And again a repost:
The Coptic Empire
The Coptian Empire is the natural continuation of the millenary traditions of Egypt and Ethiopia. Its history roots back to the 6th century BC when , to resist the Persian superpower, the Egyptian pharaohs allied dinastically with Nubia and in the next century marched on Ethiopia, adding that huge land to the already wide Egyptian-Nubian empire. The conquest of Ethiopia brought explorations to such an extent that ancient Egyptians are still considered the founders of the geographical science. The Egyptian control of the Red Sea with its wealthy traffics made the empire increasingly rich, its merchant navy established trade and military posts throughout the Indian Ocean from the land of Opunt-Zimbabwe to Si-lon (Ceylon). After finally expelling the Persians in 363 BC, the Egyptian Empire was briefly overrun bey Alexander the Great, but the State survived in Nubia and retook its homeland against Alexander's diadochus Tolomaeus. Long struggles with the Seleucids were followed by the Roman invasion under Julius Caesar. Anew the Court transferred the capital in Nubia, were a brand new capital was build, City of the Gods. In the 2nd century AD Trajan almost managed to subdue even Nubia, but finally Adrian had to retire and grant Egypt its independence on the condition that it remained vassal to Rome providing it with food, slaves and spices. The accord lasted until the Roman Empire entered its 3rd century crisis: the Egyptian managed to conquer the kingdom of Palmyra, then were defeated by Aurelian and obliged to fully honor their commitments.
The penetration of Christianity was a decisive development. The tolerance of the Christian cult was officially declared in 250 as a response to Decius' brutal persecution in the Roman Empire, and the ancient millenary heathen religion was slowly replaced by a local version of Christianity with Neoplatonic, Gnostic and Monophysite infuxes called "Copt" (as it was the name of the Egyptians themselves). In 381 the capital was renamed Christopolis (Greek was always a popular language of culture in the empire, and with the advent of Christianity that went even better). After 395 the ancient enmity with Rome was replaced by a harsh boundary quarrel with Byzantium, often with doctrinal issues to pour gas on the flames amongst reciprocate excommunications and accuses of heresy and apostasy. During the 5 and 6th century the empire underwent a deep cultural change as the millenary traditions of old Egypt were finally replaced by the new Faith in Christ. Due to the abandoning of imbalsamation, the country had to endure severe epidemics of plague, that are calculated to have killed up to one-fifth of the population.
Religious sectarism and power struggles at court were also a problem. On the throne of the Pharaohs there was even a Gothic warrior of the Imperial Guard, Ildibada, who assuming the name of Ramses XXI (542-559) founded the XLVIIth Dinasty (till 645). However Egypt remained a viable power, and when in 640 the Arab Muslims invaded the Low Egypt, they couldn't remain there for more than few years. General Sam-Nafak liberated the Low Egypt defeating 'Amr in the battle of Heliopolis in 644, adate which marks a legend in Coptian history. From then on a century-long, fierce struggle with character of "holy war" (agiopolemon) and jihad respectively was fought between the Caliphate and the Coptian Empire. The major issues were control of the Holy Land and of the Indian Ocean trade. While in the former the Arabs proved generally winners, in the latter the Coptians managed to hold many of their trade posts and colonies and explored furthermore the ocean. In 972 the first Coptian embassy reached Sung China.
When the Turks overrun the northern tiers of the Caliphate, another enemy appeared on the horizon: the Western Crusaders, whose campaigning in Syria and Palestine was horrendously brutal and fanatic. When in the 13th century they twice tried to subdue the Low Egypt, they were routed and decimated by epidemics. San Francesco d'Assisi, a much respected figure in Egypt, brokered a lasting peace in 1221 with the Charta Menfitana.
In 1260 the country experienced the risk of being invaded by Hulagu Khan, which was avoided by paying tributes to the man that, after all, had forever destroyed the Caliphate. In the following centuries Egypt thrived economically, with its stong ties with Indian and Chinese commerce in the ocean and the Venetians in the Mediterranean. In 1271 two Genoese brothers, the Vivaldi, first circumnavigated Africa since the times of the Phoenician expedition under Egyptian mandate in the 6th century BC. Meantime the Coptian preached Christianity, converting to Coptism Ceylon, parts of Southern India, Madagascar and some Swahili kingdoms, besides sending missionaries into the mysterious wilderness of inner Africa, but they couldn't avoide the Islamicization of the Malayans and Indonesians. Some military questions over control of Libya arose with the Zenete Empire, but the countries were too distant to make war seriously. In 1440 a Copt fleet brought astray by a storm discovered Brazil. The news remained secret for less than two years, then the race to America began. The empire tried to hold its own but by 1525 Portuguese and Spaniards have chased them from the Atlantic.
