The essence of the East African Canal project lay in its use of Black "laborers." Of course, no East African would ever mention such a thing in front of a foreigner like Franz IV.
Moreover, Franz IV himself had not realized what this nation that had developed out of an East African colony lacked. That was right: Black people.
In a major African power like East Africa, Black people had virtually vanished altogether. Yet because Franz IV was in the very midst of it, he had failed to notice.
At least throughout most of East Africa now, Black people had become a rarely seen race and population. Even the Black laborers who had "survived" had been organized by the East African government into various labor groups and concentrated across East Africa to construct major projects.
At present, eighty percent of the surviving Black population had been assigned by the East African government to canal construction. Unless one went to the canal sites under construction, they were difficult to see. Such sites were generally located in remote wilderness, places even East Africans rarely encountered, let alone the majority of foreigners, who mainly clustered in East African cities.
In the blink of an eye, time had reached 1915.
The smoke of war over the European battlefield had not dispersed. Instead, it grew ever fiercer. On the Western Front, the Battle of the Marne, which had begun in September of the previous year, was becoming increasingly bloody.
"Germany's offensive has effectively been checked, but Britain and France have also suffered grievous losses. If they cannot withstand Germany's powerful fire support in the coming battles, France will face a calamity of annihilation," Roerwald, representative of the East African Military Observation Group, said as he stepped over mud scorched black by artillery fire.
East