Of course, Germany's losses were government investment and had little to do with the colonial groups developing Cameroon itself. Moreover, losses in the early stages of colonization were normal. A few years earlier, the Hohenzollern Conglomerate had likewise needed to pour capital into East Africa, slowing its own development. Otherwise, it would not have had so much of its German market share swallowed up by the German Electrical Engineering Corporation, falling to third place.
Although Cameroon's climate resembled East Africa's, its tropical savanna lay inland, while its coast was instead covered by tropical rainforest unsuitable for development. This was vastly different from East Africa. Tanganyika, the cradle of East Africa's rise, possessed a tropical savanna climate even along its coast and was suitable for human habitation.
This was well reflected in the Sigmaringen Royal Territory, which lay in the transitional zone between tropical savanna and tropical desert—the Sahel region, so famous in African geography in Ernst's previous life.
The Sahel region had also been suitable for the development of civilization in ancient times. The Ghana Empire, Songhai Empire, and Mali Empire of Black people in Africa had all been nurtured in this region, and the Sigmaringen Royal Territory itself contained quite a few remnants of civilization.
Sigmaringen merely lacked a natural outlet to the sea. Otherwise, its conditions were actually far superior to Cameroon's.
Developing cities in tropical rainforests was exceedingly difficult, something East Africa understood all too well. East Africa had only two typical tropical rainforest cities, Kinshasa and Cabinda, yet neither had a non-Black population exceeding ten thousand.
Although Hesse Province and its provincial capital, Kisangani city, lay in the Congo Basin, they stood in the transitional zone between tropical rainforest and tropical savanna. The eastern mountains and southern plateau were actually highly livable. If they had not