Chapter 811 Farewell
New Port of Hamburg.
Most areas of New Hamburg Port City, which was damaged by the war, have been repaired. Some black servants organized by Portugal were captured as labor force. The repair work of New Hamburg Port City and Maputo in East Africa has been completed quite well.
Today's New Hamburg port city is even busier than before the war. Dozens of British and Portuguese ships dock here every day to pick up prisoners of war stranded in East Africa.
“General Roberts, I hope to come to East Africa as a guest next time. Friends are welcome in East Africa.” Merkel joked to the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces who was about to return to the UK.
Count Roberts smiled bitterly and said: "I'm afraid it's not going to be good for me when I return to China this time. I probably won't be able to work in the army for long. If I have the chance, I will definitely come here to see this land that allows me to try the taste of failure."
As the supreme commander of the allied forces in the South African War, Earl Roberts will definitely face difficulties after returning home, but he will not completely take the blame.
After all, I have previous achievements and rich connections in the UK, so the outcome will not be too bad, but it will be difficult to be in a high position.
Although East Britain and Britain have "reconciled", this is not the result that the British government wants to see. In fact, Britain has failed in the South African War, and its suppression of East Africa has completely failed.
However, the integrity of the Cape Colony was preserved through negotiations, which can be regarded as some comfort.
Looking at the groups of cheerful British soldiers, Earl Roberts felt only bitterness in his heart. Human joys and sorrows are not the same.
In fact, they were not dissatisfied with the war, but more dissatisfied with the environment in South Africa. The biggest dilemma many people encountered during the South African War was the painful memory of suffering from malaria, and they even felt that they were going to die in the wild land of South Africa. .
After all, the modern medical and chemical fields in East Africa are relatively backward and lack drug research and development capabilities, so conservative treatment can only be carried out through traditional Chinese medicine and other methods, but the effect is still good.
Now that the British prisoners of war know that they can finally leave this hellish place in South Africa and go home, their memories in South Africa are not good for them.
The British soldier will definitely never forget the experience of being fed herbal medicine in the prisoner of war camp. The main reason is that it was so bitter and he drank a big bowl at a time. Every time he was fed the strange East African medicine, he felt like he had lost his soul.
At first, the prisoners of war even thought that some kind of special "poison" was brewed in East Africa. After all, the taste of Chinese medicine was so unpleasant that it was even more unpleasant to drink in the mouth. It was even difficult to drink it by pinching the nose.
This situation did not improve until the intervention of East Africa. As a long-term victim of malaria, East Africa has become a doctor of long-term illnesses. In addition to developing specific drugs such as quinine, it has also developed a variety of auxiliary treatment drugs, of course, mainly traditional Chinese medicine.
However, the effect is also very significant, and I feel refreshed after I am relieved. Therefore, the peculiar East African medicine became a "refreshing medicine" in the mouths of the prisoners of war.
Furthermore, the fundamental reason for saving lives and healing the wounded was that East Africa was afraid that these British guys would implicate itself. Every war was bound to have a major epidemic, so as soon as the war ended, East Africa carried out a large-scale disinfecting of the occupied areas.
Of course, the British government paid the money in the end, and East Africa will not make a loss-making deal.
Count Roberts was one of the witnesses. Looking at the brand-new port city of Hamburg, he sighed: "It is not unfair to lose to you in this war. Your strong mobilization ability and efficient organizational ability are not behind Europe in the slightest." Most countries."
Of course, Merk also knew this. After all, this time the war in East Africa was at home, and Britain couldn't move faster even if it wanted to. He said: "You are not bad. If it were not for the distance restriction, the war in South Africa would really not be possible." It's easy to say, but this assumption is meaningless." While the two were talking, the ships arranged by the British government were already full.
“Count, our ship will leave soon.” Count Roberts’ subordinates came over and said.
Count Roberts looked at the bustling docks of New Hamburg Port with loneliness and regret in his eyes. He patted Merk on the shoulder and said: "Goodbye, young man!"
Then, this old man, who had fought for Britain for most of his life, walked step by step toward the deck. The British ship was filled with the afterglow of the setting sun.
Merke smiled and then went back without turning his head.
This time the British and Portuguese governments were very busy. In addition to the British army, the British government still had a conscience. They did not leave more than 200,000 Indian soldiers alone, while Portugal seemed very unkind. Basically all black people including Portuguese The mixed-race people were left behind.
Even the Portuguese government did not want to take care of the Portuguese civilians in some colonies. However, under the strong request of East Africa, the Portuguese government still had to arrange ships to bring these Portuguese residents back to the mainland.
Even because there were too many people, the Portuguese government simply turned to the Brazilian government. Brazil lacked a population, so it was better for the colonial residents to directly defect to Brazil.
Hence, many Brazilian ships appeared in the Luanda area. In addition to the army, there are hundreds of thousands of Portuguese in Angola. The Brazilian government still welcomes these Portuguese.
Now, Portugal is in debt and it is simply impossible to bring back nearly 300,000 Portuguese civilians in Angola and Mozambique for resettlement.
So we asked Brazil, our former little brother, for help. Even though we had lost all face, we could only do this. East Africa had no feelings for these Portuguese, just like the Boers.
There are hundreds of thousands of Boers in East Africa, but they have been dispersed by East Africa and distributed throughout East Africa. If the Boers could not have some relationship with Germany, East Africa would have repatriated them to Cape Town long ago. In fact, the British They have no interest in these Boers, so even if East Africa wanted to send them to Cape Town, the British Cape Town colonial government would probably not accept them.
The majority of the Boers are mainly Dutch, French and Germans, so they can barely have anything to do with East Africa. This is also the basis for East Africa to accept the Boers.
Of course, in order for these Boers to be completely integrated into East Africa, they cannot be concentrated in one place, and they can no longer stay in the provinces of Orange and Hechingen. They are mainly used to fill Angola and Mozambique, and will subsequently cooperate with East Africa to go to the two places. Immigrants, eventually these Boers will also disappear in the long river of history.
As for the Boers in Cape Town, the future is hard to say. There are too many Boers in Cape Town, and it is very likely that the situation in South Africa will repeat itself, that is, the Boers returned to power after independence.
Moreover, there is no basis for the so-called dispute between blacks and whites in the Cape Town colony this time. South Africa is originally an area where blacks are less distributed, and the most important black ethnic group, the Zulus, have been wiped out by East Africa. Even if Cape Town becomes independent in the future, There will be no more Mandela figures.
However, it is impossible for Cape Town to regain the glory of the Republic of South Africa in its previous life. All mining areas are basically occupied by East Africa, and at most it will become an agricultural and pastoral country.
The only thing worth mentioning is the value of maritime transportation. In the future, shipping on the east and west coasts of East Africa will inevitably avoid Cape Town. This is inevitable. However, after the construction of the East African Two-Ocean Railway is completed, dependence on it will be greatly reduced.
(End of this chapter)