Chapter 280: The Bagamoyo Shipyard and the Cultural War
Bagamoyo.
South of the East African naval base, on the southern bank of the Little Rhine River, a new construction site was taking shape. The Bagamoyo Shipyard was being designed and built. The factory area had already been laid out, modeled on the Venetian shipyard and adapted to Bagamoyo Port's geographical features, to create a shipyard of comparable scale in East Africa.
The Bagamoyo Shipyard was the largest active project East Africa had introduced so far, aimed at enhancing its capacity for independently building ships. A Venetian shipyard technician, Berst, was explaining this project to Constantino:
"Why relocate the Venetian shipyard to Bagamoyo? Mainly to avoid squeezing the operational space of Dar es Salaam's port. Though Dar es Salaam's conditions and infrastructure are indeed stronger, it's an open port playing a vital role in East Africa's economy, and our primary import–export traffic is focused at Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Currently, building a shipyard in Dar es Salaam or Mombasa isn't impossible, but considering the future development of every East African port, the Crown Prince specifically ordered that we pick a location in a non–free-port area. Among such areas, only Bagamoyo and Mogadishu have good conditions. But Mogadishu, being much farther north with a Somali climate, lacks certain raw materials."
Present shipbuilding still relied greatly on timber, and Mogadishu, essentially an oasis city, was disadvantaged in raw materials.
"Bagamoyo's natural conditions are excellent: good water depth, Zanzibar Island right across to block much of the ocean wind, and, like Dar es Salaam, it's on a sheltered bay along the mainland. All these features give Bagamoyo Port the same potential once enjoyed by Venice," Berst continued with conviction.
He was Austrian, a technician from the Trieste Shipyard, once trained at the Venetian Shipyard. When the Venetian Shipyard opened its branch in Trieste, the Hechingen Financial Consortium named him as its director.
East African shipbuilding was essentially divided into two systems. One was inland, relying on the lakes and rivers—its typical examples being the Mwanza Shipyard by the Great Lakes, the Kigoma Shipyard by Lake Solon, and the Karonga Shipyard by Lake Malawi. The other system had just started along the coast, based on advice from Fleet Admiral Ferdinand of the navy. East Africa had built two small ship-repair factories in Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Their main business, besides maintaining passing vessels, was producing small wooden fishing boats.
Those two small repair factories were basically renovations of old Sultanate of Zanzibar facilities, whose technology stemmed from the Arabs. However, the center of Zanzibar's shipbuilding had actually been on Zanzibar Island, since the sultanate had controlled the coast for only a short time.
There was also one city with boat-building ability—Mogadishu. It boasted a long history as an Indian Ocean port, though its technology was now completely outdated. Taking advantage of the Austro-Italian War, Ernst intended to transplant Hechingen's Venetian Shipyard to East Africa. Wartime fears would encourage many shipyard workers to choose East Africa for their future.
"Does the completion of the Bagamoyo Shipyard mean that East Africa can become fully self-reliant in naval shipbuilding?" Constantino asked.
Berst answered:
"That depends on how you define 'self-reliant.' For instance, we're handling every aspect of the shipyard's design, planning, and construction ourselves. You could call that independence. But in terms of hardware, East Africa's shipbuilding industry is nowhere near self-sufficient. For example, steam power systems and key components must still be imported. Even when the Bagamoyo Shipyard is finished, we'll only be able to build hulls on our own. At bottom, it's more like a large-scale ship assembly yard."
He continued:
"Still, the shipyard at Bagamoyo marks a major milestone for East African shipbuilding—first, we solve the problem of having it or not. Afterward, we can gradually fill in the missing links in the supply chain. Bagamoyo has a lot of open space, and in time a whole cluster of related industries will form around the shipyard."
"Ah, I see," Constantino sighed. "After Bagamoyo Shipyard goes into operation, how would its output compare globally?"
Berst shook his head:
"Regrettably, Your Majesty, we'll lag behind by perhaps two generations, technologically speaking. In fact, the Venetian Shipyard itself, having declined along with Venice, is already slightly behind others. Now that ironclad ships are appearing, pushing technology further, the gap is growing. So the shipbuilding technology we bring to Bagamoyo will inevitably be behind Europe.
"What we're actually doing is transferring over Venice's older machines to reassemble them in Bagamoyo. Meanwhile, the original Venetian Shipyard will bring in new equipment and technology for an upgrade. With the Suez Canal open, the Mediterranean's economy is surging again, and once-glorious Venice could see a resurgence. It's vital to improve the Hechingen Venetian Shipyard's capabilities. That's one reason Ernst wants to build a Bagamoyo Shipyard—Venice's outdated technology and equipment go to East Africa, where it's still advanced by local standards. Meanwhile, Venice itself can progress further, so both sides benefit."
Additionally, most of the Italian workers from the Venetian Shipyard would be relocated to East Africa, allowing Ernst to recruit more Germans from Austria to fill the gap in Venice—covertly helping Austria tighten its control of Venice. Together with Ernst's earlier malicious scheme of emptying the rural areas around Venice, leaving Italians only in the city while the countryside was filled with Austrians, city-based Italians and the rural farmland would be separated. Typically, culture flourishes in cities and radiates outward, so by blocking the region from Venice's influence, Austria could steadily assimilate Venetian peasants. If those local powers' "interpretations" were broken, Austrian schooling could gradually shape them, so that eventually most Italians in the countryside would turn Austrian.
Meanwhile, as the countryside replenished the city's population over time, the Italians in Venice, with lower birthrates, would be replaced by Austrians, strengthening the German voice from top to bottom. The Italian middle class, the core of Italy's culture, would be forced to leave Venice—since the Kingdom of Italy was bound to take them in. Any stubborn ones who refused to go could be handed off to East Africa, where if they behaved, they might be rehabilitated; otherwise, it was the "Alaskan winter package" for them, as Ernst casually put it.
Of course, that was just an idea. It might never come to fruition if the Kingdom of Italy someday regained Venice. The possibility was slim, though. The plan also aimed to block the spread of Italian culture within Austria-Hungary. The Adriatic coast was deeply influenced by Italian culture, precisely in Austria's coastal region. By cutting off Venice, that cultural influence would fade. Then Austria could tackle the Slavic imprint of the region (mainly Croatian and Slovenian), easing its internal ethnic strife.
All of it amounted to a cultural war. As the person who proposed it, Ernst felt that if it succeeded, Austrians of future generations would owe him thanks. Then again, from the perspective of a more "enlightened" or "merciful" later era, people might hurl condemnation. Just like some Saxons who, while reaping the benefits of their ancestors' exploitation and colonial gains, toppled Queen Victoria's statues with self-righteous fervor, ironically unaware that they were living comfortably only because of imperial plunder. True atonement, in Ernst's view, would mean giving up all the perks—living the impoverished life of Africa's poorest. After all, all that comfort was a legacy of the British colonial system. Modern colonialism never ended; it merely morphed into subtler forms of economic domination.
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