A Shift in Priorities

[schrammy]

Just the opposite, warfighting in Mexico and Liberia is very similar.
Low-level conflict.
Not a massive battles of the Great War.

low level is a relative term, they would be fighting the middle afrikan expedition force, at first and thats like what a couple of divisions?
it is ofcourse true that the local infra structure won't allow massive armies of either side to be deployed there, but if we where talking about only liberia as a battle field than what does it matter who has greater production capability's since both sides would be able to easy produce far more than can actualy be deployed there.

Doesn't matter, Look at USA WWII OTL, they made alot of mistakes but the Axis wasn;t able to translate those mistakes into economic advantage and USA simply learned and made more. Losing is probably the best catalyst for improvement, as shown by history.

that is true in OTL but in this TL the USA would be alote more like OTL soviet russia able to produce alote of stuff but much of it outdated and while that will be corrected eventualy haveing outated equipment and haveing it used in the wrong way makes you suffer alote of casualties and unlike OTL soviet russia this TL USA doesn't have such a huge manpower advantage over germany that they can afford those kind of losses.

 

[Monty Burns]

Easiest thing, agricultural subsidies, Rich nations have other industries to tax to subsidize agriculture, Poor nations don't so their basic industries fail and are taken over by foreign companies and they stay poor. Unless European countries are willing to piss off their farmers and food buying citizens for the sake of fairness(which is BS, why invest so much in education, infrastructure and administration if not for an advantage) >>>> Miitelafrica stay a mud hole that is solely for the purpose of resource extraction.

True, the Germans and the CPMZ could do that - but why investing so much money and then imposing tariffs on goods from the own colonies?
As I said repeatedly, Mittelafrika has the advantage that it is closely linked to Germany and Germany is willing to help them massively. I doubt that Mittelafrikan agricultural exports will be blocked by Germany or even the CPMZ.

The reason why so many third world nations were able to industrialize in OTL was with state capitalism and an America that was willing to take an indefinite trade deficit .

First, state capitalism was only the way to do it in recent years. Neither the US nor Germany or other western European countries industrialized by state capitalism. Germany industrialized by domestic demand, particularly due to the necessity to establish a railway system. Domestic demand for infrastructure - payed for by Germany - can be the base for industrialization of Mittelafrika, helped by exporting raw materials and cash crops, which by the way requires infrastructure as well.

Is there any post by rast which states that Germany isn't willing to take that trade deficit with its own colony? Right now, the Germans are willing to educate thousands of Mittelafrikans and sent substantial money and military equipment there.

More importantly even if they do industrialize, blacks will be a poor class as anyone with a European education will have massive advantages.

I don't understand this. It's blacks who get a European education and hence massive advantages, so why are they poor?

(Seriously, I doubt they have the educational ability across languages to educate in the quality and quantity needed for industrialization).

The major contribution of Germany for Mittelafrika was imposing the German language universally in education systems. As rast pointed out, basic German is learned by anyone, and Germany even seeks to have the immigrants learn German. The language problem is considerably smaller than IOTL and is about to end.

More importantly industrialized education is not very useful in the context of rural Africa as shown when visually and written orientated education is imposed on oral orientated people, and hungry people will not have time for education this involves feeding a shitload of people who have a fertility rate of something in the 5+.

Well, rast already posted that the Mittelafrikans already get a decent, basic education, which was carried through by white teachers which by now were followed by Blacks.

Furthermore, Rast never posted anything about hunger.

Back at the time population density was much lower than today, so they could easily get over some generations with a high fertility rate, particularly if the Blacks get education in more modern agriculture and if they get a decent infrastructure which allows to sell their products and to use fertilizer.

The Germans will have to dish out alot of money with no definite return for this to work out.

As Kelenas pointed out, rast repeatedly posted that the Germans do exactly that.

And given that they already have a Mittelafrikan military speaking German and able to defeat the US is prove for me that it works out quite well so far.

 

[Monty Burns]

As I said: CENTURIES.

No, decades.

Germany in the 19th century was behind Britain in economics but caught up within decades. As did most Western European countries - all that without help from benevolent subventionists in Germany. Japan required around 100 years from the beginning of Meiji until they reached western states of living - whereby in the meantime a catastrophic war happened. I doubt that China will require more than additional 100 years to catch up with the West. There are estimates that the standard of living in coastal regions of China will reach US and European values within the next 40 years.

So why should Mittelafrika with the additional benefit of natural ressources (which the Japanese didn't have) and German subventions require centuries for something many others made within decades?

