It was Isma'il's intention that Egypt forge a contiguous African empire that would both rival the empires of Europe, and allow Egypt to escape the territorial ambitions of those same European great powers. Īfter annexing Darfur in 1875, he turned his attention to Ethiopia. Muhammad Ali's grandson, Isma'il Pasha, became Khedive in 1863, and sought to expand this burgeoning empire further southwards. Whilst nominally a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt had acted as a virtually independent state since Muhammad Ali's seizure of power in 1805, eventually establishing an empire to its south in Sudan. Conversely, for Egypt the war was a costly failure, severely blunting the regional aspirations of Egypt as an African empire, and laying the foundations for the beginning of the British Empire's 'veiled protectorate' over Egypt less than a decade later. The conflict resulted in an unequivocal Ethiopian victory that guaranteed continued independence of Ethiopia in the years immediately preceding the Scramble for Africa. It remains the only war between Egypt and Ethiopia in modern times. The Egyptian–Ethiopian war was a war between the Ethiopian Empire and the Khedivate of Egypt, a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, from 1874 to 1876.

Ras alula 1876