By the winter of 1869, the war-torn world suddenly grew peaceful. The wars of aggression launched by the major colonial empires to shift their domestic economic crises all came to an end that season.
The gap in strength between the warring sides had been enormous. Before firearms, mere blood-and-guts bravery was hardly worth mentioning.
Had they not been constantly dragging one another down, the wars would have ended even sooner. The postwar balance of power on the African Continent had become increasingly clear.
France occupied Egypt, settled Algeria, and divided Tunisia with the British; Austria too had accomplished its established objectives, occupying Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and other regions.
There was no doubt that the British had come out on the losing end of this round of competition. Although John Bull defeated Ethiopia and killed Tewodros II, it still could not change their disadvantage in the struggle for the African Continent.
Killing a native emperor did not mean that the British had occupied Ethiopia. They could not even establish nominal rule over it.
Without a central government, Ethiopia had fragmented into pieces. Faced with one warlord after another, the British were plagued by headaches as well.
Fearless internationalist patriots had secretly supported Ethiopia in fighting them, and in this two-year war, the British had paid a painful price.
They had committed a total force of 136,000 men, suffering more than five thousand casualties alone. Nearly three thousand of them remained on the African Continent forever, while military expenditures had reached an astronomical figure.
These casualty figures counted only white soldiers. Auxiliary troops were worthless, so their casualties naturally fell outside the statistics.
No matter what, they had won in the end. The British Empire had not lost face this time.
An absolute disparity in strength was not so easily bridged. No