Chapter 186 "Third Line" Plan
March 11, 1869.
Professional cable-laying ships have once again appeared in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. This is no longer surprising to people living along the Mediterranean coast. In recent years, as countries have paid more and more attention to the role of telegraphs, capable countries and companies have been laying telegraph lines on the seabed.
The ships involved in this offshore cable laying work were one from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and one from Germany, and they started work in the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea respectively.
Another round of cable laying work began from Trieste in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Egypt, and then from Egypt to the sea in East Africa.
This time the work is to lay a double line. After all, it is not safe to use a single cable to maintain the connection between East Africa and Europe.
The plan to lay a double line had long been on Ernst's desk. It was planned when the first cable from East Africa to Europe was laid, but due to funding constraints at the time, it was not implemented together.
Later, the first cable remained in good working condition. After all, the entire line was not used for civilian purposes. It was a government-exclusive line in East Africa, and the workload was not large. As a result, the second line was not started for a long time, or Ernst almost forgot about the plan.
Now, his father was about to leave for East Africa, and communication between father and son was essential. In order to prevent any accidents, Ernst decided to restart the cable laying work.
Submarine cables are relatively fragile after all, so laying double lines is equivalent to installing insurance. Even if an accident occurs on the commonly used line, the backup line can be immediately activated.
East Africa, the first town.
"This is the document sent by His Royal Highness. Now go and deliver it to the governments along the inland lines in advance so that they can make preparations." Von der Leyen handed the document on the laying of telegraph lines in East Africa to everyone in the conference room.
"This is a huge workload!" said the officials in the conference room after reading the document.
"It's not too difficult. Although the entire project route is more than 4,000 kilometers, we only need to erect electric poles along both sides of the highway, and the local governments along the way only need to be responsible for the work within their jurisdiction," said von der Leyen.
"That's true. We can just use local materials for the poles. We also need to prepare the machine room in advance to facilitate the subsequent installation of the generator."
What everyone is discussing is the land part of the telegraph line construction plan. As early as last year, the East African colony built a land telegraph line from Mombasa to Dar es Salaam and then to the first town.
Therefore, the officials of the First Town were not unfamiliar with the telegraph. After all, the submarine cable only reached Mombasa, which was some distance away from Dar es Salaam and the First Town. They could not rely on post horses to deliver messages.
At present, the main way of transmitting messages in East Africa is still by horse. Post offices are set up in various cities, and a communication network is formed through the post offices. The telegraph is only available in the first towns, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa.
“The telegraph line construction work will be divided into two main lines and less than branch lines, one originating from Mombasa and the other originating from the First Town.
The Mombasa line passes through Nairobi, then reaches Kisumu, and finally reaches the northwestern new city of Kampala. At the same time, a branch line is branched out in Nairobi and goes directly north to the town of Omorate above Lake Turkana, so that any movement in the north can be transmitted to us in a timely manner.
The first town route uses Dodoma as a transit point, the southern route ends at Mbeya, and the northern route goes north through Mwanza and then west to Bujumbura on the northern shore of Lake Solon (Tanganyika), so that the government can get timely information from the west. "Technical Director Kane summarized.
At this time, the Mbeya government had just sent Merk and Becker to the Yeke Kingdom for negotiations, and they had not returned yet, so everyone did not know that the Yeke Kingdom had been sold to the East African colony by Msiri. Therefore, the first town line planned for this telegraph line only reached Mbeya in the west.
The above-mentioned East Africa-Europe Haiti cable line, the First Town line, and the Mombasa line are the latest communications projects in East Africa designed by Ernst, and are also named the "Three Lines" plan by Ernst.
It basically covered several major directions in East Africa, with only the south having no line construction plan, because the south and the Portuguese forces were separated by the Ruvuma River, so the defensive pressure was relatively small, and the Portuguese side was mainly inhabited by indigenous tribes, so the two colonies were not really adjacent to each other.
East Africa classified these indigenous tribes as part of the Portuguese sphere of influence, which was an expression of goodwill towards the Portuguese. If the two colonies were really close to each other, accidental clashes would be inevitable.
So far, the expansion of the East African colonies has been quite smooth, which was certainly not achieved through peaceful negotiations like Becker's.
Moreover, Becker's success also relied on the strength of East Africa. Msiri was a slave trader, not a good man. The reason why he sold the Yeke Kingdom to East Africa at a very low price was that he knew that East Africa was really greedy and the same kind of people as himself.
But he was still no match for the other side. Moreover, since the slave trade became a unilateral demand of East Africa, Msiri got nothing. The interest group of the Yeke Kingdom began to crumble, so it was better to sell it to the East Africans.
The transaction with the Yeke Kingdom reflects the imperialist style of East Africa. If East Africa were placed in Europe, other countries would probably just have fun, but it would be an insurmountable mountain for the African natives.
At present, the main expansion direction of East Africa is the Central and Southern Africa region, so it is necessary to lay a telegraph line to Mbeya.
The Bujumbura region is responsible for liaison in the Mitumba Mountains region that is being infiltrated in East Africa.
Kampala is responsible for information flow to the North-West Great Lakes region.
The town of Omorat is responsible for the Omo River basin. After all, it is very close to the Abyssinian Empire and must be carefully guarded against. At the same time, it can also monitor the movements in the Egyptian Sudan region.
Through the "Three Lines" plan, the above-mentioned key areas of concern in East Africa can be directly connected with the East African Central Government, and Ernst can also grasp the developments in East Africa at any time.
In addition to the above areas, only Mozambique in the south and Somalia in the north are not covered by this plan. The Portuguese have already said that Somalia is completely not worth mentioning.
The border between Somalia and East Africa is mainly desert, which is a natural geographical barrier. Moreover, the Geledi Sultanate in the direction of Somalia is too weak and has a small population, so we should be thankful that East Africa does not cause trouble for it.
They acted immediately. Soon, the First Town and Mombasa governments, which received the news first, began to organize people to erect telephone poles needed for telegraph lines.
The telephone poles are all made of local materials. The forest coverage in East Africa is quite terrifying in this era, reaching more than 40%. Wood is quite cheap, with basically no cost. With such a small population in East Africa, the speed of logging cannot keep up with the speed of growth.
After simple processing of these woods, it is enough to add wooden wedges on top to serve as fulcrums for fixing the wires later.
Later, as long as the European electrical wires, generators, iron wires and other materials are transported over, the lines can be fixed above. A small maintenance and inspection point will be built at certain intervals to facilitate workers to detect problems early and maintain the smooth flow of lines.
Some of the buildings are machine rooms, used to supply power to the entire telegraph line system. The generators are high-power DC generators imported from Siemens. A large part of the cost of the "Three Lines" plan was spent on generators and other equipment.
Taking advantage of Prince Constantine's trip to East Africa, Ernst directly built the East African land telegraph line and the submarine line in one go.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
