Chapter 1124 Military Assets
Compared with Germany and Japan, East Africa does not deserve 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, the Austro-Hungarian Empire 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, it is not wise for Germany to plan one-to-many from the beginning of formulating its military plan.
So Ernst advised Carmon: "Germany is facing an extremely severe situation in Europe. Your enemy is not only France, but also Russia and Britain. Even if you can defeat France, it will be very difficult under the intervention of Russia and Britain. 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 in 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 really poor. In fact, it is also Germany's helplessness. Latecomers have no choice in forming alliances.
This was true for Germany, the Soviet Union, and later the Far Eastern Empire. When the world's second largest nation faced the world's largest empire, it was 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 a cultural inferiority complex 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 butt is not white. Instead, it has done many evil things because it controls huge colonies 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: "The words 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 without results.
So Carmon said politely: "Then on behalf of our government, I would like to thank His Majesty the Emperor for his support."
…
After sending Camon away, with Ernst's acquiescence, the East African government tried its best to give Germany some preferential treatment in terms of trade. 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 successive "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 also 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 financial situation in 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 slightly above the Austro-Hungarian Empire and second only to Russia, Germany, and France, 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 is definitely not 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 between the two countries of 20 to 30 million, 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 East Africa's mobilization potential can be ranked in the top three. There are many factors to consider in mobilization potential, including population, logistics, transportation, material reserves, etc., and East Africa has nearly twice as many railways as Russia, and millions of kilometers of roads. If East Africa really mobilizes the whole country, it is probably not inferior to Russia. According to the current standards of the Russian army, it is not difficult for East Africa to mobilize 5 million people.
East Africa is at the upper-middle level in the world in terms of military strength. In comparison, there is a big gap between the United States and Britain, which are maritime powers, and East Africa. Of course, if Britain includes colonial troops, the overall situation is actually similar to East Africa. There are many and scattered colonies, and 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 National Defense Force. After all, the main task of the colonial army is to prevent colonial rebellions, rather than fighting with other military powers.
"In terms of army weapons and equipment, we have reached the level of various 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 forces, etc."
Now the East African Air Force has been separated from the Army, and the Army has also retained some aviation arms to exercise coordination capabilities. Only the naval aviation has not been formed yet.
The main reason is that the Navy is deployed around the coastline. It is too conspicuous to form a naval aviation now, and without an aircraft carrier as a carrier, the naval aviation is not easy to play a role.
And at this stage, the East African Air Force is already the most powerful in the world. Many countries don't even have aircraft, which also means that East Africa has no need for this for the time being.
From the current equipment of the East African Army, the East African Army is half a century ahead of its peers, but this advantage is not obvious. The main reason is that the performance of tanks and aircraft is not up to standard, and it is still insufficient if it fights across regions.
As Ernst said to Kamon, East Africa is a country on the African continent, which to a certain extent ensures the national security of East Africa, but in turn it is easy to limit the performance of the East African army.
As the number one military power on the African continent, it has no rivals around East Africa. However, participating in wars outside the region requires crossing oceans, which obviously requires the guarantee of the navy and the country's shipping capabilities. Therefore, it is currently difficult for the East African military to support overseas operations.