Little Pretorius: "It would be nice if the situation was as you say, but the war was the most unexpected, just as we didn't think about the ambitions of the East Africans against us, so we can't take it lightly." ”

"Moreover, we cannot abandon our original intention because of the defense line of the South Fit, the ultimate goal is to recover the country, if we do not gain anything in the war, but shrink into the fortifications, and increase the casualties, it will be a huge blow to the unity of the country and to ourselves."

In the opinion of Minor Pretorius, the greatest disaster for the Boers would be if they could not get the spoils of war on the battlefield.

First of all, the Boer population is already small, and if there is a war, it is very likely to have negative growth, so the war is a kind of harm to the Boer nation.

Secondly, if the territory is not expanded, the backlog of ethnic contradictions in the country will also erupt, and now the Orange people are only temporarily compromised, and if they do not see the result, they will definitely rebel in the future.

The last problem, that is, the problem of debt, but for little Pretorius, it is not worth mentioning, and now the debt to the British is enough, even if he is sold, he cannot afford to pay it back, so it doesn't matter anymore.

Of course, the British actually got what they wanted, and now the only use of the Boers is to consume East Africa, and the British focus is actually the same as Valspieg thinks, that is, the Mozambique colony.

The Mozambican colony is the real threat to East Africa, a region that is close to the country's two major industrial regions, as well as all the major cities and capitals on the east coast of East Africa.

Although the British were unaware of East Africa's industrial investment in Matabele province, it was enough to make East Africa feel pain in the flesh by stumbling into it.

Moreover, Mozambique is directly facing the three military defense belts of East Africa and threatens the three major military regions of East Africa.

The most typical is the Southern Military Region, which echoes the Cape Town colony and the Boer Republic, and the Southern Frontier Province of East Africa is only a narrow province, sandwiched between the British Natal colony and Maputo in Mozambique.

If the garrison of the port of New Hamburg cannot withstand the pressure of this two-sided attack, then the starting point of the southern section of the Central Railway will inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy, and then directly threaten the province of Hexingen, through which it can pose a threat to the East African army on the line of the Orange River from behind, or it can choose to go north directly by rail and enter the central part of East Africa.

In this way, the whole south of East Africa is in danger of falling after Mbeya, after all, the Portuguese still have an Angolan colony in the northwest.

This is also an important reason why Ernst chose to prepare for war with the Three Kingdoms after the opening of the Hesse Railway, because even if the southern line of the Central Railway was lost, East Africa could quickly support the southern battlefield from the north through the Hessian Railway.

In the past, the East African Central Railway and the Eastern Railway were all connected by Mbeya, an important node, but after the opening of the Hesse Railway, it can be bypassed from the Northern Railway, although it consumes a little more time, but greatly improves the traffic safety guarantee during the war.

"Your Excellency the President, rest assured, the defense line of the Feit River is not so easy to break through, the attacking side has suffered the greatest losses since ancient times, and our defense line is a fortress group, and the loss of one or two nodes will not affect the overall situation, and we can still use these pillboxes as a base to carry out guerrilla tactics with East Africa, so that the East African army will be exhausted after entering the Transvaal Republic."

"And we still have a lot of military facilities left over from the last civil war that can be put into use, but we have limited troops, so we can only form militias as much as possible to attack the East African army."

During the civil war in the Orange Free State, the Transvaals and Oranges built a large number of military installations in what is now the Boer Republic.

In particular, many of the military facilities left behind by the Orange people were relatively hidden, which was very suitable for guerrilla operations, which was related to the weakness of the Orange people in the early days.

Moreover, the civil war took place in almost the entire territory of the Republic of Boer except for Bloemfontein, and the same is true for these military facilities, so if it can be used well, it can completely inflict heavy losses on the East African army, which is also the valuable experience left by the Oranges to the Transvaal Restoration Army last time, so this civil war was not fought in vain, and the Transvaal armed forces have grown.

"Take it one step at a time, I am not worried about our Transvaal's will and preparation to fight, but mainly about the unreliability of the British and Portuguese, and if they compromise with East Africa, it is very likely that they will pit ourselves into it." Little Pretorius voiced his true concerns.

Valspieg: "President, there is no turning back now, even if we don't take action, the British will force us to fight in East Africa, after all, so much support is not taken for free, but forged with blood!" ”

From the very beginning, this pirate ship was not ordered by the Boers, and the Boers were probably one of the builders of this pirate ship, but the British came from behind and incorporated the Boer plan into their own grand strategy.

"So, this is exactly what we want, the Transvaal Republic is our obsession, even if there is only a 1 in 10,000 chance, we have to try, even if there is no British, we will not give in to the East Africans!" Little Pretorius said firmly.

Valspieg raised one of his concerns: "Your Excellency, the dilemma now is what excuse to use if we want to go to war with East Africa, what time, and how to make East Africa willingly take the initiative to start a war with our three forces at the same time, it is impossible for us to shed blood and sweat in front, the British and Portuguese are watching in the rear, and then, after our blood is dry, we will pick peaches." ”

This is the problem that the Transvaals are facing today, and it has plagued the Transvaal hierarchy since Britain regained the independence of the Orange Free State.

The three parties already have evil intentions between them, so naturally the allies will contribute more and watch the best by themselves, so they must find a way to pull them into the water.

In fact, the Transvaals had planned this before, but this was already seen through by the British and did not give them this opportunity.

"The final direction of the war still depends on the attitude of the British, so we must put pressure on the British, let them take the initiative to take responsibility, instead of thinking about pit allies, as long as the British are solved, the Portuguese can only follow up, after all, the Portuguese are also followers of the British in Europe, and now their real interests are still at stake, so they have to be careful, but someone must supervise them, otherwise they may really negotiate peace with East Africa secretly." Little Pretorius said.

Little Pretorius was too worried about this, what East Africa wanted to eat most was the Portuguese colony, so East Africa would not give the Portuguese this opportunity at all, and would even take the initiative to stuff the knife into the hands of the Portuguese.

East Africa does not dare to take these non-indigenous forces lightly, and it must also pay attention to some international morality, after all, it is really sad to be isolated by the international community or lose its international credibility, and the typical example is Tsarist Russia.

Therefore, East Africa hopes that the Portuguese will take the initiative to send the pretext for war to East Africa, otherwise East Africa will only be shamelessly framed.

(End of chapter)