Chapter 1564 Transaction

If power is not used, it will expire. While the Habsburg family still holds power in the empire, Emperor Rudolf has made up his mind to sell off as much of the empire's assets as possible.

As one of the world's great powers, the Austro-Hungarian Empire still has its unique advantages in some areas, especially in military industry, machinery and infrastructure.

The Skoda Arsenal is most famous for its artillery manufacturing technology, capable of producing the world's top heavy artillery. Then there is the United Shipyard in Trieste, which has the ability to independently produce large ships such as battleships.

In terms of mechanical manufacturing, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had unique advantages in many areas, especially traditional mechanical manufacturing.

As for infrastructure capacity, it was born out of the complex geographical environment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was mountainous, so it had more advantages than other European countries in transportation and infrastructure construction.

Of course, overall, although the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a European power, its strength in the industrial field was also very limited, especially after its old rival, the Soviet Union, accelerated its industrialization. The Austro-Hungarian Empire has now been left behind by the Soviet Union.

…

April 2, 1934.

East Africa, Rhine City.

The Habsburgs wanted to sell their assets, and naturally the only option for the buyer was East Africa. East Africa was naturally interested in Emperor Rudolf's idea.

To this end, Crown Prince Friedrich specially organized professionals from various fields in the country to evaluate the technological advantages and industrial development of both East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

"Your Highness, the Empire currently completely crushes the Austro-Hungarian Empire in terms of technology and industry. The only countries that can compete with the Empire are the United States and Germany." Schmitz, director of the East African Industrial Research Center, said without hesitation.

Schmitz thought that Crown Prince Friedrich just wanted to understand the current development of the empire's science and technology and industry, so he came to this conclusion.

Crown Prince Friedrich didn't reveal his secret, but instead asked in a guiding tone, "I'm naturally aware of the Empire's overall technological and industrial development. Right now, I just want to know if there's any gap between us and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After all, as one of the world's great powers, the Austro-Hungarian Empire must have some unique skills!"

After he said this, Schmitz naturally understood. He happened to know some data about the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

"Your Highness, if that's what you're asking about, I do have some understanding of it. After all, our research center has been paying close attention to the industrial and technological developments of countries around the world for a long time."

"When it comes to some of the advanced technologies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the first thing that comes to my mind is the Austro-Hungarian optical technology. In terms of optical technology, we lag behind the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and of course, we lag even further behind Germany."

"Germany undoubtedly ranks first in the field of optics, while the Austro-Hungarian Empire's own optical technology research is roughly at the same level as my country's. However, they were able to obtain some technical support from Germany, the most famous of which was the Schott Glass Factory in Peterwald. This factory was invested in and built by the German company Carl Zeiss, which produces high-quality optical glass for it."

"Of course, the technology of this factory is still mainly controlled by Zeiss, especially the production formula, which is basically impossible to obtain. However, my country imports a large number of lenses from Zeiss every year."

"The Austro-Hungarian Empire's own optical technology companies included Voigtlander and Leitz. The former mainly produced cameras and lenses, but its technology was slightly inferior to that of Germany. The latter was the most important microscope manufacturer in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, specializing in the medical field."

Voigtlander is a relatively old company. It was founded in the 18th century and is one of the oldest optical companies in the world. Even in the 21st century, some of the brands created by Voigtlander still exist.

Leitz was founded in 1876 and specializes in biological and medical microscopes. In its previous life, it was acquired by an American company after World War II, and its technology was integrated into the global optical industry. However, it is worth mentioning that there is also a Leitz company in Germany, the full name of which is Ernst Leitz, the predecessor of Leica.

Among them, the Vienna Leitz Company appeared the latest, but its establishment time was not much later than that of East Africa.

In 1934, Germany was undoubtedly at the forefront of the global optical industry. Carl Zeiss was recognized as the world's leading optical company, dominating the high-end optical market. Its clients included East Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

The German Ernst Leitz company mentioned earlier is ranked second in the world, second only to Zeiss.

At present, the only country that can compete with Germany in the field of optics is the United States. The most famous American company, Kodak, ranks third in the world.

