The Habsburg Royal Family wanted to establish a state in Africa, which meant they were bound to offend either Britain or France. No matter how one looked at it now, the latter was weaker, though that also depended on geography.
Although France and Britain possessed the most colonies in West Africa, France focused more on western and northern West Africa, while the center of Britain's colonies lay along the Gulf of Guinea.
And the foothold East Africa could provide the Habsburg Royal Family was closer to the Gulf of Guinea coast.
After hearing Emperor Rudolf out, Crown Prince Karl said, "In that case, we can only choose to first seize France's Kingdom of Dahomey colony. I just wonder what the basic conditions in that region are like."
Crown Prince Friedrich was quite familiar with some of the Kingdom of Dahomey's figures. After all, East Africa had been in Togoland for so many years; it was impossible for them to have no intelligence at all on the surrounding colonial powers.
He said, "Under normal circumstances, the French presence in the Kingdom of Dahomey is not strong. Their forces are generally maintained at several hundred to around a thousand men. The Kingdom of Dahomey itself does not have much population either. By our estimates, its entire population may barely exceed one million, perhaps even fall short of it."
"However, judging from the troop numbers France used to colonize the Kingdom of Dahomey, not many soldiers are needed to control it."
The Kingdom of Dahomey was the predecessor of Benin in a previous life. It had originally counted as a regional power in West Africa, especially during the eighteenth century, when it made considerable money through foreign expansion and the slave trade, earning it the name Slave Coast from European colonizers.
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