 

[rast]

Running Bear

“Whether the news about the defeat of Vice Admiral Brumby’s task force really contributed to the events that later became known as ‘Black Tuesday’ is a question that even after many years still divides economists and historians.
The Fisher school contends that without the irritating news of the devastating naval defeat incurred from the hands of Middle African Negroes the US market would have continued to grow and the stock market wouldn’t have crashed.
The Schumpeter school – on the other hand – claims that the market had already been severely unstable the week before and on Monday, February 17th, and that the speculation bubble was due to burst anyway. They argue that the Dow Jones Industrial Average index had peaked with 415.7 on January 16th, and been declining ever since, with only a short recovery on January 28th.

Tuesday, February 18th, 1930, started as a normal trading day at the New York Stock Exchange, although first news about the battle off the Liberian coast had already been in the morning papers.
At about 10:30 hours in the morning, panic selling started.
This co-incited with newspaper special editions announcing the loss of USS Montana, USS Massachusetts, USS Gnat and twelve smaller ships.

All attempts to stop the panic selling by buying large blocks of shares, executed by Richard Whitney, the vice president of the NYSE, backed by a consortium of Wall Street bankers, failed.
As unhampered panic selling continued on Wednesday, February 19th, the NYSE remained closed on Thursday and Friday, a measure never tried out before.
But when the stock exchange re-opened on February 24th, the day turned into ‘Pitch Black Monday’.

By Tuesday, February 25th, 1930, the Dow had fallen to 185.5 and a total of 46.3 million of shares had been sold. Yet Irving Fisher declared: “A stock exchange collapse cannot produce a serious setback to our industry, because our industry is healthy and in balanced condition.”

Unfortunately, the stock market crash led to an unprecedented bank crash with more than 4,500 banks and other lenders failing over the next few months; and it was this collapse of the US banking system that ultimately would bring about the ‘Great Depression’.”


From: “Great Depression and Dust Bowl – How American capitalism was converted.” by Eric Hobsbawn, Manchester University Press, 1948

 

[Jotun]

This turned out different than I had expected. I've never been aware of the possibility of using shore bombardment with heavy guns in order to down low-flying planes though it certainly makes sense. Is there an OTL precedent?

Now what happens with the Liberian conflict in view of the *Great Depression remains to be seen. I am still hoping for conclusive evidence that the masterminds are sitting on Monkey Island a.k.a. England/the UK and an end to hostilities. Likewise, the directions into which the US could head after the crash of the stock exchange are manifold. Even more redical than before (after all, in their eyes, it's the "Jews and Niggers" who are responsible) or the whole ship is turned around.

This TL keeps delivering. Awesome!

 

[SavoyTruffle]

And so it finally hits.

 

[Expat]

Here we go! I've been looking forward to this part for a while, even if the mighty transformative powers of the Depression (Rast used the word in a book title, we can take out the *) turn the US into vicious Commie-Nazies.

Personally I'm rooting for full government collapse, but that's just a stab in the dark.

Once again Germany's timing is somewhat fortunate. I'm sure there are some orders from German companies to the US that won't get paid for, but no new orders would've been made since the start of the war, which is going to insulate the CPMZ even further from the Depression, at least in terms of avoiding immediate shortfalls.

 

[abc123]

So why should Mittelafrika with the additional benefit of natural ressources (which the Japanese didn't have) and German subventions require centuries for something many others made within decades?

Simply: Because Africa in 1918. has standard comparable with Europe in 1500., to be optimistic.
Between 1500. and 1918. are about 400 years of difference.
Europe did not reach 1918-level by 1600. It took them time until 1918.
So Mittelafrica will need a few centuries also.

 

[Monty Burns]

Now that's surprising, I expected that the war would delay the Great Depression - but rast is right, anything can trigger panic sales. And a major defeat is surely a possibility.

Nevertheless, Irving Fisher'S opinion will probably be the most influential right now. Whereas we know that the Great Depression is about to start and that it will get worse and worse for years, the current US government does not know. The banking crisis needs more time to set in.



In a previous post, Rast stated that US reinforcements will arrive around the 26th of April, twodays after Pitch Black Monday. That leaves the Mittelafrikans some days to conquer all of Liberia. Question is, with problems at home, will the US president try to distract the electorate with foreign policy? Or will he try to end the international problems soon? For the following days at least, I'd bet on the first.

 

[Monty Burns]

Simply: Because Africa in 1918. has standard comparable with Europe in 1500., to be optimistic.
Between 1500. and 1918. are about 400 years of difference.
Europe did not reach 1918-level by 1600. It took them time until 1918.
So Mittelafrica will need a few centuries also.

This is just wrong.

Why should the poor countries follow the same way to development as we did? Is there no knowledge transfer whatsoever? Won't they learn anything from our experiences? Don't they have developped markets to export to which the Europeans had not? Couldn't they just buy modern equipment from us? Don't they get foreign aid from us? Modern medicine? Education opportunities? Do our companies have no interest whatsoever in direct investment? Are all differences in standard of living in Europe today explained only by when industrialization started in those countries and the standard of living which they had then?

