Winsburg.

The most important military fortress in southern East Africa, and the front line of the confrontation against the Transvaals in East Africa, the Boers did not do nothing in these years, and before the civil war, the Boers began to build defenses on the south bank of the Feit River.

So now there is also a large military fortress built by the Boers opposite Bunburg, and with the technical support of the British, the construction is very professional, even if the current self-produced heavy artillery in East Africa is used, I am afraid it will be difficult to overcome, unless the imported super-large caliber shore anti-aircraft guns from the coast are transferred to the front line.

After the end of the civil war, the Transvaal was able to continue building the southern line of defense of the south of the Feth, which echoed the line of the north of the river in East Africa.

Therefore, it was not easy for the Transvaals to attack East Africa, which in turn had to face a group of fortresses built by the Boers, so it was destined that the big war in the south would not be easy to fight from the beginning.

In previous wars, East Africa had encountered only the Sultanate of Zanzibar and a few indigenous nations on the shores of the Great Lakes.

As for the two Portuguese colonies, because they were too large to build systematic fortifications, they could only use isolated strongholds to deal with East Africa in the event of a war with East Africa.

However, the strength of East Africa is that there are many people, so it is difficult to conquer one place, so it is completely possible to choose to leave part of the troops to surround but not attack, and then the main force continues to penetrate the rear, and the Portuguese who are tired of coping can only watch East Africa run rampant on the territory.

General Valspieg of the Transvaal Restoration Army: "The defense line of the Fette River we built is more than 200 kilometers long, a total of 137 large pillboxes and more than 300 small pillboxes have been built, and hundreds of kilometers of roads have been built at the same time to achieve rapid support from the rear materials to the front line, the total construction time is as long as seven years, more than 70,000 black laborers participated in the construction, and the various forts can respond quickly to each other, not giving East Africans a chance!" ”

The "southern" Fett River defense line was the brainchild of Valspieg, and it was also the strength of the Transvaals against the East Africans.

"Summing up the last war of the East Africans against the Transvaal, it stands out that the Limpopo River is full of holes, and we did not have a clear understanding of the wolf ambitions of East Africa at that time, and as a result, the main army could not defend itself when fighting the Zulus.

East Africa divided the army into three routes, and quickly divided the entire Transvaal Republic into three parts along the Drakensian Mountains, and there were cavalry units in East Africa that could quickly support various battlefields, and they were also quite familiar with mountain warfare, so it was clear that they had been planning for a long time, so the fall of the Transvaal Republic was also reasonable. ”

The last war between the Transvaal Republic and East Africa is still fresh in the minds of little Pretorius.

At that time, the Transvaals could not be found by East Africa, and Pretoria directly lost contact with various regions, and finally trapped in a lonely city, which was broken by East Africa, and fled in embarrassment at that time, so little Pretorius hated East Africa the most.

And in order to deal with the threat of East Africa, the Transvaals can be said to have fully absorbed the lessons of the last war.

The most important point is to slow down the East Africans' march speed, and not to engage in field battles with the East Africans, and to have heavy fire support.

An important reason for the fall of Pretoria was that the Boers lacked the means to counter East African artillery.

At that time, the firepower of the troops in East Africa can be said to be comparable to the garrisons in Cape Town, Natal and Maputo in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

"Also, we must closely monitor the ferries of East Africans, in the area of the Limpopo River, we neglected the importance of the ferry, and even made it easy for East Africa to land on the south bank of the Limpopo River, so we can't repeat the mistakes of the past this time, especially at night, and arrange more searchlights so that the enemy can't touch the Fett River at night."

The defense line built by the Boers on the south bank of the Feit River is naturally also under the surveillance of East Africa, and it can be said that it was built step by step in East Africa, during the civil war in the Orange Free State, it was affected, but the losses were not large, mainly because the Oranges lacked heavy weapons at the beginning, so they could only let the Transvaal and British forces break through the defense line.

Of course, this is also related to the weak sense of resistance of the Orange people, although the Transvaals are not kind, but after all, they are the same people, and the fight between the upper class does not prevent the lower class from switching camps.

In fact, one of the main reasons for the failure of the Oranges was the surrender of the Oranges at the bottom to the Transvaal government, especially after the decline of the Orange coalition, and the number of deserters increased every day.

"With the South Fett River defense line, if the East Africans want to go south, it is basically impossible to reproduce the situation of the last capture of the Transvaal Republic, we only need to rely on the defense line and East African attrition, and then the British and Portuguese will attack East Africa in other areas, and the East Africans will be exhausted, and we should be able to gain an advantage if we take the initiative to attack after the war enters the stalemate stage." Valspieg optimistically introduced to little Pretorius.

"What if East Africa continues to send a steady stream of rear forces to support here? You must know that most of the garrisons in East Africa are now concentrated on the line of the Fette River, and they have been deployed for many years, it is obvious that the plan is very big, how can you be sure that after the British and Portuguese make a move, the East Africans will focus on other areas, if they can break through the Fette River defense line first, it should be of great significance to the battlefield of the entire South Africa, after all, the Orange Free State is deep into the territory of East Africa! Little Pretorius asked rhetorically.

"Your Excellency the President, it depends on the deployment of the Portuguese and the British, first of all, the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, in my opinion, its threat to East Africa is far above ours, after all, the capital and economic center of gravity of East Africa are on the Swahili coast, and the city of Dar es Salaam should be the most economically developed city in East Africa, so East Africa must deploy heavy troops to guard against the Portuguese."

"And Portugal has the strategic initiative, first of all, their colonies are divided into two parts, one left and one right in East Africa, this situation is naturally unfavorable to East Africa, and East Africa must know this, so the Portuguese are estimated to be the primary target of East Africans, Angola and Mozambique, East Africa must solve one of them to achieve their own strategic security problems."

"As for our Transvaal, how important is it to compare with the eastern part of Upper East Africa? And the reason why East Africa deploys so many troops in the south is probably not because of how important we are, but because of our military threat, after all, East Africans also know that our hatred for them is difficult to resolve, which is the same as the Franco-Prussian troops stationed on the border at the beginning, and our strong military strength in the Transvaal is the reason why East Africa maintains so many garrisons. ”

Valspieg was right, East Africa did have this concern, and compared with Portugal, the military strength of the Transvaals was more impressive to East Africa.

The morale of the Transvaals was much higher than that of Portugal, and this is an irreversible fact, since the two Portuguese territories were after all only colonies and the mainland were very different.

Colonies can be lost at any time, although it is very uncomfortable, but it is not to die or live, after all, Portugal has lost too many colonies, if there is no big heart, the Portuguese would have died a long time ago.

(End of chapter)