Chapter 1148 Arms Trade

In this era, steel production is one of the most important criteria for measuring a country's industrial strength. East Africa's steel production has climbed to the top of the world, which to a certain extent shows that East Africa's industrial scale may even exceed that of the United States.

This is also easy to understand. After all, East Africa has a larger population than the United States, and its domestic industrial demand is large. Moreover, at the beginning of this century, East African industry has been in a stage of rapid expansion. In contrast, due to the economic crisis in Europe and the United States, industrial development has been twists and turns.

If it were not for the outbreak of World War I, which interrupted the spread of a new round of economic crisis, the industries of European countries might have further shrunk.

As John Lear's voice fell, some officials of the East African government also had a certain degree of understanding of the current export trade.

In 1914, the total tonnage of global merchant ships was only more than 40 million tons, of which Britain was the leader, reaching an astonishing 20 million tons, accounting for half of the world's shipping industry, followed by Germany, and the United States and East Africa ranked in the second tier.

That is to say, about 25% of the world's maritime cargo transport ships now serve East Africa, which is a rather astonishing figure. The only countries that can compare with it are probably Britain and the United States.

Needless to say, the United States ranked first in the world in terms of industrial scale before World War I, and had the advantage of the Atlantic route, while Britain had a large colony and a global market as a bottom line.

It is worth mentioning that after the outbreak of the war, Britain also placed a large number of orders for East Africa, and these goods were mainly carried out by British freight companies. Since the British shipping industry was already in the first place in the world, it naturally did not need help from other countries.

This is also the main reason why domestic ocean-going merchant ships in Germany and Austria-Hungary occupied an important position in East Africa's foreign exports. Under the restrictions of Britain, Germany and Austria-Hungary could only maximize the benefits of limited resources.

"Affected by the war, the arms trade also rose, especially countries using German weapons, such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, etc., further increased the total amount of my country's overseas arms exports."

Generally speaking, the British can tolerate the civilian trade between the United States and East Africa and the Allies, but things like arms will definitely be strictly guarded. The main reason why East Africa can bypass the joint "law enforcement" of Britain and France is the diversification of East Africa's trade routes to Europe.

The United States' trade with Europe is mainly achieved through the Atlantic Ocean, while there are three sea routes for trade between East Africa and Europe.

The Atlantic route starts from the west coast of East Africa and its main destinations are Britain, France and Germany. The Mediterranean and Black Sea routes are mainly for Central and Eastern European countries, mainly Russia and Austria-Hungary. Finally, there is the Persian Gulf route, which is also the key route for East Africa to smuggle arms to Europe.

John Lear also explained: "Our arms trade with the Allies mainly uses the Ottoman Empire as a transit station, 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 my 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 was generally imported by East Africa from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, such as artillery and military ships. Later, as East Africa's own military industry grew and developed, the arms trade between East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was almost equal.

However, there has never been a case where the Austro-Hungarian Empire ordered a large number of army weapons from East Africa. This is the first time in half a century.

The main reason for this situation is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not prepare for war before the war.

John Lear also explained this: "The current war situation has exceeded the Austro-Hungarian Empire's expectations, so the Austro-Hungarian Empire has to carry out a second mobilization, which makes the Austro-Hungarian Empire's military production line unable to keep up with the expansion of the army."

Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire is not like Germany, facing the pressure of fighting on two fronts, the Tsarist Russia alone makes the Austro-Hungarian Empire difficult to cope with, not to mention that Serbia, which was despised by the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the war, has dragged down a large number of Austro-Hungarian troops.

And this is not the worst situation. After all, there is another country with conflicts with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy. At present, Italy still maintains a neutral policy, but as long as the Austro-Hungarian Empire shows signs of decline, Italy will definitely bite hard.

At least, Italy must want to regain the lost land of Lombardy and Venice, but now Italy is much more cautious, and it is not the goalkeeper of the great powers in Europe in the previous life.

For Italy, it would be a great victory to recover Lombardy. If Venice could be recaptured, the Kingdom of Italy would once again become a hero of the Italians. However, the disastrous defeat in the Italo-Austrian War of the last century has left the Italian high-level officials with lingering fears, so they dare not act rashly for the time being.

However, this does not mean that the Kingdom of Italy is not worthy of attention. In recent years, the Kingdom of Italy has developed smoothly at the economic level, because the population and industry lost in the Italo-Austrian War have basically been made up.

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 States and the Kingdom of Naples, and at the same time provide the basic conditions for Italy to open up the Red Sea colony.

The existence of Italy also forced the Austro-Hungarian Empire to pay attention, and it may open up the Western Front at any time, and Romania is 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 war, Bulgaria mobilized more than one million people 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 sure 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.