African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1148 Arms Trade
In this era, steel production is one of the most important criteria for measuring a country's industrial strength. East Africa's steel production has climbed to the first place in the world, which to a certain extent shows that East Africa's industrial scale may even exceed that of the United States.

This is easy to understand. After all, East Africa has a larger population than the United States, and its domestic industrial demand is large. Moreover, at the beginning of this century, East African industry has been in a stage of rapid expansion. In contrast, industrial development in Europe and the United States has been twists and turns due to the economic crisis.

If the outbreak of World War I had not interrupted the spread of a new round of economic crisis, the industries of European countries might have shrunk further.

As John Lear finished speaking, some East African government officials gained a certain understanding of the current export trade.

In 1914, the total tonnage of merchant ships in the world was only more than million tons, of which Britain took the lead with an astonishing million tons, accounting for half of the world's shipping industry. It was followed by Germany, and the United States and East Africa were in the second tier.

That is to say, about 25% of the world's maritime cargo ships now serve East Africa. This is a rather astonishing figure. Probably only the United Kingdom and the United States can compare with it.

Needless to say, the United States had the largest industrial scale in the world before World War I and had the advantage of Atlantic shipping routes, while Britain had huge colonies and a global market to support it.

It is worth mentioning that after the outbreak of the war, Britain also placed a large number of orders to East Africa, and these goods were mainly carried out by British freight companies. The British shipping industry was already ranked first in the world, so naturally it did not need help from other countries.

This is also the main reason why the ocean-going merchant ships of Germany and Austria-Hungary occupied an important position in East Africa's foreign exports. Due to the restrictions of Britain, Germany and Austria-Hungary could only maximize the benefits of limited resources.

"Affected by the war, the arms trade also soared, especially in countries that used German weapons, such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, etc., which further increased the total amount of my country's overseas arms exports."

Generally speaking, the British could tolerate the trade of civilian goods between the United States, East Africa and the Allies, but they would definitely guard against arms. The main reason why East Africa was able to bypass the joint "law enforcement" of Britain and France was that East Africa had diversified its trade routes to Europe.

The United States' trade with Europe is mainly carried out through the Atlantic Ocean, while there are three sea routes for trade between East Africa and Europe.

They are the Atlantic route, which departs from the west coast of East Africa and has the UK, France and Germany as its main destinations. The Mediterranean and Black Sea routes, whose main destinations are Central and Eastern European countries, mainly Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Finally, there is the Persian Gulf route, which is also a key route for East Africa to smuggle arms to Europe.

John Lear also explained: "Our arms trade with the Allies mainly used the Ottoman Empire as a transit point, first arriving at the Iraqi port of the Ottoman Empire, and finally transported to Central and Eastern Europe via the Baghdad Railway."

"Among them, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the important emerging arms markets opened up by our country. Affected by the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had to customize a large number of rifles, ammunition, artillery and other military weapons from us."

In the early days, East Africa generally imported arms from Austria-Hungary, such as artillery and military ships. Later, as East Africa's own military industry grew stronger, the arms trade between East Africa and Austria-Hungary became almost equal.

However, there had never been a case where Austria-Hungary ordered a large number of army weapons from East Africa, and this was the first time in half a century.

The main reason for this situation was that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not well prepared for war before the war.

John Lear also explained this: "The war situation has now developed beyond the expectations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so the Austro-Hungarian Empire has to carry out a second mobilization, which makes the Austro-Hungarian Empire's military production line unable to keep up with the expansion of the army."

Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not facing the pressure of fighting on two fronts like Germany, the Tsarist Russia alone was enough to make it difficult for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to cope. Moreover, Serbia, which was despised by the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the war, tied up a large number of Austro-Hungarian troops.

This was not the worst case scenario. After all, another country that had conflicts with Austria-Hungary was Italy. Currently, Italy still maintained a neutral policy, but as soon as Austria-Hungary showed signs of decline, Italy would definitely bite hard. At least, Italy would definitely want to regain the lost territories of Lombardy and Venice, but now Italy was much more cautious and was no longer the famous goalkeeper of the European powers in the past.

For Italy, regaining Lombardy would be a huge victory. If Venice could be recaptured, the Kingdom of Italy would once again become a hero to the Italians. However, the disastrous defeat in the Italo-Austrian War of the last century has left the Italian top leaders with lingering fears, so they dare not act rashly for the time being.

However, this does not mean that the Kingdom of Italy is not worthy of attention. In recent years, the economic development of the Kingdom of Italy has been smooth sailing, because the population and industry losses suffered in the Italo-Austrian War have basically been made up.

After all, the Italian region, especially the Kingdom of Naples in the south, is the most fertile place in Europe today. The Kingdom of Italy can fully absorb the population for industrial development from the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples, and at the same time provide the basic conditions for Italy to open up the Red Sea colonies.

The existence of Italy also forced the Austro-Hungarian Empire to take it seriously, as it could open up the Western Front at any time. Romania was also not a stabilizing factor.

Although Romania is ruled by the Sigmaringen royal family, the mainstream public opinion in Romania is indeed towards Britain and France.

There are a large number of Romanians living in eastern Hungary, and Romania wants to incorporate the areas where Romanians gather in Austria-Hungary into its territory. Of course, Romania is much more stable than Italy, so this unstable factor can be ignored for the time being.

In short, the huge defense pressure on the Austro-Hungarian Empire forced it to order a large amount of weapons and equipment from East Africa to fill the current gap in its own military industry.

Although there are differences in weapon standards between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and East Africa, there are still many similarities because East Africa learned skills from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

John Lear went on to say: "Of course, compared to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire are our most stable European customers at present. Although the two countries have not yet participated in the war, they are also preparing for war."

"Among them, the amount of weapons Bulgaria imported from us ranks third, second only to Germany and Austria-Hungary. The reason for this is that Germany is fighting on two fronts, and its military industry gives priority to serving the German army, so Bulgaria can't get the goods, so it can only find a way from us."

Bulgaria's war mobilization capabilities are far superior to those of other countries. As the Prussia of the Balkan Peninsula, it can be said that it is better than its predecessor.

East Africa can also infer Bulgaria’s next move from Bulgaria’s current order situation. Because of the failure of the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria feels deeply about Serbia and will definitely look for opportunities to stab Serbia in the back.

In the previous war, Bulgaria mobilized more than one million people to participate in the war, and Ernst also wanted to know what kind of combat power this Balkan powerhouse could unleash with the support of East Africa.

The arms trade between East Africa and the above-mentioned countries is almost entirely completed through the Baghdad Railway. Of course, European arms orders do make East Africa very wealthy, but it certainly cannot last long.

Once the production transformation in Germany and Austria-Hungary is fully completed, this market gap will basically be filled, but the situation in Bulgaria is completely different.

The East African government was certain that Bulgaria would join the war, and Bulgaria was also showing the best advertisement for the performance of East African weapons on the European battlefield. After all, Bulgaria's combat effectiveness in the past was amazing, and Ernst believed that East African weapons could perform best in the Bulgarian army.

(End of this chapter)