Chapter 499: Christmas Day
Chapter 488 Christmas
Once again, the silver-decorated Vienna welcomed the annual Christmas. The bitter cold hadn’t dispersed everyone’s enthusiasm, and the festive atmosphere had filled Vienna.
The store windows were displaying colorful Christmas gifts, and around the Gothic fountain in the center of the square, colorful playhouses had been set up for the Christmas market.
The streets are also filled with performances by entertainers, filled with warm, sweet, sentimental, euphonious melodies and delightful dances.
The charm of a cosmopolitan city is evident, and Vienna deserves to be the capital of music and art. Here you can enjoy a variety of European music, different styles of dance, magic.
Franz still hadn’t received any good news from South Africa, and it looked as if the war wouldn’t be over by Christmas. There were no surprises, it was all expected by Franz.
A little setback is also a good thing to become calm. During these years, Austria had expanded too much and many people had drifted.
If they hadn’t been arrogant, they wouldn’t have shouted about capturing Cape Town before Christmas. Now that it has failed, it is just the right time to tighten the reins of the Austrian wagon.
The era of great colonial expansion is over, and all that remains are some dispensable sideshows. Next it was time to develop ourselves and turn the spoils of war into our own strength.
There is no successful example to refer to in this regard, and all the major colonial empires in the original time and space have failed to perform. Without being able to transform into their own strength, the world war broke out.
Then there was no more, the world war was a major loss of strength, the rise of new competitors, so that they lost their last chance.
The British plan for a federation of empires, the French strategy of provincialism, all proceeded too late and failed under the external intervention of the US and the Soviet Union.
The nagging question, for the time being, left Franz’s mind; Christmas was still to be celebrated. It was World Peace Day, a time when none of the European countries would mess around.
The ongoing Anglo-Boer War was also in truce, and both sides could celebrate this special holiday without worrying that the other side would launch a surprise attack.
The Christmas gifts prepared by Franz had been distributed to every soldier, and even though they were just some ordinary candies, everyone was still very happy.
A crude Santa Claus appeared in the barracks with cards hanging from it. This was also considered a benefit of compulsory education, and the soldiers could write their own Christmas wishes.
The makeshift church, too, was open for business on this day, and the priests accompanying the army became busy.
Viscount Fikeni sighed helplessly, while the soldiers were celebrating the holiday, the officers were sad.
The war had gone on so far, and victory was still far away. The final answer had been given at home, if Cape Town could not be captured within the deadline, then an armistice was to be called.
The pit dug by himself to fill himself, the original plan to end the war within half a year, now relax the time to a year, still can not end the war, naturally there is no need to continue.
If it were not for the late siege, are using cannon fodder troops in the attack, I am afraid that the military morale would have collapsed.
Even so, the soldiers appeared to be war-weary. Perhaps it was a matter of self-esteem or cultural traditions, these emotions did not manifest themselves.
But the officers had sensed it. Watching the scenes of blood and flesh every day and not having a breakdown of the mind is considered to be strong inside.
At this time, the officers could only act as heart doctors to calm everyone’s uneasy emotions. Christmas is a good spice to relax the tense nerves, it is still very good for relieving mental stress.
Compared to the lost Viscount Fikeni, the Governor of Delphi in the city was really spending his days like a year. Suffering consecutive defeats, Cape Town’s military morale dropped to the bottom.
The army supplies could still be secured, but the large number of war refugees were miserable. After losing their livelihood, they simply could not afford the high food prices and had to rely on government relief.
The colonial government of Cape Town was not rich either, and after being deducted by layers of bureaucrats, the distribution of supplies became a problem even to cover their stomachs. Even at Christmas, there was only an extra 300 grams of fish.
This was caught from the sea by the fisher folk and is now the main meat in Cape Town. Beef and mutton shipped across the ocean are sky-high prices, and ordinary people simply can’t afford to eat them.
The “Boer Republican Army” did not stop the refugees from entering the city, and even guided the neighboring British to converge on Cape Town. From Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope, there are now refugees everywhere.
If you add the army, the total population of this small, palm-sized place has exceeded 400,000 people. This number would have been even greater if Governor Delphi had not decisively ordered the expulsion of blacks and mulattoes.
More people didn’t necessarily mean more power, but more people definitely consumed more. To feed so many people, at least 1,500 tons of living materials must be consumed every day.
Together with various strategic materials, the Cape Town colony needed at least 3,000 tons of materials from the outside world every day to meet its basic needs.
In reality, the demand is much greater than that. The building materials for the construction of fortifications are astronomical.
