Chapter 797
Port Edward.
“The mountain roads in South Africa are really difficult to walk, and the British troops in Cape Town are not completely helpless.” Merk said to his subordinates.
With the military advancement in East Africa, the Southern Military District has also penetrated deep into the eastern hinterland of Cape Town, but is affected by the Drakensberg Mountains. In addition to the rugged terrain, river swamps greatly slowed down progress in East Africa.
Moreover, the British army can effectively take advantage of the long and narrow terrain to hinder the offensive of the East African Defense Force. The straight-line distance between Port Edward and Durban is about 150 kilometers.
Originally the territory of East Grigualand, East Grigualand was also one of the regimes established by the Boers. It was stuck between the Natal colony and the Cape Town colony. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the British army occupied.
So this place was originally very desolate. Port Edward was established not long ago. It was a small town on the seaside with a small population.
"Commander, military advancement still depends on the inland areas. The western troops should have crossed the Orange River by now. After all, the inland plateau areas are convenient for marching and the population is relatively sparse, while the eastern part is the densely populated area of Cape Town, so the British The military strength is actually stronger.”
The population of South Africa is distributed in a cluster, with Cape Town and its surroundings in the south, and then in the east with East London and Port Elizabeth as the core, both of which are the core areas of the United Kingdom.
Further north are the Natal Colony and several former Boer republics, which are relatively densely populated, while the plateau area between the Boer Republic and Cape Town in the west is a population vacuum area.
Cape Town's naval strength is still there. Although it cannot go north to actively attack the East African Navy, it still has some effect in preventing the East African Navy from going south in the region.
So Merk planned to use the power of the navy to achieve his goals. Of course, Merk's goals could also be achieved by using merchant ships from the New Hamburg Port, but the risk was higher.
So if Merk wants to take the sea route, he must have a naval escort. As for the British troops on land, they can only leave a small number of troops to entangle them.
“However, there are still more than 300 kilometers to go. We continue to consume the enemy. The speed is too slow. Send a message to the rear to see if the navy can help our army break through the enemy’s blockade faster.”
East London and Port Elizabeth are both the rear of the British army. Cutting off the connection between these two places, logistically alone, East Africa can choke the British army, thereby achieving the purpose of forcing the enemy to surrender without a fight.
The same is true between the Port of Durban in the Eastern Natal Colony and East London, except that there are more British people here than in the west. In addition, the main British army in the former Natal Colony moved south, so the resistance Merkel encountered was even greater. big.
One of the main reasons why the British troops were able to withdraw safely from Durban was the use of sea lanes to achieve an orderly retreat.
Because the population of Cape Town Colony was mainly concentrated around the city, as long as East London and Port Elizabeth were captured, the British army in the east would basically have no resistance.
In the past, the East African Navy mainly cooperated with the northern East African forces to attack the coast of Mozambique. Now the war in Mozambique has ended.
Merk said: "The British have only built Port Edward for a few years. Originally, the core area of East Grigoran was in Kokstad, not the coastal area, so Port Edward is now our last route to East London. obstacle."
At the same time as Merk's troops moved south.
The various East African troops that had just participated in the Mozambique War also began to move south, following the instructions of the General Staff, to reinforce the southern battlefield. The section of the Central Railway from New Hamburg Port (Port Richard) to Otto (Pretoria) has also become busier since East Africa retook the eastern part of the Southern Frontier Province.
The Central Railway that was destroyed by the British has also been completely repaired. However, it is also very difficult for the army to move south. In addition to maintaining stability in Mozambique, a large number of manpower must be left to maintain order, and there are hundreds of thousands of prisoners to guard.
The current plan in East Africa is to resettle these captives in Mozambique port areas such as Maputo, and then transport supplies and rations by sea and land.
Of course, keeping hundreds of thousands of mouths is not the East African style. After identifying valuable captives, a large number of black people were directly recruited as "slaves" from East Africa to maintain the plantations in Mozambique.
The biggest headache in East Africa is actually the Indians. First of all, Indians are not indigenous. After all, a British colony as big as India is located in the Indian Ocean. However, Indians do not belong to the British.
What East Africa fears most now is that the British government will simply abandon this group of Indians. You must know that so far in the South African War, more than 170,000 Indian soldiers have been captured in East Africa.
This is enough to form a country in South Africa if we follow the example of the Boers, so dealing with the Indians is a big trouble.
Of course, this trouble was for Ernst. In the eyes of the East African officials, it was a completely minor issue. Ernst had a bad opinion of Indians, but in the eyes of the East African officials, there was no difference between Indians and black people. There was no difference anyway. Human rights, it doesn’t matter if you are directly a slave.
However, if so many Indians are really allowed to take root in East Africa, it will definitely be one of the sources of trouble in the future. After all, judging from the situation in Africa in the past life, Indian clusters are easy to form in places colonized by the British. In the future, Indians will The reproduction speed and the distance between India and East Africa make it easy for India to drag its family and family to East Africa to seek life.
So in order to deal with the possibility of "bad quality" immigrants, Ernst's idea was to pack up the Indian captives in East Africa and send them back to India. Even if the British were really scoundrels after the war and kept the Indians in East Africa, the worst thing would be that East Africa would have to pay more. Click on the shipping fee.
Of course, when Ernst did this, he had no intention of discriminating against Indians. In fact, there were many Indian businessmen engaged in commercial trade in the coastal areas of East Africa.
But this kind of person is definitely different from the captured Indian soldiers. Indian soldiers are basically at the bottom of society. They have no use value except for their brute strength. Moreover, although they are strong and strong, they have many bad things. As a race from tropical countries, The Indians and Southeast Asian natives were very lazy, and Ernst was most afraid that these Indians would lead the East Africans into the ditch.
The "industriousness" of the people has always been an issue that Ernst valued. Don't think that this is making a fuss, because East Africa is a place suitable for lying down, and the black people here have been lying down for thousands of years.
Like the homeless people in the United States and Russia in previous lives, some may be threatened by severe cold and food, and have to do some labor.
As for East Africa, a place with “spring all year round and abundant products”, to be honest, if the infrastructure is completed, it will be a paradise for homeless people.
So in order to avoid this situation, we can only start from the social atmosphere, and the East African government will guide the East African people to "involution".
The "lazy" state like India has a very negative educational significance. Of course, in the 19th century, this was actually the case in many places, and Indians were not an exception.
However, the population of East Africa is mainly composed of German immigrants and immigrants from the Far Eastern Empire. It can be said without mercy that the residents of these two regions are the "hardest-working" people in the world.
Of course, this was also the case in Britain and France before the 19th century. However, with the advancement of the Industrial Revolution, Britain has passed the era of treating people as beasts (actually worse than beasts), while the French like to enjoy themselves. Therefore, in the 19th century, the two countries faced competition from Germany and quickly narrowed the gap.
(End of this chapter)