African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1415 Benito's Forbearance
Emperor Franz knew very well that the empire was beyond salvation and could collapse at any time if it experienced a shock.

Therefore, he had to speak some true words to Rudolf, but this was tantamount to him admitting his mistakes in governing over the years. However, it was not easy for Franz to be in this position and maintain the continuation of this ancient empire for so many years.

After hearing Franz's explanation, Rudolf felt melancholy. He consoled him, "Father, don't be too pessimistic. We Habsburgs still have a solid foundation. And with our deployment over the years, as long as we survive this most difficult period, the empire will surely be stable in the future."

The Habsburg family was naturally aware of the difficulties they faced, so they took many measures, but the effects of these measures were not significant.

The only consolation was the expansion of the German circle, which at least ensured that the number of Habsburg supporters in Venice and Dalmatia increased significantly.

……

After the initial unification of Italy, Benito's personal prestige reached an unprecedented level on the Apennine Peninsula, and many Italian nationalists regarded him as the greatest saint in Italy.

Some radicals even took the initiative to persuade Benito: "Mr. Prime Minister, now that Italy has been reunited, we should go one step further and recover Lombardy and Venice. Only in this way can Italy be truly complete."

Benito did not directly refute his subordinates' proposal, but said with a clear mind: "Recovering Lombardy and Venice is the duty of every patriotic Italian, but now we have more important things to do."

"We must first focus on economic development. The current economic situation in Italy is not optimistic. If we don't solve the economic problems, let alone recovering lost territory, I'm afraid that the former Papal States and Naples may be lost again."

Benito's friend and subordinate Dino also agreed with this. He said: "Your Excellency the Prime Minister is right. We have just unified the Papal States and Naples, which has caused a stir in Europe. At this time, we should focus on digesting the two places."

"Moreover, due to the division of the three countries in the Apennine Peninsula over the years, their military preparations have been neglected and their military combat effectiveness is worrying. If we were to confront the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had experienced World War I, we would probably find it difficult to gain an advantage militarily."

Since the failure of Italian unification in the last century, Italy has been divided into three countries, which also led to the division of the Italian army into three.

It was obviously difficult for Italy, which was divided into three parts, to pose a threat to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In addition, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not allow Naples and the Papal States to overdevelop their armies. Therefore, the only country with truly complete sovereignty was the Kingdom of Italy.

The Kingdom of Italy was not actually very attentive to the development of its army. After all, it was difficult to fight against the Austro-Hungarian Empire on its own. In addition, in order to operate the Red Sea colonies at that time, more resources were invested in the navy, leaving even less funding for the army.

In addition, Italy had enjoyed peace for a long time. During World War I, the three countries on the Apennine Peninsula maintained neutrality. Lacking the test of war, the Italian army would not have an advantage over the Austro-Hungarian Empire even if the numbers and equipment were equal, not to mention that the Italian army was already at a disadvantage in terms of numbers and equipment.

For these reasons, Benito said: "Dino is right. The situation in Lombardy and Venice is more complicated. It is not like the Papal States and Naples. At least in these two countries, they are still managed by Italians. In Lombardy and Venice, even most of the people have become citizens of the Austro-Hungarian Empire."

"We want to recover the two territories. Peaceful means will not work. Only war can get back everything we lost from the Austro-Hungarian Empire."

"However, when compared with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the gap in strength between the two countries is too great, especially in terms of military strength. In the final analysis, Italy has been small and weak in recent years, and its economic level is low, so it is unable to support a strong army."

"Now that I have achieved the initial unification of Italy, this has also laid the foundation for our Italy to become a world power."

"But it is only the foundation. Although we have a population of 40 million, we lack the agriculture to feed these 40 million people, lack strong industrial production capacity, and lack the various resources needed for national development."

Italy is a typical mineral-poor country, even more pitiful than Japan. Basically, Italy lacks all the necessary resources in the early stages of industrial development.

This is also one of the important reasons why Italy's light industry is relatively developed, because Italy does not have the resources to develop heavy industry.

Of course, this is not what Benito is most worried about. Compared with the industrial deficiencies, agriculture may be more fatal to Italy as a country.

Italy's arable land resources are extremely scarce, but Italy has such a large population, which has led to a serious consequence: Italy cannot be self-sufficient in food.

More than 70% of Italy's territory is occupied by mountains and hills, especially after the Po River Plain in the east was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, arable land resources became even more scarce.

Moreover, the soil in southern Italy is barren and the climate is unstable, which makes Italy's agricultural problems even worse.

This is also one of the important reasons why the people of the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples welcomed King Benito's army. Compared with the Kingdom of Italy, the people of the two places even had problems whether they could have enough food. Every year, these two regions are also the places where Italy has the most serious population outflow. Coupled with the economic difficulties in recent years, this has also led to their extreme dissatisfaction with the previous government.

Now that Benito has achieved the unification of Italy, these economic and social problems naturally fall on his shoulders.

Therefore, Benito said: "For the Italian economy, drastic measures must be taken to save our ill-fated country."

"First of all, we should try our best to achieve self-sufficiency in food production in agriculture. Otherwise, if we have a conflict with Austria-Hungary in the future, we may face the risk of having our food import channels cut off."

"Moreover, over the years, Naples and the Papal States have chosen to import large quantities of grain from Austria-Hungary in order to curry favor with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is to some extent detrimental to our rule in the two places."

"For now, we should consider changing the food import channel, such as importing food from France, the United States or East Africa to replace the food imported from Austria-Hungary."

There is no country in Europe with more serious food problems than Italy. On the other hand, Italy's neighbors, except for the insignificant Switzerland, France and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are all major food producers in Europe and even the world.

