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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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Abyssinia
Triumphant A
Scenario of Alternate History Part One Argument In the 1840s, there came to power in Ethiopia one Kasa Hailu, as Emperor Tewodros II. He unified the country, ending its long period of conflict between moslem and christian. He standardised and modernised many aspects of Ethiopian life, and naturally came into conflict with the European colonial powers of the day. Nonetheless, he did his nation much good, and its independence, as one of only two unconquered lands in Africa (the other, Liberia), until 1936, is greatly due to his work. This scenario supposes that someone with similar ability and drive arose earlier, thus leading to a Greater Ethiopia, an Abyssinia Triumphiant. Assumptions In constructing this Alternate History Scenario, I make a few assumptions: Ø Nations are shaped by their geography, as much by their resources, population, religion, language and the leaders they have. Ø History, and the course of nations, have a certain “inertia.” Inertia in physics is the tendency of objects to keep moving in the same direction and speed (including remaining stationary), unless acted on by some external force. This means it’s very difficult to establish a nation, a way of life; and once established, difficult to destroy. Ø As a consequence of the above, it’s relatively easy to conquer land, but difficult to hold it. It’s also easy to import technology, or invent it, but difficult to make that technology an intrinsic part of the culture. (As an example, the printing press existed in Europe for three hundred years before more than one-tenth the total population was literate.) Ø Societies in change are vulnerable, and any external pressures against the progress or change, can make it all collapse. (For example, Somalia existed as a unified country, with external support, from about 1960 to 1991. 1991, coincidentally, is when the external support for its unified government was removed. Within a year or two, it had ceased to exist as a “nation.”) Ø Rising powers will always run into conflict with the Great Powers of the day. Without exception, Great Powers act to keep small powers small, and themselves, great. Nations act entirely in their own interests as they perceive them. Structure of Paper I begin by describing the lands of Ethiopia from ancient times, and its history up to the Point of Divergence. I clearly mark where the Alternate History begins. I finish with a brief overview of the true history of Ethiopia after the Point of Divergence. Lastly, comes a summary, with lessons learned. Out of convenience, and to ease the reader, I use mostly modern names for regions, such as “Kenya.” Ancient
Ethiopia, and Geography The
land’s geography is unique. Covering well over a million square kilometers,
Ethiopia is about twice as large as Kenya or Texas, or about five times as large
as the United Kingdom. Its magnificent landscape ranges from desert areas to
forested highlands. At 4,620 meters, Mount Ras Deshen is Ethiopia's highest
peak, and Africa's fourth highest, but twenty mountains rise to more than 4,000
meters. The waters of the Abay River, or Blue Nile, feed Lake Tana and flow into
the Nile. Most of the Nile's waters originate in Ethiopia. Ethiopia
is generally considered Africa's oldest continuously identifiable nation, though
Egypt's written history is older and more complete. Eritrea (independent since
1993), Djibouti and parts of Somalia, share much of their ancient, medieval and
modern histories with Abyssinia, as Ethiopia was formerly known. Yemen is
nearby. Across the Red Sea is the mountainous Asir Province of Saudi Arabia.
Asir, which lies in Asia, has a rugged topography not unlike that of Ethiopia's
uplands, and Ethiopians are one of the province's larger ethnic minorities. Ethiopia
is home to the lion, leopard and cheetah, but to many other species as well. A
short list would include the giraffe, elephant, rhinoceros, bushpig, warthog,
and various varieties of ibex (including the rare walia), duiker, antelope,
gazelle, zebra, buffalo, monkey, baboon, hyena, jackal and wolf. Some of these
creatures exist in larger populations in neighboring Kenya, but Ethiopia
probably boasts more wild mammal species than any other country in the world.
Many are dwarfed by the ostrich, one of Ethiopia's 800 bird species. Some of
these animals are unique to Ethiopia. Ethiopia's plant life is equally diverse.
