April 14, 1911.
Rhine City.
The agreement with Britain had dealt a tremendous blow to the industrial development plan originally drawn up by the East African government, with shipbuilding and related industries suffering the greatest impact.
Naval vessels accounted for no small share of every nation's total shipping. Take Britain, for example: the total tonnage of British civilian vessels was close to twenty million tons, while its navy alone possessed as much as two million tons—roughly one-tenth of civilian shipping tonnage.
The same was even truer for other nations. Germany's civilian shipping totaled only several million tons, yet the German Navy's total tonnage approached one million tons, a proportion even higher than Britain's. The other great powers—the United States, France, East Africa, and Japan—were much the same.
It could be said that Britain monopolized most of the world shipping market. The total tonnage of civilian vessels in Britain alone exceeded that of all other countries combined, accounting for more than fifty percent of global shipping.
Thus, even with the world's most developed civilian shipbuilding industry as its foundation, Britain's naval tonnage ratio was already so high. The other major military powers could only be higher, never lower.
Take East Africa. In 1910, East Africa's civilian shipping tonnage stood close to four million tons—actually around 3.8 million tons—while its naval tonnage was 420,000 tons. Among the world's great powers, East Africa was relatively close to Britain in terms of the military-to-civilian vessel ratio, at approximately one-ninth.
The main reason for this was not the strength of East Africa's civilian shipbuilding industry, but rather the relative weakness of the East African Navy compared with the armed forces of other great military powers.
Ernst said, "Our navy's original development plan is now constrained by the East Africa–Britain Reconciliation Treaty. Military orders have been