What the European colonialists fail to foresee…

What the European colonialists fail to foresee is that the biggest threat to their imperial ambitions in the Horn of Africa will come from an emerging regional power, the Ethiopia of Emperor Menelik II.

Emperor Menelik II not only manages to defend Ethiopia against European encroachment, but also succeeds in competing with the Europeans for the Somali-inhabited territories that he claims as part of Ethiopia.

Between 1887 and 1897, Menelik II successfully extends Ethiopian rule over the long independent Muslim Emirate of Harer and over western Somalia (better known as the Ogaden).

Thus, by the turn of the century, the Somali Peninsula, one of the most culturally homogeneous regions of Africa, is divided into British Somaliland, French Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, Ethiopian Somaliland (the Ogaden), and what will come to be called the Northern Frontier District (NFD) of Kenya.