 

[abc123]

This is just wrong.

Why should the poor countries follow the same way to development as we did? Is there no knowledge transfer whatsoever? Won't they learn anything from our experiences? Don't they have developped markets to export to which the Europeans had not? Couldn't they just buy modern equipment from us? Don't they get foreign aid from us? Modern medicine? Education opportunities? Do our companies have no interest whatsoever in direct investment? Are all differences in standard of living in Europe today explained only by when industrialization started in those countries and the standard of living which they had then?

Bold: Well, yes, pretty much.
I live in one part of Europe that never fully industrialised, and even whan it did, it was 100+ years after England- and concequences are visible even today.

Because, Arica isn't poor because bad white man robbed them from their wealth, it's poor because it ALLWAYS was poor. And if Europeans did never come to Africa, they would still be on a stone age or little better level as they were in 1880-s.

 

[vasp]

I say that mittleafrica need decades to get to european level. what we talking about here is the industial revolution the later you start with it the faster it goes. all changes had been pretty small before the industrial revolution but when it start its like a explosion.

 

[abc123]

I say that mittleafrica need decades to get to european level. what we talking about here is the industial revolution the later you start with it the faster it goes. all changes had been pretty small before the industrial revolution but when it start its like a explosion.

OK, why today any african country isn't even 20% of standard of average western EU-country?
In 50 years of independence, they should accomplish at least that...

 

[SavoyTruffle]

OK, why today any african country isn't even 20% of standard of average western EU-country?
In 50 years of independence, they should accomplish at least that...

They didn't because of colonialism emphasizing economic gain over "teaching the natives", which is what TTL Germany is doing.

 

[abc123]

They didn't because of colonialism emphasizing economic gain over "teaching the natives", which is what TTL Germany is doing.

Yes, and with this emphasizing ( teaching the natives ), they would reach about 20% of western EU development?

 

[Monty Burns]

I say that mittleafrica need decades to get to european level. what we talking about here is the industial revolution the later you start with it the faster it goes. all changes had been pretty small before the industrial revolution but when it start its like a explosion.

My point exactly.

Bold: Well, yes, pretty much.
I live in one part of Europe that never fully industrialised, and even whan it did, it was 100+ years after England- and concequences are visible even today.

So essentially during all recent years, no matter what politicians or the population could have done, it wouldn'T have any effect? Essentially, your country is doomed to be poorer than Britain no matter what you do? That sounds more like a comfortable excuse to me...

I, for a counterexample, live in an area which until well after WWII was amongst the poorest regions in Germany, yet today is one of the richest regions. Germany as a whole started from a lower standard of living than England and at a later date - yet surpassed them in short term. There are plenty of examples which proof that industrialization could be concluded faster than Britain did it.

Because, Arica isn't poor because bad white man robbed them from their wealth, it's poor because it ALLWAYS was poor.

Again, my home region was always poor as well, but now it isn'T anymore. It's not even 100 years that Swiss families sent their children to Swabia because they were too poor to feed them. After all, Switzerland has always been poor...

And if Europeans did never come to Africa, they would still be on a stone age or little better level as they were in 1880-s.

Be careful - one could take this as a racist argument. If the Europeans were able to develop further than the stone age, why shouldn'T Africans be able to do so on their own?

Nevertheless, that's not the point. Germany is going there, investing, educating, teaching, constructing to develop them.

OK, why today any african country isn't even 20% of standard of average western EU-country?
In 50 years of independence, they should accomplish at least that...

First, note that the fact that Africa didn't industrialize just as Europe - or many Asian countries - does not proof your hypothesis that the European way to industrialization is the ultimate and fastest way ever possible.

Domestic dictatorship, tribal thinking, nepotism and general mismanagement are IMHO the main reasons that Africa is left behind. This is actual proof that politics CAN determine development of a country - just look into Eastern Europe for another example which prooved devastating as well. The fact that the countries in Africa often have arbitrary frontiers, are multi-ethnic and multi-religious increased the likelihood of such negative government and civil war.

And then you also have the general problems of the tropics - diseases, of which Africa clearly has the worst package you can get, draught, natural catastrophes, and lately also overpopulation.



It is interesting, though, that Rast already established that the Germans help Mittelafrika to overcome this problems. Germany educates police and bureaucracy. That should limit corruption and nepotism to an amount seldomly found outside developped countries IOTL. The Germans enforced German as a common language - and promoted christendom as a common religion. In an early discussion of the timeline, it was already stated that this helps to overcome tribalism. German federalism should help to stabilize multi-ethnic countries. The Germans are also beginning to emancipate the locals by introducing democracy - an important tool to prevent corrupt dictators and widespread corruption. Considering diseases, even IOTL German colonies the medical service was very good for a colonial service. Overpopulation at this early state is not a problem yet - and with standard of living rising it probably will never get a serious problem in Mittelafrika. You see that many of the reasons which contributed to Africa bein left behind economically are directly adressed by the Germans.

