Just as the prince was about to dig the foot of the Austro-Hungarian wall, the Boers and Americans were struggling to dig the foot of the British Empire with their hoes in South Africa, but how could the wall foot of the British Empire be so easy to dig? The Boers only had a certain advantage in the early stage of the war, and with the advantage of troops and adequate preparation, the Boer army under the command of Kruger successfully brought the entire Eastern Cape region under their control, and hundreds of thousands of Dutch descendants fed pot pulp to welcome the king's division. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The incorporation of the Eastern Cape provided the Boers with the continued manpower and funds and, among other things, more than doubled the number of people who could be mobilized alone! The warehouses, supplies, and infrastructure of the British army in the Eastern Cape were also taken over by the Boers, and although the powerful Boer Army did not capture Durban in the end, the port was also turned into a blank slate at this time, even if the British still occupied it, it would take a long time and great effort to turn it into a bridgehead against the Boers!

But the really mobilized British still put tremendous pressure on the Boers, the war has been going on for half a year, if according to history, the Boers have lost the ability of the large corps to fight head-on, and the mode of war will change from regular warfare to "law and order war", but at this time, the Boers in their prime are confront......ing the British army in a place called Bloemfontein after obtaining Bavarian weapons and American support.

It is the southern gateway to the Boer Republic and an important junction of railway lines in and out of the Boer people. If the British take this place, then they can use it as a base to go straight to Johannesburg and even Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal Republic, along the railway line. Solve the war in one fell swoop, and if the Boers get stuck at this key point, then the cost of maneuvering the British troops who have lost the railroad will be greatly increased, after all, if there are no trains, then all the equipment and supplies of the British army can only be transported by horses, and it is obviously very difficult for a large army to cross half of South Africa to Johannesburg!

The 20,000 British troops and 5,000 Australian troops and 15,000 Indian legions that the British had gathered in half a year confronted the 27,000 Boers here, and Kruger not only concentrated the most elite Transvaal Division here, but also the American artillery and the elite troops of Orange. The fighting situation on both sides was forced to turn into positional warfare.

The British had the advantage of numbers and firepower, but they were the attacking side, and the other side had the advantage of terrain and backed by their own homeland, so it was very easy to replenish supplies and personnel. So the two armies fought like angry bulls. For a while, no one could help anyone.

According to the plan that Calyput had laid out for the Boers, after taking the Eastern Cape, he should quickly concentrate the main forces and advance to the heart of the British army, no matter how many places he could occupy, at least completely destroy the entire South African transportation system, material warehouses and important transportation centers, however, Kruger's actions were slower after all.

With the Eastern Cape already in hand, Kruger even spent valuable military resources in Bechuanaland (later Botswana) in the west and Southern Rhodenia in the north in order to expand the territory of the "future Boer Republic" as much as possible. The Boer corps was already small in number, and naturally lost its strength advantage after dispersing the troops, and when Kruger realized that he had used his precious forces where he did not need them, and regrouped to prepare for the south, the British had already concentrated a large number of troops and set off from Cape Town along the railway line to kill the Boer Republic!

In half a year, the British mobilized 100,000 troops and as many as 30,000 livestock, of which 12,000 were ordered for mules alone, and 30 ox cart transport companies were formed, each with 100 ox carts. But even so, in the face of a transportation network that had already been destroyed by the Boers, the British had reached the limit of 40,000 men in Bloemfontein.

Moreover, in this case, the British did not dare to launch an offensive, because they had calculated that once a large-scale offensive was launched, not to mention whether they could break through the opponent's position, the ammunition consumed during a simple attack would not be something that the British army could afford now. "In three days at most, we can run out of ammunition that the logistics troops have transported for more than half a month, and if the offensive fails, then we will have a problem even defending. Because almost all of our ammunition is now shipped from Cape Town, East London, and Port Elizabeth, with the nearest port being more than 400 miles away! And these railways are still intermittent! Lord Roberts, the commander-in-chief of the British army, wrote in his diary that the supply plight of the British army was evident.

Of course, it was not easy on the Boer side, in addition to the fact that the grain could be collected in the old land, the Boers' weapons transportation roads were farther away than the British, and the weapons and equipment transported from Germany would first reach German Mozambique, which has now become a German colony, and then they could be transported to the front line through a long transportation line, but fortunately, no one destroyed the Boer communication lines, and the railway transportation was relatively smooth, although it was farther, but the logistical supply pressure was not great. Food, clothing, and shelter for the troops have been effectively guaranteed.

But this stalemate was a bit overwhelming for the Boers themselves. The opponent is an empire, the most powerful enemy nation in the world! And it's more than consuming that, isn't it looking for death? For the British, maintaining an undefeated situation for the time being is a victory in itself! After giving the British a few months, the British could mobilize another 100,000 troops into South Africa, and when the time comes, what will the Boers do to face the British?

"The British Bloemfontein's troops are overdefences and inadequate, and if we can further weaken this supply line, then when the enemy's material reserves have dropped to a certain level, we will only need to consume them, and then we can break through with a fierce attack. It then moved south and routed the British before they could concentrate a stronger legion. We must take advantage of our mobility and burn the flames of war to the rear of the British! Pershing said bluntly at a military meeting.

The idea is good, but it is difficult to implement, and the British already have 100,000 troops in South Africa! In addition to the 40,000 men on the front, the remaining 30,000 were deployed on the railway lines along the way, while the other 30,000 were used to hold on to important cities and fortresses. Although scattered, the units deployed along the route still possessed a variety of firearms, including machine guns and rapid-fire guns, and many of them were marines of the Royal Navy, who were superior in technical and tactical skills and gunnery.

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