African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1132 Royal Discussion
Rhine City.

Holding the report on Ferdinand's assassination in his hand, Ernst was very excited. Ernst's report was sent directly from Sarajevo to East Africa, even earlier than the time when Vienna received the news.

The East African intelligence agency had already begun its activities before Ferdinand was ready to go to the Sarajevo area, and even the content of the Black Hand's plans was under the control of the East African intelligence agency.

In other words, if East Africa wanted to prevent this from happening, it could have avoided Ferdinand's assassination through a variety of means, such as notifying the Habsburg royal family in advance, or directly killing the Black Hand members who were carrying out this mission.

Of course, since the East African government did nothing, it also indirectly shows that Ferdinand’s assassination was beneficial to East Africa, so East Africa chose to stand idly by.

If it was Crown Prince Rudolf who had nothing to do and went to Sarajevo, Ernst might have helped him out of brotherhood, but as for Ferdinand, Franz's nephew, Ernst could only say that he was not familiar with him.

In addition to the consideration of hoping for a full-scale war to break out in Europe, East Africa was also not in a position to leak information directly to the Habsburgs. After all, doing so would be tantamount to admitting that East Africa was conducting espionage activities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which could easily cause psychological discomfort on the Austro-Hungarian side.

However, Ernst's attitude towards Ferdinand was not the same as that of his wife Queen Karina. Karina was still quite sad about the death of her uncle's son.

"Poor little Franz, how is Ernst now?" Karina asked sadly.

Archduke Ferdinand is Archduke Franz Ferdinand (the assassinated Archduke Ferdinand), so Karina calls her cousin that, after all, her father is also Archduke Ferdinand (Maximilian I).

Although Ernst was happy about Ferdinand's assassination, he also had to take care of his wife's emotions, so he suppressed his expression and replied calmly: "He has been sent to the hospital for treatment. I heard that there is no fatal injury, but it may have some impact on the lungs."

"Oh my God! Ferdinand's lungs have been in poor condition. Will this have a worse impact on his health?" Karina said.

Ferdinand had a congenital lung disease, probably inherited from his mother, so he found it difficult to endure the winter in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He once spent the winter in Egypt. The bullet from the assassination caused damage to his lungs, which made things worse.

Ernst comforted him, "Dear, little Franz is lucky. At least he didn't lose his life. As long as he rests well, he will get better."

Ernst's father-in-law, Archduke Ferdinand of East Africa, also said to his daughter: "Ernst is right. This time the assassin was only a few meters away from little Franz. It is fortunate that he was not killed by a pistol at this distance."

Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was the nephew of Archduke Ferdinand of East Africa. He was the son of Archduke Karl, the common brother of him and Emperor Franz. Therefore, Ernst's father-in-law was quite concerned about Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary.

Today, Ernst's father-in-law is still in good health, which is in line with common sense. After all, his brother Emperor Franz lived until the end of World War I in his previous life. Archduke Ferdinand of East Africa is now free from worries and has entered retirement life early. He may live longer than his brother in the future. In Ernst's view, living to ninety years old is not a problem. After all, Emperor Franz handled so many government affairs every day and persisted until the age of eighty-six. Ernst asked himself if he could reach the level of Franz.

Archduke Ferdinand of East Africa asked Ernst, "Is the news accurate? After all, there may be variables in such a short time."

Ernst nodded and said, "It should be accurate. We can confirm it with Vienna later. Apart from that one bullet wound, all other bullets were blocked by the car body, so it will definitely not be a big deal if they don't hit the fatal spot."

Ernst was not 100 percent sure, after all, a hospital was not a good place to get information, especially after Ferdinand's accident, security measures were tightened, and it was good enough for East African intelligence personnel to get a general idea of ​​the situation. After Archduke Ferdinand (Maximilian I) initially confirmed the safety of his nephew, he began to worry about the relationship between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. For Archduke Ferdinand (Maximilian I), Austria-Hungary was his motherland and the foundation of the Habsburg family, so the status of Austria-Hungary in his heart was second only to East Africa.

As for Mexico, a country that once had a close relationship with Archduke Ferdinand (Maximilian I), it has long had no relationship with him.

"This action of the Serbs is likely to cause tensions between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. What do you think about this, Ernst?" asked Archduke Ferdinand (Maximilian I).

How else can one look at it? Naturally, one hopes that the two countries will come to blows, and it would be best if the whole of Europe is involved. Of course, Ernst certainly cannot say what is in his mind.

"My opinion is that it will be difficult to ease the tension between Austria-Hungary and Serbia this time. Of course, I personally do not want Austria-Hungary to go to war with Serbia at this time, because in my opinion, Austria-Hungary is not prepared for war." Ernst said realistically based on the poor performance of Austria-Hungary in its previous life.

Considering only from the perspective of military expenditure, the performance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the past was very incompetent. Before the war, the military expenditure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was about 400 million German marks, while after the war, the military expenditure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire only doubled to more than 800 million German marks.

Before the war, Germany's military expenditure was more than 800 million marks. After the war, its military expenditure soared to 3.2 billion marks, almost four times that before the war. France's military expenditure increased from more than 800 million marks before the war to about 1.5 billion marks.

From this we can see that before the war, the military expenditure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was much lower than that of several other powerful countries, and was only higher than Spain and Japan. So theoretically, after the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire should have significantly increased its military spending in order to make up for its previous lack of preparation. But the fact is that after the war, the military expenditure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire only reached the pre-war standards of other major powers.

With this attitude, how could the Austro-Hungarian Empire not hold Germany back when participating in World War I? No wonder it couldn't even deal with tiny Serbia.

Ernst went on to say, "Austria-Hungary was not active in military spending before. Among the major European powers, its military expenditure was only higher than that of Spain. Moreover, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been at peace for a long time, and its military combat effectiveness was also questionable. On the other hand, Serbia had just experienced two Balkan Wars and had a large number of soldiers with rich combat experience. At the same time, its weapons had just been replaced, and were even more sophisticated than some armies within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. If the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not take this opponent seriously, it would easily suffer a great loss in the Balkan Peninsula."

The father-in-law was still a little dissatisfied with Ernst's description of Austria-Hungary. He said, "Serbia is a small country after all, and it has just experienced a war. It may be difficult for it to support a new war with a big country like Austria-Hungary economically. In addition, Austria-Hungary has a lot of military talents. Even if it encounters some setbacks in the early stage, it can still drag down Serbia with its strong national strength, right?"

The gap between the two countries is visible to the naked eye. The population of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is more than 50 million, while Serbia's population, even if including the Croats and Yugoslavs such as Slovenia who support it, is only 5 million, less than one-tenth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This is still an optimistic estimate. After all, Croatia and Slovenia were under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and many people probably did not want to be enemies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

And this is just the gap in population. The data in other aspects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are enough to leave Serbia far behind.

For example, in the military industry, without external support, Serbia would have no ability to organize an army to fight against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After all, Serbia’s military industry was almost zero, and its pillar industries were mainly agriculture.

For example, the Bosnian Governor Potiorek once joked that Serbia was a "pig farmer" because pig farming is Serbia's pillar industry. Previously, due to the economic crisis, Serbia's pig farming industry was hit hard.

(End of this chapter)