African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1047: Austro-Hungarian Navy Seeks Request
It doesn't matter if Bohemia becomes independent, the problem is that most of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's industries are located in Bohemia, especially the military industry. Without Bohemia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would basically become a second-rate country.

The name of the East African Province of Bohemia (Zimbabwe) actually comes from the Bohemian region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, symbolizing the most industrially developed place in East Africa. Of course, the original Matabele Province industry was also divided into two, and part of the industry was incorporated into the Lorraine Province along with Bulawayo.

In addition to the Bohemian Industrial Zone, other local industries in East Africa are also strong, and multiple cores have been developed. Even if an industrial zone suffers a fatal blow, it will not cause irreparable losses to East African industry.

The industrial dispersion in East Africa is actually closely related to the non-concentration of industrial development resources in East Africa. In East Africa, there are actually places with highly concentrated industrial resources, such as the northeastern United States, Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or the Ruhr area in Germany, which are Transvaal and Orange in South Africa in the past.

If East Africa puts all its efforts into developing the region, there is no doubt that the industry in South Africa will rise rapidly. However, due to national strategic considerations, East Africa has invested more in industrial construction in other places. Not to mention South Africa, even Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, the most industrially developed cities in East Africa, would not have been without super-large cities with a population of over one million if East Africa had concentrated its resources on development.

Industrial construction in East Africa is not only for the purpose of industrial growth rate, but also for regional coordinated development, so as to build a unified national market and a national industrial system. Decentralized industry is also conducive to balancing the dominance of local enterprises. After all, East Africa is a typical large government country.

Based on the various problems presented by later industrial development, Ernst tried his best to make the East African industrial system more reasonable and avoid extremism. To be more specific, he tried to achieve "sustainable development" as much as possible.

The same is true for the East African shipbuilding industry. Over the past decade or so, the East African shipbuilding industry has moved to the west coast and the coast of Mozambique. In a short period of time, the East African shipbuilding industry has almost tripled.

The expansion of the shipbuilding industry and a clearer division of labor have further reduced the cost of East Africa's shipbuilding industry. At the same time, the continuous improvement of shipbuilding technology and the protection of the domestic market have enabled the East African shipbuilding industry to enter a stage of healthy development.

The rapid development of the shipbuilding industry has also laid the foundation for the further development of the East African Navy. Without this major premise, even if East Africa proposed an ambitious naval shipbuilding plan, it would be unable to complete it and could only seek help from other countries, such as Japan, by purchasing warships from Britain and Germany.

Bruce said to Erich, "Our country's shipbuilding industry is almost entirely state-owned, so after getting the central government's approval, the various military shipyards can integrate most of the resources, so that our navy is able to formulate ambitious development plans. This is obviously not the case with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The national conditions of the two countries are different, and your navy is not taken seriously, so development is difficult."

The shipbuilding industry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire actually developed quite fast, but this phenomenon is common in all normal countries. Even the Ottoman Empire and the Far Eastern Empire achieved remarkable results in shipbuilding after certain reforms.

However, the liberalized economy is obviously no match for the planned economy of East Africa in terms of military capacity expansion. To put it bluntly, East Africa's planned economy was slightly modified when the war broke out, and was basically no different from the wartime economy.

Fortunately, the main goal of East Africa's planned economy is to improve the national industrialization level. If it were really centered on developing the national defense industry like the Soviet Union's first two five-year plans, East Africa's planned economy would basically not be much different from a wartime economy.

After all, in the early stages of the Soviet Union's industrialization, the external environment it faced was a hundred times worse than that in East Africa, although they were all preparing for war to prevent Western armed intervention.

East Africa does not have such worries, so naturally it will not formulate a five-year plan centered around the defense industry. Although East Africa's defense industry is an important development goal in the Second Five-Year Plan, its proportion is definitely not as high as that of the Soviet Union.

This can be seen from the industrial investment in East Africa. During the Second Five-Year Plan, at least 40% of the industrial funds in East Africa were used for the development of light industry. After removing a number of heavy industries that were not related to the national defense industry, the funds actually used to develop the national defense industry were not much. The main reason is that the national defense industry and heavy industry are deeply involved and the boundaries are blurred. Take the tractor manufacturing industry as an example. Tractor factories can produce tanks, but in the Second Five-Year Plan of East Africa, the tractor manufacturing industry is an absolute civilian industry. In addition to improving the level of the national defense industry in East Africa, it can also have a significant positive impact on industries closely related to people's livelihood, such as transportation, agriculture, etc.

Erich had heard a little about East Africa's economic system, and there was nothing to criticize. After all, in the eyes of the outside world, East Africa was the private property of the Rhine royal family. It was essentially a country established through colonial plunder, rather than a country like the Soviet Union that was established by overthrowing the original social order from the bottom up. Therefore, although East Africa was a planned economy country, it would not arouse hatred from foreign countries like the Soviet Union.

On the contrary, Bruce's description of East Africa's military shipbuilding industry aroused Erich's great envy. He said: "If the Imperial Navy could also obtain abundant resources like East Africa, the eastern Mediterranean would have long been the Imperial Navy's private territory!"

In Erich's view, the East African Navy has great autonomy and is not severely restricted by various forces like the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Although the Hungarian Parliament is the main obstacle to naval funding, without the Hungarian Parliament, the army will also suppress naval development.

The national conditions of East Africa are different from those of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although East Africa has a vast land area, it has some favorable coastlines and many overseas colonies. Although East Africa's overseas territories are not important transportation routes, their strategic position is also above average.

Under such circumstances, the position of the East African Navy in the East African Army was obviously not comparable to that of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

Moreover, the East African shipbuilding industry can fully serve its own navy. If the Austro-Hungarian Empire wants to develop its navy, it will need more real money. According to the process, it will first entrust various shipyards to design according to military needs, and purchase shipbuilding resources through the market. However, price changes may greatly reduce the original budget at any time. In East Africa, the allocation of materials across the country can be achieved through instructions and plans.

In this case, if East Africa is a country with light military power and aggressive behavior, the national industry is sufficient to support the East African government to build a large army like Russia.

Of course, Erich's understanding of the East African Navy was not comprehensive. Even among capitalist countries, the dual system of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was quite strange. If this problem had been solved, the Austro-Hungarian Navy would not have been unable to make further progress. Not to mention developing like the German Navy, at least it would not have encountered such huge resistance as it does now.

Erich said: "Our navy is in an awkward situation now. The emergence of your and Britain's new battleships has made the Radetzky, which we are building, out of date. If we cannot make adjustments, this battleship may not be able to fulfill its mission even if it is launched."

The most embarrassing thing is not just the backwardness of this pre-dreadnought, but the budget of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The budget of the Austro-Hungarian Navy was already tight, and the major modification of the new warship would cost a lot of money. The original design of the Radetzky might not achieve the desired effect if it was temporarily modified. After all, its original design was a typical pre-dreadnought. Even if it was modified, it could only become a "quasi-dreadnought" at most.

Under such circumstances, the Austro-Hungarian Navy naturally had to take a shortcut, which was to seek help from East Africa. East Africa itself had a "quasi-dreadnought" Bagamoyo, as well as the world's second "dreadnought" Perseverance.

If the relevant data could be obtained through East Africa, the modification plan for the Radetzky would undoubtedly be much smoother. Of course, in this case, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would definitely have to purchase relevant parts and equipment from East Africa, such as the dreadnought's steam turbine, the dreadnought's fire control system, etc. Currently, only Britain and East Africa have finished products.

(End of this chapter)