The most terrible menace of modern Egypt came from the Ottomans. When they in 1517 crushed all the Muslim sultanates of Syria and Palestine they came in direct contact with the "polytheist" Copts. A strict alliance with the Hapsburgs ensued in 1530. The final defeat of the Ottoman plans to subdue and Islamicize gypt came with the failed siege of Thebes in 1690. From then on the Ottoman power declined. After a period of unrest, epidemics and religious disputes in the 18th century, the Coptic Empire began an astounding modernization under Joseph XVI (1830-1859). Only the oppositon of France and Britain kept Syria and Palestine in Ottoman hands after the victorious war of 1838-1840. Just before the Copts had helped with many men the independence of Greece and Serbia from the Turks.
With modernity came industrialization, at least in Egypt proper (many regions of Ethiopia were still at the Neolithic or something like this, and scarcely known). In 1854 the Canal of Suais, a work in progress since millennia, was opened, and in 1859, with the Pharaoh dying, the first Imperial Constitution. When WW1 came the Empire stopped the Ottomans with British help on the Canal, then the Coptic armies overrun the Turks in the battles of Gaza, Jericho, Samaria and Damascus. When the armistice of Mudros was signed, they were occupying Aleppo. In 1920, on Franco-British pressure, Egypt was obliged to leave again Syria and Palestine to Western mandates and had to write down a fully democratic Constitution (though the divine right of the Pharaoh remained). Meantime in Arabia another wave of fanaticism under the al Saud tribal clan had risen to power. This caused havoc in the Italian colony of Northern Yemen and when the Italians were overrun in 1927 (causing a brief crisis to Mussolini's fascist regime) Egypt was charged by the League of Nations to intervene and sane the situation. From then on a fanatical, bloody and cruel guerrilla war dragged on for decades till the Copts retired in 1962.
During the Second World War the Coptic Empire initially stayed neutral, but was attacked by Italy in June 1940 on the issue of Libya. In August the Italians had tken all of Libya, but a counterattack led by Grand General Yakob Boutrian defeated them in the battle of Port Apollonia. When the Italians were on the point of being overrun came Rommel with its excellent Afrika Korps, and in November 1941 the Copt 1st Army was severely defeated and routed in the Batlle of the Thousand Mile Sands. On Christmas day, 1941, Rommel reached the Canal but couldn't cross it. On the other side there were Copts, British, Australians, South Africans, Free French, the Hebraic Legion. Besides this he risked to be overrun from the south, where the Copt 7th Army stopped him in the battle of Lake Phayim. Meantime an integralist Islamic filo-Nazi insurrection in Jordan was crushed by the British. The Saudi king sided with Hitler but his forces were defeated on the ground by the Desert Rats in the spring of 1942 (it was the beginning of the Arabian War which was to be fought painfully until 1957). The Battle of the Canal dragged on till the two-pronged Operation Circle of October 24th, 1942, when the Copt 3rd Army and the British 8th Army attacked through the Canal under the fire of a thousand great-caliber guns and the same number of aircraft, whereas the 7th Copt Army and the 1st Anglo-American Army under Patton crushed the Italo-Germans in the bloody tank battle of Menfi. The entire Axis army in Africa was captured after a vain attempted breakthrough near Daba: 200,000 prisoners were made. After that, all of Lybia up to the Punian border in Leptis Noa was retaken by the end of December 1942.
After the liberation of Malta in April 1943 and the invasion and conquest of Sardinia and Corsica in June-August 1943, the Copt XXIIIth Mechanized Corps was sent along with the Allied invasion force in Italy (AIFI) that landed around Brindisi and Taranto on the 9th September, 1943. The XXIIIth Corps distinguished itself at the battles of Bari (after which Italy surrended formally), Termoli and Ortona until it was retired on inner politics issues in March 1944 to be replaced with a smaller Copt Task Force of two divisions, the celebrate 7th Cavalry and the 13th Mechanized. This two units were destined to the Balkan front after the landing at Pola (Istria) on the 6th of June 1944, same day as Normandy, and took part in the battles of Pisino, Capodistria and Trieste. The 7th Cavalry liberated Udine on the 15th October 1944, then the two Copt divisions were sent to battle in Slovenia and Hungary and finished the war, after the conquest of Vienna in Febrauary 1945, at Passau on the Danube, where they received the surrender of the whole German Army Group F with its commander, Feldmarschall Tolsdorf "The Mad".
In 1945 the Coptic Empire entered the Un and in 1959, not without debate, had itself accepted as associate member in the NATO. Its protracted help to Israel after 1948 and its presence in Northern Yemen exposed the empire to the not-so-glad attention of Arab terrorists, both nationalist and religious fanatics. The most terrible of this acts of violence was the hijacking on an El Al airplane in Christopolis crushed on the local soccer stadium during the final of the World Championship in 1998, France-Brazil, which killed more than 50,000.
