Chapter Summaries

Freer urged Prime Minister Keppel to partner with East Africa to develop the Sunda Strait as an alternative trade route, offering infrastructure support in exchange for keeping foreign militaries out. He also proposed separating the strait’s shores from the Dutch East Indies, leaving Keppel to weigh the benefits against the risks of future colonial unrest.

• Freer explained that East Africa’s trade and geography could make the Sunda Strait a prosperous route linking East Africa with Nanyang and the Far East.
• Keppel agreed that the Netherlands would cooperate economically and asked what East Africa required.
• Freer demanded that no third-country military forces use ports or bases along the route, and Keppel accepted the condition.
• Freer offered East African materials, workers, and technical personnel to help build and renovate infrastructure in the Dutch East Indies.
• Freer urged the Netherlands to separate the shores on both sides of the Sunda Strait from the Dutch East Indies, warning Keppel that colonial resistance and a growing local elite could threaten Dutch rule.
• Keppel considered whether separating the strait’s shores would strengthen Dutch control over the East Indies.

Freer urged Prime Minister Keppel to reorganize the Dutch East Indies and split off a special zone on both shores of the Sunda Strait, arguing that a unified Indonesia could threaten East Africa and Dutch interests. Keppel took the proposal seriously and said the two governments could discuss it later.

• Freer proposed that the Netherlands establish a Sunda Strait special zone and introduce settlers from outside the East Indies.
• Freer warned Keppel that national consciousness was growing and that Dutch policies had helped unite the East Indies under a shared identity.
• Keppel challenged Freer over East Africa’s own brutal colonial policies, including its killings in East Kalimantan, Lanfang, and Mindanao.
• Freer defended East Africa’s approach and advised the Netherlands to suppress local forces or divide the East Indies to preserve Dutch interests after independence.
• Keppel considered Freer’s proposal and said the two governments could discuss it in detail later.

Freer concluded a treaty transferring fourteen Dutch-controlled Nanyang islands to East Africa and establishing joint shipping and security cooperation in the Sunda Strait. East African naval leaders then debated the islands’ strategic value and planned how to divide them between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Fleets.

• Freer urged Prime Minister Keppel to conclude negotiations quickly and assured him that East Africa had no ambitions toward the East Indies.
• On December 7, 1916, East Africa and the Netherlands signed a treaty transferring fourteen islands, including Billiton and Sangiang, and agreeing to cooperate on the Sunda Strait route and define their regional interests.
• Bruce criticized Sangiang and Panaitan Islands as small and difficult to develop, while Kuinman argued that Sangiang’s position could support an airfield that deterred threats to the strait.
• Bruce and Kuinman agreed that Sangiang and Panaitan would fall under the Indian Ocean Fleet, while Billiton and other islands would strengthen the Pacific Fleet.
• Bruce identified Billiton Island as a potential secondary base that could ease pressure on Pontianak Port as the government considered relocating the Pacific Fleet’s home port.

In 1917, Prince Maxim guided Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei through Rhine City and explained East Africa’s climate and growing ties with Russia. Maria shared her worries about Russia’s reverses in the war, while Maxim encouraged the young royals to enjoy their visit and see more of East Africa.

• Prince Maxim showed Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei around Rhine City and compared its mild highland climate with Saint Petersburg’s.
• Maria said she preferred Rhine City’s weather and explained that her parents and elder sisters could not travel because of the war.
• Maria told Maxim that Russia’s army was retreating and that Nicholas II was anxious about the worsening situation.
• Maxim expressed hope that the war would end soon, though East Africa had profited from the conflict and wished it to continue.
• Maxim offered to guide the three visitors around East Africa, while Anastasia continued caring for the hemophiliac Alexei.

Prince Maxim showed Princess Maria, Prince Alexei, and Princess Anastasia around Rhine City and explained how East African architecture reflected electrification, cleaner energy, and a preference for keeping heavy industry away from the capital. Alexei left the conversation impressed by East Africa’s advanced industrial development and the new world he had encountered.

• Prince Maxim introduced Rhine City, and Princess Maria and Prince Alexei compared its modern, varied architecture with Saint Petersburg and American cities.
• Prince Maxim credited Ernst’s architectural influence for East Africa’s distinctive urban style and described how electricity and natural gas had changed homes and buildings.
• Princess Anastasia agreed that Rhine City had few tall chimneys, and Maxim explained that polluting factories were generally kept out of the imperial capital.
• Prince Alexei asked whether industrial development harmed health, and Maxim explained the dangers of pollution while arguing that technology and industry could address them.
• Prince Alexei was deeply impressed by East Africa’s industrial progress, which he found more advanced than Russia’s and somewhat ahead of Europe’s.

