Welcome to Hell
The warlords of West Africa knew the value of mines and plantations, so they fought primarily over them. But suppose they actually managed to seize a mine. An iron mine was one thing—iron was a raw material that could somehow be consumed locally. But what about manganese, bauxite, or copper? Materials they utterly lacked the technology to utilize? To the warlords, these were nothing but useless piles of rocks.
"Um... Chief, sir?"
"I told you to call me Excellency, not Chief! What is it?"
"We have finally found a buyer for that 'bauxite' stuff the white men value so highly."
"Oh?"
"They say if we transport this ore across the Congo, the British will buy it for a handsome price."
"And are you going to risk your life crossing that treacherous jungle? We'd be lucky if bandits didn't rob us blind first!"
"Then what about crossing the Sahara to sell it in Egypt or Algeria?"
"Does that make any sense to you?"
Now that France had completely washed its hands of West Africa, the biggest problem was that even if they obtained these precious minerals, they had absolutely no market for them. They needed to get rid of this junk immediately. Just holding onto it was a liability. The mines kept churning out ore, and the more bauxite piled up in their warehouses, the more they became prime targets for rival raiders.
Of course, even if bandits stole it, those bandits would only end up harassed by even bigger bandits. It was like a criminal holding onto a mountain of dirty cash they couldn't launder—unable to throw it away, yet utterly paralyzed by the burden of keeping it.
It was then that news swept through the warlords: Dakar had acquired a new master—not France, but the Prague Treaty Organization.
"Damn! Taking Dakar for ourselves is out of the question now."
"Chief... I mean, Excellency! Don't we have all those stolen goods piled up in the warehouse?"
"They're spoils of war, not stolen goods! What about them?"
"Let's dump those spoils in Dakar for cheap."
"Now that is an excellent idea."
Loaded with useless iron, manganese, copper, and bauxite, the warlords set off for Dakar. In the merchant republic of Dakar, administrators quickly assessed the internal demands of West Africa. Through the Clearing Bank, they placed massive orders for essential wartime commodities: firearms, ammunition, fertilizers, food, and medicine.
They bought the minerals for next to nothing and sold them to the Treaty Organization at a premium. Then, they took the weapons and ammunition—acquired just as cheaply—and sold them back to the warlords at exorbitant prices.
"There are... no tariffs?"
"Indeed. You can consider trade barriers virtually non-existent among the member states of the Treaty Organization."
"Trade...?"
"Yes. Are the member states of the Treaty Organization not equal trading partners? Excluding a nominal shipping fee, your required goods will be delivered at the exact same prices as any other nation within the Treaty."
It was a contract completely unlike anything offered by Britain or France—so generous, in fact, that the locals wondered if they had somehow swindled their new partners. It was akin to the modern-day equivalent of a country far removed from Europe suddenly gaining full membership in the European Union.
In an instant, Dakar was integrated into the European market. A colossal economic engine, incomparable to any British colony in Africa, was suddenly linked directly to the continent.
Already the largest port connecting Europe and West Africa, Dakar rapidly transformed into the continent's premier transit trade hub. Its status soared to that of an African Singapore.
It went without saying that within mere months of joining, Dakar became a trade-surplus nation.
But the benefits weren't limited to Dakar; Austria also reaped immense rewards. Before this, the situation in Austria and the rest of the Treaty Organization had been far more dire than anyone cared to admit.
"Unemployment is steadily rising. It seems the factories are grinding to a halt due to a severe shortage of raw materials."
"As prices soar, consumer spending is contracting. We must devise a countermeasure immediately!"
Rising unemployment and shrinking consumption—the twin harbingers of recession—were occurring simultaneously. Normally, in such a scenario, the correct move would be to lower interest rates to stimulate the economy. A typical recession induces deflation, and the textbook solution is to deliberately increase the money supply to boost economic activity.
However, with inflation skyrocketing, they could not easily tinker with interest rates. The root cause had always been external: a sudden drop in raw material imports from the United States and Great Britain had triggered a massive spike in overall prices. It was remarkably similar to an oil shock.
And the solution to an oil shock was simple: flood the market with more oil! For Austria, the crisis began to resolve the moment more minerals flooded into their market.
"But... the first ship hasn't even departed from Dakar yet, has it?"
"The market reacts faster than you think. After all, the resumption of the raw material supply is a guaranteed certainty, isn't it? It's only a matter of time."
It was a reaction fitting for Austria, the birthplace of the father of modern psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Through sheer anticipation alone, stagflation was broken in an instant. Armed with nothing but the expectation that raw materials would soon flow, factories began hiring again and froze their prices.
Frankly, the citizens of the Treaty Organization tended to agree with whatever Stahl said. When he spoke of liberating British colonies, they sympathized with their hearts simply because it was Stahl speaking; they didn't necessarily comprehend the logical nuances of anti-colonialism.
But... the moment they saw West Africa open up exclusively to the Treaty Organization, the citizens had a sudden change of heart.
"We only secured a single trading port in West Africa, and the economy suddenly does this?"
"It might not be just that. I heard the Vice Chairman is currently visiting Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea."
"Still... those are just ports! We didn't even take direct control of the mines. How can securing a few measly ports have this much of an impact?"
