Chapter 1398 European Consensus
Germany's situation is very embarrassing. After the failure to challenge British and French hegemony in one World War, Germany only nominally maintained and consolidated its position as a continental hegemon.
After all, since the Franco-Prussian War, Germany has been the number one military power on the European continent. Although France emphasized its army as the first in Europe in public opinion propaganda before the war, France has never defeated Germany again in military terms since the Franco-Prussian War. World War I even made the French Army firmly positioned as the second European Army.
However, this did not change the situation of Germany, the current continental overlord, and the idea of trying to seize the vast overseas colonies of Britain and France through war was shattered.
Germany can only continue to deepen its original market and sphere of influence, and expand externally based on this. The two directions of expansion are Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
However, Germany's expansion in these two directions was obviously not smooth. Eastern Europe was the current Russian regime led by the Russian Labor Party, and it still continued the fundamental policy of expanding towards Europe in the Tsarist Russian era.
Any Russian leaders have a normal mind, and they all know that Europe is the foundation of Russia, and the corresponding Far East, Central Asia, Indian Ocean and other regions are secondary directions.
It’s not that these regions are not important, but that the benefits of developing these regions are far less than those of Europe, and the costs are not low.
A typical example is Nicholas II. He originally wanted to change Russia's decline through the policy of advancing east, but he met Japan, a rising star. Not only did he not get much benefit, but he was disappointed.
There is also the Far East Empire in the past. After the national strength of the Far East Empire was restored, its main expansion direction was also Southeast Asia at its doorstep. It would not spend too much energy on Europe and other regions.
In his previous life, the Far East Empire invested more than 60% in Asia, while Europe and North America only had about 10%, followed by Latin America and Africa. The proportions of the two were about the same, about 7%, and Oceania was the least, less than 3%.
So the expansion of the sphere of influence generally ranges from near to far, and European countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Russia will inevitably suffer from the hegemony of Europe.
The United States regards America as its back garden, and Japan focuses on the Pacific Ocean, especially in East Asia.
Compared with these countries, East Africa is a rather strange existence. It was not until recently that a common market in Southeast Africa was created and began to integrate resources on the African continent.
This reflects to a certain extent the sway of East Africa in its expansion policy. The Middle East, South Asia, South America, West Africa, and East Africa all want to intervene, which also led to the dispersion of East Africa's forces.
However, overall, East Africa still regards countries and regions along the Indian Ocean coast as its core sphere of influence.
In this way, East Africa and Russia, Britain, Germany, even the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire all had differences in interests, and other countries were not willing to East Africa to control the Indian Ocean. After all, the Indian Ocean was the main artery of Eurasian trade in the era of maritime transportation.
Hermann told William II: "East Africa is too powerful, and with its geographical advantage, it poses no threat to the world as much as Russia."
"North, they have the ability to control the entire African continent and have an African version of the 'Monroeism'. To the east, they can block exchanges and trade between Europe and the Far East by controlling the Indian Ocean."
"West, East Africa has been involved in the Americas and has had a conflict of interest with the United States. In the future, they may not be able to continue to go north along the Atlantic Ocean and spread their influence to the entire Atlantic coast."
"If Russia can connect to the Eurasian continent through land, East Africa is the most likely powerful force to divide Eurasia into two through seas and land."
Speaking of this, Hermann couldn't help but fall into deep jealousy. Compared with Germany, the geographical conditions of East Africa are simply "invincible".
East Africa can attack geopolitically and defend, and because of the special nature of Africa's position, they are more offensive than the United States.
"Over the past few years, East Africa has relied on this geographical advantage to expand globally. Newly established colonies in East Africa exist in the South Ocean, the Middle East, the Far East, West Africa, etc.."
The reason for this advantage in East Africa is that there are soft persimmons on all sides of East Africa, and North Africa to the north of East Africa is North Africa and West Africa. These two regions obviously cannot pose a threat to East Africa.
To the east is the Indian Ocean, and it is mostly colonies and backward countries.
The two most powerful countries in South America to the west, Brazil and Argentina, are also too disparate from East Africa.
Look at Germany again, there is no one around that is easy to match. Europe in this era can be said to be a "monster house".
Hermann couldn't even imagine how fragrant it would be if East Africa's geographical location was replaced with Germany.
William II also gritted his teeth and said, "East Africa's natural talents are indeed enviable, jealous and hateful. This is also their confidence in the first battle. I am afraid that the benefits Americans gained are nothing compared to East Africa."
