Ernst naturally welcomed the French government's little scheme. Only if Germany and France competed more fiercely could East Africa feast from both sides and reap greater benefits.
As for France's little tricks, Ernst believed they would have a negligible impact on Germany. After all, East Africa was currently in a period of explosive expansion in production capacity. With the massive development funds obtained through large loans, every industry in East Africa had entered a stage of rapid growth.
The so-called massive French orders were no more than a drizzle in East Africa's eyes. After all, East Africa had never lacked money like Russia did.
Moreover, Germany's dependence on East Africa far exceeded other countries' expectations. A few orders could not affect trade between Germany and East Africa. Cotton, rubber, oil, rare minerals, and so on—the scope of trade between East Africa and Germany was extremely broad.
Cotton alone accounted for annual German imports from East Africa exceeding a hundred thousand tons. France clearly could not spend enough money to cut off the cotton trade between Germany and East Africa; that would have been an astronomical sum.
During East Africa's current period of explosive capacity expansion, other countries simply could not influence East Africa's exports through trade conditions, because they could not possibly buy it all. Yet France had no other choice.
As France sought to win East Africa over, Germany naturally refused to be outdone. After 1913, Germany spared no effort in courting East Africa.
Germany had always hoped to bind East Africa to the German war machine, but the East African government had little desire to do so. This had always been a headache for Germany. In the German government's view, if East Africa joined forces with Germany, there would be almost no country in the world capable