Ethiopia's Great Rift Valley and other regions have yielded finds which indicate
that this nation may well be the birthplace of the human race. There
are two possible origins of the name Ethiopia. Tradition says it derives
from the name of Etiopik, descendant of the Biblical Noah. Linguists believe it
comes from the Greek expression for "sunburned faces." Abyssinia,
another ancient name for this land, probably comes to us from the Arabic
habishat, which in this context refers to the country's "mixed"
population. There
is no doubt that humans have inhabited Ethiopia since the dawn of recorded
history, as indicated in early cave drawings. The more modern Ethiopians are not
a single racial or ethnic group, a fact reflected in the diversity of their
languages. Despite some twentieth-century European attempts to present them as
dark Caucasians, Ethiopians are predominantly Negroid. Some
Ethiopian peoples, such as the Surma, were clearly tribal and semi-nomadic,
while others were more reliant on agriculture. It's difficult to generalize
about such a complex ethnic mix of peoples. Yet,
Ethiopia is the only sub-Saharan African nation with clear historical and
cultural ties to the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean. Perhaps based on
their naval explorations of "Punt" (probably a coastal city on the Red
Sea), the Egyptians themselves believed that their forebears were Ethiopian, and
an Ethiopian dynasty was established in Egypt in 720 BCE. Various inscriptions
and other records indicate that the earliest Egyptians clearly knew of
Ethiopia's existence, but at that time the latter was little more than a loosely
allied network of kingdoms. The
Old Testament makes no fewer than thirty references to Ethiopia ("Cush"
to the Hebrews). Moses wed an "Ethiopian" woman (Numbers 12:1).
According to tradition, the Ethiopian nation was founded by Etiopik, great
grandson of Noah, and Axum (Aksum) was founded by Etiopik's son, Aksumai. Queen
Makeda of Sabea (Sheba) would have been a member of this dynasty; she ruled a
vast area that included Yemen, and in her reign Ethiopians traded with peoples
as far as Palestine and India. Makeda ventured to Jerusalem to visit King
Solomon, by whom she bore a son, Menelik (from Ibn-al-Malik, Son of the King).
Thus was established the Solomonic dynasty, which tradition identifies with
various lines amalgamated into the dynasty that ruled until 1974. It is believed
that Menelik visited his father in Jerusalem for three years as a young adult,
learning the Mosaic law, and returned to Ethiopia with the Ark of the Covenant.
There is, however, no conclusive evidence of this (except of the Church in
Ethiopia which claims, still, to hold the Ark, viewed by none but the Bishop),
or of the Jewish Felasha peoples being descended from Jews of Solomon's time,
and some scholars identify Queen Makeda with Queen Bilkis of Sabea (Yemen). Ethiopia
has existed in some form as an identifiable state since the 10th century BCE.
Much more recently, the ancient Greeks and Romans knew of the Ethiopians and
traded with them. Axum
(Aksum), in the northern Tigray region near Adwa, was founded around 500 BCE.
Its economic importance, based on trade, was born during the Ptolemaic period of
Egypt (330 BCE) and flourished with the expansion of the Roman Empire. Roman
civilization outshone Greek culture for a time, but with the rise to prominence
of the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire and the arrival of Christianity, the Greeks
again made their influence felt. King Ezana was famous for Christianizing Axum. The
Axumite Empire is described in the Greek chronicle Periplus of the Ancient
Sea, written in the first century, and by the Persian author Manni, who two
centuries later considered it one of the world's great empires, in the company
of Persia, China and Rome. Axum traded with Arabia, India, Rome and Persia. The
Axumites spoke a language called Ge'ez, written with the Sabaean alphabet. Their
greatest architectural legacy is their distinctive monolithic granite towers. Though
Greek influences were certainly evident, Axum gradually developed into a
civilization in its own right. With the support of the Patriarch of Alexandria,
the Axumite emperor Caleb fought a war against Jewish traders and colonists in
Yemen in 523 CE in response to the persecution of Christians there, imposing
Ethiopian administration for a time. By
the eighth century, with Muslim influence growing, Ethiopian political influence
on the Arabian Peninsula gradually diminished, though Ethiopian traders
continued to reside there. The Axumite Empire itself spread southward into the
Agew region and then to Lasta, and this led to squabbles with the peoples of
these areas. Medieval
History The
Ethiopian culture we know today may be said to date from between the ninth and
eleventh centuries, coinciding with Axum's political decline. Judaism and Islam grew to be powerful
