African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 407 Military Reform

Constantine only stayed in the third town for half a day before choosing to go back. The third town was very close to the first town, so Constantine returned to the first town that night without wasting much time.

At this time, Ernst had also returned to the First Town from Nairobi and made a small fortune in America, which made Ernst plan to give the East African Army a small upgrade.

 The first step is to eliminate the Dresser rifle in the army. The Dresser rifle has been proven to be completely backward in performance during the Franco-Prussian War. Prussia began to look for new guns after the war.

Similar to history, this time the Mauser rifle also participated in the bidding. The sample gun and bullet system provided by the Mauser 1871 rifle were selected through comparative testing with the Bavarian M1869 Ward rifle, the Swiss Martini rifle and the Vitelli rifle. win.

On December 2, 1871, Prussia ordered 2,500 for trial use. On March 22, 1872, King William I approved the start of mass production of the M1871 rifle. But the order was not given to Mauser, but to other manufacturers with good equipment capabilities.

Although we didn’t get a big order, there’s no need to worry. We can just build a new production line in East Africa to first meet the needs of the East African Army.

The second issue is disarmament. This time Ernst plans to further reduce the number of troops. At present, Ernst has no idea of ​​continuing to use troops externally, so there is no need to retain as many troops as before.

The East African Army currently has more than 200,000 people. After discussions between Ernst and the Ministry of National Defense, it was believed that the current military threat to the East African Kingdom on land is not great, and it only needs to be maintained at around 150,000, so that it can respond to various situations at any time. If a war breaks out suddenly, military mobilization can be quickly completed within the kingdom to prevent black riots everywhere.

Before Ernst arrived in East Africa, the East African Army had already completed an expansion, mainly to place graduates of the Hechingen Military Academy at that time, and the military system was changed at that time.

 Because East Africa expanded too fast, the old military regions were no longer suitable for East Africa. After annexing the Zimbabwe region, East Africa divided East Africa into five new military regions according to regions to deal with potential enemies from different directions on land.

In the previous life, Tanzania was the Central Military District; the former Kenya and Ethiopia; the Somali region was the Northern Military District; the former South Sudan and the Central African Republic were the Nile Military District; the west of Lake Tanganyika including Congo, Zambia, Angola, and Namibia was the Western Military District; and finally, the Zimbabwe's Southern Military District. Because East Africa occupies a large area of ​​South Africa, the Southern Military District needs to expand its scope, while other military districts remain unchanged.

 The number of East African Army personnel after disarmament is as follows:

Central Military Region:

  101 Guards Division: 30,000 (stationed in Central Province, division headquarters established in the first town)

   111 Division: 12,000 (the division headquarters is located in Mbeya City)

   112 Division: 12,000 (deployed on the line of the Rufuma River to deal with the Portuguese in Mozambique, with the division headquarters set up in Songea City.)

   121 Cavalry Division: 5,000 (the division headquarters is located in the first town)

   122 Cavalry Division: 5,000 (the division headquarters is located in Dodoma City)

   123 Cavalry Division: 5,000 (division headquartered in Mbeya)

 Three of the cavalry divisions and the 111th Division belong to mobile and field forces.

Northern Military District:

  211th Division: 12,000 (Turkana Province, to guard against the Abyssinian Empire and the Italians in the southeastern part of the Abyssinian Empire)

   212 Division: 12,000 (Northern Province, mainly dealing with the British, French and Italian colonies in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait)

Nile Military District:

  311th Division: 8,000 (Nile Basin, mainly dealing with the Sudanese region of Egypt)

  331 Mountain Division: 12,000 (Azande Plateau, controls the gateway from West Africa to East Africa, preventing West African indigenous forces and colonists from entering East Africa)

Western Military Region:

  411th Division: 5000 (Hesse and Mitumba Province)

412th Division: 5000 (Zambia area) 413th Division: 8000 (southern Congo Basin, guarding against the Portuguese Angola colony and the Kingdom of Congo)

  414th Division: 8,000 (eastern Angola, to guard against the Portuguese colony of Angola)

  415th Division: 5000 (Okavango River Basin, the northeastern territory of Namibia in the previous life)

Southern Military District:

  511 Division: 8000 (Transvaal Republic, against Orange Free State, Cape Colony, Kingdom of Lesotho.)

   512 Division: 8000 (Kingdom of Zulu, defense against the British Taal Colony, Kingdom of Lesotho)

  513 Division: 5000 (Zimbabwe area)

  514th Division: 5000 (former British Bechuanaland Colony, defense against Orange Free State, Cape Town Colony)

 A total of 170,000 people.

 …

 The divisions of the East African Army are divided into three levels. The Guards Division is still the only one, guarding the important areas in the capital, with a full strength of 30,000 people.

The first-level division has a full strength of 12,000 and is mainly deployed in areas with high defense pressure, or in Tanzania. For example, the two divisions in the Northern Military Region are both first-level divisions to deal with the Abyssinian Empire, Britain, France, Italy and other countries in the Red Sea. power.

The second-level division has a total strength of 8,000 people. It is generally deployed in border areas and is relatively weak when facing the enemy. For example, Cape Town in South Africa is rated as having relatively weak war strength by East Africa.

 The third-level division has a full strength of 5,000 men and is generally deployed in areas that are less important or have less military pressure.

However, the number of cavalry divisions is also 5,000, but as a special force, the cavalry division also belongs to the first-level division. Currently, the three cavalry divisions in East Africa are located in the Tanganyika area. The 111th Division is also quite special. There is not much national defense pressure in its position. It is mainly used as a mobile unit. Like the cavalry division, it can support other areas in a timely manner at any time.

 After the reorganization of the above units, the number of East African Army will be reduced to about 2% of the total population (excluding indigenous people).

Two percent is not very low. For example, Germany’s current standing army is maintained at about 1.6% of the total population, so in theory the East African Kingdom is more militarized than Prussia.

After disarmament, Ernst also planned to replenish the equipment of the East African Army, such as various artillery, machine guns, etc... to achieve complete Prussianization of the army's equipment.

In addition to changes in equipment and the military, Ernst plans to further strengthen the East African defense industry and ensure that military logistics can be produced and sold by itself.

 The first step is to poach people from Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and even other countries, hire a group of experts with high salaries, and continuously improve the manufacturing technology of the existing arsenals in East Africa. The second step is to integrate the arsenal of the East African Kingdom, expand its scale, further increase production capacity, and finally achieve autonomous weapons and equipment that can even be exported.

As for the Dresser rifle production line that is about to be eliminated, Ernst plans to retain only a small part and find buyers for the rest. After all, it only takes a few years. It would be a pity to abandon it directly.

Ernst's first plan is to sell to the Far East, because the Far East currently has no independent production capacity and mainly relies on buying. It happens that there are iron plants and coal mines invested by East Africa in the Huaihai Economic Zone, which has a certain foundation to support this production line. Not big.

 (End of this chapter)