Prince Maxim showed Alexei and the others Rhine City and explained how Fuwa River Reservoir and Dam supplied water and electricity to the capital and nearby cities. He described East Africa’s expanding railway links and the reservoir’s scale as the group headed toward the dam.

• Maxim explained that Fuwa River Reservoir had been created by damming the Lunsemfwa River and that Rhine Palace stood upstream of it.
• Alexei learned that Fuwa River Reservoir was artificial, and Maxim compared it with East Africa’s three natural freshwater great lakes.
• Maxim described how the reservoir and its hydroelectric dam stabilized Rhine City’s water and power supply and supported nearby industrial cities.
• Maxim outlined Rhine City’s growing rail connections to multiple ports and contrasted its development with the changing fortunes of Dar es Salaam city and Mombasa.
• Maxim told the group they would pass through the southwestern industrial zone and visit Fuwa River Dam, prompting Alexei and the others to grow more interested in the project.

Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei compared Russia’s development with East Africa’s after traveling through Russia’s interior and along the East African Central Railway. Maxim explained East Africa’s lead in electrification, while Maria acknowledged that Russia relied on East African electrical products and equipment.

• Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei traveled through Russia’s less-developed interior en route to the Black Sea and saw a sharp contrast with the prosperous areas along East Africa’s Central Railway.
• Alexei noted that East African farms used machinery widely and that electricity reached villages and cities, unlike much of Russia.
• Maxim attributed East Africa’s electrification to early planning, government investment, and nationwide construction of electrical facilities.
• Maria said Russia lagged in some fields and depended on electrical products and equipment imported from East Africa.
• The account traced East Africa’s industrial rise to education, state-led investment, and decades of exploiting enslaved black people for land, labor, and capital.

Maxim showed Anastasia, Alexei, and Maria the Fuwa River Reservoir and explained East Africa’s infrastructure and geography. Their tour highlighted how the country’s population and development extended across regions that foreign explorers had hoped to find unexplored.

• A reservoir administrator explained the Fuwa River Reservoir’s water, power, and industrial networks to Maxim and the three Russian visitors.
• Maxim and Anastasia discussed East Africa’s diesel-powered locomotives, while Alexei described the smoke and snow associated with Russian steam trains.
• Maxim told the visitors about East Africa’s occasional snowfall and identified Kilimanjaro as the continent’s highest mountain and a volcano.
• The visitors learned that roads, railways, and tourist facilities had made much of East Africa accessible, disappointing explorers seeking wilderness.
• The chapter compared East Africa’s large, evenly distributed population and developed rainforest settlements with South America’s sparsely populated Amazon region.

Princess Maria, Maxim, and Crown Prince Alexei discussed East African geography and wildlife, then considered visiting the Serengeti. Alexei wanted to see animals in the wild, but Maxim explained that the remote reserve required careful preparations.

• Princess Maria questioned whether East Africa had measured every mountain, and Maxim explained that Kilimanjaro had long been listed as the region’s tallest peak.
• Crown Prince Alexei asked whether East Africa’s forests had lions and elephants, and Maxim said the nearby rainforest held few wild animals after years of development.
• Maxim offered to take Alexei to a zoo, but Alexei rejected seeing animals in cages and asked to visit the Serengeti Plains instead.
• Maxim explained that the Serengeti lay more than a thousand kilometers away and required specialized vehicles, firearms, and supplies.
• Alexei said the distance seemed manageable, prompting reflections on how people in Russia and East Africa were accustomed to traveling across vast territories.

Prince Maxim guided Crown Prince Alexei and the other Russians through Rhine City's industrial district and explained East Africa's urban planning and metro system. Alexei vowed to build a metro in Saint Petersburg if he became Tsar, while Maxim wished him success.

• After visiting the Fuwa River Dam, Maxim and the three Russians toured Rhine City's southeastern industrial district.
• Maxim explained how East Africa planned its industrial districts and public transit, including plans to expand Rhine City's metro network to four lines.
• Alexei remarked that much larger Saint Petersburg had no metro, and Maxim said Rhine City's lines were not profitable or necessary for its current traffic.
• Alexei promised to build a Saint Petersburg metro if he inherited the throne, and Maxim wished him luck in strengthening Russia.

