Chapter 748 Second Stage
The Battle of Fite River broke the fragile balance between East Africa and the Boer Republic. The entire Boer Republic's southern defense line of Fite River was breached by East Africa overnight.
The next morning, after counting the results of the battle, a total of more than 20,000 Boer Republic troops were captured and killed in East Africa, and the Boer Republic frontline collapsed directly.
However, the number of Boer troops who evacuated from the front line was also large, estimated to be around 10,000 people. These Boer troops retreated rapidly towards Bloemfontein.
Merke: "After each unit has cleared the battlefield, it will continue to pursue southward, with Kimberley as its goal in the west, Bloemfontein in the north as its goal, and the east will support the northern troops."
As soon as Bloemfontein and Kimberley are captured, the war against the Boers will basically come to an end. Then the war situation in the Southern Military District in the Boer Republic will transition from an offensive war to a security war.
Bloemfontein and Kimberley are the only two major cities in the Boer Republic. After conquering these two places, the Boer Republic was declared to be undefendable.
Of course, the biggest headache in East Africa right now is dealing with the "legacy" left by the Boers on the Feite River front. The first is the treatment of the wounded, the second is cleaning up the corpses, and finally the large amount of weapons and equipment left on the battlefield.
So many wounded and corpses require careful cleaning by the follow-up troops in East Africa. There is basically no winter in Africa, so these corpses left here may cause serious problems.
A total of fifty-three artillery pieces were captured in East Africa, which is estimated to be the majority of the artillery of the entire Boer Republic. The firepower gap between the two sides is obvious.
However, yesterday, most of the heavy artillery in East Africa was left on the north bank of the Fite River and did not participate in the battle. Therefore, in terms of firepower advantage, the Boers had the advantage, but the advantage of effective artillery attack was not exerted.
…
East Africa's achievements in the Boer Republic were quickly passed to Earl Roberts' desk. It must be said that this was very bad news for the coalition forces.
However, Count Roberts had no way to fight against the Boer people at this time. While East Africa launched a counterattack against the Boer Republic, some troops from the East African Eastern Military Region and the Northern Military Region had already launched an offensive in northern Mozambique.
"A cavalry division and three infantry divisions in East Africa launched an attack from the north. They launched a fierce attack on our north from three directions: Kaya, Tambala and Malomeu. Currently, except for the Kaya area, other Both directions have been breached by the East African Army.”
The coalition forces, which had been in a "fantastic situation" before, immediately fell into a state of distress.
The Pungue River originates from Nyangani Mountain in western Mozambique. Nyangani Mountain is an important dividing line between the Matabele Plateau and the Mozambique Plains. It is also the cutting point of the military defense of Matabele Province in East Africa. This location is very dangerous. , so it is not the focus of East Africa and the coalition forces.
"In this case, we can only abandon the front line of the Zambezi River. Our military strength is not sufficient to begin with, and the Zambezi River is too long to prevent the East African army from crossing the river. Therefore, the Pengwe River Defense Line is now activated to withstand this line in East Africa. The most suitable place is to counterattack."
The Boers couldn't take these heavy artillery pieces with them, mainly because running at night was so fast. Who had the time to pull these big things and escape?
I'm afraid I didn't walk long before I was captured by the pursuers behind me, including their weapons and people.
Neither the East African nor the coalition forces will use this place as a breakthrough point. If the army passes through here, there will be no need to fight and there will be a risk of self-collapse.
The lack of roads is only one of them. The second is the abundance of forests and vegetation. Large swaths of virgin forests cannot be traversed. In Africa, forests represent huge risks. Various poisonous and insect diseases, as well as water sources, are difficult to solve. Finally, there are many flash floods in the area. Natural disasters such as landslides can cause the whole army to be wiped out if you are not careful. It is the rainy season now, and Mozambique has very abundant rain. The Pongue River is also one of the important rivers in Mozambique, and its downstream has the former second largest port in Mozambique, Port of Beira.
However, the current Beira area is still a wasteland with little human habitation. In the previous life, Beira was founded in 1887.
Now, in order to deal with the military threat in East Africa, the Portuguese abandoned a lot of land on the north bank of the river in Mozambique, and instead built many strongholds on the south bank.
Hence, there is no Port of Beira on the north bank of the Punggui River estuary. Instead, Antonio on the south bank of the Punggui River estuary has been vigorously developed.
The so-called vigorous development certainly does not refer to the economy, but to military purposes. From the very beginning, the Mozambique colony knew clearly that if there was a war with East Africa, it would definitely be with the north than the south.
As for the east and west directions, there is no danger to defend at all, so we can only take the initiative to launch an attack from the west side and use offense instead of defense.
"Count Roberts, if we activate the Penggui River defense line, can we use this river to resist the offensive in East Africa? Now the western fronts have not achieved results. Even in the south, we have only isolated the New Hamburg Port City in East Africa from the East African mainland. If the defenders of the New Hamburg Port City are not eliminated, the war situation will probably become more and more unfavorable to us."
Facing everyone’s questioning, it was difficult for Count Roberts to think of a way to break the situation, because the difficulty of the war with East Africa greatly exceeded the coalition’s pre-war estimates.
When East Africa faced the first wave of coalition offensives, it directly withstood the pressure. This was something Earl Roberts did not expect. After all, the total strength of the coalition forces this time was close to half a million, which would be enough to launch a war anywhere in the world. A great war, even a war to destroy the country.
The number of troops that Earl Roberts can directly command has reached about 300,000, but now the 300,000-strong army has not even been able to knock down the eastern defense line in East Africa. This is a serious blow to the morale of the coalition forces.
East Africa has only more than 70,000 troops on the eastern defense line, but it has withstood three times the strength of the coalition forces. Not to mention the superiority of the coalition forces, East Africa's ability to mobilize so many troops has exceeded Earl Roberts's expectations.
After all, East Africa not only has the Eastern Defense Line, but also the Tugela River Defense Line, the Fete River Defense Line, the Orange River Defense Line, the Zambezi River Defense Line, and the West, which are the main war zones.
In these major battlefields, the number of troops currently invested in East Africa has reached 200,000. There are also other areas in East Africa where troops have not been mobilized, such as the city of Gezira in the north, which is an important military town in East Africa to resist the British army in Egypt. There are certainly armies to deal with British Somaliland in Dire Dawa, East Africa and Belgium, the Abyssinian Empire, and the Italian Red Sea colonies to prevent emergencies, so the military potential of East Africa is too underestimated.
Of course, apart from the military strength, East Africa performed very well, but what was even more unimaginable to Earl Roberts was the combat effectiveness of the East African Defense Forces.
The tactical level of the East African National Defense Force is not inferior to that of the British army, and is even slightly stronger than the British army. This is very scary.
The British army is not a Portuguese, Indian, Boer or black army, but a real British army. The number of British troops in the entire South African War has increased from 60,000 before the war to nearly 100,000.
This was also a huge pressure on the British mainland, but it did not have much effect on the South African battlefield. Especially the ally Portugal and other troops suffered heavy losses in the face of the East African army, and their combat effectiveness was worrying.
If we could go back to before the war started, even if all the troops under Count Roberts were replaced by British, Count Roberts would not dare to say that he could defeat East Africa.
(End of this chapter)