rebelling. ​

But for all of Tafari’s political maneuvering trouble came knocking in 1918 when the army decided to rebel against the government. The financial situation of Ethiopia during this time was generally poor, and due to this, the army hadn’t been paid its normal wages, and the extra wages promised to them after they had defeated Iyasu’s makeshift guerilla army in the north. For two and a half years, the army had waited, and their patience had evidently dried up. Throughout army barracks in the Ethiopian nation, army troops started to riot, and attack any senior officer they could see, resulting in gruesome deaths. Tafari was unable to handle the crisis properly, and on October 23, 1918, he was brutally murdered by a group of rioting army troops that had managed to break into the Royal Palace before the Royal Guards threw them out.

This propelled Habte Giyorgis Dinagde to the position of Chief Minister and Regent of Ethiopia. A key figure in the deposition of Iyasu himself, Giyorgis was seen as a valiant member of Ethiopian society, having served as the Ethiopian Minister of War during the Italo-Ethiopian War. He was an able army commander as well, and had shown diplomatic prowess when visiting foreign nations for aid for Ethiopia during the Italo-Ethiopian War. But Giyorgis was not a miracle worker, and he could not bring money from a place that had no extra fund to spare. Loans were not forthcoming as the nations of Europe were still recovering financially from the aftermath of the Great War, and even countries that were capable of giving out loans – like the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, the Ottomans – were not willing to extend loans due to Ethiopia’s extensive history of defaulting on several loans at the same time.

The army continued to rebel against the Ethiopian government, and at the same time, decided that a change was needed. Despite the efforts of Giyorgis to stop a conspiracy from unfolding, the army denounced the claim of Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen Tafari, the son of Ras Tafari who became the Crown Prince upon his father’s death and declared that the line of Shewa of the Solomonic Dynasty was illegitimate. The idea that the Shewa line was illegitimate was not a new idea in Ethiopia at the time, and though the idea had undergone a mute period during the reign of Menelik II, it had slowly regrown after the fortunes of Ethiopia started to degrade after Menelik II’s death. The army raised Hailu II of Gojjam, a member of the Tigrayan line of the Solomonic Dynasty and named him Emperor of Ethiopia and denounced Zewditu I as Empress. Hailu II of Gojjam, who was always an ambitious man, and with dreams of expanding his personal domain in Gojjam agreed to the declaration and openly sided with the rebellious members of the military.

Zewditu I still had a chance to retain power had she made the right calls, but foolishly she believed the rebellion would peter out after a weeks, and continued her daily routine, which irritated the Council of State and forced Chief Minister Giyorgis into a position of weakness as the military now had the ability to say that the Empress was not fulfilling her duties as Empress and that now through both reasons of blood and duty, the Empress was illegitimate, and to the many disparate and poverty stricken people of Ethiopia, the idea resonated with them. Hailu II, always the showman, a talent inherited from his father, Hailu I of Gojjam, also stated furiously in public speeches that he would bring about the restoration of the glory of Ancient Ethiopia, the glory of the great Solomonids, and that other groups in Ethiopia, most especially the Tigrayans and the Somalians would receive equality and greater access to the national structure. This immediately won him the support of most of the Somalian tribes living within Ethiopian borders and was not an insignificant threat to the central government. Deciding that enough was enough, Chief Minister Giyorgis gathered an army made up of troops still loyal to the government and the palace guard and marched out of Addis Ababa and marched towards Harar, where Hailu II was based out off. Hailu II, who was still in the process of recruiting and passing on his message throughout Ethiopia decided to avoid direct confrontation, and instead began a scorched earth policy, leading Giyorgis through a wild goose chase until finally Giyorgis caught up with Hailu II’s army near Kebri Dehar on the 20th of May, 1919.

By that point, Giyorgis’s army was deep inside Somali tribal territory and with the allegiances of the Somali tribesmen being with Hailu II, Giyorgis was deep in enemy territory and knew that he would have to win the coming battle hard and fast. But Hailu II did not play by the rules, and that night when the government army rested, his rebellious army ambushed the camp and slaughtered the force one by one. Giyorgis was murdered in his camps and Giyorgis’s army ceased to exist as a force. Seeing his chance, Hailu II marched towards Addis Ababa and then deposed Zewditu I, declaring the restoration of the Tigrayan Branch of the Solomonids onto the Ethiopian throne and declaring himself to be Emperor Hailu I of Ethiopia. The Council of State, staring at the open ended sides of the army’s rifles, agreed to legitimize Hailu I as Emperor.

