Having reached the relevant agreement with Britain, the East African government's work would become busy for some time to come.
First, at the grand-strategic level, East Africa and Britain had renegotiated the Indian Ocean issue, which meant East Africa had to rebuild its military and political strategic layout in the Indian Ocean and construct a new system.
As Ernst often mentioned, no matter how powerful a country was, its resources and capabilities were limited. Acquiring more colonies, regions, and military strongholds also meant expending more resources and manpower.
Because of East Africa's overseas expansion in recent years, its total military strength had now risen to more than 800,000 men. This was very powerful evidence.
After all, where East African mainland security was concerned, 400,000 or 500,000 troops—or even fewer—were enough to safeguard the mainland. The main reason was that no force capable of threatening the East African mainland remained in its vicinity.
The root cause supporting East Africa's massive military expansion lay in colonial expansion.
East Africa maintained substantial troop deployments in such regions as East Kalimantan (the Borneo Islands), the Isthmus of Kra, Togoland (West Africa), and Northern Bay (the Persian Gulf).
By 1918, East Africa's overseas garrisons had reached as many as 430,000 men. In many regions, garrisons numbered over 10,000, or even more than 100,000. Of these, the Isthmus of Kra, the Borneo Islands—including areas such as Lanfang Overseas Province—and Togoland alone held nearly 200,000 troops.
Besides that, there were many overseas islands that clearly also required garrisons, such as Alaska, New Guinea, the Northern Kingdom of Hawaii, the Southern Ryukyu Islands, Nauru, Palau, and so on.
The number of East African troops stationed overseas even exceeded the number stationed on the East African mainland, and the main reason for this outcome was East Africa's overseas colonial