Originally Posted by
Sunk at Narvik
Nah- just take over Djibouti in a piece of classic C18th imperialism. Much closer to the potential C21st action
Pedant mode on "C19th"
The Djibouti coasts were attended as of the II E thousand-year-old by the Arab tradesmen attracted by the geographical site of the country. With the crossroads of Africa, of the Middle East and Indian Ocean, Djibouti became an important counter of exchanges between the Arabs and Africa during the Middle Ages, that it is for the traffic of slaves or the aromatic trade. The British were the first Europeans to have had an expansionist policy in the area of the Red Sea. They settled in Aden (Yemen of the South), taken on January 16, 1839.
3.1 The French presence
It is also the geographical situation of Djibouti which aroused the interest of the French tradesmen. Since 1839, French explorers traversed the area. Anticipating the opening of Suez Canal (which took place on November 17, 1867) and, wishing to counterbalance the English presence in Aden in the Yemen of the South, France establishes in 1862, treaty with the sultans afars (represented by Dini Ahmed Abou Baker), a colony with Obock. Actually, it was about a commercial concession granted by the sultan to France for some 50.000 frank of the time. The first concession in what was destined for this moment the territory of Obock was actually yielded in 1872 to Denis de Rivoyre. Thereafter, Pierre Arnoux in 1880 came, then both founded in 1881 the free-Ethiopian Company; the same year, Soleillet and Chefneux created the French Company, but it went bankrupt in 1886, whereas Brémond founded French Foreign posts. The stake for France was then to compete with the British and the Italians and to have access to Ethiopia.
Pedant Mode Off