Knowing that the army had been instrumental in his surprising rise to power, Hailu I opened the coffers of the treasury for them, and earned the loyalty of the army. Former Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen Tafari and his aunt-cousin the former Empress Zewditu I was expelled from the nation. They went to Britain, where they would live in exile in 1946 when they were allowed to return to Ethiopia and Asfaw Wossen Tafari was crowned Emperor Amha Selassie I of Ethiopia.

Hailu I of Ethiopia. ​

The re-christened Hailu I also knew that if he wished to meet his goals of a ‘Greater Ethiopia’ he would have to do conduct a wide-scale ‘revolution’ in Ethiopia, which would be universally opposed by the powerful autonomous governors of southern Ethiopia. Deciding to pre-empt them, he sent his loyal army to the provinces, and deposed said governors from power by late 1920. Encircled as his nation was by the colonial regimes of Britain and France, Hailu I intended to make Ethiopia as powerful as possible to take on British and French colonial troops in the region without too much of a fuss in the future war he foresaw. But to procure the manpower necessary to modernize Ethiopia, now that the internal opposition had been gutted, Ethiopia had to solve the severe image problem it had outside of its own borders. To foreign eyes, Ethiopia was a corrupt government from top to bottom, plagued by lethargy and unqualified personnel making decisions for the country. Hailu I decided to turn this around by immediately recruiting the learned class of Ethiopia into the government and sending prospective students to foreign countries by funding their schooling to increase the professional literacy of the nation. Hailu I’s rise to power also came at a time when Yemen began to become rebellious in the Ottoman Empire, thus negatively affecting the price of Coffee. This made Hailu I’s coffers grow, as the Yemenite rebellion allowed Ethiopian coffee to flow into the European and North American market, giving Hailu I enough money to start establishing new schools and universities in Ethiopia in his bid to create a better and efficient class of future bureaucrats all loyal to himself and his immediate family only.

By the mid-1920s, Hailu I was hunkering down, using the newfound coffee wealth of Ethiopia to educate a loyal set of bureaucrats and to slowly modernize the nation. As he did this, the stage was set for the Ethiopian Front of the Second Great War.”

---

 

[Gman]

IT RETURNS! Yay

 

[CountryUsedToBeBritish]

THE RETURN OF THE KING!

 

[Amon34]

very good chapter

 

[Sarthak]

i'm really sorry guys but i am being involved in entering my graduate course which took a lot of time. Thoughts on the chapter's developments?

 

[CountofDooku]

Don't be sorry, take alle the time RL you need, for we are glad your great TL has returend with such a fabulous chapter and we are blessed to have the joy of experiencing it.

 

[Gman]

Its quite good,

 

[Red Angel]

I'm expecting Ethiopia will end up making enemies with not just the Europeans but also its neighbors as well once they gain independents since Hailu I wants to control all of 'The Horn of Africa'...

 

[Gokbay]

Wonder if this means Rastafari are fully butterflied away or if there will be alt-Rastafari (Amha Selaisse rather than Haile Selaisse as Messiah figure?)

 

[Alpha-King98760]

It returns!!!

 

[JustinTexas]

i'm really sorry guys but i am being involved in entering my graduate course which took a lot of time. Thoughts on the chapter's developments?

The king of alternate history lives and is back! 👍😀 we’re all happy to see you okay and understand. Keep up the good work!

 

[Corporal Tommy]

i'm really sorry guys but i am being involved in entering my graduate course which took a lot of time. Thoughts on the chapter's developments?

If it means getting gems like this, the wait was worth every second.

 

[Pio2013]

Darfur will not be backed for free...

 

[Gman]

Out of curiosity, are there any fascist/far-right/ultranationalist groups in the Ottoman Empire at the moment? The OE is currently a stable democracy under a constitutional monarchy with relatively high economic growth rates and inter-ethnic peace, so i would guess that such groups, if they exist, are marginal and have little, if any, sway amongst the population.