When the French arrived in Cape Town, they organized another operation to try to storm the British prison and rescue the popular leaders. It was a great regret, however, that the Boers – who were not called Dutch at that time – were traitors again and failed in their operation. The French rescued only one popular leader surnamed Babel, and they themselves paid a lot of sacrifices.

French intelligence killed seven people in the operation, and Tréville, who was in charge of the operation, was shot in the shoulder. The Dutch who followed them also lost four people. Of course, they also killed more than 20 British policemen in the operation - after all, the Cape Town colony was isolated from the sea, and the police were not well equipped and trained, and even ambushes were not good enough.

This rescue operation shocked the British very much, especially the combat effectiveness shown by the French commandos in the operation, which made the British even more worried. Fearing that the French would take similar action, the British, with the same efficiency as the French Revolutionary Tribunal, quickly brought to trial the other popular leaders who had not yet been rescued and had not been killed in the rescue operation, and then hung them up and dried them all on charges of "rebellion".

Lucky enough to escape with his life, Babbel fled with the French to the countryside and hid in his friend's manor. He then began to move around, contacting the Dutch living in the countryside, hoping to organize an uprising and lay siege to Cape Town.

"Mr. Babbel, I don't think you have what it takes to take Cape Town." Philip Treville, half bare-chested—his companion was changing his dressing—said to Babbel, "The Cape fortress is a little old, but it is still impregnable to you who don't even have cannons—it's a baston after all, and the cannons on it, though a little older, are still quite numerous." ”

"Can you French Navy support us?" Babbel asked.

Tréville replied: "Of course the French Navy is willing to help you. But the French Navy lacked a port to support nearby. The sea conditions around Cape Town are very bad most of the time. This would make the Navy's shelling very inefficient. The last time the British captured Cape Town, they relied mainly on the cooperation of the army. And your militia - I don't doubt your courage, but attacking fortifications is not the same as field warfare, and the requirements for weapons and equipment and professional training are very high. You see, you don't even have the most basic artillery, how can you attack it? Besides, France has not yet declared war on Britain. (At this time, Britain and the United States were already fighting, but the French region had not officially entered the war)"

Trever isn't making excuses. The fortress in Cape Town is indeed very old. The fort was even covered with the old iron cannons that had been decommissioned by the British Navy. Theoretically, dragging an armored cruiser from the French Navy would be able to kite them to death with a new 100-gun gun that was out of range of these cannons.

But that's just in theory. Although the widespread use of steam engines has greatly increased the speed of warships, it has also greatly reduced the range of warships. In the age of sailing, the range of the navy was almost unlimited, and a sailing ship of about 1,000 tons could complete a round-the-world voyage as long as it could constantly replenish food. But in the age of steam, a steamship needed a lot more supplies, in addition to the food that people ate and the fresh water they drank, they also had to have coal burned by the steam engine and fresh water. In addition, the maintenance of warships has become extremely complex. In the Age of Sail, most of the maintenance work, even the big action of replacing the mast, could be done by the sailors on the ship themselves, but in the Steam Age, the difficulty of maintenance has skyrocketed, and many maintenance jobs have to be completed even back to the shipyard. As a result, the range of activity of warships has decreased.

In the age of sails, if there was no storm or something, a fleet could be blocked outside someone's harbor all the time, and it would be no problem to block it for several months. But in the age of steam, it's almost impossible. France had several ports in Africa, but the scale was limited, and Africa's mineral resources were basically undeveloped. If these ports were to support the fleet's activities, they would also need to transport coal from Europe in advance.

And even when they departed from French ports in West Africa and arrived in Cape Town, the time for which French warships could stay was quite limited. The waters off Cape Town, on the other hand, are in the westerly wind belt, part of the Horn of Africa, and are deeply embedded in the world's most violent ocean current, the westerly circulation. The sea conditions here are always very stable – there are high waves at all times.

In such sea conditions, the warship shook violently, and the shooting accuracy was naturally a mess, so although theoretically the 100 guns on the French cruiser far exceeded those old iron guns on the Cape Town battery in terms of range, but considering the influence of sea conditions, unless it was close enough to kiss the battery directly, the naval guns could not hit the target at all.

