Chapter 1138 Dealing with German Colonies
The German government had no time to argue with East Africa, because the German army had already marched to Belgium, and now the German top brass was focused on the war.
In this way, Germany's overseas colonies of nearly one million square kilometers fell into the hands of East Africa. Under the influence of East Africa, Germany's overseas colonization process in this life can be said to be even more difficult. In the previous life, Germany's overseas colonies added up to 2.59 million square kilometers, but now it can't even reach half of this number.
It is not polite to say that the economic value of Germany's Tanzanian colony in the previous life alone exceeded the sum of all Germany's overseas colonies today.
Take the Central African colony as an example. This is already Germany's most impressive colony, but the tropical rainforest alone accounts for more than 80% of the total area, making it difficult to develop.
After all, it is a typical tropical rainforest climate distribution area. The equator passes through German Central Africa, and Germany's second largest colony, German New Guinea, is also near the equator, and its geographical location is very bad. Not to mention Germany, even for East Africa, it is a place where no one lives.
Except for Africa, Germany's other colonies are basically distributed on Pacific islands near Oceania.
The distribution of German colonies alone can show Germany's "frustrated" position among the colonial powers. To put it bluntly, all the overseas territories Germany had previously acquired were basically the dregs of the scraps given by Britain and France, not even scraps. It is no wonder that Germany is dissatisfied with the current division of the world pattern.
…
Compared with the gloomy clouds brought about by the outbreak of World War I in European countries, East Africa is overjoyed. Now that the war has not expanded, East Africa has already won huge benefits.
Germany's overseas colonies are quite useless to Germany, but they are completely different for East Africa. For example, Togoland and German Central Africa, let alone the economic value and development difficulty, their strategic value alone is worth East Africa's efforts.
Togoland and German Central Africa are located in the north and east of the Gulf of Guinea respectively. With these two places, East Africa's political influence and military presence can be directly expanded to the Gulf of Guinea region.
For example, Lome, the capital of Togoland, is a natural deep-water port that can serve as an outpost and a stable base for the East African Navy in West Africa.
German Central Africa has more ports, the most important of which are Libreville and Chentil. Ernst knows that there are relatively rich oil resources on the coast of German Central Africa, but Germany is not blessed with these resources.
Of course, Ernst certainly cannot take the initiative to reveal the oil resources here. The most important thing now is to complete the division and rule of German Central Africa.
In the Rhine Palace, Ernst and officials are actively planning the new territory.
Ernst said: "Split German Central Africa into two parts, establish a colony in the north, and incorporate the south into the mainland. Basically, the scope of the former French Gabon colony is incorporated into the mainland, and Cameroon temporarily maintains its colonial status."
"The original Central African Development Agreement now seems unlikely to continue to be implemented, and it is redesigned according to our ideas."
The development of Central Africa is a huge plan led by the former East Africa, with the participation of Germany, Belgium, and the Kingdom of South Germany.
But now Germany and Belgium have been dragged into the European war and are unable to get out. The two countries have even become belligerents, not to mention that German Central Africa has fallen into the hands of East Africa, so the original joint development agreement has become a joke.
"The rainforest area of German Central Africa alone exceeds 300,000 square kilometers. It is extremely difficult to develop. Without sufficient population, it is almost impossible to complete. Therefore, we only develop its southern area first, and Bangui and other inland areas of East Africa also have access to the sea with the help of Douala and Libreville Port."
"The Northern Railway is upgraded to a true two-ocean railway, further enhancing my country's transportation advantages. In this way, my country's northern railway economic belt can be completely formed."
The terminus of the Northern Railway is the inland city of Bangui. In the past, because the west was a colony of France and Germany, East Africa naturally had no motivation to continue to extend the Northern Railway. Now that the west has completely fallen into the hands of East Africa, the third extension of the Northern Railway is very necessary.
In this way, the "three horizontal" railways in East Africa have basically achieved the function of connecting the two oceans, which is of great benefit to the economic development of East Africa.
"We must also pay special attention to Togoland. Lome must be built into a port city, and its military attributes must be given priority. It is an important outpost of our country in the Gulf of Guinea to ensure our interests in the South Atlantic region."
Togoland is probably the Togo of the previous life, between Ghana and Benin, that is, between the British Gold Coast and the French Dahomey Protectorate.
Before, East Africa was the first power in Africa, but it had almost no presence in West Africa. As the first colony of East Africa in West Africa, Togoland is naturally very important.
Hermann said: "These two German colonies have exceeded 500,000 square kilometers. It is indeed difficult to develop and govern them."
Ernst: "So we have to carry out large-scale immigration activities in these two regions, referring to our practices in the Beibu Gulf Territory, especially Togoland, which will be our main immigration focus area in recent years. Let's set a small goal first, to immigrate one million people in the Togoland area."
Togoland is located between the two great powers in the world. Of course, Ernst's immigration policy is not intended to target the threats from Britain and France. Currently, no country in sub-Saharan Africa can pose a threat to East Africa.
The main reason why Ernst implemented such a radical immigration plan in Togoland is to prevent local blacks.
West Africa is currently the most densely populated area of blacks in the world. As time goes by, in a few decades, the number of blacks here will inevitably surge. According to the location of Togoland, except for the sea in the south, it is almost surrounded by black residents on three sides.
Moreover, the territory of Togoland is distributed in a long strip, and the north and south sides are almost negligible. This terrain is naturally conducive to the infiltration of blacks into Togoland.
Ernst did not get Togoland from Germany to prepare wedding clothes for future blacks, so the best way is to move a large number of immigrants to the local area.
The first is East African immigrants, followed by immigrants from Europe and the Far East Empire. Now that the European war has broken out, it is not particularly difficult to obtain population from Europe, especially in Eastern Europe.
Of course, it is definitely not realistic to achieve the 50-50 population ratio in East Africa. After all, not many European refugees can be fooled, after all, the conditions in Togoland are too poor.
Today is not like the last century. At that time, the economies of many European countries, including Germany, were not developed. East Africa was able to catch up with the last train of population loss in the German region and obtain a large number of German immigrants.
Now, many European countries have good economic development, and if you want to get sufficient population from Europe, you can only think of ways from the Kingdom of Naples and Eastern Europe. These countries and regions are currently the tail of the European economy, and the population growth is also fast. They have replaced Germany as the most important population outflow in Europe.
Of course, the people of European countries are not easy to fool after all. The main reason is that the traditional European immigration target country is the United States. Now there is another Argentina. East Africa still has a big gap compared with the two countries. What's more, East Africa does not recruit immigrants locally, but recruits immigrants for colonies.
Therefore, the next situation can be imagined. The focus of East African immigrants will definitely be on the Far East Empire. Now is a good time to absorb immigrants from the Far East Empire.
After decades of relative peace, the population of the Far Eastern Empire has recovered. In addition, due to the change of regime, the Far Eastern Empire has once again fallen into war and warlord separatism, which has made it convenient for East Africa to recruit immigrants from the Far Eastern Empire.