forces in Ethiopia. The Felasha (Jewish) queen Yodit, daughter of the
quasi-legendary Gideon, led a destructive expedition against Axum around 980. It
is believed that following Yodit's death, a Christian king, Anbessa Wudim,
returned to Axum to restore Christian control. The Zagwe dynasty, first based in
Lasta, emerged around this time. Many of Ethiopia's rock churches at Roha (now
Lalibela) date from the reign of the Zagwe king Lalibela. A number of fortresses
were also erected during this era. King
Yekuno Amlak ascended the throne in 1270. His origins are uncertain. The Kebre
Negest (The Glory of the Kings), one of Ethiopia's most important histories,
describes his line's Solomonic descent. The story of Prester John, a legendary
Christian ruler of Ethiopia, added luster to the Solomonic monarchs' rule. In
the fourteenth century, Emperor Amda Siyon made a serious effort at expansion,
annexing territories and consolidating these into an Ethiopia which more or less
conformed to the boundaries of today. To do so, he suppressed ethnic movements
and firmly established Ethiopia as an Amharic and Christian nation. He granted a
form of autonomy to regional rulers as his feudal vassals with authority over
gults, or fiefs, and accommodated Islam. Zara
Yakob, born in 1434, was one of Ethiopia's most remarkable rulers. Renowned for
his intelligence, he further developed what had already become two fundamental
institutions of the Ethiopian state --Christianity and feudalism. He also
instituted a new capital, at Debre Birhan in northern Shewa. Zara Yakob expanded
his realm into Eritrea and established tenuous diplomatic ties with several
European monarchs. What followed was a succession of lesser rulers who were
forced to contend with Muslim incursions and foreign influences. With
Portuguese help, the Muslims, led by Ahmed Gragn, were again suppressed in 1543.
This didn't bring an end to the hostilities, but it certainly limited serious
uprisings. Portuguese and Catholic influence became greater. In 1632, the
Emperor Fasil banished most foreigners and placed the Orthodox Church in its
position of primacy. Fasil
resided at Gonder, which he made Ethiopia's capital in 1636. It remained so for
two centuries, and a period of prosperity began. However, in the middle
eighteenth century, a period of conflict between the Coptic Christian and Sunni
Moslem groups within the country began. Fasiladas
II takes Power, 1747 – 85 CE Point
of divergence. Ethiopian
Rise in Review By
Professor Tewodros Kassahun, Order of the Lion Fasiladas
University, Djibouti While
the unifying effects of Emperor Fasiladas II (reg 1747-85) cannot be
denied, he only laid the foundations. What built the walls of the state were two
things: the alliance with the United Kingdom, and the Industrial Revolution. The
alliance with the United Kingdom granted us some degree of protection, if not a
friendly protection in the early years; it granted us trade, experience of world
commerce; it granted our armies experience of modern warfare, taking them beyond
their old tribal days. The Industrial Revolution, though it came late to
Ethiopia itself, gave wealth to us, since Europe required our primary products,
our coffee, tea, rubber, iron, stone and timber. We have only to look at lands
like Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and Mosambique, to see the fate of non-European
lands which were unable to defend themselves, and from whom the Europeans merely
took the resources. Whereas, due to our strength, Ethiopia was able to place
itself, by the end of the nineteenth century, into a position somewhat like that
of Argentina – Argentina, also, being a source of raw materials for Europe, a
market for manufactured goods, while having well-established independence well
before the Industrial Revolution took off. While called by some a
“quasi-colony,” an almost colony, almost is not “a colony.” We
retained a great degree of freedom, and were able to use the wealth gained from
the Europeans to build our nation. Like Argentina, we went through a time of
troubles in the 1930-60 period, with competing idelogies of fascism, communism,
and free market capitalism, but we have established stablity since then. Though
Ethiopia’s history stretches back millenia, its modern history as an Empire
properly begins with Fasiladas II. Having defeated most rival warlords in the
early 1740s, by 1747 he felt confident enough of his position to invite the
Patriarch at Alexandria to come to Gondar to crown him. Incidentally, he had
already been crowned the previous year by the Bishop of Ethiopia, but Fasilidas’
instinct for spectacle, and the political touch, caused him to invite Georgi IV
to come. He knew that faith causes men wonder, and a man crowned by a Patriarch
in the presence of all his Rases, simply has more authority than one crowned by
an Archbishop in a small ceremony.
