African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1312: Horn of Africa
Next, the East African government and the British had an in-depth discussion on the Indian Ocean issue, which was also the purpose of Thomson's visit.

Thomson said: "In recent years, the gangsters led by Hassan have set off a bloody storm in the Horn of Africa, seriously threatening the safety of merchant ships of various countries in the Gulf of Aden."

“So the two countries can definitely cooperate to combat the pirates in the Gulf of Aden led by Hassan and other forces, and we are also willing to hand over the Horn of Africa region east of Berbera to East Africa to maintain stability there.”

Who is Hassan? He deserves to be singled out by Thomson.

This has to start with the establishment of the British Somaliland colony. In the last century, East Africa controlled most of southern Somalia. At the same time, the British Somaliland colony was not idle. In order to prevent the Horn of Africa from falling into the hands of East Africans, Britain actively expanded eastward and almost occupied the coastal areas of the Gulf of Aden in Somalia in the previous life.

But from the very beginning, Britain's colonization in Somaliland was not very stable. After all, as an invader, the locals were bound to put up fierce resistance.

Hassan was the leader of the Arab resistance forces that rose in British Somaliland in the late 1990s. Although there was a huge gap in strength between them and the British, Hassan led his followers deep into the interior of British Somaliland and negotiated with the British.

Unlike East Africa, the British could not take a two-pronged approach of conquering by force while replacing the old with the new. This allowed Hassan to make full use of the mass base of British Somaliland and wage guerrilla warfare against the British.

East Africa can do whatever it wants on the African continent because it relies on a broad "mass base". Without the masses, it would recruit large numbers of immigrants from the Far East. Even a bad place like Somalia would be much better for the immigrants from the Far East after they have taken it over than their original living environment.

The strength of farming warriors has never been underestimated. Of course, the prerequisite is that they can be "given a voice" or their worries can be solved. The reason why Ernst's colonial model can be successful lies in the word "grab".

By robbing the indigenous people of Africa, they obtained their land, water, minerals and other resources that could generate economic value and provide a living environment.

But Britain could not copy this model. In fact, the British had the conditions to do so. After all, the living conditions of cattle and horses in India at that time were not much better than those of immigrants from the Far East Empire.

However, Ernst dared to promote German-Chinese integration, treating Far Eastern immigrants as his own people, intermarrying and assimilating them, while the British obviously could not accept treating Indians as their own people.

This is the difference between the two. Of course, since the British look down on Indians, they can also immigrate their own citizens and replace them with new ones. However, the bottom-level cattle and horses in Britain are no longer the same as they were in the early days of industrialization.

As things have developed to this day, even the lowest class of people in the UK have a fairly good quality of life. Moreover, even if they cannot survive in their own country, they still have plenty of options, such as immigrating to the United States, Canada, Australia and other regions. Naturally, no one wants to go to Somaliland to suffer.

Therefore, the British government could only conquer Somaliland through force, but was unable to establish stable rule there.

This is also influenced by the relatively high level of civilization in Somaliland. Somaliland is a traditional Arab power area, so the Arab forces in Somaliland have the courage to resist invaders like Britain.

A high level of civilization also means broad knowledge and a high level of organization. In the feudal era, Arab civilization was at least a rival of Europe. Now Europe is only one step ahead of them, but it is not to the point where they have to surrender directly.

So although British Somaliland nominally belonged to the British sphere of influence, their influence only extended to the coastal areas.

In fact, now the British not only have no way to deal with Hassan and other resistance forces, but also have to endure their harassment of British-controlled areas. After all, Britain is now deeply mired in the quagmire of World War I, so it is better to throw this burden to East Africa.

Of course, Britain has no intention of completely abandoning Somaliland. They plan to retain the western area headed by Berbera.

Why Berbera? The reason is very simple. Berbera is the only deep-water port in the area suitable for building a military base.

To the east of Berbera, the coastline is straight and there are no natural harbors, unless there is large-scale artificial transformation, but this is obviously too costly.

"Hassan!" The East African government was quite familiar with this "bandit chief" active in British Somaliland. The reason was that since he was an Arab "hero" in Somalia, he was naturally anti-British and anti-East African at the same time.

East Africa was also one of the powers that invaded the Somali region, but in the past, the Somali region invaded by East Africa had little intersection with Hassan's forces.

After all, in the 19th century, there were many countries in the Somalia region, and the countries destroyed in East Africa obviously had nothing to do with Hassan.

But when East Africa expanded to the intersection of British Somaliland, the situation naturally became different, especially with the establishment of the city of Dire Dawa. Of course, at that time Dire Dawa was just a military town.

As long as they are bordering countries and regions, territorial disputes have always been a very common problem. In addition, when East Africa invaded the Somalia region in the north, a large number of Somalis fled to Somaliland in the north, and many of these people joined Hassan's forces.

After all, in the early days of East African rule in the Somali region, it can be said that people were killed in large numbers or taken to the south to be slaves. Any Somalis with a sense of crisis would have fled long ago.

So there are two types of members in Hassan's forces. One is those who were driven from the coast to the inland by the British, including Hassan himself, and the other is the Somalis who fled from East Africa to join Hassan.

The area of ​​activity of Hassan's forces happened to be between Britain and East Africa, and conflicts with the two major powers were inevitable.

Of course, Hassan’s forces have always been mainly focused on fighting against Britain, but this does not mean that they have no conflicts with East Africa.

Since it was clear that Hassan was the enemy of East Africa, Ernst said without hesitation: "Of course, we in East Africa will fight against Hassan's gang and maintain the security of the Gulf of Aden. We will do our utmost to do so."

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East Africa obviously cannot let Hassan go, not only because his existence poses a threat to East Africa's national defense security, especially the border areas.

By cracking down on Hassan's gang, we can legitimately take over nearly 150,000 square kilometers of land in Africa and officially expand the territory of East Africa to the waters of the Gulf of Aden. Where can you find such a good thing?

Although the environment in the Horn of Africa is more severe, with deserts and a lack of water sources such as rivers, East Africa values ​​the strategic value of the Horn of Africa more.

As for the lack of a natural harbor like Berbera, it does not matter. It is not necessary to deploy a lot of naval forces there, but the East African Navy can establish an intelligence early warning mechanism here, so as to avoid the situation during the South African War when the British Royal Navy went south from the Mediterranean along the Red Sea to Mogadishu.

Moreover, now that the air force has emerged, we can completely rely on the coastal land to build airports and use military aircraft to achieve a certain blockade effect on the Gulf of Aden.

It can be said that the emergence of airplanes has greatly changed the world's picky attitude towards colonies. Some small islands that were previously of no value to the navy can, with a little modification, become unsinkable sea fortresses with a wider strike range.

Of course, nowadays only East Africa pays more attention to this area, such as the small islands in the Sunda Strait. After all, aircraft have just been used on a large scale on the European battlefield, and many people have not yet realized its importance.

The Horn of Africa region ceded by the UK is not just one or two islands, but a piece of land of nearly 150,000 square kilometers.

In addition, its triangular shape extends deep into the Indian Ocean. By acquiring this area, the coastline of East Africa will directly increase by nearly 1,000 kilometers.

Hassan naturally became a victim of the political game between East Africa and Britain. East Africa was not as easy to deal with as Britain.

(End of this chapter)