I'm in addition very, very doubtful of all of the claims of the British and French colonies being money sinks, which is parroted extremely often with very little to back it up. 1/3 of French trade went to its colonies during the 1930s, and for Britain the figure was even higher. Both the British and the French imposed laws on their colonies of them being financially neutral, and never sent large (state) investments into them. Perhaps the Algerian War and the First Indochina War were expensive, but those were special events. And while the world may have been a more liberal economic system than it would be in the Interwar, inherently Germany would never be able to achieve economic domination of either French or British markets - at most, it may achieve a substantial foreign influence, just as it did originally in 1914.
In 1913, Germany had £1.18b invested globally, very little of this would be in the German colonies. In contrast, GB had £1.78b invested in its Empire, £755m in the USA, £756m in latin and South America, £218 in Europe (half of that is in Russia) and another £256m in the Middle East and Asia, for a total of £3.76b invested globally. The earnings from these investments made up about 10% of UK's GDP. The war basically shaved off 15 years of European development and saddled everyone with GFC+ style debt to GDP ratios. The winners were USA and Japan.
GB trade with the Empire in 1911 was £340m, an important trading partner. This was the same amount of trade as with the US while that of GB-German was £156m.
In terms of economic growth the proportions of GDP by sector for leading powers in 1913 were:
United States (GDP 517,383) Ag 27.5%, Ind 29.7%, Service 42.8%
France (GDP 144,489) Ag 41.1%, Ind 32.3%, Service 26.6%
Germany (GDP 237,332) Ag 34.6%, Ind 41.1%, Service 24.3%
Netherlands (GDP 24,955) Ag 26.5%, Ind 33.8 %, Service 39.1%
GB (GDP 224,618) Ag 11.7%, Ind 44.1%, Service 44.2%
Japan (GDP 71,653) Ag 60.1%, Ind 17.5%, Service 22.4%
Russia (GDP 254,448) Ag 70%, Ind 26%, Service 4%
Ag: Agriculture, timber and fisheries
Ind: Processing and mining construction housing
Service: Transport, Banking, Military
As you can see, GB's Ag sector was very small and industry and services were the main segments. Germany can expand it's industry by further shrinking it's Agricultural base but will probably not equal GB in the Service space. Russia and Japan have the greatest scope for industrial expansion.
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