Therefore, although the batteries in Cape Town are old, it is still very difficult to rely on warships to deal with them.

"So, are we helpless against the Englishmen in Cape Town?" Babbel was very unwilling.

"Of course not, my friend." Trevil laughed, "You know, the British also have weaknesses. ”

"What weakness?" Babbel hurriedly asked.

"Their food." "Cape Town relies almost entirely on the farmland outside the city for its food supply," Treville replied. If you can organize and disrupt the British's campaign to collect food, will the British, stay in their city and eat? How much food can there be in the city? The British will come out to collect food, and we just need to keep attacking the British food convoys. When they have eaten all the food, will they be able to hold on? ”

Babbel expressed support for the idea.

But their plan was rejected at a meeting of the farmers. This is also normal, first, many people have relatives and friends who are being hung in Cape Town to dry, so these journalists want to go into Cape Town to get revenge. Second, it is because after the outbreak of war, especially after the outbreak of war in North America, the prices of many agricultural products have risen accordingly. If they can take Cape Town, they will be able to make a lot of money on their agricultural products, but if Cape Town has been controlled by the British, won't this money be wasted?

So they insisted that they should not engage in those ink things, and just attack directly.

The reasons they put forward are not entirely unreasonable. Earlier, in order to boost their morale, the French had told them that the British troops in the colonies were very poorly trained.

"Because of the betrayal of the traitors, when we attacked the prison, the British had already arranged a trap in the prison, and then, we stepped in, but we rushed out of it, and although we sacrificed several of our comrades, we killed more British. So you see, the British are really poor in combat. That's what the French said to the Dutch at the time.

What the French didn't mention, of course, was that they weren't ordinary people, they were all elites selected from the Einsatzgruppen under the Ministry of Public Security, and their weaponry was far better suited to fighting in the cities than the British.

In Europe, weapons and equipment have long been greatly developed, for example, in the European army, even the poorest and most backward Eastern Rome and pothos, use rifled guns. But in distant Cape Town, the British were still massively using smoothbore guns. As for the revolver and the pump-action shotgun, well, if you are willing to pay for it, you can buy it from the arms dealers, but you have to wait for the British government to pay for the refitting of the army and police in Cape Town, then you will have to wait slowly - the arms race with France, and the law and order war in Ireland, have exhausted the British finances, so that they cannot afford to redress the colonial army in Cape Town for the time being.

So, apart from the moment of ambush, the rest of the matter was the most well-trained special forces, using advanced rifled guns, revolvers, pump-action shotguns authentic Bonaparte melons against the colonial army that also used smoothbore guns, single-shot pistols and sabers. Of course, these cases, for some reason the French did not mention, and the Dutch did not ask.

As a result, the Dutch misjudged the fighting power of the British colonial army, which also made them more inclined to fight a quick battle rather than a protracted war.

Treville, of course, was opposed to such an act of military adventure. But he did not stop the Dutch adventure. Of course, it is also said that they do not intend to stop all this at all, after all, the plan of the Ministry of Public Security about these operations is called "Cassandra". One of the characteristics of this Trojan princess and prophet is that she can see the future, but no one will believe her prophecies.

So, the lords of the manor organized a militia. To say that this militia, just looking at the weapons, in addition to the absence of artillery, their weapons are even better than the British army.

This is also normal, the owners of the manor bought guns, and that was to deal with Uncle Zuluhei. Anyone who has played Civilization knows what a terrible existence Uncle Zuluhei is. Some people will even abandon the game as soon as they find out that they are next to Uncle Zuluhei.

Of course, the real-life Uncle Zuluhei is not so powerful, but it is by no means something that can be dealt with casually. Therefore, the owners of the manor buy guns, which are for the lives of themselves and their families, and naturally they buy what is powerful. As for the colonial army in Cape Town, they have standard equipment provided by the country anyway, so they don't have to buy it themselves.

As a result, the owners of the manors used rifled guns, pump-action shotguns, and revolvers, and were almost an era ahead of the colonial army in small arms.

However, these advances did not play much of a role in the subsequent siege warfare.