Chapter 407 Military Reform
Constantine only stayed in the third town for half a day before choosing to go back. The third town was very close to the first town, so Constantine returned to the first town that night without wasting much time.
At this time, Ernst had also returned to the First Town from Nairobi. Having made a small fortune in America, Ernst planned to give the East African Army a small upgrade.
The first thing was to eliminate the Dreiser rifle from the army. The Dreiser rifle had been proven to be inferior in performance in the Franco-Prussian War, so Prussia began looking for a new rifle after the war.
Similar to history, the Mauser rifle also participated in the bidding this time. The sample gun and bullet system provided by the Mauser 1871 rifle won the comparative test selection with the Bavarian M1869 Ward rifle, the Swiss Martini rifle and the Vitelli rifle.
On December 2, 1871, Prussia ordered 2,500 rifles for trial use. On March 22, 1872, William I approved the start of mass production of the M1871 rifle. However, the order was not given to Mauser, but to other manufacturers with better equipment capabilities.
Although we did not get a big order, there is no need to rush. We can just build a new production line in East Africa to first meet the needs of the East African Army.
The second issue is disarmament. This time, Ernst plans to further reduce the number of troops. At present, Ernst has no intention of continuing to use military force abroad, so there is no need to retain as many troops as before.
The East African Army currently has more than 200,000 troops. After discussions between Ernst and the Ministry of Defense, it is believed that the current military threat to the East African Kingdom on land is not great, and it only needs to be maintained at around 150,000 troops. This will allow it to respond to sudden outbreaks of war in all directions at any time, and also allow it to quickly complete military mobilization within the kingdom to prevent black riots in various locations.
Before Ernst arrived in East Africa, the East African Army had already completed an expansion, mainly to accommodate graduates of the then Hechingen Military Academy, and the military system was also changed at the same time.
Because East Africa expanded too quickly, the old military regions were no longer suitable for East Africa. After annexing the Zimbabwe region, East Africa was divided into five new military regions according to regions to deal with potential enemies from different directions on land.
In the past, Tanzania was the Central Military Region; the former Kenya and Ethiopia; Somalia was the Northern Military Region; the former South Sudan and the Central African Republic were the Nile Military Region; the area west of Lake Tanganyika, including Congo, Zambia, Angola, and Namibia, was the Western Military Region; and finally, the Southern Military Region of Zimbabwe. Because East Africa occupied a large area of South Africa, the Southern Military Region needed to expand its scope, while the other military regions remained unchanged.
The East African Army strength after the disarmament is as follows:
▼Central Military Region:
101st Guards Division: 30,000 (based in Central Province, with headquarters in the First Town)
111th Division: 12,000 (headquartered in Mbeya)
112th Division: 12,000 (deployed along the Ruvuma River to counter the Portuguese in Mozambique, with its headquarters in Songea.)
121 Cavalry Division: 5,000 (headquartered in the First Town)
122nd Cavalry Division: 5,000 (headquartered in Dodoma)
123 Cavalry Division: 5,000 (headquartered in Mbeya)
Among them, three cavalry divisions and the 111th Division belong to the mobile and field forces.
▼Northern Military Region:
211th Division: 12,000 (Turkana Province, guarding against the Abyssinian Empire and the Italians in the southeast of the Abyssinian Empire)
212th Division: 12,000 (Northern Province, mainly responsible for dealing with the British, French and Italian colonies in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait)
▼Nile Military Region:
311th Division: 8,000 (Nile River Basin, mainly dealing with Egypt's Sudan region)
331 Mountain Division: 12,000 (Azande Plateau, controls the gateway from West Africa to East Africa, preventing West African indigenous forces and colonists from entering East Africa)
▼Western Military Region:
411th Division: 5,000 (Hesse and Mitumba Province)
412 Division: 5,000 (Zambia region)
413th Division: 8,000 (Southern Congo Basin, guarding against the Portuguese colony of Angola and the Kingdom of Kongo)
414th Division: 8,000 (Eastern Angola, guarding against the Portuguese colony of Angola)
415th Division: 5,000 (Okavango River Basin, the northeastern territory of Namibia in the past)
▼Southern Military Region:
511th Division: 8,000 (Transvaal Republic, guarding against the Orange Free State, Cape Colony, and Kingdom of Lesotho.)
512 Division: 8,000 (Zulu Kingdom, guarding against the Naganta Colony, Lesotho Kingdom)
513th Division: 5,000 (Zimbabwe region)
514th Division: 5,000 (formerly the British Bechuanaland Colony, guarding against the Orange Free State and Cape Town Colony)
A total of 170,000 people.
…
The divisions of the East African Army are divided into three levels. The Guards Division is still a unique one, guarding the important areas of the capital, with a full staff of 30,000 people.
The first-level division has a full strength of 12,000 and is mainly deployed in areas with relatively high national defense pressure or in Tanzania. For example, the two divisions of the Northern Military Region are both first-level divisions to deal with the forces of the Abyssinian Empire, Britain, France, Italy and other countries in the Red Sea.
The second-level division has a full staff of 8,000 people and is generally deployed in border areas. It is slightly weaker when facing the enemy. For example, Cape Town in South Africa is assessed by East Africa as having relatively weak combat strength.
A third-level division has a full staff of 5,000 people and is generally deployed in less important areas or areas with less military pressure.
The cavalry division also has 5,000 soldiers, but as a special branch of the army, it is also a first-class division. Currently, the three cavalry divisions in East Africa are all located in Tanganyika. The 111th Division is also quite special. It does not have much national defense pressure in its position. It is mainly a mobile force and can provide timely support to other areas at any time, just like the cavalry division.
After the reorganization of the above forces, the number of East African Army will be reduced to about 2% of the total population (excluding indigenous people).
Two percent is not very low. For example, the current number of Germany's standing army is maintained at about 1.6% of the total population. So in theory, the East African Kingdom is more militaristic than Prussia.
After the disarmament, Ernst also planned to replenish the equipment of the East African Army, such as various artillery pieces, machine guns, etc. ... to achieve complete Prussianization of the military equipment.
In addition to changes in equipment and the military, Ernst intends to further strengthen East Africa's defense industry to ensure that military logistics can be produced and sold independently.
First, they recruited experts from Germany, Austria-Hungary and even other countries with high salaries to continuously improve the production technology of existing arsenals in East Africa. Secondly, they integrated the arsenals of the East African Kingdom, expanded their scale, further increased their production capacity, and finally achieved the independence of weapons and equipment, and even exported them.
As for the Dresser rifle production line that is about to be eliminated, Ernst plans to keep only a small part and look for buyers for the rest. After all, it has only been used for a few years, and it would be a pity to abandon it directly.
Ernst's first plan was to sell it to the Far East, because the Far East currently has no independent production capacity and mainly relies on purchases. It just so happens that there are iron mills and coal mines invested by East Africans in the Huaihai Economic Zone, which has a certain foundation and can be used to support this production line without any problem.
(End of this chapter)
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