Then, countries such as East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are at the second-tier level in the field of optics, but the Austro-Hungarian Empire is slightly better than East Africa. The Austro-Hungarian Empire's Voigtlander ranks fourth in the world, which is the leading level of the second-tier optical companies.

However, there are some special circumstances with Voigtlander. Although the company was founded in Austria, its family moved to Germany in the last century. Therefore, Voigtlander's business is distributed in both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany, and is considered to be shared by the two countries.

In general, East Africa's development in the optical industry is relatively lagging behind, but there is no way around it. East Africa has a short history and insufficient accumulation. The fact that it can squeeze into the second echelon is already the result of rapid development in recent years.

At present, East Africa's strength in the optical industry is among the top five in the world, comparable to the United Kingdom. The first is Germany, then the United States, and the third is the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but many of its technologies rely on Germany.

Following East Africa and the United Kingdom are countries such as Japan, France, Switzerland and Italy. Japan, like East Africa, is an emerging star in the field of optics.

It is worth mentioning that the United States, Austria-Hungary, East Africa, Japan, and Italy all relied on Germany for optical technology, especially Japan and Italy.

After listening to Schmitz's introduction, Crown Prince Friedrich's interest in this area was greatly reduced, because the Austro-Hungarian Empire's advantage in optical technology over East Africa was not as great as imagined, and its dependence on Germany was also very strong. The headquarters of its most powerful local brand Voigtlander is still in Germany.

The possibility of East Africa benefiting from Austria-Hungary in this regard was greatly reduced.

So, Crown Prince Friedrich said, “Director Schmitz, please introduce other fields!”

Schmitz said: "In other aspects, the Austro-Hungarian Empire has something worth learning from in terms of metallurgy technology. This is also an important foundation for the development of the Austro-Hungarian military industry."

"But to be honest, it's only for reference. After all, in the field of metallurgy, East Africa and Germany are more powerful, especially in the specialty metals industry, where they have absolute say."

"Apart from that, the areas where I can think of where Austria-Hungary was truly ahead of the Empire were mostly in some traditional industries, such as the heavy steam engines used in Austro-Hungarian industry. However, the focus of East African development was on internal combustion engines and electric motors."

"In other respects, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had no advantages over the Empire. As for the level of Austria-Hungary's industry, it stood out among the industrially underdeveloped regions of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe, but had no advantages at all compared to Northern and Western Europe."

The level of industrial development of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is certainly inferior to that of East Africa, because East Africa claims to be a primary industrial power, while the current level of industrial development of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is only equivalent to the stage when East Africa claims to be a semi-industrialized country, that is, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

In terms of urbanization level, the Austro-Hungarian Empire now has only 30%, while East Africa has about 40%. This shows that the degree and quality of industrialization in the Austro-Hungarian Empire are inferior to those in East Africa. Considering East Africa's exaggerated industrial scale and huge talent pool, the gap between the two countries is even more obvious.

The Soviet Union has already caught up with the current urbanization level of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Therefore, the Soviet Union has surpassed the Austro-Hungarian Empire in industry. This also shows the slow development of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in recent years.

However, this is easy to understand. Since its founding, the Austro-Hungarian Empire has been on a downward trend. After World War I, there was social unrest and slow economic development. Therefore, gradual decline became an inevitable trend.

Of course, as a great power, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is still bigger than a horse. Although it cannot play a big role in the scientific and industrial development of East Africa, it can still make up for the progress of East Africa in some areas.

For example, the heavy-duty industrial steam engine mentioned earlier. Although the steam era has passed, it does not mean that steam engine technology has no application scenarios.

There is also the Austro-Hungarian Empire's military industry and technical talents, which can be a beneficial supplement to East Africa. It can be concluded that if the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrates in the future, a number of companies and talents will inevitably be lost from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

For example, the Skoda Arsenal, a giant in the Austro-Hungarian military industry, was able to develop because it was heavily dependent on the empire's military orders. If the Skoda Arsenal had gained independence along with the Czech Republic, it would inevitably have declined.

Unless, like in the previous life, it is annexed by Germany and then serves Germany's foreign expansion.

