African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 468 Southwest Africa

East African warships have been closely following the British survey ship. The British ships are like annoying flies wandering around the waters near New Hamburg Port. What makes the East African Navy even more angry is that they cannot slap the fly to death.

 In fact, not only New Hamburg Port, there are basically British ships doing similar things in various ports in East Africa recently, especially the two open ports, which the British have carefully evaluated.

"Just the economic open zone mentioned by the East African Kingdom is already quite prosperous. It is simply a smaller version of London and Paris. Although the population is not as large as the two capitals, it is developed enough, with a strong commercial and service industry atmosphere, and there are many ships along the way. Stop at both ports and enjoy the services of East Africans.”

"The population of the two cities is composed of a mixture of white and yellow people. We did not get any valuable information from the local residents, but through insinuations we can know that the East African Kingdom is different from the African countries in our impression. It is both orderly and not backward. , the royal family of Hechingen from Prussia rules here, and the royal family has a very high reputation among the people."

"Dar es Salaam and Mombasa are no longer inferior to European port cities. Large areas of European buildings have been built along the East African coast, making the East African coast completely different from what it was more than ten years ago. The Germans have completely replaced the Arabs. In addition to the Transvaal and the Zulu Kingdom, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, which existed on the map a few years ago, was completely transformed into a province in East Africa, and most of the Somali coast was also occupied by the Germans. People annexed.”

“The Portuguese once divided the coast of Lake Malawi with East Africa, and the inland area was basically monopolized by the East African Kingdom. The land area of ​​the East African Kingdom is likely to exceed 1.5 million square miles.”

"However, we cannot have a clear understanding of how much land East Africa occupies in the interior, because we have not found the presence of the East African kingdom on the west coast. This shows that East Africa has not yet set foot on the west coast. If we want to further understand the scope of East Africa's territory, we must Expeditions were sent from the west for reconnaissance, but the west coast of Africa is a colony of Angola. If we want to bypass the Portuguese, we can only enter from the desert area in the south, which is not an easy task for us."

As Britain began to explore Africa, the veil of East Africa began to be unveiled bit by bit. Just the tip of the iceberg had already given Britain a huge shock.

Benjamin: "Containment of East Africa is inevitable. If East Africa is allowed to develop, will it be like the United States monopolizing Africa?"

Minister of Finance: "Your Excellency Prime Minister, we must not be impulsive now. Although the East African Kingdom has certain potential, it is far from a threat. Africa is not as fertile land as the United States. Moreover, we must also consider the attitudes of Austria-Hungary and Germany. It is likely that these two countries have provided a huge amount of assistance to the development of East Africa.”

He didn't believe even to death that East Africa could develop like this on its own. After all, Britain had rich colonial experience, and the difficulty of colonial development was closely related to population. In addition to gold mines, population was an important indicator of rich colonies.

Just like the Philippines and India, they are built on population, while Africa is a typical area with vast land and sparsely populated areas. Without sufficient population, the value of a colony will be greatly reduced. At the same time, large land and sparsely populated areas are not conducive to governance unless it is really done locally. charitable.

Benjamin: “At any rate, East Africa must be on the agenda after we have dealt with India.”

Benjamin's idea is very good, but Ernst does not believe that Benjamin has the opportunity to focus on East Africa, because Tsarist Russia has not yet taken action, and the tenth Russo-Turkish War has already appeared. If the British can really ignore the risks and choose the direction of Africa Having a fight with East Africa made Ernst believe that Benjamin was a man.

Ignoring what the British thought, East Africa would still have to eat without British intervention. After the abnormal behavior of the British was summarized in Ernst's hands, Ernst summoned military personnel and began to discuss a new expansion plan for East Africa.

"We have achieved good results along the Indian Ocean coast, but for East Africa, it has never had its own foothold in the Atlantic Ocean. The importance of the Atlantic Ocean is self-evident, so this time I am planning to target Angola to Austria. The Skeleton Coast Between the Rivers of Orange.”

 The Skeleton Coast refers to the coastal area of ​​Namibia. The earliest Portuguese sailors called this long coastline of Namibia the "Hell Coast". Here Ernst used the Skeleton Coast to refer to the entire coastal area of ​​Namibia. "Your Highness, if we want to march to the Skeleton Coast, we must overcome the geographical disadvantages. The entire Southwest Africa is almost a desert. This is different from the Somali region. In the Somali region, we can control Somalia along the oasis and with the help of camels. , the conditions in Southwest Africa are far inferior to those in Somalia.”

“Yes, but I do not plan to carry out large-scale actual occupation of the southwest, but focus on occupying some areas to cut off other countries and colonial opportunities in southwest Africa.”

 In the previous life, the large and arid Namib Desert made Namibia one of the countries with the lowest population density in the world. Namibia's 1,600 kilometers of coastline were basically covered by the Namib Desert.

 So during the period when the west coast of Africa served as the main shipping route from Europe to Asia for hundreds of years, no colonists had any idea about Southwest Africa. Including the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch, they all landed here, took a look and left again.

 It was not until 1884 that the Germans took the coastal area of ​​Southwest Africa as their colony. Southwest Africa was not a good place, but poor Germany entered the country too late and did not even spare this desert.

“Our control over Southwest Africa mainly consists of three areas, one is the border with the Portuguese, the other is the outlet of the Orange River, and the second is Walvis Bay in the center of Southwest Africa.”

East Africa is not far from Southwest Africa, and part of the land in western East Africa is actually considered the Southwest Africa region, mainly the plateau area of ​​Southwest Africa, the Okavango River Basin, which is the province of Letania.

The Okavango River originated in central Angola in its previous life, passed through Namibia, and was finally swallowed up by the Kalahari Desert in Botswana.

However, the province of Letania is mainly located on the east bank of the Okavango River (now northeast of Namibia and southeast of Angola), and there has been no large-scale exploration and development in western East Africa.

Southwest Africa is not a small place. Including the Kalahari Desert, it is estimated that 7 to 800,000 square kilometers of land are uninhabited land. Therefore, it is not easy for East Africa to occupy this place.

The main reason is that transportation is more difficult. After all, the desert is vast and different from the desert in Somalia. The population here is too small and there are not even human settlements that can supply supplies.

If nothing else, the Orange River line is the best area to occupy. You can advance westward along the Orange River. At the same time, the Orange River can solve the water source problem.

For other areas in Southwest Africa, Ernst’s idea this time was to advance both by sea and land. While going deep into Southwest Africa on land, he would also build strongholds in the coastal areas of Southwest Africa by sea.

 (End of this chapter)