18.7: The Counter-Examples – Ethiopia and Japan

The European and U.S. monopoly on advanced technology did not always translate into successful conquest, as demonstrated in the cases of both Ethiopia and Japan. In the 1870s, as the Scramble for Africa began in earnest, the recently-united nation of Italy sought to shore up its status as a European power by establishing its own colonies in East Africa, specifically Eritrea and Ethiopia. In 1889, the Italians signed a treaty with the Ethiopian emperor, Menelik II. But the treaty contained different wording in Italian and Amharic (the major language of Ethiopia). The Italian version stipulated that Ethiopia would become an Italian colony, while the Amharic version simply opened diplomatic ties with Europe through Italy. After learning of the deception, Menelik II repudiated the treaty, simultaneously directing the resources of his government to the acquisition of modern weapons and European mercenary captains willing to train his army.

In the early 1890s, open war broke out between Italy and Ethiopia. During the Battle of Adwa (1896), the well-trained and well-equipped Ethiopians decisively defeated the Italian army. The Italians were forced to formally recognize Ethiopian independence, and soon other European powers followed suit. (As a side note, Russia was already favorably inclined toward Ethiopia, and a small contingent of Russian volunteers actually fought against the Italians at the Battle of Adwa). Thus, a non-European power could and did defeat European invaders. Nowhere else in Africa did a local ruler so successfully organize to repulse the invaders, but if circumstances had been different, they certainly could have done so.

In Asia, something comparable occurred on an even larger scale. In 1853, in the quintessential example of “gunboat diplomacy,” an U.S. naval admiral, Matthew Perry, forced Japan to sign a treaty through very thinly-veiled threats. As Western powers opened diplomacy and trade with the Japanese shogunate, a period of chaos gripped the country as the centuries-old political order fell apart. In 1868, the Meiji Restoration embarked on a course of rapid Westernization after dismantling the old feudal privileges of the samurai class. Japanese officials and merchants were sent abroad to learn about foreign technology and practices, and European and U.S. advisers were brought in to guide the construction of factories and train a new, modernized army and navy. The Japanese state was organized along highly authoritarian lines, with the symbolic importance of the emperor maintained, but practical power held by the cabinet and the heads of the military.

Westernization meant economic, industrial, and military modernization, as well as reaping the rewards of that modernization. Just as European states had industrialized and then turned to foreign conquest, the new leadership of Japan looked to the weaker states of their region as “natural” territories to be incorporated. Thus, the Japanese undertook a series of invasions, most importantly in Korea and the northern Chinese territory of Manchuria, and began the process of building an empire on par with that of the European great powers.

Japanese expansion threatened Russian interests, ultimately leading to war in 1904. By 1905, much to the shock and horror of the western world, Japan handily defeated Russia, forcing Russia to recognize Japanese control of Manchuria, along with various disputed islands in the Pacific. Whereas Ethiopia had defended its own territory and sovereignty, Japan was playing by the same rules and besting European powers at their own game: seizing foreign territory through force of arms.

Figure 18.6.1: Japanese depiction of an assault on Russian forces. Note the European-style uniforms worn by the Japanese soldiers.