Chapter 467: Wind and Clouds in South Africa

  Chapter 456: The Rise of Wind and Clouds in South Africa

By the winter of 1869, the war-torn world was all of a sudden peaceful. The wars of aggression launched by the major colonial empires to divert the economic crisis at home all ended in this season.

The gap between the strength of the warring parties was vastly different, and in front of the hot weapons, the blood and valor was more simply not worth mentioning.

If not for everyone pulling each other’s hind legs, the war would have ended much earlier. The pattern of the African continent after the war became more obvious.

France occupied Egypt, settled Algeria, and divided Tunisia with the British; Austria also accomplished its set goal, occupying Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and other areas.

There was no doubt that the British were at a disadvantage in this round of competition. Although John Bull defeated Ethiopia and took out Aldo II, it still could not change their inferiority in the competition for the African continent.

Taking out an indigenous emperor was not the same as the British taking over Ethiopia, not even to rule in name.

Without a centralized government, Ethiopia became fragmented, and the British had a headache in the face of one warlord after another.

There were fearless internationalist aspirants who secretly supported Ethiopia in fighting them, and the British paid a terrible price for this two-year war.

Before and after a total of 136,000 total troops, only personnel losses of more than five thousand, of which nearly three thousand people permanently remained in the African continent, military expenditure is an astronomical figure.

This casualties, only statistics of white soldiers loss, the servants are not valuable, their casualties are naturally not in the scope of statistics.

In any case, finally won the battle, the British Empire’s face this time did not lose.

The absolute gap in strength is not so easy to make up. Even with all the help from France and Austria, Ethiopia only created a little trouble for the British.

Without the anti-British Emperor Aldo II, the rest of the gang of warlords, Franz did not expect. With the British tactics, it wouldn’t be long before they feared a civil war would break out.

It wasn’t too bad, at least in the short term the British couldn’t plunder a lot of wealth from Ethiopia.

Strategically, the British are increasing their influence in the Gulf of Aden, but unfortunately the price paid is a little too high, and I guess the anti-war faction of the London government has grown a few more points.

According to the current pattern of the African continent, Austria’s power has been established, occupying an absolutely dominant position. The total area of the colony is more than thirteen million square kilometers, already a small half of the African continent.

If just occupy the land is also good, we can find another opportunity to rob. The problem is that on this land, there are still living more than eight million white immigrants.

The colonies of all countries have a common feature, that is, everyone is armed, as long as they can carry a gun can be turned into a warrior.

If this is a fight, in the end who robbed who, it is really impossible to say. Unless Britain and France were able to commit millions of troops into the African continent, there would be a chance of winning.

Obviously this is impossible, the French simply do not dare to throw the main force into the African continent, or the old home will be in danger.

As for the British, not to mention millions of land forces, even if the army is expanded by three to five hundred thousand, the land and naval forces will have to do it first.

The Royal Navy will not let the Army steal resources, for them, this is a disaster more terrible than France and Austria combined.

Austria did not continue to expand on the African continent, the main reason is still eaten up, need to digest the fruits of war.

There are still many hidden dangers in this vast land that threaten Austrian rule, and purging the place is a priority.

If you can’t stabilize the colonies, how can you create wealth? A colony that can’t create wealth is a burden.

In this round of partitioning activities, the French also performed well, following Austria.

If the French could accomplish their goal, the area of their colonies would also exceed 10 million square kilometers.

Obviously, the European strategy has restrained the French a lot of energy, in the African colonial expansion of some of the strength, otherwise Tunisia will not be divided into half of the British.

Now their actual area of control, less than half of the planned. Inland areas aside, Austria also has a lot of areas without actual control.

For example, Morocco is the convergence of the British, French and Spanish spheres of influence, how to expel the British and Western countries is a problem.

In any case, the nominal French sphere of influence is still not small, including the sultan was turned into a protectorate by Napoleon III.

Of course, this was only unilaterally declared by the Paris government and was not recognized by the international community. The British likewise claimed a treaty with the Sultan and directly claimed it as a suzerainty.

These documents, basically, were signed under the colonizer’s neglect, and may even have been forged. The modesty of the Powers is not to be considered; colonization has never been by force, and the existence of a treaty is irrelevant.

This kind of fancy trick is just for self-mounting, to make one’s eating look better, and has little legal effect in itself.

Obviously the Sudanese region has become a center of contention between Britain and France.

The French wanted to link Sudan with Egypt, and ideally also occupy Ethiopia and Somalia to gain dominance in colonizing East Africa.

The British are fighting for the Sudan region and are also playing with Egypt, and the Suez Canal is even more coveted by them.

In short, the Sudan region was very important to Britain and France. Falling into the hands of the French, the British were likely to be pushed out of the East African region and could only be trapped in one part of South Africa.

Falling into the hands of the British, then occupy the two corners of the southeast of the British, not only to reverse the unfavorable strategy in the African continent, there is also the possibility of further capture of the Suez Canal, to regain the dominant position in the Mediterranean Sea.

