In 1889, a small band of unlikely Russian colonists seized the abandoned fortress of Sagallo in today's Djibouti. Led by the would-be Cossack Nikolai Ashinov, they triggered an international incident. But how did all this come to pass? The answer lies in Ashinov's career of skullduggery, deceipt, and falsehood.

Sources: A. V. Lunochkin, “Ataman vol’nykh kazakov” Nikolai Ashinov i ego deiatel’nost’ (Volgograd: Izdatel’stvo Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1999)

C. Jesman, The Russians in Ethiopia: An Essay in Futility (London: Chatto and Windus, 1958)

P. J. Rollins, "Imperial Russia's African Colony", The Russian Review, vol. 27, no. 4 (1968): 432-451

R. F. Byrnes, Pobedonostsev: His Life and Thought (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968)