1840s–1890s: (Egyptian Encirclement of Christian Ethiopia — The Administrative Province of Takrur and the Fortified Outpost at Keren Threatening the Highland…

1840s–1890s: (Egyptian Encirclement of Christian Ethiopia — The Administrative Province of Takrur and the Fortified Outpost at Keren Threatening the Highlands, Egyptian Control of Massawa, Britain Arranging Withdrawal Only for Italy to Arrive, and the Colony of Eritrea Founded by the End of the 1880s): Between the 1840s and the 1860s, an increasingly aggressive Egyptian presence was established in southern Sudan and the western lowlands of Eritrea, creeping into the Christian highlands. The creation of the administrative province of Takrur and a fortified outpost at Keren posed a direct threat to the Ethiopians, as did the consolidation of Egyptian control of Massawa on the Eritrean coast. Those who were necessary as trading partners were also religious and political antagonists, contributing to the Ethiopian sense of encirclement and frustration at the apparent indifference of European powers who were supposed to be spiritual allies. The Christian militancy of nineteenth-century Ethiopia was driven in large part by the supposed Muslim threat — a threat lodged deep in the highland historical imagination. In the mid-1880s, Britain arranged for the Egyptians to withdraw from Keren and Massawa, but only to oversee the arrival of the Italians. By the end of the 1880s, Italy had laid the foundations of the colony of Eritrea, and the Muslims and Christians of the area would come under Italian rule in the course of the 1890s.