Crown Prince Friedrich then communicated with personnel from the East African Customs and the Ministry of Commerce. Compared with the scientific researchers, the East African Customs and the Ministry of Commerce may have a better understanding of the technological advantages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After all, if the advanced industrial products of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were truly superior to similar products in East Africa, East Africa would most likely import some of them, just like East Africa imported optical lenses from Zeiss in Germany.

Finally, after a month of sorting, Friedrich counted about 300 advantageous technologies and industries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Of course, these technologies and industries may not be more advanced than those of East Africa, but they are definitely not inferior.

After compiling this list, the Rhine Royal Family sent it to the Habsburg Royal Family, who then screened it based on this list.

After all, the Habsburg royal family might not be able to control all the technologies and industries on the list. After all, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a capitalist country, and many companies were privately owned, and their technologies were not in the hands of the imperial government.

Therefore, even if the Habsburg royal family had the final say, the number of technologies and industries sold to East Africa would not be large. Finally, after the Habsburg royal family's response, more than 300 items were reduced to 47, which was a significant reduction.

Transferring technology to East Africa is not difficult, but the industry is a bit troublesome. However, there are solutions.

Just as the Habsburg royal family has invested in many industries in East Africa, the Habsburgs can now also use administrative means to encourage some companies controlled by the empire to invest and build factories in East Africa, or to license technology to East African companies.

Of course, the Habsburg royal family was bolder than imagined. Crown Prince Karl even proposed some arms sales agreements to East Africa, and the focus was on the Austro-Hungarian naval ships.

According to the Habsburg family's idea, they "sold" a batch of advanced warships of the Imperial Navy to East Africa at a low price. East Africa could delay payment, and when the payment really came, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would probably be gone, so there would be no need to pay the bill to Europe. As long as they gave the Habsburg family some reasonable compensation, East Africa could directly obtain the essence of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

The Habsburgs even proposed that they take the lead in allowing many outstanding officers and soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy to be directly re-employed in East Africa.

Obviously, this astonishing idea shocked Crown Prince Friedrich, who reported the situation to Ernst.

After reading it, Ernst said, "It seems that the Austro-Hungarian Empire is really over. Judging from the Habsburgs' reaction, they have completely lost confidence in continuing to rule."

The so-called general trend is irreversible, and the Habsburg royal family has obvious self-awareness. Judging from their current behavior, they are just like the former government of a big country in the previous life who wanted to retreat to the treasure island. Of course, the Habsburg royal family obviously had no intention of "counterattacking" the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After all, by that time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire might have disappeared, and it would be an independent small country on the corpse of a pile of empires.

This made Ernst think of the Soviet Union. On the eve of its collapse, the Soviet Union was probably similar to the current Austro-Hungarian Empire. The only difference was probably that Gorbachev still had illusions and continued to be the president of the Soviet Union, but now the Habsburg royal family has no illusions at all.

Of course, Ernst did not readily agree to the Habsburgs' idea of selling their navy to East Africa. He said, "Although our East African Navy was born out of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the Imperial Navy has now completely forged its own path."

"Austro-Hungarian warships don't mean much to us. After all, our current focus is on developing aircraft carriers. So, even though Austro-Hungarian battleships are world-class, they won't be of much use to us and will squeeze our naval resources. Of course, more importantly, if we agree to this deal, it might arouse the vigilance and opposition of other countries, causing diplomatic trouble."

"Therefore, we can reach cooperation with them on some technology transfer, such as the armor steel and fire control systems used in Austro-Hungarian warships. At the same time, we can introduce some high-end talents from the Austro-Hungarian naval shipyards to East Africa."

"As for the large-scale warship transaction, perhaps we can let them communicate with the German side. I think the Germans should be more interested in their warships."

Unlike the German Navy, the East African Navy has sufficient demand for warships. At the same time, its domestic industrial system is complete and its shipbuilding industry is large. Even if it needs warships, it must give priority to the development of its domestic shipbuilding industry.

As for Germany, they have a great demand for warships. If they can swallow up the Austro-Hungarian Navy, they will most likely be willing to do so. As for the restrictions of the London Treaty, in fact, it is now not much different from a piece of waste paper, and Japan has already withdrawn from the treaty.

(End of this chapter)