This is a yang conspiracy, as long as Austria does not mess up to reach out, Britain and France around the Sudan region conflict is sooner or later thing.

The African continent was temporarily stabilized, and the Mexican civil war fell into a period of underestimation. Contracted to quell the rebellion, the French army quickly defeated the rebels.

The rabble is the rabble, there is no Mexican government forces to add to the chaos, the French army exploded out of its own real strength, is not at all the rebels can be compared.

The French showed the world that their loss in the last Mexican War was just an exception, and that they still had the most powerful army in the world.

Rebels naturally did not eliminate clean, Mexico is not a small place, the rebels as long as a random place to hide, the French can not do anything.

Massimiliano I’s rule was not stabilized because the rebels were hit hard, but because of the successive social reforms, became shaky.

If it is not afraid of the reaction of France and Austria, I am afraid that the Mexican powerhouse has long since staged a coup d’état, replacing the little Crown Prince as a rubber stamp.

On the surface is stabilized, but the undercurrent has been in the surge. Now only a spark is missing, it can be detonated.

……

A wave had just calmed down, and another wave had risen.

In 1860, large quantities of gold were discovered in several black emirates to the east of the Transvaal Republic, and in 1867 the first diamonds were discovered in Hopetown on the Orange River.

For the British, who controlled the South African region, the two Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange were no longer poor losers, but a piece of fat meat.

This was not the key, the bigger reason was that the Austrians had their tentacles extended as well.

The Boers were originally a mixed race of Dutch, Germans, and some French, and naturally did not reject Austria, which was of the same family and origin.

A small country is in need of a big leg to hold, and everyone soon became good friends. The Zulus acted as a bridge of friendship between the two sides, and in the African melee not so long ago, the two sides joined forces to resolve the threat.

For the British, the Boers’ fall to Austria meant a looming crisis. With Austria’s dominance on the African continent, it would have looked less difficult to assimilate the Boers, who had come from the same source.

If the New Shiloh Empire had not been too big for the Republic, it is possible that the two sides would have merged by now. Even so, there were few Boers who supported joining the Shinra colonial system.

This makes the British who are full of crisis consciousness can not stand, they have not forgotten how they were driven out of the European continent back then, naturally, they do not want to see what happened in the European continent, repeat in South Africa.

Despite the opening of the Suez Canal, Cape Town’s strategic value has declined, this is still a place of war.

This makes Delphi Governor very headache, since he took charge of the South African region, not to mention the foreign expansion, its own sphere of influence are constantly being compressed.

In the face of the raging Austrians, they are able to hold on to their current sphere of influence, that is all the British Empire’s brand cover.

As for expansion? The expeditions sent out, one by one, are all gone, occasionally escaping back a few people, all pointing to the black natives.

What native tribe was so powerful and strong as to stand in the way of their advance? This had been going on for years, and a few years ago they had organized an expedition of 3,000 troops in an attempt to break it.

Then, no sooner had this force, with high hopes, set out than it was blocked by a large number of natives.

They went all the way to kill gods and demons, beating the natives to tears. When they accidentally played too much and went a little too far, they were cut off from their back roads.

Without a total wipeout, it wasn’t far from that point. Within the next year, more than a million and a half natives moved to their colonies.

It is true that there is strength in numbers, but people have to eat. The first thing these black tribes that were driven over did was to grab territory.

Except for the cities, which were still under British control, the countryside was in chaos. At one point, the British tax collectors were afraid to leave the city, and a large number of immigrants fled South Africa with their families.

The situation deteriorated to such an extent that his predecessor took responsibility for it and retired early to his home. Governor Telford still solved the problem of overpopulation by bringing in slave traders.

The main reason for all this to happen was that the Boer Republic cooperated with Austria’s actions and directly released these natives, otherwise Austria would not have been able to make it this far.

Delphi had already repeatedly proposed to the government to intervene in Austria’s expansionist actions, however, to no avail. It was not that the London government did not want to intervene, the problem was that they did not have the strength to do so.

In recent years, the naval supremacy has been impacted by France and Austria. France’s number of ironclads had approached three quarters of theirs, and Austria’s number of main ships was as high as sixty-five percent of the British.

The standard of the two powers had long since been thrown into a corner to eat dust. Reality told the British, no money, do not pretend.

Of course in the total tonnage, the British still barely achieved the two strong standard, after all, now there is no one and they PK the number of sail battleships.

Looking at the intelligence gathered, Governor Delphi felt that he should do something, otherwise the future rule of the British Empire in South Africa would be difficult.

If someone found out what was on it, they wouldn’t think Delphi was making a big deal out of it. Hurray is the last ten years, two Boer Republic of foreign immigrants information.

One of the particularly important is the German region immigrants, enough as much as eighty thousand, more than eighty percent of the total number of immigrants.

How many people are there in the Boer Republics? At this rate, it is only a matter of time before it becomes a German nation. It is not surprising that the two Boer republics fell to Austria; the votes made it necessary for the government to be pro-Austrian.

(End of chapter)