African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1318 European Situation
In mid-1918, with the occurrence of a series of major international events and the changes in the domestic situation in East Africa, the three major tasks of the East African government can be summarized as "digestion", "construction" and "military expansion".

Digestion, as the name suggests, means digesting a series of achievements made in East Africa in recent years, especially the newly opened overseas markets and colonies.

In the past few years, East Africa's trade with South America, the Far East and the Indian Ocean coast has continued to expand. These new market shares have injected vitality into East Africa's economic development.

If one wants to maintain the stability of these markets and colonies, then the issue of "military expansion" is involved. Overseas markets and colonies without military force can only be illusions, so the expansion of the East African Navy is still progressing steadily. This is a move that a powerful country must take.

The construction is mainly aimed at the domestic economic construction, which is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is the reform of state-owned enterprises, and the other is the guidance of the free market and the improvement of market system and legal construction.

Its main content is basically guided by the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" launched by East Africa in 1916, and it has been continuously deepened and improved. This is the basic task of the East African government, or the minimum economic development goal, so there is no need to describe it in detail.

Obviously, the hot economic development trend will easily enable East Africa to successfully complete all indicators of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" ahead of schedule.

Therefore, in 1918, the focus of the East African government's work was still on the topic of military expansion, and Ernst convened a meeting at the Rhine Palace for this purpose.

Defense Minister Pripyat summarized the development of the East African army in recent years: "By 1918, the size of the National Defense Force had grown to an unprecedented 85 people, with nearly 65 army personnel, more than 17 navy and marines, and nearly 2 air force personnel."

"Among them, the motorization rate of the army is as high as 75%, and the size of the navy's warships exceeds 1.4 million tons."

"Our country's overall military strength currently ranks behind Britain, France, Germany, and Austria. If broken down, the Empire's Army is ranked fourth in the world, the Navy is ranked second, and the Air Force is ranked first."

The Ministry of National Defense came to this conclusion mainly because the imperial Russian army was basically paralyzed. With the fall of Tsarist Russia, the combat effectiveness of the Russian army plummeted. In last year's war between the Russian Labor Party and Germany, the former imperial Russian army led by the Russian Labor Party was completely unable to play a role, resulting in a huge collapse of the front battlefield.

This also led to the Russian Labor Party urgently calling for a halt to the war, and making peace with the Allies and signing an armistice treaty.

Therefore, in the eyes of the East African army today, Russia is no longer qualified to be ranked among the world's military powers. At least before the Russian Labor Party reorganizes the army and trains its own military cadres, the Russian army is basically in good shape but useless.

As for other countries, the countries ranked before East Africa, namely Britain, France, Germany and Austria, if we compare their comprehensive strength, they may not necessarily rank ahead of East Africa.

For example, in the UK, the Royal Navy has raised the data of the entire British army, while for the other three countries, only the army size is now larger than that of East Africa, which has not mobilized for war.

Therefore, what Pripyat said about the East African Defense Force ranking fourth in the world in strength is not an exaggeration, and it is even a relatively conservative statement.

As for the United States, which has already joined the Allied Powers, its current military strength is almost negligible. Even after a round of military expansion, the current size of the US military has only reached a few hundred thousand people, less than half of that in East Africa.

The main reason was that the size of the U.S. standing army was too small before the war, with the army and navy totaling only tens of thousands of people.

Pripyat said: "The Russian military system is paralyzed, soldiers have no desire to fight, a large number of military commanders have deserted, and coupled with the Russian Civil War, the current Russian army is just a showpiece, and although the United States has gone through a round of conscription, most of the new recruits have no combat effectiveness at all. At the same time, the performance of the United States after entering the war is also relatively timid, which is bound to affect the combat effectiveness of the US military."

After being successfully tricked into boarding the ship by Britain and France, the United States has not shown the courage of its previous life, mainly because the combat effectiveness of the Allies is now too strong. The fundamental reason for this result is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany's other two allies have shown combat effectiveness far beyond their previous lives.

Today, Crown Prince Rudolf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has taken full control of the national power. Compared with Emperor Franz, he has more energy and can better integrate national resources to support the war.

A key point is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire now has a military strength of nearly four million, which was impossible for the Austro-Hungarian Empire in its previous life. Moreover, after Italy was dismantled in the last century, it greatly affected the destiny of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The combat effectiveness of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire also far exceeds the historical level. Especially after the Ottoman Empire was successively armed by Germany and East Africa, its performance was much stronger than in the previous life.

All in all, the situation of World War I is still very unclear, even after the United States joined. The fact that the Austro-Hungarian Empire performed better than in the past means that the morale of the Allies will not collapse as it did in the past when the United States declared war.

In the previous life, after the First World War developed to 1918, the Allies had basically reached their limit, but because of the emergence of East Africa, or the influence of Ernst, the situation had completely changed.

In the previous life, the biggest problem of the Allies was production and logistics, but in this time and space, until 1918, the Allies were able to obtain a large amount of strategic materials through East Africa, which allowed the Allied economy to maintain normal operation.

In particular, the Allies still had large reserves of resources such as cotton, sugar, rubber, oil, and rare metals, and there was basically no problem with food and other major minerals after Russia withdrew from the war.

Because the strength of the Allies in this time and space has increased, the Allies have obtained more spoils of war from Russia, including most of the three Baltic countries in the previous life, Poland, the entire territory of Moldova, and most of Ukraine and Belarus.

These regions were the main grain and mineral producing areas of Tsarist Russia, and also accounted for nearly half of the original Russia's industry.

In the past, the Allies did not have enough time to digest these spoils and strengthen their own strength, but it is hard to say now.

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As long as the Allies can digest the results of the war on the Eastern Front, even if the United States joins the Allies, it may not be able to change the war situation in Europe.

This also involves the influence of Italy. After all, Italy was one of the world's great powers in the past. Even if Italy joins the Allied Powers now, it will not be able to restrain the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

That’s right, Italy has not joined the war until now, or the entire Apennine Peninsula has maintained neutrality. The Papal States and Naples were themselves supported by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Before, Italy did not dare to join the war due to the gap in strength, but now, it has more concerns, because the powerful combat effectiveness demonstrated by the Austro-Hungarian Empire is simply not something Italy can contend with. This may also be affected by the Italo-Austrian War in the last century, so the Kingdom of Italy has long lost the ambition to unify the Apennine Peninsula.

After all, once a person's spirit is destroyed, it is much more difficult to build it up again, and the same goes for a country. The reason why Italy was able to compete with the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the past was based on one victory after another.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire is now in an excellent state, especially after it and Germany seized a large amount of Russian spoils. Even Hungary, which had been lagging behind, has become active.

The benefits that Austro-Hungary gained from Russia were most beneficial to Hungary. After all, the borders between Russia and Austro-Hungary were closer to Hungary. The carrot of being able to share more spoils after the war was too tempting even for the stubborn Hungarian donkey to resist. So Hungary underwent a major change in its attitude towards the war.

(End of this chapter)