Chapter 1119 Trade with the Ottomans
What really makes East Africa a little embarrassed is that the current relationship between the Ottoman Empire and East Africa can be said to be at a pretty good stage. In order to gain the support of the Ottoman Empire in the occupation of the Persian Gulf colonies, East Africa has carried out a lot of cooperation with the Ottoman Empire. For now, the Ottoman Empire was definitely a pro-East African state.
The relationship between the Balkan countries and East Africa is somewhat complicated. Among them, Romania has the best relationship with East Africa, but Romania is not a major participant in this round of Balkan crisis.
Romania is located in the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula and is actually separated from the Ottoman Empire, so the conflicts between the two countries are not as sharp as those with other countries.
The country with the second best relationship with East Africa on the Balkan Peninsula is Bulgaria. Bulgaria can be regarded as a small military power on the Balkan Peninsula. In its previous life, it broke out a combat capability that far exceeded its national strength in World War I.
So East Africa has always maintained a good relationship with Bulgaria, especially in military cooperation. East Africa is an important supporter of Bulgaria.
Furthermore, from the perspective of economic interests, the trade between East Africa and Bulgaria is second only to Romania among the Balkan countries.
Serbia is located in the interior of the Balkans and lacks access to the sea, while Greece is basically a British lending place, and its economy is fully controlled by the United Kingdom. Therefore, Bulgaria and East Africa have a natural advantage in trade.
Of course, compared to Romania, an important oil producing area, Bulgaria is certainly far from being comparable to Romania.
After summarizing everyone's thoughts, Ernst said: "In terms of dealing with relations with relevant countries in the Balkans, according to everyone's suggestions, we should not offend if we can. As for clearly supporting a certain country, it is really not in our interests." "
“Furthermore, we ourselves can only be regarded as spectators in the Balkans and cannot participate in Balkan affairs like other countries, so we have chosen to remain a bystander to the war in the Balkans for the time being. Of course, we should participate in the current arms trade market in the Balkans. "
After all, East Africa and the Balkan Peninsula are separated by the Suez Canal. As long as the Suez Canal is in the hands of the British, East Africa will not be able to interfere too much in European politics. No matter how much investment is made, it will not have the corresponding effect.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and even Germany are very different. They are not far from the Balkan Peninsula, or the sea lanes are clear, so the main forces that dominate the situation in the Balkan Peninsula are still these countries. Before East Africa controlled the Suez Canal , it is basically impossible to play a leading role.
From this perspective, even if East Africa wants to do arms business in the Balkans, it can only cooperate with the Ottoman Empire first. After all, East Africa cannot compete with other European countries in selling arms to the disputed region of the Balkans and cannot get the lion's share. .
The Ottoman Empire is different. In addition to being a Balkan country, the Ottoman Empire is also a country along the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Trade between East Africa and the Ottoman Empire will not be easily cut off due to restrictions from other countries.
So after the end of this round of meetings, the first country East Africa contacted was the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire naturally enthusiastically accepted the "goodwill" revealed by East Africa.
So in May 1912, East Africa took the lead in reaching a batch of military orders with the Ottoman Empire, and the two countries agreed to complete the handover work in Kuwait.
Since the beginning of the Second Five-Year Plan, East Africa has been interested in expanding the scale of its national defense industry. After the beginning of the Third Five-Year Plan, the East African military industry has received a large amount of financial support and expanded a number of weapons production lines. These defense industries were originally prepared by Ernst in response to World War I. Now they can give the Ottoman Empire some sweetness first.
As a German country in East Africa, many weapons can be used in common with Germany. However, the Ottoman Empire’s army now has German-style weapons as the mainstream. In addition, the two countries have carried out closer military cooperation as early as last year, which has done a good job for East Africa’s arms exports. bedding.
The weapons exported from East Africa to the Ottoman Empire were mainly rifles, machine guns and other military supplies.
In this round of Balkan crisis, most European countries are on the side of the Balkan peninsula countries, so this also gives East Africa a great advantage.
Many strategic materials can be exported to the Ottoman Empire under the pretext of civilian products, such as salt, grain, sugar, cotton, etc. Many of these materials cannot be produced by the Ottoman Empire itself, or the output is insufficient.
After all, the land and climate of the Ottoman Empire can be said to be the worst among the world's major powers. This is already the result of the Ottoman Empire occupying many of the most fertile lands in the Middle East, such as the Mesopotamia, the Asian Peninsula, and the European Balkan Peninsula. part of the country.
Take food as an example. In the previous life, Turkey was the most developed country in the Middle East (excluding Israel), and its food self-sufficiency rate was less than 100%. Now the Ottoman Empire occupies a large amount of desert areas, and coupled with the deterioration of the climate, it is impossible to achieve complete self-sufficiency and improve the quality of life. Not even Russia.
So the Ottoman Empire was naturally a major food importer, and in the past thirty years, East Africa’s grain exports to the Ottoman Empire had the fastest growth rate.
Although the Ottoman Empire was able to produce temperate and tropical crops such as wheat, corn, cotton, tobacco, and olives, they were all constrained by water source problems and found it difficult to plant and produce on a large scale like other countries, so they mainly relied on imports.
If it was before the industrialization era, the scale of agriculture in the Ottoman Empire was still considerable. At one time, the Ottoman Empire was even one of the largest cotton exporters in Europe. However, today, the agricultural output of the Ottoman Empire cannot even meet the needs of its own industrial development.
Hence, arms exports actually accounted for only a small part of East Africa’s trade with the Ottoman Empire, with grain, sugar, tobacco, coffee and other agricultural products and other industrial products occupying a major position.
This is an unexpected surprise for East Africa now. With the large-scale borrowing, East Africa's industry and agriculture have received a large amount of development funds, and now East Africa's industrial and agricultural production efficiency has further improved significantly.
But this has also brought huge pressure to East Africa. After all, products must be sold after they are produced, so East Africa is facing the problem of overproduction. Trade with the Ottoman Empire has temporarily alleviated the overproduction of East African industrial production, especially the defense industry. .
So if the world is at peace, that is definitely not a good thing for East Africa. The Balkan crisis provides East Africa with a chance to breathe, and by using the Balkan crisis, East Africa can more calmly deal with the future all-out war in Europe.
From the trade between the Ottoman Empire and East Africa, we can also see why there are so many people supporting the Ottoman Empire within the East African government. The Ottoman Empire has a population of nearly 30 million and a profound historical background. It can bring economic benefits to East Africa far beyond the Balkan Peninsula. It can't be compared with the previous group of small countries.
(End of this chapter)