Ch. I
Judamaterasu
Japanese interest in Africa was piqued in the aftermath of the 1868 Meiji Restoration, particularly the potent markets and cheap raw materials of the Dark Continent. Arriving late to the world stage with modernization in full swing, Japan was unable to secure its own sphere of influence in Africa as it had done from 1894-1905 in East Asia and had to concede to Western hegemony. Africa also served as an example for the Japanese who had their own fair share of unequal treaties they'd chafed under since Commodore Matthew Perry had opened up Japan to Western influence in 1853 and that which various African leaders had succumbed in the 1880s. Their own brand of imperialism was built off the template that the Western colonial empires had followed in Africa, utilizing similar policies in Formosa and Korea. Northeast Africa provided its own template, especially when its most powerful states, Egypt and Ethiopia, pursued their own courses of reform and modernization with the hopes of avoiding the rest of the Continent's fate, with the Japanese seeing many parallels between them and it's clear that this may've been the impetus for the Japanese government to pursue closer diplomatic and economic relations with Sub-Saharan Africa.
It was the Ethiopian experience in particular that interested the Japanese, with the respective history of both countries being remarkably similar and their current courses aligning closely. Both nations were ruled by those dynasties who could trace their lineages back thousands of years, having been proudly of their ability to maintain their national independence when everyone else was collapsing, etc. It helped that both countries had been subject to unlawful Western incursions and humiliating unequal treaties, only to have profoundly reversed this by observing and emulating the progress the West had made so far. For Ethiopia, that started a decade earlier with the rise of Emperor Tewodros II in February 1855 after his reconquest of Ethiopia and the conclusion of the Era of Princes, inaugurating revolutionary reforms that included administration and military affairs. Like the Japanese Emperor Meiji, he observed as other African states lost their independence with Western expansionism and sought to preserve Ethiopian sovereignty in the face of Western imperialism. Recruiting men like Kasa Mercha of Tigray and Menelik of Shewa as fellow progressives by means of intermarriage between their families, Tewodros defeated reactionaries like Tekle Giyorgis II and consolidated.
The 1868 Anglo-Ethiopian War threatened to offset this progress with an increasingly mentally unstable Tewodros - following the death of his wife in August 1858 - who imprisoned a British mission. Under Robert Napier, the British deployed a combined Anglo-Indian force of 30,000 men who advanced into the Ethiopian heartland all the way up to Tewodros' capital at Magdala and were halted at Arogye plateau. On their march to Magdala and during their occupation of northern Ethiopia, British forces consistently suffered harassment from Kasa's Tigrayan guerrillas to stall time for Menelik's Shewan reinforcements to supplement Tewodros' men. Thus, the 15,000 Ethiopian troops occupying Arogye plateau were able to hold out against British pressure with orders to hold their position if the British dared to try taking Arogye. However, Napier had no intention of wasting the lives of his men on a suicidal charge and so the two remained locked in an uncomfortable stalemate before Napier eventually yielded, making a peace offer to Tewodros and the Emperor agreed. It was at Magdala where an Anglo-Ethiopian peace treaty was negotiated in favor of the former and Ethiopia was forced into conceding economic favor to Britain, humiliating the proud African empire.
Determined to modernize Ethiopia, Tewodros employed the services of Sergeant John Charles Kirkham in establishing a more professional Ethiopian military under the command of the up-and-coming Ras Alula. Arming it was also Kirkham's duty and he delivered well by assisting in the acquisition of Snider-Enlee rifles for the 30,000 men under Imperial command, providing Tewodros to reassume authority over all of Ethiopia. The Oromo in the Magdala region had seized the opportunity to rebel against Imperial control with the arrival of the British, the latter's decision to leave their own arms in the area to destabilize Ethiopia. An example was made out of its members and the experience became an important one not just to Tewodros but Kasa and Menelik too in their respective domains. However, the most important experience for the Ethiopian modernization process was its sudden war with the Egyptians under Isma'il Pasha who also pursued their own course of modernization after their leadership faced the same experiences the Ethiopians had. They'd gone even further by expanding into an increasingly restive Sudan, annexing the Sultanate of Darfur in the early 1870s with the aim of establishing Egyptian rule over the Nile Valley and Cairo started looking to an increasingly powerful Ethiopia as well.
With Egyptian expansion into Sudan, Eritrea, and northern Somalia, it was inevitable that there would be some sort of conflict between the Egyptians and Ethiopians. The Ethiopian-Egyptian War broke out in 1875 when it saw an overconfident Egypt march deeper into the Eritrean interior with what it presumed would be an easy victory, only to be lured into an ambush that virtually annihilated the entire Egyptian force and its commander's positions. Cairo, understandably, panicked at the unexpected Ethiopian victory and dispatched another sizable force of 13,000 men which was quickly confronted with another decisive defeat after Ethiopian officers could rapidly exploit blind spots and weak points in the Egyptian lines, overwhelming the Egyptian right flank with sheer numbers and firepower. If Egypt's dream of African empire was not shattered by that, it certainly was with Alula's decision to mass his artillery at several points to destroy the Egyptian fortifications at Gura and Kayakhor, once again almost annihilating the entire Egyptian force and opening up Eritrea to Ethiopia. With Ethiopian irredentism and nationalism in full force, as well as economic necessities, Tewodros demanded that the Egyptians concede all of Eritrea to the Ethiopian Empire.
