African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 1046 Battleship Perseverance

 After more than a year of construction, the first new battleship in East Africa was officially launched, making East Africa the second country in the world to own a dreadnought.

Although East Africa built dreadnoughts earlier than Britain, Britain's strong shipbuilding industry and rich shipbuilding experience allowed the British dreadnoughts to be completed three months earlier than East Africa, so East Africa still failed to grab the title of dreadnoughts.

Bagamoyo Port.

The "Perseverance", like a steel behemoth, was lying in the port area. The East African Navy officially took over the battleship. This made Bruce, the commander-in-chief of the East African Navy, and other major naval generals very excited.

Bruce sighed: "The overall idea of ​​the British Dreadnought is basically the same as that of the Perseverance. However, compared with our country, the British shipbuilding technology has a deeper accumulation and more skilled workers. In addition, the British Royal Navy has a century-old foundation, so the Dreadnought Construction started later than Perseverance, but was completed earlier. Although it is a pity, our country is also the second country to own this type of battleship after the United Kingdom. "

Helwain, staff officer of the Navy's Indian Ocean Fleet, said: "The Royal Navy has been the flag of the world's navies for nearly a hundred years. Even if our country's Perseverance is launched earlier than the British Dreadnought, it may not be able to achieve the same momentum as the Dreadnought. Now, Except for us in East Africa, other countries are re-formulating their naval plans with the Dreadnought as the standard. It is conceivable that the Dreadnought will be an epoch-making warship. In future naval competitions, all countries will use the Dreadnought as the standard. "

Even if the Perseverance in East Africa is completed and launched earlier than the Fearless, it is unlikely to attract the attention of other countries, because in the past, the East African Navy could only be considered a satisfactory level among navies around the world.

The Dreadnought is different. The British Royal Navy is the weathervane of all navies and has led the development of the world's navies for almost hundreds of years. Therefore, any changes in the Royal Navy will be closely watched by all countries. In addition, the Dreadnought is inherently epoch-making. The work also has the previous naval battle between Japan and Russia as a reference, so it can easily trigger a new round of naval competition.

Of course, although Perseverance was launched later than Intrepid, it does not mean that no other countries are paying attention.

The Austro-Hungarian Navy sent people to watch the launching ceremony of the East African battleship Perseverance. The in-depth cooperation between the two countries in the naval field also made Austria-Hungary the most familiar with the development of the East African navy.

Austrian Vice Admiral Erich looked at the battleship Perseverance in East Africa with a complex expression, and said to Bruce: "I really envy you. Although the Perseverance was launched a little later than the Dreadnought, the performance of this battleship is comparable to that of the Dreadnought. I'm afraid it's not too much of a concession. After all, the standard displacement of the dreadnought is less than 20,000 tons. The standard displacement of your country's Perseverance alone is more than 20,000 tons. And I heard that you also have the Bagamoyo, which has a lot of technology. It has been applied in advance, and I think this battleship Perseverance should have made great progress based on this.”

"Back then, the East African Navy was established with the help of our country, but now it has surpassed our navy by so much, which is really embarrassing."

The more this happens, the more the Austrian Navy feels sad. The East African Navy can be said to be the apprentice of the Austrian Navy. Now that the teacher has stagnated and is surpassed by his apprentice, no one will feel too good.

Bruce patted Erich on the shoulder and said: "The East African Navy's current achievements have a lot to do with Austria's help, and the unsatisfactory development of the Austrian Navy in recent years is not the fault of your naval department. In the final analysis It’s all about money. The same was true for our East African Navy before. Without funding from the top, it would be difficult to maintain the original size of the navy, let alone the Perseverance.”

Bruce's consolation had no effect. What he said only aroused Erich's anger even more: "It's all the Hungarian guys who are holding us back. If the Hungarian Parliament hadn't agreed to increase the naval military budget, the Imperial Navy would have walked out of Admiralty long ago. The Sea of ​​​​Alia is now being suppressed by Britain and France. "

In the previous life, the main enemy the Austro-Hungarian Navy dealt with was the unified Italy. A unified Italy was naturally the naval power in Europe. At least it had no problem suppressing the land-power country of Austria-Hungary.

In this time and space, only half of Italy is left, so it is naturally unable to participate in the naval competition, nor can it pose a threat to the Austro-Hungarian Empire like in previous lives. This is obviously good news for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, without the threat of Italy, the development of the Austro-Hungarian Navy was more suppressed by Hungary. Therefore, it was naturally difficult for the Austro-Hungarian Navy to develop, and it sat on the bench like the previous East African Navy.

As for the British and French navies in the Mediterranean, they are already naval powers. The Austro-Hungarian Empire has absolutely no "confidence" in the face of such a competitor. If it were an evenly matched opponent like Italy, perhaps the Austro-Hungarian Navy would not be able to defeat them. So decadent.

This is also easy to understand. After the reunification of Italy, Italy was definitely the enemy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is not an exaggeration to say that the relationship between Britain and France and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was "collaborative" in history. Although there was competition, there was also a lot of cooperation. And because of the distance, the relationship between Austria-Hungary and the two countries is not as rigid as Germany.

Bruce: "The Austro-Hungarian Empire is one of the important power leaders in Europe. The development of your country's navy does not keep up with the current progress of the naval competition."

In the 1990s, the East African navy seemed to be sitting on the bench just like the Austro-Hungarian navy. In fact, the core of the development of the two navies was completely different.

East Africa's navy only officially no longer expands on a large scale, but it strongly supports the development of its own shipbuilding industry and military shipbuilding industry. While the East African navy's expansion has been slow, its naval ships have been successfully replaced, so the East African navy has always been in a difficult situation. In development, the Austro-Hungarian Navy was truly stagnant.

Especially in the field of shipbuilding, East Africa carried out "domesticization" integration of its own shipbuilding industry in the 1990s, which resulted in the localization rate of East Africa's shipbuilding industry reaching 70%, and the military shipbuilding industry achieved complete localization. .

Looking back at the military shipbuilding industry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, although the Austro-Hungarian Empire also has the ability to manufacture pre-dreadnoughts, many key equipment need to be imported from the United Kingdom or other countries. If it is peacetime, there will naturally be no big problem, but if it is like in the previous life. During the war, the foreign trade between Austria-Hungary and Germany was cut off by the Allies, which was a huge blow to the shipbuilding industry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Of course, the development of the shipbuilding industry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire is closely related to the national conditions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although it is one of the most powerful countries in the world, the Austro-Hungarian Empire has never been a naval power in the traditional sense. At least in terms of national development, it focuses more on the army.

At the same time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as one of the industrial powers in Europe, was actually only a semi-industrialized country like East Africa. Its land area seemed relatively large in Europe, but its resource situation was not necessarily any better than that of Germany.

Take the Austro-Hungarian Empire's industry, which was concentrated in Bohemia, the former Czechoslovakia, which was a helpless move.

After all, Bohemia is located on the edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the political core of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria and Hungary, are relatively scarce in resources. On the other hand, in Germany, in addition to the Ruhr area, there are also the Silesian Industrial Zone in the east and Sasha in the west. Ireland industrial area.

The Bohemian Industrial Zone concentrated nearly 70% of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's industry. If the Bohemian Industrial Zone fell, it would definitely be a heavy disaster for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

From the perspective of the distribution of industrial areas, East Africa and Germany were much more resistant to war than the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That is to say, the Bohemian region in the northern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was integrated into Germany relatively early. In addition to the Czechs, there were also a large number of Germans. People, otherwise Bohemia might stand on its own like Hungary.

(End of chapter)