History of Ethiopia

During and after the 1789-1799 Anglo-French conflict in Egypt, the Turkish viceroy Mohamed Ali (1769-1849) destroyed the old Mameluk ruling class of Egypt and organized the new Egyptian state under Turkish sovereignty, with Anglo-French financial and technical aid.

In 1820, Mahamad Ali invaded and occupied the Sudanese State of Funj. The Turco-Egyptian conquest and occupation of Funj became the first frontier pressure against Ethiopia in the nineteenth century.

In 1882, the British destroyed the Egyptian nationalist revolt against the Anglo-French Dual Control, and the Turkish ruling class, and directly occupied Egypt and its new international waterway of the Suez Canal.

Furthermore, by the fact of Egyptian occupation, the British imperialists justified the distruction of the Sudanese Nationalist revolt of 1882 against the Anglo-Egyptian forces of occupation.

In their reaction against such British hegemony in Egypt and the Sudan, the other imperialist nations of Europe and America met with Britain at the Berlin Congress of 1884-1885, and agreed to partition the African continent among themselves.

After the Berlin partition of Africa, the British, French, and Italian imperialists seized Ethiopia’s natural and historical frontiers along the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, and the Upper Nile Valley and encircled her.

(Source: National Atlas of Ethiopia)