If the war continues, Cape Town will become the most densely fortified city in the world.
What’s even more tragic is that Cape Town is short of water. In later times it was the most water-stressed city in the world, and now it can be no exception.
Outside the tap water supply, early cut off by the enemy, they can only in Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope between this small piece of land to find a way.
The greatest source of fresh water was the rain from the sky. Groundwater couldn’t be counted on at all, otherwise why would they need desalination?
Lack of nothing can not lack of water, now the British can only buy water from the Portuguese, if one day do not send a few thousand tons of water over, the crisis will immediately break out.
In order to save water, now building fortifications are seawater. The aftermath of what the governor of Delphi has not cared about, as long as the moment can make do with it on the line.
It can be said that Cape Town now, in addition to the population, everything else is in short supply. Water, food, fuel, building materials …… local none can be self-sufficient.
Even Britain, to supply so many supplies, also seems to be a bit strained.
In order to alleviate the pressure on supplies, every time a ship carrying supplies comes over, it takes a boatload of refugees with it.
What about the future development of Cape Town as the population dwindled, it was too much to care about now.
By Christmas Eve, the local population had managed to drop by 120,000, easing the pressure on supplies. Otherwise it would not have been possible to take even this small amount of fish.
This was in the summer, when the rains were relatively plentiful and fuel was not yet needed for heating. Had it been winter, this pressure on supplies would have been even greater.
Considering the impact of the monsoon, in the winter, it is not uncommon to see killer waves more than 10 meters high, and in July, August and September every year, the Cape of Good Hope route is almost impossible to navigate.
Even now, in order to transport supplies the British also paid a small price, almost two percent of the ship in the middle of the road on the end.
There is no way, the sailing era of wooden ships is too weak to resist the wind limit ability, all kinds of natural disasters is not so easy to resist, there are also occasional man-made disasters.
In recent times, the Royal Navy has been a number of strikes to eliminate piracy, there are still unsympathetic pirates to come up.
Sometimes Governor Delphi would like to pry open the pirate’s head to see what’s inside, why not even prior reconnaissance are not aware of the transportation of fresh water, stone ships are robbed.
Living in a high position, he does not know the pirates suffer, collect information that is so easy to say, in addition to individual pirate groups can do, most of the pirates are encountered on the merchant ships to rob.
Since learning that the next batch of reinforcements is the Indian colonial army, Governor Delphi is ready to go home to avoid the storm. As for counter-attacking the Boers to redeem their sins, he was not so big-hearted.
Like most British people, Governor Delphi also did not see the Indian colonial army, in his eyes, the combat effectiveness of this force is about the same as the black cannon fodder outside.
The only value was to use cannon fodder against cannon fodder, which would reduce casualties among the lads. The troops in the Cape Town area were in need of rest and recuperation, at this rate the unit would be ruined.
Specifically, you can refer to the Near East War, when the British army was still performing well. However, because the rear supplement is not timely, there is no effective rest and recuperation recovery, when the war is over most of the British soldiers who participated in the battle are wasted.
This kind of “waste” is not physically, but mentally. The main manifestation of war aversion, fear of war, anti-war, especially with the Italians mixed with the British soldiers, but also brought back a bunch of bad habits.
The loss of the Persian War, the delay in suppressing the Indian rebellion, and the weak performance of the expedition to Ethiopia were all proof of the decline in the combat effectiveness of the British army.
The South African war, not to mention, the fight out of the war, Delphi Governor are embarrassed to say.
On the one hand, the colonial troops have been pampered, even the most basic training is not guaranteed; on the other hand, the main force combat effectiveness has declined, many tactics are stuck in the era of the front-bore gun.
The colonial army and the regular army could not fight, so it is not surprising that they failed on the battlefield.
Otherwise, in the original time and space, there would not have been a joke of hundreds of thousands of people besieging the Boer Republic, before and after three years before winning.
The more he knew, the more pressure on Governor Delphi. The outwardly glamorous British Empire had begun to rot internally.
In this state, can Britain meet the challenge of France and Austria? Deep in his heart, Delphi already had doubts.
The defeat of this war was also a heavy blow to his body and mind, and he no longer had the arrogance of the past.
The night is already deep, the laughter outside has ended. Lost in contemplation, Governor Delphi’s thoughts ran farther and farther away.
From the first anxiety over the war in Cape Town, then fretting over his own personal future, and later worrying about the future of Britain.
This Christmas Eve, Delphi had a sleepless night.
……
(End of chapter)