Fasiladas II sent out ambassadors to what he considered the important
nations of the world; to France, to Britain, Venice, the Ottoman Empire,
Austria, Persia, and not least, the Moghuls of India. These returned with
descriptions of the fabulous wealth of these lands, which excited the avaricious
dreams of Fasiladas, since he knew that in ancient days Ethiopian kings had
ruled even Egypt. He saw the wealth that trade had brought these lands, gold and
ivory, the sugar and coffee plantations of the West Indies, the tea of Ceylon,
and he coveted these things for his own lands. At his request, Venice sent an
architect and engineer one Vittorio Triconti, who surveyed the lands of
Abyssinia (1750-52) and reported that Ethiopia had better build a port at
Djibouti if it wished for sea trade. This Fasiladas ordered done, but found he
lacked the funds and labour. In
any case, he found himself having to deal with a new rebellion to the east, in
the Ogaden region, amongst his Somali Sunni moslem subjects. This he put down
with much bloodshed, taking many as slaves, in 1755 completing this subdual, of
all Somalia, and began work on the port at Djibouti, under the supervision of
Triconti, whom Fasiladas had appointed as his Court Engineer, and gave many
favours and honours. About
this time there came contacts from the British East India Company. Lacking
friendly, or well-developed ports along Africa’s Indian Ocean coast (those in
Portugese Mosambique being only intermittently available to them), they offered
to assist with funds in Djibouti’s building, in return for favourable trade
considerations (which they set out in writing with their usual adherence to
details). This was to Fasiladas’ liking, and he agreed. There came then
Clive’s victories in India (1756-60), increasing the Company’s holdings in
India, and thus its trade, and the importance of Djibouti as a port. Before it
was even completed (1764) it was a thriving port, with drydocks for company
ships. It became a hub of trade, even beyond the Company, and Fasiladas began to
draw in wealth from tariffs, and custom dues. Not tremendous sums by the
standards of the day, or of the East India Companies, it is true, but more gold
and silver than Ethiopia had seen for some time. Fasiladas
now began to use some of that wealth to develop his lands. He strengthened the
defences of Gondar (the Company took care of those of Djibouti), and Triconti
supervised the construction of a system of canals about Lake Tana (35 km south
of Gondar) to bring water to the city, and irrigate the fields. Within twenty
years, the region about Gondar produced half the nation’s crops. Which
is not to say that Fasiladas forgot his more warlike pursuits. He had allowed
the British East India Company to raise three regiments of Ethiopians, officered
by Englishmen, for the defence of Djibouti. In 1765, while Clive in India found
himself in the grip of more war with the Moghuls, Fasiladas saw their
distraction, and demanded that each English officer be “assisted” by an
Ethiopian. This soothed the ruffled feathers of many of his Rases, who had
expressed discontent with the number of foreign “advisors” (in effect,
ministers) in Fasiladas’ court. Now the nobles had somewhere to send their
sons. At the same time, as payment for this concession, he offered the use of
his regiments in India. He reasoned, “either they fight badly, in which case,
I shall blame the British and make happy my foreigner-hating Rases, or they
shall fight well, in which case, the British will be indebted to me, and the
Rases afraid.” The
Company officer in Djibouti shared his countrymen’s disdain for the
“darkies,” and wrote to head office, “I can see no harm in allowing the
natives their illusions concerning the influence their “officers” would have
in leading our regiments.” The Ethiopian Contingent, being regarded as
expendable, was sent to Plassey in advance of the main Company contingent. It
was expected that their defeat at the hands of the Moghuls would buy some time
for the rest. At this, perhaps one-half the British Company officers took their
leave. 2,858 officers and men, 23 of them British, thus stood against 27,000