The Coptic Empire
The Coptian Empire is the natural continuation of the millenary traditions of Egypt and Ethiopia. Its history roots back to the 6th century BC when , to resist the Persian superpower, the Egyptian pharaohs allied dinastically with Nubia and in the next century marched on Ethiopia, adding that huge land to the already wide Egyptian-Nubian empire. The conquest of Ethiopia brought explorations to such an extent that ancient Egyptians are still considered the founders of the geographical science. The Egyptian control of the Red Sea with its wealthy traffics made the empire increasingly rich, its merchant navy established trade and military posts throughout the Indian Ocean from the land of Opunt-Zimbabwe to Si-lon (Ceylon). After finally expelling the Persians in 363 BC, the Egyptian Empire was briefly overrun bey Alexander the Great, but the State survived in Nubia and retook its homeland against Alexander's diadochus Tolomaeus. Long struggles with the Seleucids were followed by the Roman invasion under Julius Caesar. Anew the Court transferred the capital in Nubia, were a brand new capital was build, City of the Gods. In the 2nd century AD Trajan almost managed to subdue even Nubia, but finally Adrian had to retire and grant Egypt its independence on the condition that it remained vassal to Rome providing it with food, slaves and spices. The accord lasted until the Roman Empire entered its 3rd century crisis: the Egyptian managed to conquer the kingdom of Palmyra, then were defeated by Aurelian and obliged to fully honor their commitments.
The penetration of Christianity was a decisive development. The tolerance of the Christian cult was officially declared in 250 as a response to Decius' brutal persecution in the Roman Empire, and the ancient millenary heathen religion was slowly replaced by a local version of Christianity with Neoplatonic, Gnostic and Monophysite infuxes called "Copt" (as it was the name of the Egyptians themselves). In 381 the capital was renamed Christopolis (Greek was always a popular language of culture in the empire, and with the advent of Christianity that went even better). After 395 the ancient enmity with Rome was replaced by a harsh boundary quarrel with Byzantium, often with doctrinal issues to pour gas on the flames amongst reciprocate excommunications and accuses of heresy and apostasy. During the 5 and 6th century the empire underwent a deep cultural change as the millenary traditions of old Egypt were finally replaced by the new Faith in Christ. Due to the abandoning of imbalsamation, the country had to endure severe epidemics of plague, that are calculated to have killed up to one-fifth of the population.
Religious sectarism and power struggles at court were also a problem. On the throne of the Pharaohs there was even a Gothic warrior of the Imperial Guard, Ildibada, who assuming the name of Ramses XXI (542-559) founded the XLVIIth Dinasty (till 645). However Egypt remained a viable power, and when in 640 the Arab Muslims invaded the Low Egypt, they couldn't remain there for more than few years. General Sam-Nafak liberated the Low Egypt defeating 'Amr in the battle of Heliopolis in 644, adate which marks a legend in Coptian history. From then on a century-long, fierce struggle with character of "holy war" (agiopolemon) and jihad respectively was fought between the Caliphate and the Coptian Empire. The major issues were control of the Holy Land and of the Indian Ocean trade. While in the former the Arabs proved generally winners, in the latter the Coptians managed to hold many of their trade posts and colonies and explored furthermore the ocean. In 972 the first Coptian embassy reached Sung China.
When the Turks overrun the northern tiers of the Caliphate, another enemy appeared on the horizon: the Western Crusaders, whose campaigning in Syria and Palestine was horrendously brutal and fanatic. When in the 13th century they twice tried to subdue the Low Egypt, they were routed and decimated by epidemics. San Francesco d'Assisi, a much respected figure in Egypt, brokered a lasting peace in 1221 with the Charta Menfitana.
In 1260 the country experienced the risk of being invaded by Hulagu Khan, which was avoided by paying tributes to the man that, after all, had forever destroyed the Caliphate. In the following centuries Egypt thrived economically, with its stong ties with Indian and Chinese commerce in the ocean and the Venetians in the Mediterranean. In 1271 two Genoese brothers, the Vivaldi, first circumnavigated Africa since the times of the Phoenician expedition under Egyptian mandate in the 6th century BC. Meantime the Coptian preached Christianity, converting to Coptism Ceylon, parts of Southern India, Madagascar and some Swahili kingdoms, besides sending missionaries into the mysterious wilderness of inner Africa, but they couldn't avoide the Islamicization of the Malayans and Indonesians. Some military questions over control of Libya arose with the Zenete Empire, but the countries were too distant to make war seriously. In 1440 a Copt fleet brought astray by a storm discovered Brazil. The news remained secret for less than two years, then the race to America began. The empire tried to hold its own but by 1525 Portuguese and Spaniards have chased them from the Atlantic.
