Plausibility Check: Joint Ethiopian-Byzantine reconquest of Egypt

I've finally come to the conclusion that I'm writing a TL about Ethiopia, or similar Kingdoms in the area.

My overall plan is to find one or more PODs that have Ethiopia:

1: Control the beginning of the Nile

2: Have enough of a military to invade Egypt.

But that's where things get tricky. My plan is to have Ethiopia purposely dam the Nile River so that the annual floods don't happen, causing a drought in the Fatimid Caliphate around the time that Basil the Bulgar Slayer is fighting the Fatimids, around the year 991. This would, in my mind, prompt Basil to take the initiative and plunge further down the Holy Land, and Ethiopia would march down the Nile.


Is this plausible? As this could be my first TL, a lot of feedback would be appreciated! ;)
 
It would be a terrible deal for the Byzantine's. They would deal with most of the actually military actions while Ethopia would just move up from the south and take Sudan and then just sit on the region while the Byzantine's would have to face reinforcements from the east and west.
 
First, Basil would have to deal with Bulgars and Caucasus, a far more close matter that actually forced him to make peace with Al-Hakim IOTL. Any pursuit of the war against Fatimids would be made at the cost of such regions, more important for Byzantium that Egypt.

Then, Byzantine armies didn't fared particularly that well against Fatimids IOTL, managing admittedly to create a buffer region in Syria (made partially of Arab clients), but not able to progress much past Alep. Going further would ask first for a radical change of strategy, and a great financial and military cost.
I think that the economical revival that happened during his reign would be much compromized.

Emerging Zagwe dynasty, in the same time,ended to takeover Axum. The ethiopian kingdom isn't in a situation where he can help himself with a troubled reign, let alone participate to a gigantic joint reconquest.

So, I would go with "no" to 1 and 2.

For the dam on the Nile, with the precise purpose of holding waters, that's definitely no. Assuming Ethiopian not only get their shit together, but actually control all the affluents of the Nile (MoL modern Sudan), something that would take time of its own (and Fatimids being largely able to send expeditions to deal with Ethiopians, with a likely Arabo-Muslim conquest), they won't have the technical and infrastructural possibility and knowledge to do so.

When one of the most famous engieeners of the time had to feign madness to avoid confessing he wasn't able to deal with such project, I doubt it could be done with more limited ressources.
 
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