Moghuls, with primitvie cannon, sabers, and elephants. One Colonel Cathcart
commanded, at his side, Colonel Ras Temusen. Plassey was expected to hold a
week; when the main contingent of the Company’s Indian soldiers arrived six
weeks later, only 321 men, and 4 officers remained, all of which, Ethiopian
(including Temusen’s deputy, Shedros). Cathcart and Temusen were lauded for
their courage, and years later Kipling wrote a poem concerning the Stand at
Plassey. As much as the British
naturally focused on their own heroism, the Company men, at least, found a
respect for the men of Abyssinia. And
so was born the British Abyssinia Division. Beginning as a Company operation, it
became increasingly a regular British Army institution, being taken over
officially after the time of the Indian Mutiny (when the Company possessions all
devolved unto the British Crown). But
that was years away in 1766. What had been forged at Plassey was, so far as
Fasiladas was concerned, nothing more than an alliance. “Men who have shed
blood together, may never shed one another’s blood,” he wrote to King George
of England. The
surviving officers and men returned to Djibouti to great acclaim and praise;
Fasiladas made Shedros General of the Armies of Ethiopia, and together they set
about organising the new army. This was to be a national one, uniform in
equipment and dress, beholden only to the Emperor. He first tested this on a
mission into Kenya, the Turkana Campaign (1773-79), where he subdued many of the
local chieftans and made them swear allegiance to him. This was a messy
business, and claimed some 25,000 Ethiopian lives, particularly in the March On
Lake Turkana (1773, across swampy lands not meant for marching), and Galana
River (1776-78, down a river valley, stopped with many falls, ambush sites, and
such). Arriving at Killindini in 1779, the Ethiopian soldiers were startled to
see flying from the town’s center a Union Jack; hearing of them coming, the
British had decided to establish a presence to “welcome” them. Ethiopian
control of Kenya was hardly complete, but, seeing the wealth generated by
civilised colonists among savages in the European and New Worlds, he was
determined to emulate it; as soon as 1780, the first few colonists arrived,
bringing cattle on to the fertile plains of the Masai. That this led to great
bloodshed amongst the natives cannot be denied; in any case, many were hauled
off into slavery. Fasiladas
II had been much disconcerted by being unable to use his great numbers of
cavalry (old style, it’s true) in the Kenyan Campaign, and so one of his final
acts was to order (1782) the construction of a vast road linking Gondar,
Djibouti, and Kenya’s provincial capital, Killindini. As he lay on his
deathbed (1785), he saw a vision of Christ, asking him to show mercy to those
who would believe, and so he ordered Coptic missionaries into Kenya. Tewodros
II, 1785 – 1809 CE
“A weak Prince
who succeeds an outstanding Prince, may hold his own…if a Prince can see the
wisdom in what another says or does, even though he has no wisdom himself, he
may hold his own.” - Machiavelli Fasiladas’
other legacy to his people was thus a vast debt. Though by taxes (which at the
semi-nomadic and agricultural stage of much of his people could not raise much
cash), tariffs, custom duties and port fees, not to mention the profitable
transport of ivory, coffee and slaves from the interior – though by these
means the equivalent of seven and a half millions pounds sterling had been
raised in the thirty years between 1755 and 1785, the Gondar canals, the
Djibouti port, and not least, the Kenyan Campaign, had cost over twice that sum.
The difference was made up largely by the British East India Company, Fasiladas
having regarded their alliance as a large money-jar for him. His
son, Tewodros II (reg. 1785-1809) came to power at only fifteen years of
age, and was greatly influenced at first by his mother; then, after her death by
the hand of an unknown poisoner, by one of his Rases, Ras Tellefi. Ras Tellefi
he appointed Court Chancellor (1787, probably at Tellefi’s own urging).