Ernst received a report on Russia’s growing unrest, the Labor Party’s rising influence, and the Russian government’s financial and military crisis. With the Ottoman Empire expected to enter the war within three months and close the Black Sea straits, he ordered East Africa to collect Russian hard currency, technology, and talent while trade remained possible.

• Morin reported that opposition to Nicholas II was spreading and that strikes organized by the Russian Labor Party were likely to increase.
• Morin described Russia’s military losses, depleted supplies, war weariness, and Nicholas II’s dilemma between seeking an armistice and continuing the war.
• Ernst judged that the Labor Party could exploit Russia’s collapse and that the European powers were too divided to unite against it.
• Morin told Ernst that the Ottoman Empire was preparing to attack Russia within three months, potentially closing the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.
• Ernst ordered Morin to extract as much cash as possible from Russia and acquire Russian technology and skilled people, prioritizing ethnic Russians over Poles.

Ernst instructed Morin to recruit people without hesitation, while Archduke Ferdinand and Princess Charlotte visited Lake Malawi Rhinoceros Park and learned about East Africa’s rhinoceros breeding efforts. The park’s staff explained how East Africa protected and bred rare Asian rhinoceroses, leaving the species’ future there more secure than in much of their native range.

• Ernst told Morin to bring potential recruits in despite the extra travel costs, and Morin agreed.
• Archduke Ferdinand and Princess Charlotte visited Lake Malawi Rhinoceros Park and asked about its Sumatran Rhinoceroses.
• A staff member explained that the park’s eighty-two Sumatran Rhinoceroses descended from animals brought to East Africa beginning in 1886.
• The staff member described East Africa’s breeding centers, the decline of Asian rhinoceroses elsewhere, and the park’s role in protecting Sumatran and Javan Rhinoceroses within the country.
• The staff member said the park’s isolated, suitable habitat had allowed its breeding program to succeed and that its rhinoceros population could continue to grow.

Archduke Ferdinand toured East Africa’s Lake Malawi Rhinoceros Park while Ernst learned that Nicholas II had been forced to abdicate amid a Russian coup. Ernst agreed to protect Alexei, Maria, and Anastasia and offered Nicholas II political asylum, leaving his decision pending.

• A staff member told Archduke Ferdinand that research on rhinoceros horn had made little progress, and Ferdinand sketched a Sumatran Rhinoceros.
• The East African Embassy informed Ernst that Nicholas II had stepped down and delivered letters for Ernst and for Alexei, Maria, and Anastasia.
• Ernst read Nicholas II’s request to keep the three children in East Africa and recognized that Russia’s political struggle was only beginning.
• Ernst ordered his subordinate to ask Nicholas II whether he would flee to East Africa for asylum.
• Ernst called for Maxim and the other three to return so Nicholas II’s letter could be shared with them.

At the Port of Basra, Karl’s East African company bought Ukrainian refugees from German commander Dorr in exchange for supplies. After screening and signing contracts with the refugees, Karl arranged for their transport while Dorr went to collect the payment.

• Karl arrived at the Basra refugee camp and discussed its population with Commander Dorr.
• Karl’s medical staff examined the refugees and found only eighteen with minor or serious concerns, excluding two judged unable to adapt to the local conditions.
• Karl ordered contracts distributed to the eligible refugees, most of whom signed with thumbprints.
• Dorr questioned the lower price, and Karl explained that the batch had fewer women than the previous one.
• Karl and Dorr agreed to seek more young, healthy female refugees in future exchanges.
• Karl’s men escorted the refugees away, while Dorr took the East African check to the docks to collect supplies.

East Africa expanded a triangular trade by exchanging goods and supplies with the Central Powers for refugees, labor, and other resources, then transporting European refugees to its Nanyang colonies. Karl’s convoy delivered Ukrainian refugees to Fao, where Second Lieutenant Fassi tried to reassure them before their voyage onward.

• East Africa shifted its demands of the financially strained Central Powers toward talent, technology, labor, supplies, and other convertible wealth.
• Karl led a convoy carrying Ukrainian refugees from Basra toward Fao because congestion had overwhelmed the Port of Basra.
• Karl arrived in Fao with the exhausted refugees, and Second Lieutenant Fassi arranged for them to receive biscuits.
• Second Lieutenant Fassi divided the Ukrainians by gender and told them they had been transferred to East Africa by the Ukrainian government.
• Second Lieutenant Fassi told the refugees they would sail to Nanyang the next day and urged them to settle there and remain loyal to East Africa.

