WI: Portuguese-Ethiopian Alliance?

Ethiopia established diplomatic relations with Portugal in the early 1500s as Europe wanted to stop the expansion of Islam along the Red Sea and saw the Ethiopian Emperor as the fabled Kingdom of Prester John. Ethiopia received assistance from Portugal in the form of material support and an expeditionary force that assisted the Ethiopians in defeating the Adalites.

What if a military Portuguese-Ethiopian alliance had been established alongside diplomatic relations?
 
Last edited:
The Portuguese aren't going to get friendly with any non-Catholic nation. They would try to convert government to Catholicism and it might work long enough, that the traditional clergy and the power hungry nobility to overthrow the heretic emperor, expel the heretic foreigners and restore order to the Empire. Which is what happened in OTL with Susenyos I.
 
The Portuguese aren't going to get friendly with any non-Catholic nation. They would try to convert government to Catholicism and it might work long enough, that the traditional clergy and the power hungry nobility to overthrow the heretic emperor, expel the heretic foreigners and restore order to the Empire. Which is what happened in OTL with Susenyos I.
Not even on the basis of fighting the expansion of Islam? Wouldn't it make more sense for the Portuguese (and other European nations) to prop up this ancient Christian African Kingdom against the Islamic states that surround her?
 
There was technically a Portuguese-Ethiopian alliance, if you count the expedition of Cristóvão da Gama during the Abyssinian-Adal War. Da Gama and his 400 Portuguese arquebusiers proved helpful enough, in fact, that their intervention was what finally put a stop to the Adalite invasion and even killed Sultan Gragn. Had Da Gama not died soon after there could've been a long and fruitful partnership between the two kingdoms, I imagine.
 
There was technically a Portuguese-Ethiopian alliance, if you count the expedition of Cristóvão da Gama during the Abyssinian-Adal War. Da Gama and his 400 Portuguese arquebusiers proved helpful enough, in fact, that their intervention was what finally put a stop to the Adalite invasion and even killed Sultan Gragn. Had Da Gama not died soon after there could've been a long and fruitful partnership between the two kingdoms, I imagine.
I was referring to the establishment of a Portuguese-Ethiopian alliance emerging prior to the Ethiopian-Adal War but that sounds interesting.
 
There was an unfulfilled double bethrodal between the children of the King of Aragon and the Emperor of Ethiopia, but logistical difficulties ment it never materialized (I believe they wanted to request passage to the Sultan in Egypt). Had that arrangement gone through, and some royal marriage between Aragon and Portugal made them somewhat related, Ethiopia could be pretty well established in the Iberian diplomatic scene.
 
There was an unfulfilled double bethrodal between the children of the King of Aragon and the Emperor of Ethiopia, but logistical difficulties ment it never materialized (I believe they wanted to request passage to the Sultan in Egypt). Had that arrangement gone through, and some royal marriage between Aragon and Portugal made them somewhat related, Ethiopia could be pretty well established in the Iberian diplomatic scene.
How do you think this could affect Ethiopia?
 
How do you think this could affect Ethiopia?

Assuming the alliance does happen, it will be bound by Portuguese interests in the Red sea, which probably means they want control of the Gulf of Aden, while Ethiopia can have the Eritrean interior.


In the specific context of the Abyssinian-Adalese war, a previous relation could mean an earlier alliance, that could in turn prevent the precarious situation in which Abyssinia found itself when Cristovao da Gama arrived with his musketeers IOTL (Adalese forces raiding the Ethiopian interior). It doesn't need to involve direct military support, though: The early Abyssinian defeats were due to lack of familiarity with firearms, which the Adalese had adquired from the Ottomans and Indian Ocean trade. If active diplomacy and contact with Iberia can be translated into earlier adquisition of musquets and some light cannon, some of the earlier defeats may not happen, or be less severe. Indeed, even with their initial advantage, the war IOTL ended with both states exhausted un terms of resourses and manpower, so an earlier Abyssinian counter-attack in a position of equal equipment would result in a resounding defeat for Adal, short of direct Ottoman intervention.