Tellefi was the voice of the nobles, and the various Rases were allowed many
freedoms, and tax exemptions. To please the nobility, Tewodros contracted
further debts to the British in acquiring from them some half-dozen Ships of the
Line (1788), of very much the older sort. These hardly ventured out of port,
except for Gun Salutes and such, for the next five years. The British came to
reclaim them for the sake of their war with the French, but found them in such
poor condition as to be not worth the trouble. In 1798 Tewodros finally married,
and his wife, Makeda, proved a differing influence on him; Chancellor Tellefi
was found guilty of embezzlement of the Imperial Treasury, and dragged off to be
beheaded. The
ships were repaired as best could be, the privileges of the nobility slowly
returned to what they were in Fasiladas II’s day, and the position of the
Emperor strengthened. Plots and conspiracies abounded; other heads joined
Tellefi’s in the roll. Then Napoleon came to Egypt. Tewodros knew the place to
be vital to the British, and remembering his father’s tales of the days when
Ethiopians ruled Egypt, he sent a force of some eight thousand, escorted by the
remaining functioning four Ships of the Line. Landing at Suez in 1799, the eight
thousand under Tewodros II himself (“advised” by several officers, notably a
former British Rear Admiral Dempsey, now retired from the Royal Navy and working
as Shipmaster in the Company), marched to Cairo. There
they were pretty soundly defeated by the French, and retreated in some confusion
to Suez. The British were surprised by this effort, which was unasked for, and
unwanted, but which it would nonetheless be churlish not to show gratitude for.
In any case, defeat though it was, it had some small effect on the campaign,
tying down several thousand of Napoleon’s troops in the south of the country,
and making the British victory easier. After spending an unpleasant two years in
Suez, upon the flight of Napoleon, the Ethiopians marched on Cairo. The fight
was bloody, the French troops being unwilling to surrender to Africans, but in
the end, Tewodros II was victorious. He immediately raised the Ethiopian lion
rampant over Cairo, and Dempsey, alarmed, sent messengers to Nelson in
Alexandria. Nelson asked for an
“audience” with the Emperor, and, through translators, politely informed
Tewodros that the British would not permit an annexation of Egypt by Tewodros.
He can, however, leave his garrison there, in Cairo, under a British officer,
and should treat Egypt as part of Ethiopia in terms of trade; British tariffs
and dues will not adhere there. Tewodros is impetuous and weak, but not stupid,
and so readily agrees to this.
Ethiopia
about 1809, red lines indicate range of effective control – very approximately. Tewodros
III, 1809 – 1859 CE “Two
virtuous Princes, of whom one immediately succeeds the other, do Great
Things.” –Machiavelli Tewodros
III was a well-educated man of thirty years when he came to the throne, having
been taught by the scholars who lingered about the Court of his father, and who
had also travelled on the Egyptian Campaign. He shared the view of Empire held
by the British Liberals of the time, essentially, “we are here just until
we’ve made the natives civilised like us.” He travelled widely in the
Ethiopian lands, and saw that the government’s hold on much of the country was
tentative at best. He resolved to be the Solomon to his father’s David; what
his father had wrought by the sword, he would till with the plow. Tewodros
III’s half-century reign can be broken down into his Four Proclamations, times
when he and his regime focused on various areas. These, of course, overlapped. First
Proclamation (1810
– 50), Consolidation & Colonisation: In
this phase, garrisons of Abyssinian (Oromo tribesmen, Coptic Christians, Amharic-speaking)
soldiery were sent to the Sudan, and Kenya. A unified code of laws was
established, and series of weights and measures. Colonists were encouraged to
the Masai, the Kenyan plain. This whole phase was characterised by clashes
between the moslem and the christian parts of the empire. Fortunately, no
significant leader ever arose during this phase, or was able to command more
than one thousand rebels at a time. A series of alliances, assisting one petty
chieftan against the other, kept the Kenyan inner regions safe for travel and
trade. Second
Proclamation
(1818 – 1855), Agriculture and Pastoral: In
this phase, attention was given to agriculture and pasture. Canals were extended
from the Nile across the Sudan, bringing water to farmers there. Likewise, the
lands of Kenya. Knowing the periods of flood and drought which always seemed to
afflict one of the Sudan or Kenya, Tewodros III ordered that each province have
vast storehouses of grain. The canals and wells also widened the availability of
clean drinking and washing water. He instructed his Bishop to introduce into
Coptic Christianity a religious obligation, as in Islam, to bathe regularly.
