African Entrepreneurship Record

”Technology is multifaceted, involving various industries and not necessarily limited to the industrial field. Take the medical industry, for example. East Africa has always emphasized medical development, but this is not the strong suit of a new country like ours. Although we have drawn extensively from the essence of traditional medicine, we still need the assistance of the Austria-Hungary Empire.”

Ernst said this. In fact, the industrial development of the Austro-Hungarian Empire only made significant progress in recent years, and among the top great powers, it might be slightly stronger than Tsarist Russia.

Of course, being behind is only relative to the three countries of Britain, France, and Germany; now they are also something East Africa can only look up to.

The main traditional foreign markets for the Austro-Hungarian Empire are the Balkan Peninsula and the Ottoman Empire, while domestically, there is a large internal market, which is the nature of the relationship between Austria and Hungary.

However, the large domestic market of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is not stable, mainly due to the heavy economic conflicts between various nationalities, impacting the stability of this market. The multi-ethnic attribute has exacerbated market stability in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which hinders its industrial development.

Similar issues, such as resource allocation in East Africa, where coal resources from the Southern Border Province have fueled industrial development in East African coastal cities, are not seen as problematic by the people of the Southern Border Province.

But if it were within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it would easily cause misunderstandings: ”The Austrians are plundering our resources,” such misconceptions.

Thus, integrating the Austro-Hungarian Empire is extremely difficult for Austria. While opportunists like Hungary can still be negotiated with, encountering extreme nationalism like that of Serbia gives the mighty empire a direct blow.

The lessons of past life prove that even without the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Serbia could hardly become the leader of Yugoslavia or the Balkan Peninsula; success and failure both lie in extreme nationalism.

In contrast, East Africa’s approach of undermining national policies has better realized harmonious coexistence among various ethnic groups or races in East Africa, consolidating national consensus.

Of course, the effects are not yet visible, because there is still pride in the hearts of the first generation of German immigrants, but when they intermarry with other nationalities and races, they naturally become family.

”In this regard, we can only help make connections, but if you truly want to learn something valuable, you’ll have to rely on yourselves,” Franz said.

As for resources within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, unless they are state-owned enterprises or royal enterprises, Franz really can’t decide, after all, ”private property is sacred and inviolable.”

East Africa, on the contrary, has its assets in the hands of the state, or in other words, controlled by the Heixinggen royal family. So Ernst can mobilize the resources of the entire country, which Franz cannot do.

However, with the support of the Austro-Hungarian government, East Africa can also save a lot of trouble. Although they can’t help, if they really wanted to hold things back, it would be quite easy.

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In this transaction with Franz, Ernst did not gain any advantage, and even suffered some losses. The benefits gained between the two sides were not equal, but this is the price that a backward country must pay.

Moreover, the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s assistance to East Africa is indeed substantial. For instance, without the help of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the East African Navy could not have been established. This alone is very precious.

Furthermore, the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s support for education in East Africa is invaluable. Therefore, Austria has been devoted to its ally East Africa to a considerable extent, so helping Austria absorb part of the industrial products is understandable, as a mutual exchange of favors.

Just like how the Far East Empire became the world factory in the previous life, it was also by enduring and acting humbly for over a decade. Such a huge country, and even a nuclear power, pretending to be harmless, swallowing indignation, is a skill that ordinary countries simply cannot play with. If it were the northern neighbor, they would have been overwhelmed long ago.

In this comparison, East Africa’s behavior is trivial. If Japan had encountered such a good thing at this time, perhaps they would have done the unthinkable.

Of course, this time failing to gain an advantage in dealings with Franz also indirectly suggests that East Africa has learned or gained too much from the Austro-Hungarian Empire before.

Now asking for more would be Austro-Hungarian’s ultimate skills, and no normal country would squander its legacy and starve the master by teaching the apprentice. So Ernst feels quite satisfied with extracting a bit from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In reality, Franz is also quite troubled. Ernst, the ”beggar,” is being selective, which also indirectly shows the rapid development of East Africa as a nation. Many low-end industries are no longer attractive, or they are already possessed, so they are thinking of advancing further to the mid-to-high end.

The fundamental reason leading to such a result is that East Africa is not a small country. Simply giving money and aid cannot solve its problems.

If East Africa counts the Black population, its population exceeds fifty million, directly more than Austro-Hungarian populations. In this situation, the Austro-Hungarian Empire simply can’t keep up.

Therefore, the two countries can only adopt closer cooperation from a military and political perspective, primarily reflected in naval affairs. Although Africa is not far from Europe, they are separated by the Mediterranean.

Moreover, East Africa’s army size is about the same as Austro-Hungarian Empire’s, but East Africa’s territory is several times larger than Austro-Hungarian’s. A vast area makes it easy to pay attention to one aspect and neglect another, which is why East Africa takes a ”defend the north, attack the south” approach in its foreign policy.

Southern countries, that is, British and Portuguese colonies, are very hostile to East Africa, whereas northern countries pose much less threat. Therefore, East Africa adopts a relaxed stance and supports Belgium and Sigmaringen, which are friendly to East Africa, as buffers.

A larger territory also requires a larger military for defense, and East Africa cannot afford too many troops. So maintaining a force of two to three hundred thousand is a reasonable range, like the United States, which simply does without a military.

Over 300,000 regular troops of European standards entail a significant expense, affordable only for wealthy countries like Germany.

Hence, East Africa’s military expenditure has always remained at a high level, while the Austro-Hungarian army also maintains around 300,000. Even so, it already imposes some pressure on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Moreover, the Austro-Hungarian Empire faces even greater defense pressure than East Africa, with none of the three countries — Germany, France, or Russia — being easy to contend with. Only because it’s currently allied with Germany and Russia can it manage; otherwise, 300,000 troops would be far from enough.

Russia alone has a million-strong regular army, although its level doesn’t reach other countries’ standards, it is more than sufficient to deal with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This is Ernst’s thought, as after the reforms of Tsar Alexandria II, Tsarist Russia is already very close to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the industrial field. Of course, the Austro-Hungarian Empire can still fend off enemies outside its door, as European countries maintain a delicate military balance among them.

In the 19th century, there was an advantage over later times, which is as long as a country has autonomy and strives to develop industry, it can possibly catch up. Without autonomy, it can only serve as a colony. If one is determined to develop industry during this era and dare to pay the price, it’s easy to achieve results because the technological barriers were not as strict as in later times.

Regarding the equipment level of various countries, there’s practically no generation gap among the great powers; weapon imitation was also easy, especially for army equipment. The real barrier was in the navy, a high-tech military branch, which is a significant reason why Britain could maintain naval superiority.