African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1161: Chapter 170: Arms Trade

In this era, steel production is one of the most important standards for measuring a country’s industrial strength. East Africa’s steel production has climbed to the top in the world, to some extent indicating that East Africa’s industrial scale may even surpass that of the United States.

This is also understandable, as East Africa’s population is larger than that of the United States, with significant domestic industrial demand, and in the early part of this century, East Africa’s industry was in a phase of rapid expansion, whereas industrial development in Europe and America was erratic due to economic crises.

If it weren’t for the outbreak of World War I interrupting the spread of a new economic crisis, the industrial sectors of various European countries might have further shrunk.

With the words of John Lier falling, some officials of the East African government also gained some understanding of the current export trade.

In 1914, the total global merchant ship tonnage was only more than 40 million tons, with the United Kingdom taking the lead, reaching an astonishing 20 million tons, occupying half of the world’s shipping industry. Germany, the United States, and East Africa were in the second tier.

In other words, about twenty-five percent of the world’s maritime cargo transport ships now serve East Africa, which is quite an astonishing number, with only the United Kingdom and the United States possibly comparable.

There is no need to say much about the United States, as its industrial scale was consistently the largest in the world before World War I, and it had the advantage of the Atlantic shipping route, while the United Kingdom had a vast colonial and global market support.

It’s worth mentioning that after the war broke out, the United Kingdom also placed numerous orders with East Africa, and these goods were mainly executed by British freight companies. Since the British shipping industry was already the world leader, there was naturally no need for help from other countries.

This is also the main reason why German and Austria-Hungary’s domestic ocean-going merchant ships occupied an important position in East African exports, as restricted by the UK, Germany and Austria-Hungary could only maximize limited resource benefits.

”Due to the impact of the war, the arms trade has also risen with the tide, especially in countries using German weapons, such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, etc., further increasing our overseas arms exports.”

Generally speaking, the British can tolerate the trade in civilian goods between the US, East Africa, and the Allies, but arms are something that will definitely be rigorously guarded against. The main reason East Africa can bypass the Anglo-French joint ”law enforcement” is East Africa’s diversification of trade routes to Europe.

The US mainly realizes trade with Europe through the Atlantic Ocean, whereas East Africa has three maritime routes for trading with Europe.

The Atlantic route departs from the West Coast of East Africa, mainly targeting the Three Kingdoms of the UK, France, and Germany. The Mediterranean and Black Sea routes primarily target Central and Eastern European countries, mainly Russia and Austria-Hungary. Finally, there’s the Persian Gulf route, which is also crucial for East African arms smuggling to Europe.

John Lier also explained: ”Our arms trade with the Allies is mainly transited through the Ottoman Empire, first arriving at the Iraqi ports of the Ottoman Empire, and then transported to Central and Eastern Europe via the Baghdad Railway.”

”Among them, Austria-Hungary is one of our important emerging arms markets. Due to the impact of the war, Austria-Hungary has to order a large number of military weapons such as rifles, ammunition, and artillery from us.”

In the early days, East Africa and Austria-Hungary’s arms transactions generally involved East Africa importing from Austria-Hungary, such as artillery and military ships. Later, as East Africa’s domestic military industry developed and grew, the arms trade between East Africa and Austria-Hungary was almost balanced.

However, there has never been a case of Austria-Hungary ordering a large number of army weapons from East Africa. This is the first time in half a century.

The main reason for this situation is that Austria-Hungary was not prepared for war before the outbreak.

John Lier also explained: ”The development of the war has surpassed Austria-Hungary’s expectations, so Austria-Hungary has to remobilize, leading their military production lines to fall behind the expansion of their army’s scale.”

Although Austria-Hungary now does not face the pressure of two-front warfare like Germany, just dealing with Tsarist Russia is hard enough for Austria-Hungary, let alone the significant amount of troops being held up by Serbia, which was underestimated by Austria-Hungary before the war.

And this is not the worst situation, as there is still another country, Italy, in conflict with Austria-Hungary. Currently, Italy maintains a neutral policy, but as soon as Austria-Hungary shows signs of fatigue, Italy will surely take a bite out of it.

At the very least, Italy definitely wants to regain Lombardy and Venice. It’s just that Italy is now much more cautious, unlike the prominent power guarding the gates of Europe in the past.

For Italy, recovering Lombardy would be a great victory, and if Venice were recaptured, the Kingdom of Italy would once again become a hero to the Italians. However, the disastrous defeat in last century’s Italo-Austrian War still haunts the Italian elite, so they currently dare not act rashly.

But this does not mean that the Kingdom of Italy should not be taken seriously. In recent years, the Kingdom of Italy has been developing smoothly on the economic level, having basically recovered the population and industrial losses suffered during the Italo-Austrian War.

After all, the Italian region, especially the southern Kingdom of Naples, is currently the most fertile place in Europe. The Kingdom of Italy can fully absorb the industrial development population from the Pope Country and the Kingdom of Naples, while also providing fundamental conditions for Italy’s Red Sea Colony expansion.

The existence of Italy also forces Austria-Hungary to pay attention, with the possibility of opening a western front at any time, and Romania is also not a stable factor.

Although Romania is ruled by the Sigmaringen dynasty, the mainstream public opinion in Romania leans towards England and France.

And in eastern Hungary, a large number of Romanians live, and Romania wants to annex the Romanian-populated areas within Austria-Hungary. Of course, Romania is much more stable than Italy, so this instability could temporarily be ignored.

In summary, the enormous national defense pressure on Austria-Hungary forces them to order a large amount of armament from East Africa to fill the current gap in their national military industry.

Although there are differences in weapon standards between Austria-Hungary and East Africa, there are still many commonalities due to East Africa having learned from Germany and Austria-Hungary in the past.

John Lier continued: ”Of course, compared to Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire are currently our most stable European clients. Although neither country has yet participated in the war, they are also preparing for war.”

”Among them, Bulgaria ranks third in the quantity of weapons imported from us, just behind Germany and Austria-Hungary. The reason for this is that Germany, due to fighting on two fronts, prioritizes its own military industry to serve the German Army, leaving Bulgaria unable to obtain supplies, so they have to find solutions from us.”

Bulgaria’s wartime mobilization capability far surpasses that of other countries, emerging as the Prussia of the Balkan Peninsula, it can be said to surpass its predecessors.

And East Africa can infer from Bulgaria’s current order situation what Bulgaria’s next move will be. Due to the failure of the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria deeply resents Serbia and will surely seek the chance to backstab Serbia.

In the previous era, Bulgaria mobilized more than a million troops to participate in World War I, and Ernst is interested to see what level of combat power this Balkan resilient force can muster under East African support.

The arms trade between East Africa and the aforementioned countries is almost entirely reliant on the Baghdad Railway. Of course, the European arms orders have indeed left East Africa immensely satisfied, but this surely cannot be sustained long-term.

Once Germany and Austria-Hungary complete their full production transition, this part of the market gap will essentially be filled, whereas Bulgaria is completely different.

The East African government is confident that Bulgaria will join the war, and Bulgaria is a premier advertisement for showcasing the performance of East African weapons on the European battlefield, given Bulgaria’s surprisingly stellar combat effectiveness in the previous era. Ernst believes that East African weapons will perform excellently within the Bulgarian army.