On May 5, 1941, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia triumphantly reentered Addis Ababa. Recaptured by a joint British-Ethiopian force, the city celebrated the return of the Emperor and the liberation of Ethiopia. For the next seven years the British would turn their attention northward to battle it out with the hated Third Reich in a bloody slugging match in Europe. With the country devestated by the Italian invasion and occupation, the Emperor seeks to rapidly rebuild his nation. However he faces many obstacles and hardships in doing so. The Empire faces ethnic tensions, a feudal nobility determined to preserve its privileges at the expense of the poor, and an impoverished economical situation. Ethiopia must rapidly industrialize and develop into a modern nation if it is to survive the new world of superpowers and the war that many say will inevitably come...
Government[]
The Empire of Ethiopia is a monarchy, but not an absolute monarchy. Power in the Empire is shared between the Emperor and the Chamber of the Ras, a council of various representatives of the Ethiopian hereditary nobility. While the Chamber lacks any power to propose legislation, it does maintain the ability to veto any legislation proposed by the King, though a national referendum can override the Chamber's veto. All members of the Chamber and their families also enjoy tax immunity and some degree of judicial immunity. The Chamber also reserves the right of discretionary review over all petitions sent to the King by non-government subjects, meaning the Chamber selects which Petition the King can formally see. Most governmental power is vested in the Emperor, who alone has the power to propose legislation, recruit troops, levy taxes, create governmental ministries, and approve treaties with other powers. The military also answers to the Emperor alone.
Economy[]
While predominantly agricultural before World War 2, the Ethiopian economy has seen a massive diversification effort by the government. To develop the mining sector the government signed the Saudi-Ethiopian Trade Agreement of 1948 (Dawn of War: Resurgence) Saudi Arabian investors, namely Arabian Standard Oil, helped to fund and develop Ethiopia's mining sector, finding huge deposits of gold as well as copper, iron, coal, gemstones, and other precious metals. The first gold mines are set to be open in 1952, while some coal and iron mines have already been opened. The exploratory mining missions also found a massive oil reserve in Ethiopia's southern Ogaden region. The Federation of South America successfully bid to develop these fields and was granted an Imperial Charter to do so. The FSA began rapidly developing infrastructure and oil wells, with the first wells starting production in 1951. Ethiopia's government also seeks to turn much of its pastoral grazing land to farmland in order to help the nation become agriculturally self-sufficient. To this end much of the reclaimed farmland is gifted to highland peasants. These peasants have access to modern farm equipment and a line of credit through the Imperial Bank of Ethiopia, a governmental financial institution specifically founded to provide a line of credit for the many poor peasants unable to purchase modern farm equipment. The reclaimed farmland however is confiscated mainly from the nomadic lowland grazing peoples, who have been relocated to industrial mining and oil drilling areas to provide labor for those sectors, leading many to accuse the government reclamation of destroying their way of life.
Military[]
The current Ethiopian military is formally known as the Imperial Armed Forces. The Ethiopian military was largely destroyed by the Italian invasion and occupation. By the time Haile Selassie reentered Addis Ababa, he was only able to muster 12,000 men, mainly guerrilla fighters armed with captured Italian weapons and some British weapons and who resisted the Italians, to his cause. To rebuild the military, Ethiopia signed the U.S.-Ethiopian Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Alignment. Famed tank General George S. Patton, leader of the U.S. Military Mission to Ethiopia, was made the first Imperial Minister of War.
Imperial Army[]
The Imperial Army is the ground forces of the Imperial Armed Forces. Patton energetically rebuilt the Ethiopian army, using vast incoming shipments of U.S. weapons to rearm the Ethiopian armed forces and recruiting thousands of young men into the army. Patton also redesigned the Ethiopian military academy to more closely resemble a Western-style military academy. Patton also emphasized mobility, creating a doctrine of inflicting quick, decisive military strikes using large numbers of purchased U.S. Jeeps, perfect for traversing the rough East African landscape. With U.S. officers training and drilling the Ethiopian soldiers the army is rapidly turning into a well disciplined highly armed and armored fighting force. Currently the army numbers 60,000 men divided into three divisions of 20,000 men each. The first division, the Imperial Guard, consists of the best soldiers in the army and is three infantry battalions of 5,000 men each and one mechanized battalion of 3,000 motorized infantry and 2,000 soldiers supporting 100 Pershing tanks. The other two divisions are the same configuration.
Imperial Air Force[]
The Imperial Air Force was completely rebuilt after Patton took over. Patton, with a number of U.S. Air Force pilots, rewrote the curriculum of the Air Force training program to accomodate jet training in the modern day. The Imperial Air Force currently has no planes, but 400 cadets stand ready to begin training and the Ethiopian government is currently seeking to purchase aircraft.
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Being a landlocked country, the Empire lacks a navy of any kind. However many Ethiopians hope to attain a piece of coastline and thus rebuild Ethiopia's navy and power at sea.