In June 1917, the German 4th Army Corps and part of the German 8th Army Corps successfully captured all of Australia. This finally brought the German military's overseas operations to an end. Before this, another German army corps had also captured Britain's colonies in Africa.
Germany's vast overseas colonial system had finally been established. Germany's overseas colonies now covered nearly forty million square kilometers in total. This was because they encompassed all the overseas colonies of Britain and France, as well as all of Italy's overseas colonies in Africa.
Compared with the British Empire, which had dominated the world before the last World War and was known as the Empire on which the sun never sets, the current German Empire was far beyond comparison.
The vast overseas colonies not only provided Germany with an enormous overseas market, but also with a huge source of raw materials. This allowed German industry to take flight once more. Combined with Germany's increasingly smooth integration of Belgium and northern France, Germany's industrial output had begun rapidly catching up with that of the United States. It was expected that surpassing the United States within five years would pose no problem at all.
The lives of the German people had also changed. Although their lives had been greatly affected during the war, and even food purchases had been restricted, they too had now begun to enjoy the dividends of victory.
Furthermore, under Oscar's demands, the German government implemented a series of policies to improve people's livelihoods and increase the population. Germany's development had once again entered the fast lane. It was foreseeable that Germany would grow ever stronger in the years to come. It would become even more difficult for other countries to challenge Germany's world hegemony.
At the end of 1917, German Shipyard.
Oscar, German