African Entrepreneurship Record-Chapter 620 - 298 Detour
"It’s acceptable to aid the Orange people, but we should not rush to them. Instead, we need to negotiate terms with them. Of course, considering the industries the Orange people are involved in, we could engage in symbolic cooperation in agriculture and animal husbandry," Ernst said to Constantine.
"You’re right. The Orange people are now trapped inland and have offended the British, so they’re unable to establish contact with the outside world. Certainly, their trade is impacted, and we are the only ones who can offer them relevant assistance," Constantine agreed.
This might be the tragedy of landlocked countries. Ernst thus thought of the Abyssinian Empire in the north, which, just like in the previous life, remains a landlocked country.
Abyssinia’s three neighbors—Italy and Egypt—have poor relations with the Abyssinian Empire, so its trade can only be completed through cooperation with East Africa.
Although some tribes within the Egyptian Sultanate have good relations with Abyssinia, their traditional trade routes mostly go through the Sahara Desert in a westward direction, which cannot solve Abyssinia’s issues.
After all, Abyssinia is a country with tens of millions of people. Such a large economy cannot be resolved by North African trade, especially considering its poor relations with Egypt.
As for the traditional trade routes through the Red Sea, they have been completely blocked by Egypt and Italy, forcing Abyssinia to cooperate with the kingdom in the south of East Africa.
East Africa can act as an intermediary to profit from this situation. Although East Africa previously had some interests tied with Abyssinia, especially having annexed some subordinate forces of Abyssinia’s south, compared to the threats to Abyssinia’s core areas posed by Egypt and Italy, East Africa appears much more agreeable.
Subordinate forces are not entirely bound as one family, similar to the relationship between the Far East Empire and its vassal states. The relationship between Abyssinia and its subordinates is not as close as that of vassal states.
Vassal states have cultural recognition, while the relationship between Abyssinia and its subordinate forces involves more military conquest and less emotional investment.
"Regarding the Orange people, we should provide them with neutral weapons, not bearing strong East African features, and trade with the Orange people should mainly consist of goods. We should focus on supporting the Orange people more in terms of food and military supplies," Ernst continued.
The Boers primarily engage in animal husbandry—it’s convenient and profitable. As for farming, they are not actively engaged in such arduous tasks.
Moreover, the Orange Free State is currently in a state of internal turmoil, and production is bound to be significantly affected. Therefore, support for the Orange people shouldn’t be limited to weapons and ammunition.
Naturally, East Africa is more considering that it doesn’t have many weapons to support the Orange people. As for the current weapons and equipment of the East African military, they are not meant for export, especially to neighboring countries, as East Africa is not just interested in the Orange Free State’s market—its ambition is more about Orange itself.
"So which country’s equipment do you plan to provide to the Orange people, British or French?" Constantine asked.
As for Germany, Constantine didn’t mention it, because German weapons, while not completely identical to those of East Africa, could be said to stem from the same origin. If German weapons were provided, it would be no different from directly exporting East Africa’s own weapons.
Ernst gave Constantine an unexpected answer: "We’ll provide Austro-Hungarian weapons to the Orange people."
"Why?"
"Regardless of the result, the British will know it was us who supplied weapons to the Orange people, considering no one else has this capability. Furthermore, we’ve always had frequent military cooperation with Austria-Hungary, and there are many suppliers within Austria-Hungary, making procurement convenient.
Moreover, East Africa can partially produce Austro-Hungarian weapons and ammunition itself, providing the Orange people with maintenance services, although the majority still needs to be imported from Austria-Hungary.
In this way, the import and export of weapons by the Orange people are entirely controlled by us unless they replace Austro-Hungarian weapons entirely, which they don’t have the financial resources to do," Ernst explained.
But Constantine raised a new question: "If so, why don’t we just export East African made weapons directly?"
Ernst: "Because the Orange people are fighting against the British and the Transvaalers, they certainly won’t attack recklessly and will adopt guerrilla tactics more often. Currently, the Orange people’s enemy is first the Anglo-German allies, and in the future, it may very likely be us. A characteristic of guerrilla warfare is its unpredictability and striking enemy supply lines, which makes it easier to seize supplies from the enemy. Should any conflict arise between the Orange people and us in the future, we need to avoid this point. Using Austro-Hungarian weapons eliminates this worry."
The process of exporting Austro-Hungarian weapons to the Orange Free State is completely managed by East Africa, so if the Orange people withstand the offensive by the Anglo-German allies in the future, they will have no choice but to rely on this East African supply channel continuously.
Thus, it becomes nearly identical to using East African weapons, and it can also slightly lower the Orange people’s guard, as directly using East African weapons would be akin to becoming a military appendage of East Africa.
Since Austria-Hungary is indeed a third-party nation, at least on the surface, this can make the Orange people more at ease. Of course, it is merely a façade, as once the Orange people truly rely on Austro-Hungarian weapons, they’ll discover there’s no avoiding East Africa—even their bullets need to be supplied by East Africa.
From East Africa’s perspective, it can completely rely on intermediary channels to manage the Orange people’s military, as the decision to cut off their weapons supply is entirely controlled by East Africa.
Thus, even if East Africa becomes enemies with the Orange people in the future, it can cut off their weapon supply at any time without needing to fight, conquering them without warfare.
Unless the Orange people reconcile with the British to resume supplies through them, but since Austria-Hungary and East Africa are in cahoots, East Africa can completely obstruct their efforts.
If the British provide native weapons to replace Austro-Hungarian ones for the Orange people, this would pertain to the entire Orange military system, including experience and maintenance systems, and is therefore not easily achieved. This is akin to how India couldn’t directly break its dependence on Russian-made weapons in the former life.
With the current relationship between the Orange people and the British, there’s hardly any chance of reconciliation between the two, unless East Africa directly intervenes to annex the Orange Free State, then the three enemies instantly become East Africa.
And this is precisely why Ernst isn’t hurried to act against the Orange Free State—instead, let the three sides fight themselves into mutual destruction, maximizing resentment, which will drastically reduce the difficulty of East Africa’s future invasion.
After all, the Boers will certainly be divided in the future because of this lesson, unable to unite, with gaps widening over time.
Moreover, from the perspective of the Orange people, the current turmoil is completely caused by the betrayal of the Transvaalers, as there is a saying, "traitors are more despicable than enemies." By then, their view of the Transvaalers will certainly be worse than that of the British and East Africans.
This will facilitate East Africa’s future assimilation of the region, of course, East Africa would need to take other measures to further eradicate the Boer identity as a once-existing community.
