Chapter 1100 Mostar Hydropower Station
When East Africa enters the Third Five-Year Plan and continues to develop its own industry, other parts of the world are not at peace, especially the conflicts in European countries that are becoming increasingly acute, especially the United Kingdom. The game between France and Germany is the most prominent, and the secondary contradiction is reflected in the dispute between Austria-Hungary and Russia over the right to speak on the Balkan Peninsula.
Austro-Hungary and Russia had acute domestic problems, which also made them weak links in the imperialist chain.
Yes, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was also included by Ernst as an equal existence to Russia. This can be seen from the results of the war in the previous life. There was a coup in Russia, but the new government managed to survive. Most of the benefits were obtained, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was directly dismembered. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was the real biggest loser in the First World War.
So the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia can be said to be close rivals, and the two countries have had long-standing disputes in the Balkans and are natural competitors. If the Ottoman Empire, the old enemy of the two countries, had not weakened, perhaps they could In Central and Eastern Europe, there is another table of "landlords", and together with the three groups of Britain, France and Germany in Western Europe, they form the two major poker games in Europe.
Compared with the original history, since the failure of Italian unification, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is actually much stronger than the same period in history. At least the threat of western Italy no longer exists, allowing the Austro-Hungarian Empire to devote more energy to competing with Russia on the Balkan Peninsula.
After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia could be said to have lost a lot of face, which made the Austro-Hungarian Empire even more arrogant in the Balkans. However, generally speaking, Russia is so skinny that a camel is bigger than a horse. For Austria-Hungary, Even Russia, the old rival of the Empire, did not take it seriously.
……
April 7, 1911.
Southwestern Bosnia region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the city of Mostar.
Today, a major project in the city of Mostar was completed. The Mostar Hydropower Station, built with support from East Africa, was inaugurated on the Neretva River.
The general manager of the newly established Mostar Hydropower Company, Kerrev, said happily in front of the completed Mostar Hydropower Dam: "The completion of the Mostar Hydropower Station will become our The city’s new economic development engine will provide help for our city’s power supply and industrial development.”
Kleif is a typical East African and one of the representatives of East Africa’s business community in Bosnia. Most of the employees are locals.
It’s just that unlike other places in Bosnia, the locals in Mostar are very strange, because more than 80% of the local population is Chinese, and 17% is Croat. Finally there are three percent Serbs.
So among the workers involved in the construction of the Mostar Hydropower Station in front of Kelev, except for a very small number of East African technicians, they were mainly Chinese, with a small number of Croats.
The original three major ethnic groups in Mostar were Ottomans, Croats and Serbs.
The city of Mostar was once a border military center run by the Ottoman Empire. After the Austro-Hungarian Empire took control of the Bosnian region, the Hechingen Consortium "cooperated" through the Austro-Hungarian Army stationed in Mostar at the time. , the town that originally had Ottoman characteristics was completely "greened", and the Hechingen Consortium became the largest local landowner, further introducing immigrants from the Far Eastern Empire to the entire lower Neretva River Valley.
Of course, the Far Eastern immigrants imported from East Africa at that time were actually "black households", and most of them "settled down" locally as laborers hired by the Hechingen Consortium.
In the early days, East Africa mainly engaged in agriculture in the lower Neretva River Valley. The area had a Mediterranean climate and abundant water resources. Far Eastern immigrants, under the arrangement of the Hechingen Consortium, developed farms and plantations there. At that time, the Far East Immigrants were in fact similar to Russian serfs.
Because the lower Neretva River Valley belongs to the front lines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, the local population is not large. The terrain is relatively rugged and there is a large amount of virgin forest, so it is not suitable for living.
This provided convenience to the Hechingen Consortium. With the support of a large number of cheap immigrant labor from the Far East, the Hechingen Consortium continued to open up wasteland downstream along the Neretva River. After more than thirty years of development, Neretva The lower reaches of the river actually became a prosperous zone for Bosnia and Croatia.
This can be seen from the population situation in the lower reaches of the Neretva River. Today, the local population exceeds 630,000, of which 480,000 are Chinese, which is more than 100% of the local population. Seventy, and the entire lower Neretva River area is only more than 4,000 square kilometers. Such a comparison shows the degree of prosperity of the local area with the support of East Africa. It is more than 4,000 square kilometers, which is basically equivalent to the size of a medium-sized prefecture-level city in the previous Far Eastern Empire (the average area of a prefecture-level city in our country is about 28,000 square kilometers). kilometer).
For such a small place, the population exceeds 500,000, which is relatively rare at least in the Balkans. You must know that the entire Kingdom of Serbia has a population of only more than two million, and Bulgaria has more than four million. , so the lower reaches of the Neretva River are definitely densely populated areas under the governance of the Hechingen Consortium.
Why East Africa wants to support a pro-East African force here starts with East Africa’s penetration into the Bosnia region.
After the Austro-Hungarian Empire occupied the Bosnian region, East Africa had already begun to create an East Africa-like region within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the work in Bosnia was not smooth at that time.
First of all, Bosnia is a country dominated by mountains and hills, and is blocked by Croatia, so transportation is not smooth.
So East Africa can only penetrate into the Neretva River Basin from the port of Ploce in Croatia in the previous life.
The Neretva River was an important river in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in the past, and the Port of Ploce is close to the Neretva River.
The lower Neretva River Valley area from Ploce to Mostar constitutes a rare flat land on the border between Bosnia and Croatia.
This is also the basis for the Hechingen Consortium to carry out the "land enclosure movement" in the local area. It can be said that most areas except Mostar were basically developed by the Hechingen Consortium later.
Ploce was a port city in Croatia in its previous life, while Mostar is the fifth largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is also the only way from Sarajevo to the Adriatic Sea.
As the second largest city in the region, the Port of Ploce can be said to have been independently developed and constructed by the Hechingen Consortium.
If East Africa had not intervened, the Port of Ploce would probably have to be built in 1939 by the later Kingdom of Yugoslavia like in its previous life.
The city of Mostar is different. Mostar is located at the intersection of the Dinara Mountains and the Vranica Mountains. The Neretva River flows from here into the plain area downstream, so Mostar is Er controls the flat and open valley area of the lower reaches of the Neretva River.
It is also a battleground for military strategists in history. In the previous life, the important Battle of Neretva River in World War II took place here. Controlling Mostar means that it is not far from Sarajevo, one of the most important cities in the Balkan Peninsula. .
Sarajevo is close to the city of Mostar, and the two places are separated by the Vranica Mountains, so the Neretva Valley is the main channel from Bosnia and Serbia to the Adriatic Sea.
This also shows that East Africa’s local layout is mainly between the port of Ploce and the city of Mostar, which is equivalent to cutting off the transportation artery between the inland areas and the coast.
The penetration of East Africa into Bosnia was not always smooth sailing. At least the early Ernst vision of controlling the economy of the entire Bosnian region was not realistic.
The main reason is that Bosnia has a complex ethnic composition. It is the intersection area of the three major religious forces of Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Arabia. It was also the center of competition between the three traditional European powers, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Among them, Sarajevo is the most competitive place. It can be seen from the local population composition that Sarajevo is the main place where ethnic and religious believers live together.
(End of this chapter)