African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1137 Territorial Transaction
So in terms of East Africa's feedback on its help to Germany, East Africa is completely worthy of Germany. It's just that these feedbacks are not what Germany needs most urgently. What Germany needs is East Africa's comprehensive strategic cooperation with Germany, not those "empty" economic things.

However, Germany obviously cannot say that economic cooperation between the two countries is not important. After all, Germany's geographical location, climate environment, and land size determine Germany's disadvantages in many aspects, especially its reliance on East Africa for support for many strategic materials.

Moltke the Younger said: "In fact, East Africa's suggestion is also the best option for us. At this time, we simply cannot take care of overseas territories. If we can exchange these overseas territories for East Africa's support, it will also be a good result. These overseas territories are originally the leftovers of Britain and France."

"For the Empire, as long as we defeat Britain and France, then the rich colonies in the Middle East, India and other places will be easily captured. Therefore, it is most beneficial for us to cash in on these colonies."

Moltke the Younger's statement made all the German senior officials fall silent. In fact, the German government understood this truth in their hearts, but they still felt a little aggrieved. The most difficult part was the psychological hurdle.

Now that Moltke the Younger has made his words clear, it is at least a good psychological comfort for the German government. Everything is for the empire. As for East Africa, Germany should now work harder to win it over. Even if it cannot become a comrade-in-arms, as long as East Africa can show a friendly attitude towards Germany, it will be a good thing for Germany.

After all, apart from East Africa, other countries outside Europe do not provide much help to Germany. For example, the United States, although its industrial strength is the best in the world, but given the relationship between the United States and Britain, it is more likely to lean towards Britain.

Although both East Africa and the United States have declared neutrality, there are differences in the closeness of state relations. East Africa is at least a German country and will naturally lean towards Germany.

This is indeed the case. Although Ernst chose to stand idly by, he secretly hoped that the Allies would achieve ultimate victory. East Africa also provided a lot of support to Germany and Austria-Hungary, especially to Austria-Hungary. Ernst provided a lot of help to Austria-Hungary at the beginning.

At this point, William II could only say helplessly: "Let Ambassador Burs from East Africa come over and sign an agreement with us!"

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"We in East Africa definitely support Germany. After all, Germany's victory in the war is a great thing for the entire German nation. As a member of the German nation, we will not oppose Germany on this matter. Instead, we hope that Germany can achieve hegemony in Europe."

Boers started by talking about the friendship between East Africa and Germany. This was actually Boers's true thought. After all, East Africa was a German country after all, and as a German, Boers naturally tended towards Germany in his heart.

Of course, in the eyes of the German monarchs and ministers, it was quite different. Boers, an East African with obvious mixed-race features, still seemed particularly out of place among the real Germans.

It is hard not to make the German monarch and his subjects feel a sense of disharmony. You, an East African with obvious Far Eastern ancestry, are brazenly claiming that you are a part of the German nation. Then what are they?
To be honest, there have been great changes in the outside world for East Africans in recent years. In the past, most of the East Africans abroad had genuine Germanic faces, or there were very few East Asian faces that were very different from Germanic. There was a clear distinction between the two.

Now, East Africans going abroad have been replaced by a large number of people with obvious mixed-race features, and their accents also have obvious Swabian or South German accents.

Such changes in appearance and language all demonstrate the success of East Africa's assimilation policy. It is obvious that the racial integration in East Africa was very thorough, and the promotion of German was quite smooth.

The only pity is that there are some subtle differences between standard German in East Africa and Germany, especially among senior officials in Berlin. After all, Berlin is in the northeast of Germany, and there are still relatively clear differences in accents.

Of course, the German government is not too surprised by this East African spoken language. After all, the East African standard German was originally collected from southern Germany, especially the Swabian region. Swabian German is actually widely distributed in Germany and even the world. After all, the southern German region was once the area with the most serious population loss in the whole of Germany. There are a large number of Swabian German speakers in many countries and regions, including Austria, other regions of Germany, East Africa, North America, South America, Croatia, etc.

For example, in the Croatian region within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Germans in Croatia called themselves Danube Swabians. It can be seen that the population movement in the Swabian region has driven the flow of the Swabian dialect.

The recent large-scale population movement was brought about by the East African regime, including the former Hechingen royal family, which is now the Rhine royal family, which itself belongs to the Swabian cultural circle.

In short, East African officials such as Boers brought a very novel feeling to the German monarchs and ministers. Of course, in the eyes of extreme German nationalists in Germany, East Africa definitely does not belong to the German nation. Compared with the Germans who consider themselves orthodox, East Africans are completely like a new nation.

Of course, the top German government officials would definitely not say this. Although East Africa has a large number of immigrants from the Far East, it is almost the same as Germany in other aspects. More importantly, Germany needs East Africa at this time, and it cannot kick East Africa out of Germany. That will only make Germany's enemies happy.

William II said, "Okay, Ambassador Burse, let's get straight to the point. It's not that our overseas territories cannot be transferred to East Africa, but East Africa must give us due value. After all, these overseas territories are also an important part of the empire's territory."

Boers replied: "Of course there is no problem. We in East Africa will give Germany a satisfactory solution based on the market price. We in East Africa are willing to purchase these German colonies at a price of 50 million Rhine guilders."

The value of the Rhine Guilder can be said to be relatively low among the major countries in the world. Fifty million Rhine Guilders sounds very impressive, but in fact it is only about eight million US dollars.

This price also made William II frown. After all, what East Africa wanted was all of Germany's overseas colonies.

Boers said: "This price is definitely not low. After all, most of the areas such as German Central Africa and the Pacific Territory are sparsely populated tropical rainforest areas, which are very difficult to develop. Especially the islands in the Pacific, which are simply unable to support large-scale business activities."

"It is even more frank to say that many of these colonies are useless. They are not valued by colonial countries such as Britain and France. Therefore, 50 million Rhine guilders is definitely a sincere gesture..."

As a buyer, Boers would certainly point out the shortcomings of these colonies. In fact, Boers did not really belittle the attributes of these German colonies. For East Africa, the most valuable of them are German Central Africa and Togoland, but for East Africa, that's all.

Although German Mitteleuropa is adjacent to East Africa, it is covered with large areas of undeveloped virgin rainforest. Even if East Africa wants to develop the area, it will not be easy, and this is a bottomless pit for Germany.

These overseas territories are indeed a bottomless pit for the German government. The investment far exceeds the returns, and it is impossible for Germany to defend them.

Rather than letting the Allies get away with it, it would be better to give East Africa to them. At least they could get some practical benefits from East Africa. After defeating Britain and France, Germany would not only be able to establish its voice on the European continent, but also be able to directly plunder the wealthy colonies of Britain and France.

Therefore, although Boers was a bit stingy, Germany still agreed to East Africa's plan. As for the specific payment, Germany required that it be exchanged for the war materials it needed, which was also what East Africa wanted. After all, East Africa's port warehouses had long stockpiled a large amount of materials in order to use these materials to make a fortune during the war.

(End of this chapter)