African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 110: Chapter 105 ”East Africa and Mozambique Non-Aggression Treaty

”Stop! Who goes there?” The militia raised their guns, cautiously aiming at the approaching figure.

Tulio Penelli stepped forward, handing his gun to the team behind him, raising his hands high, and spoke in Portuguese to the Mitomoni Village militia, ”I am Officer Tulio Penelli from the Portuguese Kingdom’s Mozambique colony, and I wish to speak with your leader.”

Gibberish... After a burst of Portuguese, the Mitomoni Village militia was even more confused, gripping their guns tighter.

At this time, Gilles Zioni, the village chief of Mitomoni Village, who heard the commotion, walked to the front of the village.

Looking at Tulio Penelli and his group in front of him, Gilles Zioni asked in German, ”Who are you?”

Seeing the puzzled face of Tulio Penelli, Gilles Zioni, whose hometown is on the Prussian border, repeated the question in French.

Finally, someone in Tulio Penelli’s team understood. This person had a French mother, so he understood French.

He walked to Tulio Penelli’s side and repeated Gilles Zioni’s words to Tulio Penelli.

With a mediator acting as a translator, both sides could finally begin communicating.

After understanding the intentions of Tulio Penelli and his group, Gilles Zioni did not make things difficult for these Portuguese.

Currently, East Africa adopts a ”do not offend others, lest you be offended” strategy against the Portuguese, restraining its expansion southward and stopping at the Lufuma River.

Unlike the east, the western borders between the two colonies are not clearly defined, lacking natural boundaries like mountains and rivers, with the eastern shore of Lake Malawi being a vast plain.

Gilles Zioni received the Portuguese but only allowed a few individuals without weapons to enter Mitomoni Village, while the rest could only remain outside the village.

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A month after Gilles Zioni sent Tulio Penelli off, the Portuguese high command in Maputo, the capital of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), also received Tulio Penelli’s report.

The Portuguese were quite surprised by the rapid expansion of the German East African colony, given that the Mozambique colony took hundreds of years to develop to its current scale, while Germans had only arrived a few years ago?

Despite being surprised at the Germans’ speed, the Portuguese did not take any action, as long as the Germans did not have unscrupulous intentions towards Mozambique, the Portuguese were reluctant to act proactively.

After all, the strength that easily defeated the Zanzibar Sultanate is substantial across the entire Western Indian Ocean, and the East African colony currently lacks resources desired by the Portuguese.

However, the Portuguese did not do nothing. To prevent conflicts between the two colonies, the Mozambique government still sent individuals to Dar es Salaam to negotiate with the East African colony to define borders and the scope of influence in East Africa.

The East African colonial government accepted the Portuguese request, currently focusing its efforts on the northern and western regions, temporarily uninterested in southern Mozambique.

Ernst’s colonial plan for East Africa also evolved with the development of the East African colony. If initially, Ernst’s plan was to occupy the Tanganyika region, the second phase aimed at the entire Tanzania, while currently, the focus is on the future territory of the East African Community.

In the previous generation, the East African Community included six member countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, and South Sudan.

The current focus of the East African colonial strategy is on Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and northern Kenya.

As for South Sudan, there’s currently only the Sudan region, which falls under Ottoman influence, so South Sudan is not part of the current plan.

In conducting colonial activities in East Africa, Ernst has always advocated for stability, avoiding conflicts with powerful local forces before establishing a strong foothold.

First endure for a while, then expand once the population scales up, targeting Arab and other European colonizers, while treating native tribes with arrogance.

Though seemingly simple, this principle was practically challenging in this era. With the development of the European Industrial Revolution, European countries are now indiscriminate across the ocean and other continents.

Spotting valuable resources and assets, they seize what they can, planting a flag on a small island for claimed overseas territories, yet often merely self-satisfying actions, ineffective unless acknowledged by other countries. If valuable minerals are found on the island, major powers will flock accordingly.

The East African colony is an officially recognized territory. Though Heixinggen’s nominal existence as a state now absorbed by Prussia, the recognized status facilitates operations.

The East African colony, as a domain of the Heixinggen royal family, is separate from Prussia in ownership, yet implicitly accepted as a Prussian colony.

After all, since Heixinggen became part of Prussia, who knows if this is Prussia’s front, and with Prussia’s current lack of overseas attention, there’s no need to explain to other countries.

Thus, the East African colony capitalizes on implied Prussian power; otherwise, if the Portuguese in Mozambique truly understand the underlying dynamics, they would not be hospitable.

December 3, 1867.

The East African colony and the Mozambique colony signed an agreement — ”East Africa and Mozambique Mutual Non-Aggression Treaty.”

The treaty defined boundaries between the two sides, starting from the estuary of the Lufuma River to Adila Village on the eastern shore of mid-Lake Malawi, spanning over seven hundred kilometers of borderline.

North of the borderline falls within the East African colony’s sphere of influence, while the south is within Mozambique’s colonial sphere of influence.

Both sides shall not trespass into each other’s territory without permission, mutually respecting interests along the Western Indian Ocean coast, jointly ensuring the smooth operation of traditional commercial trade routes in the Western Indian Ocean.

The treaty focuses on areas where the powers converge: terrestrial borders and maritime trade routes.

The treaty’s limitations lie in its detailed description only of the bordering region between the two colonies in the current exchanges, from Lake Malawi to the Indian Ocean.

Many regions in East Africa and South Africa are not defined or determined, laying groundwork for future conflicts between the two colonies on the west banks of Lake Malawi.

Nonetheless, this treaty is currently quite favorable as East Africa currently has no intention of delving west of Lake Malawi, nor does Mozambique plan to advance into the interior.

Both sides won’t encounter each other in the west for the time being, while the east requires stability for both to secure their interests.

Approaching year-end, East Africa’s immigration task is nearing completion, raising the immigrant population to another level.

The indigenous war in the northwest was long concluded, awaiting the end of the epidemic, for the East African colony to decisively take the northwest region.

Combined with ongoing exploration in northern Kenya, the East African Community’s main territories are essentially grasped by the East African colony.

The signing of the ”East Africa and Mozambique Mutual Non-Aggression Treaty” thus provides a security layer for northern expansion, reducing the need to excessively guard against the Portuguese.