Ethiopia's claims to Eritrea, along with the ports of Zeila and Berbera, were codified in the Treaty of Massawa in June 1877 when British-mediated negotiation concluded the war. With these victories, Ethiopia controlled a long-lost province that was now under the control of Kasa who combined the predominantly Orthodox, ethnic Tigrayan regions of the Eritrean Highlands with Tigray proper. It also kickstarted Ethiopian expansion into the Horn with what Tewodros proclaimed to be in accordance with the restoration of the Ethiopian Empire's historical frontiers as Menelik's Shewan troops facilitated the annexation of the Emirate of Harar and the Gojjames, under Ras Tekle Haimanot, extended Imperial authority into the predominantly Oromo areas south of the Gibe River. This expansion was temporarily interrupted with the Mahdist invasion in January 1886 that once again showed the successes of Tewodros' reforms as Ethiopian armies delivered a crushing blow to their Sudanese opponents at Gallabat and Metemma, Alula being ordered to plan out an invasion of Sudan. Coordinating with a northern Anglo-Egyptian advance from Upper Egypt, the Ethiopian invasion made vast inroads into Sudan and seized Khartoum in April 1898 as the disintegrating Mahdist state was carved up.
Khartoum's fall and the establishment of an Ethiopian sphere of influence over Nubia marked the end of significant Ethiopian expansion, save her annexation of the southwestern polities. Tewodros' death in 1898 as one of Ethiopia's longest reigning Emperors saw Menelik become Emperor with Alitash Tewodros at his side, inaugurating another revolutionary period of socioeconomic upheaval and reform. In accordance with the policies that had been set forward by the Imperial government, Menelik dispatched even more representatives and bright young Ethiopians to Europe to become the backbone of a modern Ethiopia. The end of the successive wars with the deaths of countless young Ethiopians provided the Ethiopian government with the opportunity to focus solely on reform as the sons and daughters of Ethiopia were educated in the affairs of modern nations and would come back to Ethiopia thoroughly impressed by Western Europe's progress, becoming the basis of a new Imperial bureaucracy with their promotions to prominent positions in the Imperial Court and government. Ethiopia was also looked upon favorably by Western nations with the widespread public works programs, literacy campaigns, and other institutions set in place to ensure Ethiopia's place in the world.
Menelik's expansion of diplomatic relations extended not just to nations that Ethiopia looked upon favorably - such as Germany and Russia - but to nations halfway across the world. The Japanese victory over Russia in the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905 piqued Menelik's interest in his Japanese counterparts, approaching the Japanese via Ethiopian emissaries in St. Petersburg. Japan responded positively, having already been observing that Northeast African empire and its empire-building process in spite of the staggering casualties sustained between 1868-1898. A Japanese embassy was established in the burgeoning capital city of Addis Ababa and Japan's experienced statesmen dispatching advisors to the Imperial Court to assist in planning the massive modernization process that Ethiopia was undergoing with the close of the 19th Century. This accompanied that Japanese economic penetration of Africa by starting with the potent markets of Northeastern Africa, particularly Ethiopia's large pool of raw materials and manpower as the Japanese zaibatsu started showing increasing interest as both nations established closer ties. Much to the alarm of the West and its Yellow Peril advocates, this idea of a Japanese-Ethiopian alliance was increasingly becoming a reality.
It was the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact of 1906 between Britain, France, and Italy that sought to contain the modernizing Ethiopia, even carving it up in economic zones. Upon its discovery by Addis Ababa, Menelik was livid at this blatant attempt to knock Ethiopia down a peg and delivered an unprecedented tongue-lashing to the signatories. In response, Ethiopia concluded a treaty of friendship and commerce with Japan while Germans representing the Kaiser's government met with Ethiopian representatives to sign a similar treaty in May 1906 after its Moroccan Crisis, hoping to convince Ethiopia into an alliance against Britain and France. However, it's attention would also focus on the moribund Ottoman Empire and its pro-German government under the Young Turks after July 1908, an ailing state that the Imperial government would be only happy to exploit when their armies intervened in the Balkans against the Orthodox nations.
The onset of the Great War with Austria's invasion of Serbia in July 1914 saw Menelik proclaim neutrality, wanting nothing to do with a European war but tabs were kept on the East African campaign and support was sent to the Serbs to allow them to resist against what he viewed as "Catholic imperialism," while he chose to focus on the finishing touches of Ethiopian industrialization and closing ranks with the friendly Japanese.
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