Russian Africa

On January 6, 1889, Nikolay Ivanovitch Achinov, an adventurer and burgess of Penza, visited the Ethiopian Empire to establish clerical and political ties. When he returned to Russia, he announced that he and a band of cossacks were going to make an expedition to French Somaliland under the guise of being free cossacks. Achinov assured French Authorities that he had bought the land from the local Sultan and that it was private property, not a Russian Colony. There he established Sagallo, with its capital of New Moscow. However, Achinov could not control the Cossack band and they raided various French and Ethiopian fortifications. This caused an international scandal as Moscow distanced themselves from Achinov and Sagallo. Some colonists escaped to French Territory where they told them where Sagallo was. The French lined up twelve gunboats and bombarded Sagallo to smithereens, thus ending Russian Colonial Ambitions in Africa. In this alternate timeline we explore what would have happened if this colony had survived and Russia had maintained a presence in Africa.