 

[abc123]

My point exactly.



So essentially during all recent years, no matter what politicians or the population could have done, it wouldn'T have any effect? Essentially, your country is doomed to be poorer than Britain no matter what you do? That sounds more like a comfortable excuse to me...

I, for a counterexample, live in an area which until well after WWII was amongst the poorest regions in Germany, yet today is one of the richest regions. Germany as a whole started from a lower standard of living than England and at a later date - yet surpassed them in short term. There are plenty of examples which proof that industrialization could be concluded faster than Britain did it.



Again, my home region was always poor as well, but now it isn'T anymore. It's not even 100 years that Swiss families sent their children to Swabia because they were too poor to feed them. After all, Switzerland has always been poor...



Be careful - one could take this as a racist argument. If the Europeans were able to develop further than the stone age, why shouldn'T Africans be able to do so on their own?

Nevertheless, that's not the point. Germany is going there, investing, educating, teaching, constructing to develop them.



First, note that the fact that Africa didn't industrialize just as Europe - or many Asian countries - does not proof your hypothesis that the European way to industrialization is the ultimate and fastest way ever possible.

Domestic dictatorship, tribal thinking, nepotism and general mismanagement are IMHO the main reasons that Africa is left behind. This is actual proof that politics CAN determine development of a country - just look into Eastern Europe for another example which prooved devastating as well. The fact that the countries in Africa often have arbitrary frontiers, are multi-ethnic and multi-religious increased the likelihood of such negative government and civil war.

And then you also have the general problems of the tropics - diseases, of which Africa clearly has the worst package you can get, draught, natural catastrophes, and lately also overpopulation.



It is interesting, though, that Rast already established that the Germans help Mittelafrika to overcome this problems. Germany educates police and bureaucracy. That should limit corruption and nepotism to an amount seldomly found outside developped countries IOTL. The Germans enforced German as a common language - and promoted christendom as a common religion. In an early discussion of the timeline, it was already stated that this helps to overcome tribalism. German federalism should help to stabilize multi-ethnic countries. The Germans are also beginning to emancipate the locals by introducing democracy - an important tool to prevent corrupt dictators and widespread corruption. Considering diseases, even IOTL German colonies the medical service was very good for a colonial service. Overpopulation at this early state is not a problem yet - and with standard of living rising it probably will never get a serious problem in Mittelafrika. You see that many of the reasons which contributed to Africa bein left behind economically are directly adressed by the Germans.

Look, this is a alt-hist, so rast can write whatever he wants, but if I and you would be alive for about 50 years, African countries still will not be 20% of western EU standard. TODAY'S STANDARD.

And there is no racism in my post, but First industrial revolution, Great discoveries, Democracy, Colonialism etc. did come from Europe. Not from any other part of the World.

That's the truth. Do someone like that or not, that's something completly different.
I don't saying that Germans do not make a fine job in Mittleafrica, but IMHO if Mittelafrica by 1960 reaches level of development that Germany had in 1918- it would be quite a achievement.

 

[trekchu]

I, for a counterexample, live in an area which until well after WWII was amongst the poorest regions in Germany, yet today is one of the richest regions. Again, my home region was always poor as well, but now it isn'T anymore. It's not even 100 years that Swiss families sent their children to Swabia because they were too poor to feed them. After all, Switzerland has always been poor...

Slightly OT, but where exactly are you from?

 

[Monty Burns]

Look, this is a alt-hist, so rast can write whatever he wants, but if I and you would be alive for about 50 years, African countries still will not be 20% of western EU standard. TODAY'S STANDARD.

So you're saying that no matter what Brasil, Eastern Europe, China, Japan, South Korea - all those currently emerging or former emerging countries achieved, Africa cannot hope to achieve anything like that.

but First industrial revolution, Great discoveries, Democracy, Colonialism etc. did come from Europe. Not from any other part of the World.

True. But that's no reason that Africa cannot hope whatsoever to follow the same path in comparable speed to Asian or Latin American countries - or several European countries, for that matter, which didn't participate in those achievements directly.

Slightly OT, but where exactly are you from?

I'm from rural Badenia, north of Karlsruhe, Germany. Emmigration country up until after WWII, subject to regular flooding before the Rhine was dammed. Right now we have an above-average per capita GDP, unemployment of around 5% and are projected to grow in population due to immigration well into the next decade - contrary to general trends in Germany.

 

[trekchu]

I'm from Reutlingen, the small town south of Stuttgart where Daimler and Benz first met and whose biggest other claim to fame is to have been a Free Imperial City until 1806.