Especially Naples and the Papal States, which had long been vassals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, imported food from the Austro-Hungarian Empire as one of the main ways to cope with their rapidly growing populations. Otherwise, their regimes would have collapsed long ago. Now that Benito has unified Italy, this has offended the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it also means that the Austro-Hungarian Empire may interfere with the food issue.

The reason why it is possible is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire would not necessarily adopt this approach of killing one thousand enemies and losing eight hundred of its own. After all, Italy still has many backup options. Not to mention countries with surplus food production such as the United States, East Africa, and Argentina, their French neighbors alone can meet their needs.

However, for an ambitious man like Benito who wanted to lead Italy to become a world power, he could not accept being controlled by others in terms of food, even if the food was imported from other countries.

Before the country can achieve self-sufficiency in grain, Benito can only actively place orders with other grain-producing countries to get rid of Italy's dependence on grain imports from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After all, in his opinion, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was now Italy's enemy, so importing grain from the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be aiding the enemy. He would rather let other countries make the money than let the Austro-Hungarian Empire take advantage of it.

"Importing food is not a long-term solution. If Italy wants to become an independent power, it must build its own efficient agriculture and stable food production base."

"So, I think we should use the power of the country to promote large-scale land reclamation, such as building terraces in hilly areas that have development conditions, and building large-scale water conservancy projects, so as to increase local grain production."

"At the same time, we should learn from Germany and the two East African countries in the use of pesticides and fertilizers, encourage the development of agricultural technology, and increase unit yields."

"In addition to agricultural construction in our own country, agricultural development in the colonies should also be rolled out on a large scale, especially the development of arable land in the western part of the Red Sea colony, which can greatly ease our food supply pressure."

Benito's agricultural policies were not actually very innovative, but they were not necessarily ineffective. After all, due to the division of Italy before, it was difficult to support the construction of some large-scale agricultural projects. However, the situation changed after unification.

The most typical example is water conservancy construction. Many water conservancy projects, especially water diversion projects and reservoir construction, were difficult to coordinate in the past due to divisions. Now, under the leadership of one government, the basic conditions have been met.

For example, if a river passes through the Papal States and the Kingdom of Italy, the two countries would inevitably have conflicts over the proportion and division of water resources in the past. Now that they are one country, there is room for negotiation on water use issues for residents along the coast.

Benito's subordinates also supported his emphasis on agriculture. After all, agriculture has been an urgent issue that Italy has needed to deal with in recent decades, and it is directly related to the foundation of Italy's rule. The land conflicts among Italians are very prominent, and the various political problems arising from this are much more serious than those in other European countries.

In the past, it was not easy for Italian countries to solve this problem, but this was not the case with Benito’s government. After all, Benito was a dictator, which made it convenient for him to promote some reforms.

After setting the basic tone on agricultural issues, Benito began to express his views on industry.

As for industry, Benito focused on two aspects: one was import substitution, and the other was vigorously developing the military industry.

Import substitution mainly involves two levels. One is to replace imported industrial products with domestic industrial products as much as possible, thereby promoting the development of domestic industry. This also means that Italy will inevitably build its own tariff barriers economically.

The second is to use some domestic resources to replace imports in industrial development as much as possible. After all, Italy is a mineral-poor country, and Benito cannot create resources for Italy out of thin air, so he can only think of solutions from other aspects.

To give a simple example, take meat. There are many varieties of meat, such as pork, beef, chicken, duck, etc. For a country like Italy with limited resources and land, raising pigs or poultry is undoubtedly more cost-effective.

Therefore, the Benito government will obviously promote the development of these industries that can easily meet the basic needs of the Italian people in its economic development policies, so as to avoid being controlled by others.

As for vigorously developing the military industry, there is nothing much to say about this. As an extreme nationalist, Benito has always had one of his personal goals of launching wars to expand Italy's territory.

However, this point has not yet been shown. Although Benito likes to brag, he is not stupid.

Italy has just been unified, and in Benito's view, it is extremely backward in all areas. If this situation is not changed, Benito will not show his ambitions in the international community.

This can be seen from a comparison between Benito's performance after coming to power in his previous life and the present. In his previous life, Benito made no secret of his ambitions in the Balkans, North Africa, East Africa and other regions, and attempted to build Italy into a powerful country on the Mediterranean coast.

However, the Italy of the past and the Italy of today are two completely different concepts. The Italy of the past was considered a great power in the world, while the Italy of today can only be considered a great power in Europe.

Moreover, Italy's mortal enemy in the past, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had long since disintegrated due to World War I, resulting in a lack of a major power in the Eastern Mediterranean that could intervene and suppress its development. This is one of the reasons why Italy was so aggressive in the political and diplomatic fields before World War II.

Without the existence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy would be the most powerful country in Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region to a certain extent, so Benito was able to strike hard against neighboring countries in his previous life.

Now, Italy may not be able to deal with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, let alone the Ottoman Empire. So in view of the current situation in Italy, Benito deeply feels that Italy is poor and weak, and therefore lacks support to realize his political ambitions.

Benito buried all these ambitions in the deepest part of his heart. Only after he integrated Italy's resources and built a powerful army did he plan to rebuild the "Roman Empire".

Before he bared his fangs, Benito still seemed harmless in front of countries such as Britain, France, and Germany, except for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was naturally incompatible with Italy.

Therefore, Benito said to his confidants: "Now, Italy's most important task is to accumulate our strength. Otherwise, Italy's desire to become one of the leaders in international affairs at this stage will most likely be shattered."

(End of this chapter)