Why Germany's current attitude towards East Africa is actually rooted in its roots, mainly in two aspects, first of all, the colonies, and secondly, economic interests.
Before the war, East Africa "takes the risk of robbing" the German colonies. Although the deal before the war was objectively "fair and just", the Germans obviously would not see it this way. From the German perspective, they were the ones who suffered losses.
That is more than one million square kilometers, and it involves Central and West Africa, the South Pacific, Far East and other regions. Since Germany's reunification, decades of overseas colonial achievements have been easily acquired by East Africa.
It is obvious that East Africa does not view it this way. In East Africa, this is a fair deal that we are willing to do. After all, if Germany does not sell these colonies to East Africa, these colonies will only be cheaper than Britain and France.
But now that the war is over, you, Germany, want to take these colonies back with your mind, and East Africa will definitely not agree.
This is one of the important differences between the two countries. For Germany, because of the final result of World War I, Germany's gains were not enough to offset the efforts, and the loss of these overseas colonies made Germany very heartbroken.
In terms of territory, Germany only obtained 50,000 square kilometers of new land in Eastern Europe after the war. Compared with the millions of square kilometers of land lost overseas, it would be strange to be able to balance it.
In terms of economic interests, Germany is not only not grateful to East Africa, but instead complains that East Africa has harvested too much of Germany's wealth in World War I.
As the most important supplier of Germany in World War I, the more profits East Africa makes, the more heartbroken Germany becomes after the war. I fought to death in Europe and paid a heavy price. As a result, East Africa did not have any strength and emptied the large amount of wealth accumulated by Germany. This is not the end. During World War I, a large number of overseas markets that Germany worked hard to manage were also harvested by East Africa, such as arms, power equipment and other markets.
Although there are differences in weapons between East Africa and Germany, there are many commonalities, such as the rifles, artillery, etc. of the two countries. Many of the technical sources of East Africa are from Germany and Austria.
However, during World War I, Germany fell into war and arms exports stagnated. Countries that originally imported arms from Germany naturally had to choose alternatives. There is no doubt that East Africa, which had certain commonalities with German equipment, was the best choice, which made East Africa cheaper, which had been carefully cultivated by Germany before the war.
Once a country that was originally equipped with German military products, its weapons and equipment were replaced with East African products in large quantities, and it would be obvious that it would not be easy to replace them again.
The brand, quality, performance and price of the international arms trade market are important influencing factors, but in these fields, German military industry has no obvious advantages over East Africa's military industry. Both are "German". Although East Africa's overall industrial level is not as good as Germany, the military industry field and Germany are half a dozen.
Maybe German weapons do have better quality than East Africa, but it is also true that East African weapons are cheaper than Germany.
On the political level, East Africa can radiate significantly more than Germany, which is also an important favorable factor for East Africa to seize Germany's original overseas military market.
For example, the huge military-industrial market in the early 20th century of the Far East Empire, due to its weak military industry and frequent wars, it imports a large number of foreign military-industrial products every year.
The military products of which country are imported should obviously be considered from a political perspective. After all, there are many forces behind them, and there are support from different countries.
The most typical ones are Russia and Japan, two malicious neighbors. Because they are close to the Far East Empire and are easy to manipulate and interfere with the internal affairs of the Far East Empire, they are prone to obtain a large number of military orders.
In this era, Russia and Japan's military products are undoubtedly not outstanding among the great powers, and it is not even an exaggeration to describe them as "scrap". However, it is very obvious that these two countries can obtain a large number of military orders in the Far East Empire.
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In response to Germany and East Africa, East Africa obviously has more advantages than Germany. East Africa has many colonies in the Far East and the navy is permanently stationed in the Pacific, which is all influence that Germany does not have.
The World War lasted for five years, and a large part of the overseas military-industry markets of Germany and Austria were completely eaten up by East Africa. So on this issue alone, it is strange that Germany can have a good impression of East Africa.
So, in the eyes of Germans such as William II and Hermann, East Africa is a "thief" in the international market, stealing a large amount of interests that should have belonged to Germany.
However, even if you feel dissatisfied with East Africa, Germany can only hold it in its heart now, and Germany's attitude towards East Africa is quite twisted.
William II said: "Although East Africans hate it, our main enemy is Russia now. It is indeed a good idea to bring the whole of Europe to confront Russia by reaching an agreement with the United Kingdom on the issue of the international alliance."