This alone brought more good health to the Empire than would have one thousand
doctors. Third
Proclamation
(1850 – 1859), the Five Laws of Property: About
this time, Tewodros came under pressure from certain of the wealthy nobility to
emulate the British, Americans and Germans, and industrialise. He sent
ambassadors to visit these nations, and they returned with tales of the misery
of the workers in mill towns, the sooty air, and grinding poverty amidst great
production. He took notice, also, of the rebellions across Europe in 1848, and
how close many of those monarchies had come to collapse from this. He noted that
the capitalists sought ever-growing production and wealth, regardless of the
condition of the workers, and that the communist-socialist rebels, did, also.
The argument was not about whether or not to strive for infinite production and
wealth, but about who should get that wealth, whether a few people at the top
should be entitled to it all, or whether it should be spread about evenly. Why,
he asked, should Ethiopia strive for infinite production and wealth? He noted
the capitalist knew how to create wealth, but not how to divide it, and the
communists, how to divide it, but not how to create it. Why not, he thought,
adopt a synthesis of the two, which allowed motivation to work harder and gain
more, but not to gain so much as to give those at the bottom no hope of ever
improving from their poverty. The
Five Laws are as follows: First
Law: Only
persons, or the Crown, may own property. There are no corporations. Second
Law: the Hundred Acre Law. No person may possess more than one hundred acres of
any kind of land. Third
Law: the Law of
Seven Foods. Any land held, in excess of seven acres, must have upon it at least
seven different crops or animals. Fourth
Law: the
100-100 Manpower Law.
that no single workplace may employ more than one hundred manmpower equivalent
(men count for one, women for two-thirds, and children for one-quarter, but
their proportional hiring may not exceed these ratios, either; so they can’t
have an all-children factory), nor may it be powered by any coal, wood, or
oil-fired machine of more than one hundred horsepower (four hundred manpower)
equivalent. Fifth
Law:
the Tax Law. The tax on every man’s income, including that gained from a farm,
or factory, shall be one-tenth of the turnover of that enterprise. (not
one-tenth their profits, but one-tenth their turnover) The
First Law prevents the abuses seen done by such as the British East India
Company. “A corporation has no conscience,” wrote Tewodros III, “and we
want only men of conscience in Ethiopia.” The
Second Law prevents the accumulation of vast estates by people. It ensures that
small subsistence farmers do not find themselves bought out by their wealthier
neighbour, then work as bonded labourers on their own land. The
Third Law was promulgated in response to the Potato Famine in Ireland. Tewodros
and his advisors saw that when a population comes to rely on one crop, if that
crop fails, famine ensues. In addition, it was well-known even in medieval times
that land will be more productive if it has a diversity of crops and animals on
it. In addition, it minimised the problem of vast estates, unproductively used,
as was seen in Europe amongst the nobility. The Fourth Law means men cannot be pushed aside for machines, and there is a practical limit to the size of the factories. Of course, Ethiopia thus misses out on the “economies of scale” (a thousand-man factory being more than twice as labour-efficient than a five-hundred-man factory, and so on), and is “inefficient.” But the Emperor’s principle was that we should not worry about efficiency in manpower, only efficiency in resources. “A man does not eat until he throws up, so why
should he produce more clothes than his entire country can wear? Labour
efficiency, with no restrictions on working conditions, certainly leads to
greater wealth and prosperity, but only for a few. We’d rather have the whole
part of Ethiopia improving by 1%, than one-hundredth-part by 200%, and the rest
by none.” In addition, the
smaller workplaces, and high level of employment, necessarily improved working
conditions. The place was less noisy, crowded, and the wages were decent; if
not, the worker would go elsewhere. Thus, Ethiopia had no Communist or Socialist
Party, avoiding the disturbances they created. Workers need not clamour for
rights they already have. Lastly, it’s
important to note that the Law referred only to coal and oil-burning machines;
those driven by water, wind or what-have-you, were unrestricted in their power. Far from stifling
private enterprise these measures assisted it. Since they were limited in the quantity
of production, factory and farm owners needed to focus on the quality
of production. Since there was a limit on the amount of property they could own,
there was an implicit limit on their wealth, and on their power to price
competitors out of the market. When an existing enterprise has just one hundred
times your wealth, you have a chance of starting one yourself; when it has one
million times your wealth, you have no chance. These measures
together cut down on the problems of urbanisation, associated with
industrialisation. If a factory is limited in size, there’s no reason to site
it in a city – you only need site it in a city when you need, firstly, lots of
manpower, and, secondly, to be close to areas of high consumption. If a farm is
limited in size, then farmers will stay in the countryside, since they’ve
no-one to sell to (their neighbours eventually reaching their 100-acre limit),
and people must eat; demand does not create supply, but it makes supply a
worthwhile occupation. It needs to be
emphasised that, liberal and humanistic as these measures seem to us today,
Tewodros III was not a liberal humanist. He funded these Proclamations by huge
sales of slaves to the USA. He many times ordered his troops out to lands to put
down rebellions by moslems and heathens, and bloody slaughter ensued. He put
these measures into place because he wanted to ensure that the Emperor had
supreme power; that no mere merchant, farmer or factory owner could wield power
by virtue of his wealth; that no peasant or worker need rebel in order to eat.
