African Entrepreneurship Records

 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 did not think there was anything wrong with what Carl Peters said. Since Germany defeated France, it has de facto become the new European hegemon. However, the European hegemon can only represent Europe. The world hegemon must control the ocean. Germany wants to go one step further. , must have a colony as large as Britain as support.

"Prime Minister Bismarck is just a little timid. Otherwise, our Germany would not be inferior to Belgium and Italy in terms of colonies for so many years. If we had been ten years earlier, we might have been able to seize colonies larger than those in East Africa today. ” 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 tenure, and defeated the two powerful countries of Austria and France one after another. Every step was extremely bold. If you're not careful, Prussia will be doomed.

However, Ernst believed that Bismarck's strategy was extremely accurate. Bismarck's reasons were very good. Bismarck believed that Germany should focus on Europe and prevent French revenge. However, the colonial expenses were huge and the benefits were small, and he opposed colonial expansion.

Germany’s biggest problem is to solve France first. If France is not solved, no matter how many overseas colonies Germany has, 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 need 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 directly become a burden. During World War I, it was In this way, 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 is just maneuvering. If Germany can focus on developing the Tanganyika colony, it will be okay, just like East Africa today, it can fight with 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, given the size and degree of industrial development of East Africa, there is a risk of independence at any time. , we don’t even need enemies to do it, our own people will rebel.

Bismarck obviously knew this very well, so Bismarck's decision-making plan was always centered on the European continent and first concentrated on solving France, a close concern.

Bismarck was best at diplomacy. He knew clearly that engaging in overseas colonization at this time would definitely offend the British, and Germany would have to face pressure from 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 are making a lot of money from overseas colonization, and the German business community is naturally envious of it, so there has been a lot of support for overseas colonization. As long as the German monarch does not trust Bismarck, this kind of rumor can 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, there was "no day left" and they insisted on fighting with Britain to the death. In the end, Britain and Germany turned against each other.

There was a push by colonialists behind this, and the manager of Idenau, Carl Peters, was 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 in Bamusso on the coast of Cameroon. Through the traditional means of colonists, they stole, cheated, and robbed. , using the port of Idenau as a stronghold, 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 gained the upper hand in the Congo at that time. This obviously led to the dissatisfaction of domestic colonialists. Strongly dissatisfied, they put pressure on Bismarck's government.

Under the pressure of domestic public opinion, the Bismarck government finally had to make a compromise. German East Germany was informally established and became the most important colony in Germany later.

 Now that East Africa is 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 Colonial Association.

 Carl Peters was also an activist, so stimulated by the success of the Hechingen royal family in colonizing East Africa, he established the German West Africa Company in 1882 to carry out private colonization under the banner of trade.

The supporter behind him is the German Colonization Association. This association is very powerful in Germany. Many dignitaries are members of its organization. In other words, overseas colonization is the consensus of "people of insight" in many countries in this era.

East Africa has the most prominent role in intensifying this organization. The small Principality of Hechingen can become a large country with an area of ​​tens of millions of square kilometers through colonization. Who wouldn’t be jealous? Therefore, East Africa actually accelerated the colonization of Africa by other European colonists.

 In fact, there is no East Africa. They will 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.

 But in the previous life, Belgium colonized the Congo with only more than two million square kilometers. East Africa's stimulus to Germany today is obviously stronger than Belgium's.

 (End of this chapter)