Chapter 1312: horn of africa

Chapter 1312 Horn of Africa

Next, the East African government and the British launched in-depth discussions on the Indian Ocean issue, which was also the purpose of Thomson's visit.

Thomson said: "In recent years, the gangsters headed by Hassan have caused a **** storm in the Horn of Africa, seriously threatening the safety of merchant ships from various countries in the Gulf of Aden."

"So the two countries can completely cooperate to fight against pirates in the Gulf of Aden headed by Hassan and other forces, and we are also willing to hand over the Horn of Africa region east of Berbera to East Africa to maintain local stability."

Who is Hassan? It is worthy of Thomson to single it out and target it.

This starts with the establishment of the British Somaliland Colony. In the last century, East Africa controlled most of southern Somalia. At the same time, the British British Somaliland Colony was not idle either. In order to avoid the war in Africa, The corner fell into the hands of the East Africans, and the British actively expanded eastward and almost occupied the coastal areas of the Gulf of Aden in Somalia in its previous life.

But from the beginning, the British colonization of Somaliland was not very stable. After all, as an invader, the locals were bound to put up fierce resistance.

Hassan is the leader of the Arab resistance force that emerged in British Somaliland in the late 1990s. Although there is a huge disparity in strength between him and the British, Hassan led his followers deep into the interior and interior of British Somaliland. Britain maneuvered.

Unlike East Africa, the British could adopt a two-pronged approach, conquering by force while vacating the cage for birds. This allowed Hassan to make full use of the mass base of British Somaliland to carry out guerrilla warfare with the British.

East Africa can do whatever it wants on the African continent, relying on a broad "mass base". Without the masses, large-scale immigration from the Far East will occur. Even a bad land like Somalia will be worse for Far Eastern immigrants than their original living environment after being snatched away. Much stronger.

The strength of agricultural warriors cannot be underestimated. Of course, the premise is that they can "sound" or solve their worries. The essence of the success of Ernst's colonial model lies in the word "grab" .

By robbing African indigenous peoples, they obtain their land, water sources, minerals and other resources that can generate economic value and provide a living environment.

The British cannot replicate this model. In fact, the British also have the conditions to do so. After all, the living conditions of Indian cattle and horses in this era are not much better than those of immigrants from the Far East Empire.

But Ernst dared to promote German-Chinese integration and regarded Far Eastern immigrants as his own, and carried out intermarriage and assimilation. The British obviously could not accept treating Indians as their own.

This is the difference between the two. Of course, since the British look down on Indians, they can also immigrate their own citizens to vacate the cage and change the bird. However, the British low-level cattle and horses have long been very different from the early industrialization period.

Today, even the people at the lowest level in the UK have a quality of life that is not that low. What’s more, even if they cannot survive in their home country, they still have many choices, such as immigrating to the United States, Canada, Australia and other places. Of course, there is no such thing. People are willing to go to Somaliland to suffer.

Therefore, the British government could only conquer Somaliland through force, but it was unable to establish stable rule there.

This is also affected by the relatively high degree of civilization in Somaliland. Somaliland is an area of traditional Arab religious influence, so the Arab religious forces in Somaliland do not lack the courage to resist invaders like the British.

A high degree of civilization means broad knowledge and a high degree of organization. In the feudal era, the Arab civilization was a comparable opponent to Europe. Now Europe is one step ahead of them, but it will not force them to surrender directly. .

Therefore, although British Somaliland nominally belongs to the British sphere of influence, their influence only extends to the coastal areas.

Even now, the British are not only helpless against Hassan and other resistance forces, but also have to endure their harassment of British-controlled areas. After all, Britain is now deeply mired in World War I, so it is better to leave this burden to East Africa.

Of course, Britain does not intend to completely abandon Somaliland. They intend to retain the western belt headed by Berbera.

To the east of Berbera, the coastline is flat and there are no natural harbors, unless large-scale artificial reconstruction is carried out, but the cost of this is obviously too high.

"Hassan!" The East African government is quite familiar with this active "bandit leader" in British Somaliland. There is no other reason. Since he is an Arab religious "hero" in Somalia, he is naturally anti-British and anti-East African. .

East Africa is also one of the powers that invaded the Somali region, but in the past, the Somali region invaded by East Africa had little intersection with Hassan's forces.

After all, in the 19th century, the Somali region was also full of countries, and the countries that were eliminated in East Africa obviously had nothing to do with Hassan.

But when East Africa expanded to the intersection of British Somaliland, the situation was naturally different, especially the establishment of the city of Dire Dawa. Of course, Dire Dawa was only a military town at that time.

As long as they are bordering countries and regions, territorial disputes have always been a very common problem. In addition, when East Africa conquered the Somali region, a large number of Somalis fled to Somaliland in the north. Many of these ethnic groups joined Hassan's army. power.

After all, in the Somali region in the early days of East African rule, it can be said that many people were killed, or they were dragged south to serve as slaves. Somalis who had a little sense of crisis had long since run away.

Therefore, there are two types of members in Hassan's force. One is driven inland from the coast by the British, including Hassan himself, and the other is the Somalis who fled from East Africa and defected to Hassan.

The area of activity of Hassan's forces happened to be in Britain and East Africa, and conflicts with the two major powers were inevitable.

Of course, Hassan's forces have always been mainly fighting against the British, but this does not mean that they have no conflicts with East Africa.

Now that it was clear that Hassan was the enemy of East Africa, Ernst said without scruples: "Of course, we in East Africa have no hesitation in attacking the Hassan gang and maintaining the security of the Gulf of Aden."

East Africa obviously cannot let Hassan go, except that his own existence poses a threat to East Africa’s national defense and security, especially in the border areas.

By cracking down on the Hassan gang, we can legitimately take over nearly 150,000 square kilometers of land between Africa and officially expand the territory of East Africa to the Gulf of Aden. Where can we find such a good thing?

Although the environment in the Horn of Africa is harsher, with deserts and lack of water sources such as rivers, East Africa values the strategic value of the Horn of Africa even more.

It doesn’t matter that there is no natural port like Berbera. There is no need to deploy much naval force there. However, the East African Navy can establish an intelligence and early warning mechanism here. This can avoid the British Royal Navy from the Mediterranean and coastal areas during the South African War. Following the Red Sea all the way south to Mogadishu, the situation happened again.

And now that the air force has emerged, it can rely on coastal land to build airports and use military aircraft to block the Gulf of Aden to a certain extent.

It can be said that the emergence of aircraft has greatly changed the degree to which countries around the world are picky about colonies. Some small islands that were previously worthless to the navy can be transformed into unsinkable sea fortresses with a wider strike range.

Of course, only East Africa pays more attention to such areas now, such as the small islands in the Sunda Strait. After all, aircraft have just been used on a large scale on the European battlefield, and many people have not yet realized its importance.

The Horn of Africa area ceded by the UK is not just one or two islands, but a land of nearly 150,000 square kilometers.

Coupled with its triangular shape extending deep into the Indian Ocean, acquiring this area will directly increase the coastline of East Africa by nearly a thousand kilometers.

And Hassan naturally became a victim of the political game between East Africa and Britain. East Africa is not as easy to deal with as Britain.

(End of chapter)

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