Russian refugees Leblya and Kumoyev boarded the Liberty bound for East Africa, where disinfectant alcohol and food showed them how much richer their new destination was than wartime Russia. Kumoyev concluded that life in the Nanyang region was likely to be better than the misery they had left behind.

• East African workers disinfected the refugees and divided them into groups to board small boats for the Liberty.
• Leblya asked what the alcohol spray was and recalled how prohibition and wartime hardship had made liquor scarce and expensive.
• Kumoyev explained that the East Africans’ alcohol, biscuits, vehicles, and meals suggested East Africa was far wealthier than Russia.
• Leblya described his family’s life before the war and how the Central Powers had sold him to East Africa after occupying Petrivka.
• Kumoyev judged that their future in the Nanyang region could not be much worse than life in Russia.

Kumoyev and Leblya boarded the Freedom with Russian refugees bound for the Nanyang region, while Captain Hilda and Wilknitz discussed Russia’s worsening position in the war. The Freedom joined an East African naval convoy through the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the refugees’ voyage underway under escort.

• Kumoyev and Leblya reached the Freedom, where East African personnel assigned the newly arrived Russian refugees to areas aboard the crowded ship.
• Hilda and Wilknitz discussed the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war, Russia’s turmoil, and the danger of the Eastern Front collapsing.
• Four hours after the boarding began, Hilda and Wilknitz directed the crew to leave the waters off Fao town.
• A day later, the Freedom joined about twenty East African merchant ships gathered off the Northern Bay Territory.
• Bella, Gweru, and Kitwe led the convoy toward the Strait of Hormuz, while the slower Freedom followed at the rear under naval escort.

British Prime Minister David and his cabinet debated how to avert defeat as the war turned against the Entente, with the United States and East Africa holding the balance. David regretted Britain’s decision to enter the war, while Winston argued that Britain had to win American support and keep East Africa from joining the Central Powers.

• David blamed East Africa’s actions and Russia’s turmoil for worsening Britain’s position and asked his cabinet how to secure victory.
• Belfort urged Britain to pursue every possible ally and use any force that could help defeat the Central Powers, while Winston warned against empowering the Labor Party.
• Winston argued that Britain’s best hope was to bring the United States into the war while preventing East Africa from siding with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
• David said American support depended on East Africa’s stance and feared that East Africa’s entry into the war would destroy the British Empire’s overseas holdings.
• David regretted Britain’s entry into the war and said its diplomatic failures had helped create the Central Powers and left Britain vulnerable to the United States and East Africa.
• The cabinet recognized that Britain’s overseas interests had been eroded and that East Africa’s growing navy posed a serious threat.

Winston urged Britain’s cabinet to defeat the Central Powers by drawing the United States into the war while keeping East Africa from joining Germany’s side. The chapter ended with Prime Minister David directing the government to focus on recruiting the United States, reassuring East Africa, and rallying allies and other European countries.

• Winston argued that Britain had to defeat Germany first and continue opposing the Labour Party.
• Winston proposed exploiting the rivalry between the United States and East Africa, warning Americans of a German-led alliance and offering South America as an inducement to join the war.
• Winston rejected giving the United States influence in the Indian Ocean, warning that doing so could drive East Africa into the Central Powers.
• Winston urged Britain to offer East Africa colonial concessions, including British Somaliland, while treating Australia and other territories as bargaining chips to keep East Africa neutral.
• Winston called for France to help stabilize East Africa and for Britain to support the Russian government against the Labour Party while fighting the Central Powers.
• David agreed that Britain should urge the United States to enter the war, stabilize East Africa, strengthen its allies, and recruit Romania, Italy, and other countries against the Central Powers.

The Liberty arrived in Davao in July 1917, bringing Slavic immigrants to a sparsely populated Mindanao colony ruled by East Africa. The Slavs remained anxious about their new home, while Captain Hilda and First Mate Wilknitz prepared to go ashore.

• The narrator explained that Britain's control of global public opinion helped it influence the United States, while East Africa's censorship and closed-border policies limited British influence at home.
• The Liberty reached Davao, a growing East African city of more than thirty thousand people on a Mindanao colony with fewer than six hundred thousand inhabitants.
• The Slavic passengers compared Davao with places they knew and worried about the region's rainforests, climate, isolation, and their uncertain future.
• Captain Hilda celebrated the end of the voyage, and First Mate Wilknitz offered to take the crew for iced beer after the handover.