The most terrible menace of modern Egypt came from the Ottomans. When they in 1517 crushed all the Muslim sultanates of Syria and Palestine they came in direct contact with the "polytheist" Copts. A strict alliance with the Hapsburgs ensued in 1530. The final defeat of the Ottoman plans to subdue and Islamicize gypt came with the failed siege of Thebes in 1690. From then on the Ottoman power declined. After a period of unrest, epidemics and religious disputes in the 18th century, the Coptic Empire began an astounding modernization under Joseph XVI (1830-1859). Only the oppositon of France and Britain kept Syria and Palestine in Ottoman hands after the victorious war of 1838-1840. Just before the Copts had helped with many men the independence of Greece and Serbia from the Turks.
With modernity came industrialization, at least in Egypt proper (many regions of Ethiopia were still at the Neolithic or something like this, and scarcely known). In 1854 the Canal of Suais, a work in progress since millennia, was opened, and in 1859, with the Pharaoh dying, the first Imperial Constitution. When WW1 came the Empire stopped the Ottomans with British help on the Canal, then the Coptic armies overrun the Turks in the battles of Gaza, Jericho, Samaria and Damascus. When the armistice of Mudros was signed, they were occupying Aleppo. In 1920, on Franco-British pressure, Egypt was obliged to leave again Syria and Palestine to Western mandates and had to write down a fully democratic Constitution (though the divine right of the Pharaoh remained). Meantime in Arabia another wave of fanaticism under the al Saud tribal clan had risen to power. This caused havoc in the Italian colony of Northern Yemen and when the Italians were overrun in 1927 (causing a brief crisis to Mussolini's fascist regime) Egypt was charged by the League of Nations to intervene and sane the situation. From then on a fanatical, bloody and cruel guerrilla war dragged on for decades till the Copts retired in 1962.
During the Second World War the Coptic Empire initially stayed neutral, but was attacked by Italy in June 1940 on the issue of Libya. In August the Italians had tken all of Libya, but a counterattack led by Grand General Yakob Boutrian defeated them in the battle of Port Apollonia. When the Italians were on the point of being overrun came Rommel with its excellent Afrika Korps, and in November 1941 the Copt 1st Army was severely defeated and routed in the Batlle of the Thousand Mile Sands. On Christmas day, 1941, Rommel reached the Canal but couldn't cross it. On the other side there were Copts, British, Australians, South Africans, Free French, the Hebraic Legion. Besides this he risked to be overrun from the south, where the Copt 7th Army stopped him in the battle of Lake Phayim. Meantime an integralist Islamic filo-Nazi insurrection in Jordan was crushed by the British. The Saudi king sided with Hitler but his forces were defeated on the ground by the Desert Rats in the spring of 1942 (it was the beginning of the Arabian War which was to be fought painfully until 1957). The Battle of the Canal dragged on till the two-pronged Operation Circle of October 24th, 1942, when the Copt 3rd Army and the British 8th Army attacked through the Canal under the fire of a thousand great-caliber guns and the same number of aircraft, whereas the 7th Copt Army and the 1st Anglo-American Army under Patton crushed the Italo-Germans in the bloody tank battle of Menfi. The entire Axis army in Africa was captured after a vain attempted breakthrough near Daba: 200,000 prisoners were made. After that, all of Lybia up to the Punian border in Leptis Noa was retaken by the end of December 1942.
After the liberation of Malta in April 1943 and the invasion and conquest of Sardinia and Corsica in June-August 1943, the Copt XXIIIth Mechanized Corps was sent along with the Allied invasion force in Italy (AIFI) that landed around Brindisi and Taranto on the 9th September, 1943. The XXIIIth Corps distinguished itself at the battles of Bari (after which Italy surrended formally), Termoli and Ortona until it was retired on inner politics issues in March 1944 to be replaced with a smaller Copt Task Force of two divisions, the celebrate 7th Cavalry and the 13th Mechanized. This two units were destined to the Balkan front after the landing at Pola (Istria) on the 6th of June 1944, same day as Normandy, and took part in the battles of Pisino, Capodistria and Trieste. The 7th Cavalry liberated Udine on the 15th October 1944, then the two Copt divisions were sent to battle in Slovenia and Hungary and finished the war, after the conquest of Vienna in Febrauary 1945, at Passau on the Danube, where they received the surrender of the whole German Army Group F with its commander, Feldmarschall Tolsdorf "The Mad".
In 1945 the Coptic Empire entered the Un and in 1959, not without debate, had itself accepted as associate member in the NATO. Its protracted help to Israel after 1948 and its presence in Northern Yemen exposed the empire to the not-so-glad attention of Arab terrorists, both nationalist and religious fanatics. The most terrible of this acts of violence was the hijacking on an El Al airplane in Christopolis crushed on the local soccer stadium during the final of the World Championship in 1998, France-Brazil, which killed more than 50,000.
