Chapter 1124 Military Family Wealth
Compared with Germany and Japan, East Africa is indeed not worthy of its name of imperialism at the diplomatic level, but this also shows that East Africa is becoming increasingly mature politically.
Germany and Japan are typical militarist countries, and East Africa was also a militarist country at the beginning. In order to deal with the indigenous people and other colonists on the African continent, they passively chose the organizational form of all-people soldiers. However, with the establishment of East Africa, national security was initially guaranteed. , national politics also underwent major changes.
Of course, all European countries are currently expanding their armaments. Germany’s military construction is not unusual in Europe, because Russia, Austria-Hungary and France are not far behind. As for the United Kingdom and Japan, they are overdrafting their national strength to build huge navies. 20 At the beginning of the century, it was a real rarity that many countries did not develop strong armies.
Therefore, in the context of the times, the construction of the German army appears to be extremely normal, but Germany's radicalization is what really makes Ernst feel terrible. After all, Germany has planned one-to-many from the beginning of formulating its military plan, which is really unwise.
So Ernst advised Carmon: "Germany is facing an extremely severe situation in Europe. Your enemy is not only France, but also Russia and the United Kingdom. Even if you can defeat France, it will be very difficult under the intervention of Russia and the United Kingdom. It is difficult to digest the results of the victory. The lessons of the collapse of Napoleon's regime must be learned. Sometimes you have too many enemies, and your enemies can exhaust all your advantages just by relying on their deep family background. "
In Ernst’s view, France during the Napoleonic era was even more outrageous than Germany today. At least Ernst did not believe that Germany could invade Moscow as easily as Napoleon. Napoleon’s military achievements even exceeded those of Germany during World War II.
However, Russia is an unsolvable existence. With its deep territory and poor transportation conditions, it is difficult for any country to defeat Russia unless Russia collapses internally first.
Carmon did not take Ernst's advice seriously. He said with some pride: "We in Germany are fully capable of repeating the glory of the First Franco-Prussian War. As long as we can defeat France before Britain can react like last time, other countries will not be able to do anything. As for Russia, if it falls too far behind, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will be able to contain Russia in Eastern Europe. After we defeat France, we will turn around and join forces with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russia’s intervention will inevitably fail.”
This is obviously an ideal state and cannot convince Ernst at all. The main reason is that Germany’s ability to select allies is so bad. In fact, it is also Germany’s helplessness. Late-developing countries have no choice in forming alliances.
The same is true for Germany, the Soviet Union, and the later Far Eastern Empire. When the world's second largest nation faces the world's largest empire, it is difficult to find good allies.
This is also the advantage after the hegemony is established. When the Far Eastern Empire was glorious, a group of young people in East Asia were proud to be their followers. From the northern grasslands, to the eastern island countries, to the Southeast Asian countries, they were proud of the civilization of the Far Eastern Empire. , even the tough bandits on the grasslands will have cultural inferiority when facing the Far Eastern Empire.
Under the current world system constructed by the United Kingdom, Germany and East Africa are both “barbaric countries” that are highlighted, which is a kind of political and cultural isolation and bullying.
Although Germany and East Africa have many shortcomings, Britain's **** is not white. Instead, it has done many evil things because it controls a huge colony and world hegemony.
Of course, countries like Germany that dare to challenge the current world system naturally have their admirers. On the contrary, countries in East Africa and the United States that pretend to be ostriches are easy to despise.
Ernst said to Carmon: "Let's stop here. We in East Africa are in the southern part of the African continent, separated from Europe by the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. It is difficult to coordinate with Germany. Although we cannot support Germany militarily, in other aspects, We can still do something.”
Although Carmon was used to Ernst's rejection, he still felt a little uncomfortable, but fortunately it was not fruitless.
…
After sending Camon away, with Ernst's acquiescence, the East African government gave Germany some preferential treatment in terms of trade as much as possible. This was actually a support for Germany's development, but for a country of Germany's size , can only be considered better than nothing. After having “cordial” exchanges with government missions from various countries, the East African government’s attitude is relatively clear, that is, it will choose neutrality as much as possible in the subsequent disputes.
In this way, among the world's generally recognized powers, the United States and East Africa are temporarily considered neutral countries. This gives European countries the confidence to challenge each other, and this is exactly what East Africa and the United States want to see.
At the same time, Ernst also began to calculate the current situation of East Africa. Strong military strength is the confidence that East Africa can guarantee the status of a neutral country.
Merk: "In terms of military strength alone, our current total military strength is 460,000, ranking above the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a slight advantage, second only to Russia, Germany, and France, and ranking fourth in the world. Bit."
Of course, this obviously cannot be simply regarded as the military strength of each country. Take Russia, which has the largest military strength, as an example. Its military strength certainly cannot be ranked first in the world.
Apart from the large number of people, Russia basically has nothing to offer, and Russia's population is not much larger than that of East Africa. There is only a population gap of 20 to 30 million between the two countries, but East Africa has many advantages in artillery, machine guns, military vehicles, railways, etc. It is much stronger than Russia in other aspects.
However, military strength is indeed a good reference. From the perspective of military strength alone, East Africa currently ranks fourth in the world, and its mobilization potential ranks among the top three. There are many factors to consider for mobilization potential, including population. Logistics, transportation, material reserves, etc., and with East Africa’s advantages of nearly twice Russia’s railways and millions of kilometers of roads, if East Africa really carries out national mobilization, I am afraid it will not be inferior to Russia. According to the standards of Russia’s current army, It would not be difficult to mobilize five million people in East Africa.
East Africa is in the middle and upper reaches of the world in terms of military strength. In comparison, maritime powers such as the United States and Britain are far behind East Africa. Of course, if the British colonial army is included, the overall situation is actually similar to that of East Africa. There are many and scattered colonies. The corresponding defense pressure is also great.
Of course, the expenditure of the British colonial army is far from comparable to that of the East African Defense Force. After all, the main task of the colonial army is to prevent colonial rebellions, not to fight other military powers.
“In terms of army weapons and equipment, we have reached the level of all European powers. The number of rifles, machine guns, and artillery is not inferior to any country. In some areas, we are even ahead of European countries, such as the number of military vehicles, armored forces, army aviation units, etc.”
Now the East African Air Force has become independent from the Army, and the Army has also retained some aviation arms to exercise coordination capabilities. Only the Naval Air Force has not been established for the time being.
The navy is mainly deployed around the coastline. The formation of naval aviation is now too conspicuous, and without an aircraft carrier as a carrier, it is difficult for naval aviation to play its role.
At this stage, the East African air force is already considered the most powerful in the world. Many countries do not even have aircraft. This also means that East Africa has no need for this for the time being.
Judging from the current equipment of the East African Army, the East African Army is half an era ahead of its peers, but this advantage is not obvious. The main reason is that the performance of the current tanks and aircraft is not up to standard, and it is still unable to handle cross-regional operations.
As Ernst said to Carmon, East Africa is a country on the African continent, which ensures the national security of East Africa to a certain extent, but in turn can easily limit the performance of the East African army.
As the largest military power on the African continent, East Africa has no rivals around it. To participate in extraterritorial wars, it has to travel far across the ocean. This obviously requires the support of its navy and domestic shipping capabilities. Therefore, it is currently difficult for the East African army to support overseas operations.
(End of this chapter)