African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 1047 The Austro-Hungarian Navy asks for help

 It doesn’t matter if Bohemia is independent. The problem is that most of the industries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are located in Bohemia, especially the military industry. Without the Bohemia region, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will basically become a second-rate country.

The name of the Bohemian Province (Zimbabwe) in East Africa actually comes from the Bohemian region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, symbolizing the most industrially developed place in East Africa. Of course, the industry of the original Matabele Province was also divided into two , part of the industry was incorporated into the province of Lorraine along with Bulawayo.

Moreover, with the exception of the Bohemian Industrial Zone, the industry in other parts of East Africa is not weak and has developed multiple cores. Even if a certain industrial zone is fatally hit, it will not cause irreparable losses to the East African industry.

The dispersion of East Africa's industry is actually closely related to the lack of concentration of industrial development resources in East Africa. In East Africa, there are actually places with highly concentrated industrial resources like the northeastern United States, Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or the Ruhr area in Germany. , that is, the Transvaal and Orange in South Africa in its previous life.

If East Africa goes all out to develop this region, there is no doubt that the industry in South Africa will rise rapidly. However, due to national strategic considerations, East Africa has invested more in industrial construction in other places. Not to mention South Africa, it is Darai, the most industrially developed city in East Africa. Salaam and Mombasa, if East Africa concentrated its resources on development, there would be no mega-cities in East Africa with a population of over one million.

The industrial construction in East Africa is not only for industrial growth, but also for coordinated regional development, so as to build a unified national market and a national industrial system. Decentralized industry is also conducive to checking and balancing local dominance. After all, East Africa is a typical example. Big government country.

Based on the various problems presented by the industrial development of later generations, Ernst tried to make the East African industrial system more reasonable and avoid extremes. To be more clear, he aimed to achieve "sustainable development" as much as possible.

This is also reflected in the East African shipbuilding industry. In the past decade or so, the East African shipbuilding industry has migrated to the west coast and the coast of Mozambique. The East African shipbuilding industry has almost tripled in a short period of time.

The scale of the shipbuilding industry has expanded and the division of labor has become clearer, which has further reduced the cost of the East African shipbuilding manufacturing industry. At the same time, the continuous improvement of shipbuilding technology, coupled with the protection of the domestic market, has brought the East African shipbuilding industry into a healthy development stage.

The rapid development of the shipbuilding industry has also laid the foundation for the further development of the East African navy. Without this major premise, even if East Africa proposes an ambitious naval shipbuilding plan, it will not be able to complete it. It can only turn to other countries for help, like Japan and other countries. Buy warships from Britain, Germany.

Bruce said to Erich: "Our country's shipbuilding industry is almost all state-owned enterprises, so after getting the approval of the central government, various military shipyards can integrate most of the resources, so that our navy has the ability to formulate ambitious development plans, and Austria This is obviously not the case for the Hungarian Empire. The two countries have different national conditions, and your navy is not taken seriously, so it is difficult to develop. "

The shipbuilding industry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire actually developed relatively quickly, but this phenomenon is the same in normal countries. Even if the Ottoman and Far Eastern Empire passed certain reforms, the shipbuilding industry also achieved good results.

However, the liberalized economy obviously cannot compare with the planned economy of East Africa in the expansion of military production capacity. To put it bluntly, the planned economy of East Africa was slightly modified when the war broke out, and it was basically the same as the wartime economy.

Fortunately, the main goal of East Africa's planned economy is to improve the national industrialization level. If it really focuses on developing the defense industry like the Soviet Union's first two five-year plans, then East Africa's planned economy will basically not be much different from the wartime economy.

After all, in the early stages of industrialization in the Soviet Union, the external environment it faced was a hundred times worse than that in East Africa, even though they were preparing for war to prevent Western armed intervention.

East Africa does not have such troubles, so it will naturally not formulate a five-year plan centered on the defense industry. Although the East African defense industry is an important development goal in the Second Five-Year Plan, its proportion is definitely not as high as that of the Soviet Union.

