Chapter 666 Carl Peters
Cameroon.
Idenau is a German colony in Cameroon. However, this colony has little to do with the German government. It is a German colony opened by private colonial groups.
Germany’s government-led colony in Cameroon is Douala. Both are actually small colonial strongholds. At present, Idenao is much larger than Douala.
However, because of the Berlin Conference, the German government is promoting the merger of Idenau and Douala, and then forming a more competitive Cameroon colony, and then developing it inland.
"After the Berlin Conference, Idenau and its surrounding areas will definitely officially become Germany's first colony in West Africa. In the future, it will also represent the first step for the Germans to conquer the ocean, and it will be the starting point for Germany to become the world's most powerful country." Carl Peters said excitedly.
The managers of Idenau do not think there is anything wrong with what Carl Peters said. Since Germany defeated France, it has actually become the new European hegemon. However, the European hegemon can only represent Europe, and the world hegemon must control Ocean, if Germany wants to go further, it must have a colony as huge as Britain to support it.
“Prime Minister Bismarck is a little timid. Otherwise, Germany would not be inferior to Belgium and Italy in terms of colonies for so many years. If it had been ten years earlier, we might have been able to seize areas such as East Africa today. And huge colonies,” said Carl Peters.
Bismarck has never been a timid figure, and can even be said to be crazy. After all, he launched three large-scale unification wars during his term of office, and defeated the two powerful countries of Austria and France one after another. Every move was extremely bold, and if one was not careful, Prussia would be doomed.
However, Ernst believes that Bismarck's strategy is extremely accurate. Bismarck's reasons are very good. Bismarck believes that Germany should focus on Europe and prevent French revenge, while the colonial expenses are huge and the benefits are small. , opposed to colonial expansion.
Germany's biggest problem is to solve France first. If France is not solved, no matter how many overseas colonies Germany has in its hands, they will not be able to play a role.
First of all, France's geographical location just blocks Germany's access to the sea. It can even be said that the Nordic countries can play this role. The Baltic Sea outlet is narrow, and Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands are all stuck nearby.
Further outside is the maritime hegemon Britain. Unless Germany goes to North America, it cannot avoid the French on the North Atlantic coast. But now there is no place in North America that can be colonized.
Even if Germany passes through the Mediterranean via Austria, it will not be able to achieve this goal, because the strongest naval forces in the Mediterranean are the British and the French.
In peacetime, Germany naturally does not have to worry about this problem, but once war breaks out, Britain and France are both capable of cutting off Germany's maritime trade routes. The colonies cannot even support the German mainland, and they will directly become a burden. This was the case during World War I. Germany directly withdrew its overseas forces to its homeland, leaving only the East African battlefield to rely on Vorbeck's genius command ability to deal with the British.
But it's just a deal. If Germany can focus on developing the Tanganyika colony, it will be okay, just like East Africa today, it can fight most countries with its own industrial strength.
But ordinary colonies, unlike East Africa, do not have industry at all. After all, the development of industry also means an increase in the risk of colonial independence. Assuming that East Africa is now a German colony, according to the size and degree of industrial development of East Africa, , there is a risk of independence at any time, and we don’t need enemies to do it, our own people will rebel.
Bismarck obviously knew this very well, so Bismarck's decision-making plan was always to focus on the European continent and first concentrate on solving France, a confidant.
Bismarck was best at diplomacy. He knew clearly that engaging in overseas colonization at this time would definitely offend the British. By then, Germany would have to face the pressure of Britain and France at the same time.
However, most people in Germany do not agree with Bismarck's views, or the temptation of interests makes them turn a blind eye to these risks. The British saw a lot of money being made from overseas colonization, and the German business community was naturally greedy, so there was always a lot of support for overseas colonization. As long as the German monarch did not trust Bismarck, this kind of rumor could immediately become the direction of Germany's development.
In fact, from a geographical point of view, Britain and Germany are natural collaborators. However, the Germans do not know how to "keep a low profile". After Bismarck stepped down, "the sky is the same". A life-and-death fight with Britain eventually led to Britain and Germany turning against each other.
There is a push by colonialists behind this, and the manager of Idenau, Carl Peters, is such a colonialist.
Speaking of Carl Peters, he actually has a connection with East Africa, but that was Ernst’s previous life.
In this time and space, Karl Peters was one of the founders of the German West Africa Company. In 1882, its colonial company, the German West Africa Company, landed at Bamusso on the coast of Cameroon, using traditional means of colonists , stole, cheated, and robbed, using the Port of Idenao as a stronghold, and successfully seized a colony for Germany in the northwest of Spanish Guinea.
In actual history, in 1884 in the previous life, Karl Peters established the German East Africa Company, which eventually enabled Germany to obtain German East Africa.
Speaking of the establishment of German East Africa in the previous life, Bismarck himself did not support it, but Karl Peters threatened Germany if it did not accept East Africa as its colony and would defect to the Belgians who had the upper hand in the Congo. This was obviously This led to strong dissatisfaction among domestic colonialists, who therefore put pressure on the Bismarck government.
Under the pressure of domestic public opinion, the Bismarck government finally had to make a compromise, and German East Germany was unofficially established and later became the most important colony in Germany.
Now that East Africa has been blocked by Ernst, Carl Peters naturally has no way to plan a colony in East Africa.
As for Karl Peters running to West Africa to establish a colony, this is inevitable because Karl Peters is an extreme colonialist.
This has a lot to do with the education he received. In his early years, Carl Peters studied in England. During his four years in London, he studied British history, British colonial policy and philosophy. After returning to China, he joined the German Colonization Association.
And Karl Peters was an activist, so stimulated by the success of the Hechingen royal family in colonizing East Africa, in 1882, he established the German West Africa Company to carry out private colonization under the banner of trade.
The supporter behind him is the German Colonial Association. This association is very powerful in Germany. Many dignitaries are members of its organization. In other words, overseas colonization is the goal of "people of insight" in many countries today. consensus.
East Africa has the most prominent role in intensifying this organization. The small Principality of Hechingen can become a huge country with an area of tens of millions of square kilometers through colonialism. Who wouldn’t be jealous? Therefore, East Africa actually accelerated the colonization of Africa by other European colonists.
In fact, without East Africa, they would also be stimulated by Belgium. This is one of the real reasons why the Congo River Basin dispute triggered the Berlin Conference in the previous life.
However, in the previous life, Belgium's colonial Congo only covered more than two million square kilometers. East Africa's stimulus to Germany today is obviously stronger than Belgium's.
(End of this chapter)