Chapter 475: Take Action
The British government calculated the strength of East Africa. The more it calculated, the more it realized that there was no good way to deal with East Africa. Although it was not large in size, it was a behemoth in Africa.
After all, apart from Cape Town and North Africa, there is no other force in Africa that can compete with East Africa in terms of white population. Moreover, the countries in East Africa are still composed of Germans. Although they are not very pure, their civilizational identity naturally tends to be German.
What does this mean for Britain? Germany alone is enough to give Britain a headache, and with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German influence is enough to change the entire world. If East Africa is allowed to serve as a raw material supply base for these two industrial powers, Britain's hegemony will be greatly threatened.
When Benjamin thought of this, he said solemnly, "East Africa is not an ordinary country. This kind of private colonial company that monopolizes millions of square kilometers of Africa has seriously undermined regional peace and stability. As the defender of world order, we cannot continue to let East Africa develop in disorder. We must strike hard!"
Benjamin clearly defined East Africa as a private colonial group like the British East India Company. The glory of the British East India Company was its occupation of India, but the Indian colony was only three million square kilometers. The East African Kingdom was indeed more than twice the size of India (so the British government believed). The East African Kingdom might not have as superior land as India, nor as abundant population as India, but a country with such a large land area would sooner or later accumulate population and become a force sufficient to influence the world pattern. Not to mention affecting the world pattern, the pattern of the western Indian Ocean has already changed.
Benjamin then said seriously, "We can look for thugs in other parts of the world to deal with potential enemies that are difficult for us to overcome and achieve strategic balance, but are there any opponents in Africa that can match East Africa?"
"Moreover, the East African Kingdom's ambitions go far beyond this. They are still expanding. They have already appeared on the east coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Southwest Africa will soon fall into the hands of East Africa. Africa also has vast inland areas with great potential. East Africa's current territory is 7 million square kilometers, and tomorrow it may be tens of millions square kilometers. Do they want to dominate Africa in the future?"
At this point, Benjamin suddenly found himself a little afraid of East Africa, but he tried to calm down.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, "Your Excellency, the situation may not be as serious as we think. Although East Africa has a large land area, I think its potential is at most at the same level as Canada and Australia. We also have colonies in Africa, and the conditions are definitely much better than those in Africa. The Gold Coast and Cape Town are both the most valuable lands in Africa. But to be honest, the importance of these two colonies to the British Empire is obviously not prominent in the entire system, especially their economic value is not high. Therefore, if East Africa wants to develop, land alone is not enough. Developing in Africa is definitely difficult."
Putting aside the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer confiscated the money from East Africa, the main reason is that the government is really out of money. The funding for the navy, which is a money-eating beast, has been rising every year, and the government's spending is already high under the economic crisis. Moreover, Britain's spending in South Asia now takes up a lot of its energy. The Russians are becoming more and more dishonest, and there are signs that they want to break through the blockade. Russia is not a country like East Africa where it is questionable whether it can develop, but a threat that really has the strength to break Britain's hegemony, and this threat is even greater than that of the Germans.
"Now that the reform of Tsarist Russia has been completed and Alexander II is also a powerful ruler, the threat of Tsarist Russia should obviously be put first. Although Germany is developing rapidly, it has the French watching from the sidelines. There are also differences of interest between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Tsarist Russia. However, Tsarist Russia is obviously the biggest threat in Central Asia and the Far East, and is even directly related to India's security issues."
The East African navy was quite powerful, but Britain took it completely into account. Relying solely on the Royal Navy of India, it was capable of restricting East Africa. However, it was different for Tsarist Russia. Its strategic direction was land, which happened to be Britain's weak point.
The words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not make Benjamin feel relieved, but made him feel more heavy. Tsarist Russia, the United States, Germany, the Far East count as half, and East Africa barely counts as half. These countries have developed very well in recent years. Correspondingly, the right to speak of Britain and France, the two world order maintainers, has been challenged.
Benjamin sighed, "With more and more competitors, the cost of maintaining the empire's status is getting higher and higher. It's really hard to do anything!"
Then he changed the subject and said, "However, the more this is the case, the more we cannot turn a blind eye to the existence of East Africa. We cannot add any new challengers to the empire. You all should think of a way. How can we strangle East Africa in the cradle?"