In this context (Abyssinia neither in shambles nor dire straits) the Portuguese would probably seek an Abyssinian alliance to help them in their ongoing conflict against the Somali sultanates, in exchange for naval help in taking the Adalese coastal enclaves. Note that due to the hilly nature of its territory, Abyssinia was a very feudal state, so the conquest of the lowlands could bring an opportunity for the Emperor to bring more (easily andministrable) land under his personal control, and use them to gain more autonomous influence and start consolidating the general administration (this would require building a personaly loyal bureocracy, though).


Taking into account the Ethiopian mindset of the time though, it is possible that their first impulse might be to reestablish control over western Yemen. But there is another posibility, if the Portuguese manage to provide Abyssinia with enough insentive to allow them to control the Gulf: The main long term failure of Ethiopian empires was that they never managed (or tried really hard, for that matter) to bring a united rule and protection to the regions Christians, implicit to their imperial claim.


A cunning Emperor might see the benefit of the apparently tougher task of consolidating the interior and the Christian Nubian region, while using the Portuguese alliance to secure their flanks in exchange for military support (probably just some manpower) against the Somalis (they most likely won't take any land there, it's the worlds shittiest non-desert land), over the straight forward conquer-more-fertile-but-hilly-and-faraway-land (that will have to be given to very autonomous vassal chiefs, further disempowering the monarchy), while at the same time becoming something that the Portuguese most definetely CAN'T be allied to (a competing Red Sea power).

There is also the obvious: If instead of two near-fatally exhausted medium nations, they find one unified, strong one, the Oromo won't be able to accomplish much.

That's only talking about direct effects, though. Talking about possible effects on the Portuguese, the Ottomans or onyone else would take a whole other post.
 
Ethiopia established diplomatic relations with Portugal in the early 1500s as Europe wanted to stop the expansion of Islam along the Red Sea and saw the Ethiopian Emperor as the fabled Prester John. Ethiopia received assistance from Portugal in the form of material support and an expeditionary force that assisted the Ethiopians in defeating the Adalites.

What if a military Portuguese-Ethiopian alliance had been established alongside diplomatic relations?
One emperor converted to Catholicism but later reverted to Orthodoxy because it didn't give him any advantage and he didn't get aid from Portugese.
 
Not even on the basis of fighting the expansion of Islam? Wouldn't it make more sense for the Portuguese (and other European nations) to prop up this ancient Christian African Kingdom against the Islamic states that surround her?

It’s complicated and pretty bloody. The Oriental Christians (which the Ethiopian Church is classified under) had such bad relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Byzantine that they sided with the Muslims against the Byzantines because the Muslims were nicer to them
 
It’s complicated and pretty bloody. The Oriental Christians (which the Ethiopian Church is classified under) had such bad relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Byzantine that they sided with the Muslims against the Byzantines because the Muslims were nicer to them
I'm aware of this - is there anyway the Oriental Orthodox Christians could side with the Byzantines over the Muslims?
 
There was technically a Portuguese-Ethiopian alliance, if you count the expedition of Cristóvão da Gama during the Abyssinian-Adal War. Da Gama and his 400 Portuguese arquebusiers proved helpful enough, in fact, that their intervention was what finally put a stop to the Adalite invasion and even killed Sultan Gragn. Had Da Gama not died soon after there could've been a long and fruitful partnership between the two kingdoms, I imagine.
Yes. Knowledge.
 
Oh nothing, it's just that it's the sort of detail that only someone with a respectable amount of historic knowledge, in this case Portuguese history, would know.

Are you going to elaborate on said knowledge or are you just being a wiseass?

How can we get the Eastern Orthodox to accept Oriental Orthodoxy?

I have no idea. At this point, religious schisms and prosecutions for not being the right type of Chrisitianity or so on was commonplace. Hell, it's why a good of the Americas were colonized by the British, it was by people looking to get away from perseuction.
 
I have no idea. At this point, religious schisms and prosecutions for not being the right type of Chrisitianity or so on was commonplace. Hell, it's why a good of the Americas were colonized by the British, it was by people looking to get away from perseuction.
Could some pan-Orthodox policy be established in order to assist the Ethiopians?
 
Top