In 1908, France organized French Equatorial Africa (AEF), comprising the Middle Congo, Gabon, Chad, and Oubangui-Chari (the modern Central African Republic). The French designated Brazzaville as the federal capital. Economic development during the first 50 years of colonial rule in Congo centered on natural-resource extraction. The methods were often brutal: construction of the Congo-Ocean Railway following World War I has been estimated to have cost at least 14,000 lives.