Of course, this was a case of "excessive expectations." It was merely the effect of a sudden release of raw materials that had been bottlenecked and piling up in West Africa. There was no way this could be cheaper than Britain or France directly operating mines by treating the colonized like slaves. Furthermore, given that West Africa was essentially living out a real-life Mad Max, the supply chain itself was highly volatile due to severe political instability.
Once their thoughts reached that point, the citizens' anger toward Britain and France began to boil over.
"Those British bastards... they've been hoarding the world's resources like this to build their wealth."
"Honestly, it's absurd. From the start, German goods couldn't compete with British goods on price, could they?"
"Well, of course they couldn't. It's easy to keep prices low when you're whipping Indians to extract minerals for pennies."
They were beginning to see through the magic trick of the British. Frankly, in terms of raw industrial capacity, Britain and France could never match Germany. But while that was true for industrial and technological prowess, market competitiveness was an entirely different story. There was a reason the Germans had been so enthusiastic about war. No matter how much Germany expanded its industries and advanced its technology, it could not catch up in terms of product price competitiveness. Consequently, Germany had to seek a battlefield where its technological superiority could reign supreme. And that battlefield was war.
In any case, anti-colonial sentiment began to spread like wildfire across the entire Prague Treaty Organization.
Stahl continued his southward journey through West Africa, repeating the exact same process he had used in Dakar to "spread democracy" to port after port. Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Benin, and more... At first, he granted them time for democratization, just as he had with Dakar. But as rumors spread, other ports took the initiative to democratize themselves, eager to join the Treaty Organization.
True to their nature as shrewd colonial elites—who would attend church on Sundays yet fast during Ramadan—their speed of adaptation was remarkably swift. Patriarchal nomadic tribal chieftains transformed into champions of democracy overnight. It was much like how the modern EU used trade leverage to effectively abolish the death penalty worldwide.
While the former colonial port city-states of West Africa and the member nations of the Prague Treaty Organization were ecstatic, Great Britain and France were seething with rage.
"Minister Churchill, they say Stahl has landed in Guinea this time."
"T-That absolute fool...!"
Those Austrian-Hungarian idiots kept granting "irresponsible freedom" to savages, abandoning the sacred duty of civilized men. If the uncivilized Indians caught wind of Stahl's antics, there was no telling what arrogant stunts they might pull.
The British Empire did not meddle in every corner of the globe out of sheer boredom. (Though, in truth, boredom did play a significant part.) An empire was not built on raw power alone. From Cyrus the Great to the modern United States, forming an empire required infecting not only one's ruling partners but also the lower classes with a dominant ideology. Had the United States not poured blood and treasure into "spreading democracy" in Afghanistan—a place with nothing worth taking—only to be driven out, leaving a massive crack in the foundation of American hegemony?
Britain was no different. The British Empire had to propagate the dominant ideology of the "civilizing mission" as the "White Man's Burden" across the globe. But with Stahl constantly pulling these absurd stunts, more and more people were beginning to resist that very ideology.
Naturally, Churchill launched a campaign accusing Stahl of turning West Africa into a chaotic wasteland. Pointing to the apocalyptic state of the African interior, he argued that the natives desperately required "order and stability." Of course, Austria didn't bat an eye at such nonsense. Kaiser Franz Ferdinand II even chuckled as he read Britain's condemnatory statements, treating them like a newly delivered joke book.
"What a pity. It would have been far more amusing to read this together with Stahl."
Naturally, Churchill had no intention of letting matters rest there.
"We must intervene in West Africa immediately!"
"With the current depression, do we truly have the resources to expand our protectorates?"
"It is quite the opposite. It is precisely because of the depression that we must do so."
The more colonies, the better. Japan had not overextended itself to push into Manchuria for no reason. First, it reminded the public of imperial glory, which alone was highly effective at boosting morale and stimulating the economy. Second, developing colonies reduced unemployment, while troublemakers exploiting the depression to stir up social unrest could simply be dumped in the colonies. Third, it expanded their markets and secured even greater price competitiveness for raw materials.
"This has actually worked out perfectly. We were lacking a proper pretext to enter West Africa, so we should thank Austria for making the first move."
Unlike a reckless France, or the historically impetuous Japan and Italy, Britain was a nation that possessed a brain. No matter how severe the chaos in West Africa grew, they weren't about to poke a hornet's nest without reason. But now, they had their pretext.
And so, once again crying out their "civilizing mission," the British began landing on the West African coast one by one. True to their status as the possessors of the world's finest navy and centuries of colonial expertise, they rapidly pushed their troops inland and began occupying West Africa. They attempted to establish colonial rule by playing the local warlords against each other, as they had always done, but...
"What happened to our plan to sponsor the 'True' Mali Empire?"
"Commander! Those bastards took all our weapons and fled!"
"Our Marines are taking heavy casualties! We need a countermeasure immediately!"
"What? We are losing to those savages?!"
"The locals are surprisingly well-armed, sir! Starting with the weapons left behind by the French, they are also receiving a massive influx of arms from Austria!"
Even the United States, the undisputed global superpower of its era, had eventually been forced to wash its hands of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. There was no way Great Britain alone could manage the colossal chaos of the West African region. It took no time at all for them to end up like Japan in China, or the United States in the Middle East.