Chapter 1148 Arms Trade
In this era, steel production is one of the most important standards for measuring a country's industrial strength. East Africa's steel production has climbed to the first place in the world, which to a certain extent shows that the scale of East Africa's industry may even exceed that of the United States.
This is easy to understand. After all, the population of East Africa is larger than that of the United States, and the domestic industrial demand is large. Moreover, at the beginning of this century, East African industry has been in a stage of rapid expansion. On the other hand, due to the economic crisis in Europe and the United States, industrial development has experienced twists and turns.
If the outbreak of World War I had not interrupted the spread of a new round of economic crisis, the industries of European countries might have further shrunk.
As John Lear's words fell, some officials in the East African government also gained a certain understanding of the current export trade.
In 1914, the total tonnage of the world's merchant ships was only over 40 million tons, with the United Kingdom taking the lead, reaching an astonishing 20 million tons, accounting for half of the world's shipping industry, followed by Germany, the United States and East Africa in the second echelon.
In other words, about 25% of the world's maritime cargo transport ships currently serve East Africa. This is a quite astonishing number. The only two countries that can compare with it are the United Kingdom and the United States.
Needless to say, the United States ranked first in the world in industrial scale before World War I and had the advantage of the Atlantic route, while the United Kingdom had a huge colony and a global market base.
It is worth mentioning that after the war broke out, Britain also placed a large number of orders for East Africa, and these goods were mainly carried out by British freight companies. The British shipping industry was already the first in the world, so it naturally did not need help from other countries. .
This is also the main reason why the domestic ocean-going merchant ships of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire occupy an important position in East Africa's external exports. Due to restrictions from the United Kingdom, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire can only maximize the benefits of limited resources.
"Affected by the war, the arms trade has also increased, especially countries that use German weapons, such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, etc., which has further increased the total volume of my country's overseas arms exports."
Generally speaking, the British can tolerate the trade of civilian supplies between the United States and East Africa and the Allied Powers, but they will definitely guard against such things as arms. The main reason why East Africa can circumvent the joint "enforcement" of Britain and France is that East Africa has diversified its trade routes with Europe.
The United States' trade with Europe is mainly realized through the Atlantic Ocean, while there are three sea routes for trade between East Africa and Europe.
They are the Atlantic route, starting from the west coast of East Africa, and the main destinations are Britain, France and Germany. The main destinations of the Mediterranean and Black Sea routes are Central and Eastern European countries, mainly Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Finally, there is the Persian Gulf route, which is also a key route for arms smuggling from East Africa to Europe.
John Lear also explained: "my country's arms trade with the Allied Powers mainly uses the Ottoman Empire as a transit point, first arriving at the Iraqi port of the Ottoman Empire, and finally transported to Central and Eastern Europe through the Baghdad Railway."
"Among them, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is one of the important emerging arms markets opened up by our country. Affected by the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had to customize a large number of rifles, ammunition, artillery and other military weapons from us."
In the early days, the arms trade between East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire generally involved East Africa importing artillery, military ships, etc. from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Later, as East Africa’s own military industry developed and expanded, the arms trade between East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was almost equal.
However, there had never been a case where Austria-Hungary ordered large quantities of army weapons from East Africa, and this was the first time in half a century.
The main reason for this situation was that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not prepared for war before the war began.
Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire is not facing the pressure of fighting on both sides like Germany, Tsarist Russia alone is difficult for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to withstand. What's more, Serbia, which was despised by the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the war, has held back a large number of Austro-Hungarian troops. .
And this is not the worst situation. After all, the country that has conflicts with the Austro-Hungarian Empire is Italy. Currently, Italy still maintains a neutral policy, but as long as the Austro-Hungarian Empire declines, Italy will definitely take a bite out of it. At least, Italy definitely wants to regain the lost ground in Lombardy and Venice, but now Italy is much more cautious, and it is not the goalkeeper of the great powers in Europe in its previous life.
For Italy, it would be a huge victory to regain Lombardy. If it could regain Venice, the Kingdom of Italy would once again become a hero of the Italians. However, the disastrous defeat of the Italian-Austrian War in the last century has left Italian senior officials with lingering fears, so for the time being Don't dare to act rashly.
However, this does not mean that the Kingdom of Italy is not worthy of attention. In recent years, the Kingdom of Italy has been developing smoothly on the economic level, because the population and industry lost in the Italian-Austrian War have basically been made up for.
After all, the Italian region, especially the Kingdom of Naples in the south, is the most fertile place in Europe today. The Kingdom of Italy can fully absorb the industrial development population from the Papal State and the Kingdom of Naples, and at the same time provides the basic conditions for Italy to open up a Red Sea colony.
The existence of Italy also forced the Austro-Hungarian Empire to pay attention to the possibility of opening a Western Front battlefield at any time, and Romania was not a stabilizing factor.
Although Romania is governed by the Sigmaringen royal family, the mainstream public opinion in Romania is indeed towards Britain and France.
There are a large number of Romanians living in eastern Hungary, and Romania wants to incorporate the Romanian areas in Austria-Hungary into its own territory. Of course, Romania is much more stable than Italy, so this unstable factor can be ignored for the time being.
All in all, the huge defense pressure on the Austro-Hungarian Empire forced the Austro-Hungarian Empire to order a large amount of weapons and equipment from East Africa to fill the current gap in its own military industry.
Although there are differences in weapon standards between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and East Africa, they still have a lot in common because East Africa learned skills from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
John Lear continued: "Of course, compared to Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire are our most stable European customers at present. Although the two countries have not yet participated in the war, they are also preparing for war."
"Among them, Bulgaria ranks third in the number of weapons imported from us, second only to Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The reason for this result is that because Germany is fighting on two fronts, its own military industry gives priority to serving the German army. So much so that Bulgaria couldn’t get the goods, so it had to find a way from us.”
Bulgaria's war mobilization capabilities are far above those of other countries. As Prussia in the Balkans, it can be said that the best is better than the best.
East Africa can also infer Bulgaria's next move from the current order situation in Bulgaria. Because of the failure of the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria is deeply hurt by Serbia and will definitely look for opportunities to stab Serbia in the back.
In the previous battle against Bulgaria, more than one million people were mobilized to participate in the war, and Ernst also wanted to know what kind of combat effectiveness this little Balkan power could unleash with the support of East Africa.
The arms trade between East Africa and the above-mentioned countries is almost all completed by the Baghdad Railway. Of course, European arms orders have indeed made East Africa's mouth full of oil, but it will definitely not last long.
When the comprehensive transformation of production in Germany and Austria-Hungary is completed, this part of the market gap will basically be filled, but Bulgaria is completely different.
The East African government is certain that Bulgaria will participate in the war, and Bulgaria is also an advertisement showing the best performance of East African weapons on the European battlefield. After all, Bulgaria's combat effectiveness in the previous life was amazing. Ernst believes that East African weapons can perform best in the Bulgarian army.
(End of chapter)