This can be seen from the industrial investment in East Africa. During the Second Five-Year Plan period, at least 40% of the industrial funds in East Africa will be used for the development of light industry. After removing a number of heavy industries that are not related to the national defense industry, the real use of There is actually not much funding for the development of the defense industry. The main reason is that the national defense industry and heavy industry are deeply involved, and the boundaries are blurred. Take the tractor manufacturing industry as an example. The tractor factory can produce tanks. However, in the current East Africa Second Five-Year Plan, the tractor manufacturing industry is an absolute civilian industry. In addition to improving East Africa's In addition to the national defense industry, it can also have a significant beneficial impact on transportation, transportation, agriculture and other industries closely related to people's livelihood.

Erich had also heard a little about the economic system in East Africa, and had nothing to criticize. After all, in the eyes of the outside world, East Africa was the private property of the Rhine royal family. It was essentially a country established through colonial plunder, rather than the Soviet Union. A country that overthrew the original social order from the bottom up. Therefore, although East Africa is a planned economy country, it does not arouse the hatred of countries outside the region like the Soviet Union.

On the contrary, Bruce's description of the military shipbuilding industry in East Africa aroused great envy in Erich. He said: "If the Imperial Navy could also obtain excellent resources like East Africa, then the eastern Mediterranean would have become the exclusive territory of the Imperial Navy!"

In Erich's view, the East African Navy has great autonomy and is not as severely restricted by various forces as the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Although the Hungarian Parliament is the main obstacle to naval funding, without the Hungarian Parliament, the army will also suppress it. Naval development.

The national conditions of East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are different. Although East Africa has a vast land area, it has some graceful coastlines and many overseas colonies. Although East Africa's overseas territories are not major transportation routes, their strategic status is also above average.

Under this circumstance, the status of the East African Navy in the East African army is obviously not comparable to that of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

Moreover, the East African shipbuilding industry can also fully serve its own navy. If the Austro-Hungarian Empire wants to develop its navy, it will need more real money. According to the process, various shipyards are first entrusted to design according to the needs of the military, and shipbuilding resources are purchased through the market. , and price changes may greatly reduce the original budget at any time, and through instructions and plans in East Africa, the deployment of materials across the country can be achieved.

In this case, if East Africa is a lightly armed country, the national industry will be enough to support the East African government to build a huge army like Russia.

Of course, Erich's understanding of the East African navy was not comprehensive. Even among capitalist countries, the dual system of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was quite bizarre. If this problem was solved, the Austro-Hungarian Navy could not go further. Not to mention developing like the German Navy, at least it will not encounter such huge resistance now.

Erich said: "Our navy is now in an embarrassing situation. The advent of new battleships by you and the British has made the Radetzky we are building fall behind the times. If adjustments cannot be made, this will Even if a battleship is launched, it will probably be difficult to carry out. "

The most embarrassing thing is not just the backwardness of this kind of pre-dreadnought ship, but the budget of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The budget of the Austro-Hungarian Navy is already relatively tight, and the overhaul of new warships will cost a lot of money. The original design plan of the Detsky may not be effective even if it is temporarily modified. After all, its original design is a typical pre-dreadnought ship. Even if it is modified, it will at best become a "quasi-dreadnought ship".

In this case, the Austro-Hungarian Navy could only take a shortcut, and that was to seek help from East Africa. East Africa itself has a "quasi-dreadnought ship" Bagamoyo and the world's second "dreadnought ship" Perseverance.

If relevant data can be obtained through East Africa, the transformation plan for the Radetzky will undoubtedly be much smoother. Of course, in this way, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will definitely purchase relevant parts and equipment from East Africa, such as the Dreadnought The ship's steam turbine, the dreadnought's fire control system, etc. Currently, only the United Kingdom and East Africa have finished products.

(End of chapter)