Ernst would probably die of laughter if he heard this. It is not wrong to say it is a cradle. In Ernst's opinion, East Africa is indeed very fragile, but after years of secret development, East Africa has also acquired a complete set of capabilities to deal with crises. It can barely be considered a giant baby. If Britain wants to completely strangle East Africa, low investment is not enough. If it makes a high investment, it must consider the risk of being stolen by other countries.
Benjamin's words made everyone feel a little puzzled. What is East Africa's weakness? Let Ernst say that it is trade. If East Africa's foreign trade is cut off, East Africa will be really uncomfortable.
But the British fell into a misunderstanding. Does East Africa have foreign trade? The answer is definitely yes. The problem is that East Africa's trade system is more like an extension of the German-Austrian trade. It relies on the trade system of the two countries and disguises itself as the export of German capital. Therefore, the British can feel the competition from Germany and Austria, especially German goods, but they really don't feel anything about East Africa.
In essence, East Africa is a colony of Germany and Austria, but this colony has its own independent thinking. Economically, East Africa has sacrificed huge profits to Germany and Austria, but these benefits are distributed through the Hechingen Consortium, transferring from East Africa to the Hechingen Consortium, and the Hechingen Consortium is indeed part of German capital. The wealth created by this part of capital in the German region has indeed benefited civilians, the government and business groups with close ties to Hechingen capital.
The Foreign Minister asked at the right time: "East Africa is a very closed country. It is completely a puppet of Germany and Austria. It is not connected to the world market. Sometimes you can't even feel the existence of East Africa. They don't have diplomatic exchanges with our country. This feeling is just like the Far East Empire before we forced the country to open its doors? But the rulers of East Africa are the Hechingen royal family, pure German aristocrats. Why do they do this? To run a colony, you must consider the cost issue. Does the Hechingen royal family really want to establish a medieval feudal monarchy in Africa!"
The effect of closing the country to the outside world is reflected here. East Africa can peek into the world's trends through the window, while other countries are completely in the dark about East Africa. Of course, not everyone is unfamiliar with East Africa. A very small number of Austrian businessmen who have invested in East Africa have a clear understanding of East Africa, but they do not spread it everywhere because East Africa's economic system is too outrageous in their view and completely contrary to the capitalist economy. They are also afraid that the Austrian government will follow suit and learn East Africa's system.
The economic system in East Africa is quite complex, but the monarch is undoubtedly the biggest beneficiary in this economic system, followed by the nobles and bureaucrats in East Africa, and finally the common people. There is no place for capitalists, and this model seems to be well applied in East Africa, so they tacitly do not tell others about the national conditions in East Africa. If the Habsburg family does the same, who can bear it! And this is not impossible, for example, the nationalization of railways in the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the economic crisis.
Of course, on the other hand, East Africa can also be described as a medieval serfdom country. The problem is that serfdom is not what Austrian businessmen want to see, so East Africa should just play this game on its own! Just don't go out and bully others. Besides, cooperating with East Africa can make money, and no one is willing to give up the benefits of eating alone.
Well, East Africa is indeed a complex system, with feudalism, monarchy, autocracy, serfdom, state-owned economy, collective economy, monopoly capital, and everything else. This is also a helpless choice. According to the course of history, the autocratic monarchy should be thrown into the garbage dump of history, but Ernst's butt cannot be crooked, so he can only copy a little from other systems, and finally East Africa has become a hodgepodge.
Benjamin: "If East Africa is really a closed country like the Far East, then we can only use force to solve the problem and force them to open up!"
There is really no other solution. No one knows what the ultimate demands of countries like East Africa are, so we can only find the Far East, which is most similar to East Africa, as an analogy. Benjamin assumed that East Africa wanted to develop a self-sufficient economic model like the previous Far Eastern empire. Thinking about it this way, the two do have many similarities, including racial similarities.
“But are we declaring war in East Africa?”
"Of course not. We don't know the combat effectiveness of the East African army, so we can't act rashly. In this case, aren't the Portuguese colonies on both sides of East Africa? Let's let Portugal test the waters first. If East Africa is just a showpiece, then we will dismember it."
"Your Excellency, the Portuguese are very capable in combat... I don't know if the East African army is just for show, but the Portuguese are definitely just for show!"
"It doesn't matter. Even if Portugal can't do it, don't we still have us? We can get the French to act together, provide some support to Portugal, and arm Portugal's two colonies! I believe the French are still capable of training the army, especially since they lost to the Germans last time. This is a good opportunity for them to compete with the Germans in the colonies again."
(End of this chapter)
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