“Given nothing to lose, they will rebel against Us,” he said, “given
something to lose, men become timid.” Of course, all
these measures were loudly protested at the time, and Tewodros’ British allies
thought he was quite mad; in their view, only unrestrained free enterprise could
possibly create wealth. However, they became less in favour of unrestrained free
enterprise when it came to slavery. Slavery had funded the Proclamations, and
the Army. About the 1830s the British started putting pressure on Tewodros to
abolish slavery. This he refused. Though there was little slavery in Ethiopia
itself, there were significant numbers in the Sudanese and Kenya colonies,
opening up lands for agriculture and building roads, and the actual trade in
slaves to the West generated great revenue for the Crown. But after the
British shelled the slave fort at Zanzibar in 1856, he got the message, and
abolished the slave trade (though not slavery itself). This was the Fourth
Proclamation. Without a doubt, losing their last source of slaves hardened
the position of the US slave states, and also that of the Abolitionists,
precipitating the American Civil War (1860 – 65). Abolishing the
slave trade was Tewodros III’s last significant administrative act. He died in
his bed in August 1859, at the age of eighty. Overall, in his reign, he can be said to have achieved his ambition of being the Solomon to his father’s David, of bringing some measure of peace and prosperity to his land. Some two million Ethiopians moved to the colonies, replacing the two million natives taken as slaves and shipped overseas. His Four Proclamations laid the basis of Ethiopia’s future prosperity, without that prosperity giving benefits to only a small part of the population. Ethiopia thus missed out on the labour agitations and republican sentiments seen in European monarchies; also, the lack of excessive concentration of wealth meant that the place was less attractive for European missionaries, merchants and so on. Which meant that Ethiopia missed out on troubles such as the Chinese Boxer Rebellion (1900) or the British India Mutiny (1859). Of course, the Emperor realised that this meant less total wealth for his land; but it also meant less risk of troubles. Tewodros
IV, 1859 – 1862 CE The
reign of Tewodros IV is remarkable only for his attempt to imitate his more
martial ancestors, and invade and colonise Yemen, a possession of Ethiopia’s
in ancient times (see above). Actual invasion was repulsed with many losses, the
Yemenite camel and horse riding barbarians invariably racing in, firing a shot
or two, and fleeing before the Ethiopian infantry could organise themselves. He
did continue the programmes of his father, however. He
didn’t survive long; his father had reigned so long, he himself was sixty-two
when he came to power, and in poor health. Tewodros
V, 1862 CE Tewodros V had a brief reign of but eighty days. Under the influence of some French merchants, he wished to abolish various of the Proclamations, allowing for corporations, and so on – French ones, naturally. At this, the British Consul in Djibouti called on the garrison there to act. While the British would be happy to see most of the restrictions disappear, the idea that the French should be the ones to gain most from it distressed them. And so, the garrison marched on Gondar. Before they came within fifty miles of the place, Tewodros V was dead, killed by a group of nobles, alarmed at excessive foreign influence, whether French or British. They formed a Crown Council to appoint a new Emperor (Tewodros V hadn’t even had time to marry and produce heirs), and appointed the most inoffensive, unambitious man they could find. Fasiladas
III, 1863 – 1887 CE (to
be continued….) |
