Preparing for war
Following the annexation of Libya into the French Empire and its reorganisation into what were collectively referred to as the Départements Libyens, the next logical target for imperial expansion was Egypt - which would offer the fulfilment of the old French ambition of a West-East land route across the breadth of Africa.
However, unlike Libya, Egypt would not make for such easy pickings
The intelligence available to the cabinet indicated that Egypt’s military comprised twenty six infantry divisions - numerically nearly the match of the French army.
However, in addition to this, Egypt was also a member of the powerful Cairo-Riyadh-Tehran Axis, commonly referred to as the Axis.
The alliance of Egypt, Arabia and Persia was originally formed as a pan-Arab bloc to challenge the Ottoman Empire. During the Great Arab Revolt of , the Axis went to war with the Ottoman Empire in support of their fellow Arabs and ultimately won, with the Ottomans forced to cede Palestine, Arabia and southern Mesopotamia to the victors.
The Treaty of Jerusalem signalled a fundamental shift in the balance of power in the Middle East.
In the aftermath of the revolt, and plunged into turmoil by the loss of Libya, Albania and Cyprus, as well as defeat by the Axis, the Ottoman Empire completely collapsed amidst a military coup and the birth of the Turkish Republic.
This had allowed the Axis to become the dominant power in the region and, due to continued hostility with the Turks, led to its members maintaining large militaries. The combined strength of the Axis, therefore, was more than a match for the French Empire and was only slightly weaker than that of the Catholic League as a whole.
As other League nations could not be expected to commit large numbers of troops for what would be the benefit of only France alone, it was obvious that further military preparation would be needed before the Empire would be able to invade Egypt.
The Emperor therefore authorised a massive expansion of the military - to be paid for by the revenues coming from the rapidly expanding manufacturing industry and from the oil revenues starting to trickle in from Libya. Also of assistance was the former Libyan royal treasury, which had been confiscated and would now be used to fund several projects deemed of national importance.
There then followed a period of quiet military and industrial progress, such as the completion of several new factory districts in southern France - a harbinger of the changes to come in the future.
The industrialisation of southern France radically altered the demographics of the country - notably through a rapid growth in the urban population and the mass immigration of Algerian and African workers.
Another such project was what was now known as Project Jericho, the joint atomic and rocket programme in Bougie in Algeria, where work began on the construction of isotope separation facilities to produce Bonapartium and Napoleonium.
So secret was the atomic project that even the existence of Area 59, the home of Project Jericho, would remain officially classified until 1982.
And, most cherished of all to the French Navy, a service which felt itself seriously neglected under the premiership of Marshal De Gaulle, the cabinet authorised the construction of six new battleships of the new Richelieu class.
These various programmes would all take place over the course of the year following the annexation of Libya. However, while the Empire was expanding its forces the world did not remain still.
In January, syndicalism marked another triumph in its march across Asia with the fall of the Indian Princely Federation to the Bharitya Commune - a conquest which made syndicalism the greatest power in India and which gave the remnants of the British Empire much cause for alarm.
Syndicalism was also on the march in eastern Europe where the Soviet Republic was making short work of their Finnish enemies.
But, perhaps most importantly on the global diplomatic front, on the 5th of June, Kaiser Wilhelm the II died. With the succession of Wilhelm III to the throne, the German Empire was entering a new era, with the result that, even as French troops massed on the Egyptian border, France’s attention was suddenly once again turned towards Europe.
