Prior to the arrival of the East African army, Wiggins, who had taken over Pretoria, made some major changes to Pretoria's city defenses in three days, temporarily raising and reinforcing the walls, and digging trenches around Pretoria.

Although the Boer population of the Transvaal Republic is not large, there are quite a lot of black slaves, so Wiggins does not care about the life and death of black slaves, Wiggins organized a large number of slaves, and solved the military construction problem in Pretoria in a short time.

At this time, in the whole of Pretoria, there were less than 10,000 Boers, because little Pretorius took a considerable part of it, and then some of the residents saw that the president had run away, so they ran away.

Fortunately, Wiggins carried out "patriotism" education in time, forced the rest of the people to stay, in the face of the huge army size in East Africa, and Wiggins only had 2,000 white soldiers in his hands, so it was necessary to supplement the black slaves into the army, although this was a certain risk, but Wiggins still selected more than 10,000 blacks to be incorporated into the army, temporarily issued them guns, and promised to give them freedom after the war.

Thanks to the last aid to the Ndebele people, the Boers stockpiled a cache of munitions, which were distributed to black slaves by Wiggins.

In order to give these patriotic young people some war experience, Wiggins let each of them have official positions, and every third person was divided into a few slaves, which really greatly increased the Boers' enthusiasm for war.

Playing the patriotic card, Wiggins called his troops the "Young Patriotic Army", which is very much in line with the character of his own troops, like those old fritters could not join Wiggins's troops at all, and many of them had already run away to the Orange Free State or even returned directly to Cape Town.

"East Africans don't have to be afraid, don't look at their large numbers and elaborate dresses, in fact they are just a façade, as long as we don't make big mistakes, then it will not be a problem to hold Pretoria." Wiggins worked hard to educate his troops.

This matter is necessary, the army of the Kingdom of East Africa was degraded by Wiggins as worthless before, but after the East African soldiers came to the city, that sense of oppression came up, so Wiggins had to stabilize the mood of the troops first.

Fortunately, the black slaves were filled into the army before, otherwise the gap between the two sides was too big, and now it seems that the gap between the two sides is not big in terms of numbers, although there are more soldiers in East Africa, but the Boers are the defenders, so that the gap between East Africa and East Africa is five or five, Wiggins calculated in his heart.

At this time, the 514th Division of East Africa had already been dispatched, swaggering in the direction of Pretoria, as a second-line force, the 514th Division did not have much advantage over the Boers in terms of equipment.

"The East Africans don't seem to be making much progress, so be careful, don't shoot until the East Africans are still 300 meters away from the trenches, and then the people on the walls will open fire when the East Africans are only 200 meters away from the trenches." Wiggins' methodical command.

Based on the experience of the last Ndebele uprising, Wiggins decided not to fight East Africa this time, but to rely on trenches and cities.

Wiggins' defensive line can be divided into two levels, the trench is the first level, the vast majority of the black slave soldiers are divided in the trench, and at the same time allocated to a part of the Boer commanders, Wiggins is not demanding, he can shoot at the East African army, plus the security brought by the presence of cover, so that they will not collapse easily psychologically.

The Boers and a small number of black slaves were distributed on the second level, that is, on the city wall, so that they could not only be condescending to cover their own people in the trenches, but also supervise the battle and prevent the soldiers in the trenches from escaping.

Standing on the city wall with an unobstructed view of the battlefield situation, Wiggins waited until the forward units of the 514th Division had entered the range specified by Wiggins, and began to fire on the East African army.

"Crawl forward, find cover nearby, and attack Pretoria!"

In the face of the Boer fire suppression, the 514th Division could only fire passively, although it was equipped with Dreiser's rifles, but the enemy had bunkers and city walls, which made it difficult for the 514th Division on flat ground to launch an effective counterattack, but it was limited everywhere, and the formation was also disrupted, but the offensive posture was maintained as a whole.

To tell the truth, the performance of the 514th Division was unsatisfactory, and in addition to being full of mistakes and rigid command, it was also worthy of praise in terms of courage.

Ernst looked at the twisted troops of the 514th Division and said, "This is not what I expected!" ”

Witt responded on the side: "Principal, if the 514th Division is to cooperate with the brother troops to fight, and let them attack the city alone, it will be a bit difficult for the strong, first of all, their military commander is not professional, because of the priority to protect the first military region, the students of the Heixingen Military Academy who participated in the Franco-Prussian War last time have been added to the elite troops of the kingdom, and the other five military regions, except for the mountain troops of the third military region that have been improved because of their particularity, the other troops have not changed much, The commander of the 514th division was only a company commander in the Kingdom of Württemberg before, and it was indeed difficult for him to command the strength of a division.

The second is that the 514th Division used to fight against the natives, and the natives rarely built cities, let alone fortifications such as trenches, so the soldiers of the 514th Division almost never faced a European-style fortress-type city like Pretoria.

Finally, and most importantly, the 514th Division lacked heavy weapons and professional siege equipment, making it difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice, so this situation was also expected. ”

"Okay, don't make excuses, the 514th Division is not good at military literacy, our troops always fought with blacks without technical content before, so although our army is very enjoyable, but it can't play a role in training, once it encounters the same type of troops, it is very likely that there will be no progress like today." Ernst continued: "The situation of the 514th Division must also represent the situation of several other military regions except for the First Military Region, and even if those troops have some strength, I am afraid that they are not much stronger than the 514th Division as a whole." ”

Sitht: "Headmaster, you're right, but it's hard to find some strong opponents in Africa to use as a reference point. ”

Ernst: "Let's take the whole world as the standard, let's not limit our vision to Europe and Africa, any valuable case is worthy of our reference, such as the battle between Afghanistan and the British, why Afghanistan can defeat the strong with the weak, why the Far Eastern army has performed unevenly, etc., these are all things that our army needs to study."

In the future, East Africa is very likely to be in a state of long-term peace, is it because of the peace army that it cannot progress? We must learn to take the initiative to improve our military literacy in order to become a division of a hundred battles. ”

The East African Army is based on Germany, so it has a strong German style, but always fighting with the natives, the ability is destined to not be trained, and Prussia has become now recognized as the world's first army power, which is fought in the kind of monster-ridden places in Europe, and the surrounding situation in East Africa is the lack of strong enemies on land, so it is impossible to have endless battles like Prussia, and the strength of the opponents is not bad.

(End of chapter)