East Africa is a long-term worry, and even East Africa should not be a problem that Germany should consider at all. Now Germany cannot even go out of Europe. On the contrary, the intersection between Britain and France and East Africa in overseas interests is deeper, but East Africa is simpler and unhappy, so the monarch and ministers say so much.
Hermann said: "In dealing with Russia, we must first stabilize the front line, and then look for opportunities to end this war and prevent other countries from acting as fishermen behind it again. After all, we cannot defeat Russia now, and the war with Russia will only be detrimental to Germany."
"We need a period of peaceful development to erase the trauma of the war, and after restoring the national economy, we will consider military investment and future national direction."
"During this period, we should win over allies internationally, limit Russia's development, and reduce the imperial military expenditure. The fiscal crisis has not yet been lifted, so we cannot only contribute to the fight against Russia."
"In this period, we should win over allies internationally, limit Russia's development, and reduce the imperial military expenditure. The fiscal crisis has not yet been lifted, so we cannot do our best to fight against Russia."
Germany and Russia fight to the death. I don’t know what the final outcome of Russia will be, and it will definitely be unfavorable to Germany. After all, even if Germany beats Russia half to death, the international community is unlikely to allow Germany to digest the results of the war.
While Germany has the idea of a ceasefire, Russia is the main obstacle to whether Eastern Europe can stop. Judging from the current state of the Russian Labor Party, they support the continued war, because as of now, the war situation is beneficial to Russia, and the Russian Labor Party currently has the attributes of a world party. Their political slogan is to liberate the whole world, and liberate the whole world naturally needs to be achieved through war.
So, Hermann proposed that the war situation should be stabilized first, and that Russia should be "crushed" and that the Russian Labor Party should return to rationality.
Although the Russian Labor Party has a temporary advantage, don't forget that the Russians are not equal to the Russian Labor Party. The collapse of Russia in the World War Tsarist War was because the lower class people were tired of the war, so they could not end up in a good end.
So, Hermann believed that as long as Russia fails on the front line or finds it difficult to continue to make progress, they must return to the negotiating table, otherwise even if the Russian Labor Party can be destined to repeat the mistakes of the Tsarist Russian government.
Hermann continued: "At the same time, for the Russian Labor Party, we should also fight back against them in the fields of thought and public opinion, especially within the empire and within the sphere of subordinate influence of the empire. We must strengthen propaganda offensives and study how to crack the ideological weapons of Russian workers."
"Avoid the people in China and surrounding areas being incited by the Labor Party, the Labour Party's theory is the most terrifying. Just like Satan, our lessons in Eastern Europe this time tell us that we must find ways to curb the spread of this evil idea."
" Otherwise, not to mention Poland and Ukraine, there may be possible within the empire, being infiltrated by Labor elements, and ultimately endangering the foundation of the rule."
Regarding this, William II also said solemnly: "Labor's thoughts are extremely destructive. Although we have dealt a long-term blow to the Labor Party members, these evil ideas of the Labor Party are still growing wildly like weeds. Therefore, when negotiating with the British, we should also take this opportunity to discuss how countries around the world can deal with the spread of this evil idea."
Putting aside the so-called "evil" ideological factors, Russia is actually the original Russia, and it is even weaker than the national strength of the Tsarist Russian era, but its combat effectiveness is just the opposite. Under the armed force of this evil idea, the combat effectiveness of the Russian army is obviously more "brutal" and "speedy" than the gray animals of Tsarist Russia.
Therefore, curbing the spread of this idea has become a problem that must be solved in the current German government. If this problem can be solved, the situation in Ukraine and Belarus will not repeat itself.
So with these questions in mind, in 1923, the German government not only further strengthened military support in Eastern Europe and prevented Russia's expansion, but also started exchanges and cooperation with Britain and other countries.
The UK naturally supports the change in Germany's attitude. With the active promotion of the two countries, the progress of the international alliance, which is a world-wide organization used to coordinate international affairs and relations and resolve international disputes, has greatly accelerated.
After experiencing mutual fighting in World War I, the four major European imperialist countries, had to sit together again due to various threats outside Europe (including Russia) and join forces on the fate of Europe.
This also destined the international organization of the League of Nations, which has been repressing the development of countries outside Europe since its birth, and it is also the only consensus that can unite the four countries at present. This also reflects the current trend of Europe's decline to a certain extent.
(This chapter ends)