While East Africa was preparing for war, the Triple Alliance was not bad at all, but at a critical moment, Count Roberts suddenly changed his mind.

He had a new plan, and although he accepted the command of the Allied forces in the entire South African region, after all, he came relatively late, so he had his own views on the war.

Roberts convened a military conference of the Allied forces and threw out his decision at the meeting: "As the main battlefield, we must strengthen the military strength of Mozambique, because Mozambique is facing the risk of fighting on three sides, and East Africa has the advantage of fighting on its own territory and has a large population, so if we want to quickly open up the situation on the battlefield, we must distribute our forces reasonably." Count Roberts spoke of his plans.

Mozambique's military commanders naturally raised their hands in favor of this, after all, Mozambique is its own territory and is more careful in defense.

Count Roberts was well aware of the subtle changes in the Portuguese, but as an experienced military commander, he would not let this disrupt his deployment, and it was difficult for a narrow military commander to achieve victory on the battlefield.

From the very beginning, his goal was to defeat East Africa, not to fight with this group of people for profit, to worry about the details of the gains and losses, everything was strategically the first goal, even if it might cause some losses to the British Empire.

"Commander-in-Chief! I am opposed to concentrating military forces in Mozambique, and if it is to support a part of the force, there is no problem, but there is no need to do so. Wilson, the military commander of the Natal colony, said.

"Huh? What do you think differently? He was not surprised that the first to jump out against him was Britain's own commander.

Wilson: "The distance between the Natal colony and Maputo is very short, there is only one port city for East Africans, and we don't need to go through large-scale military adjustments to disrupt the initial implementation and deployment, and we can open up the northbound passage and connect Natal and Mozambique by unplugging the port of New Hamburg according to the plan." ”

"And this is the strategy that has been established before, even if we strengthen the military of Mozambique, the next step is to cooperate on both sides at the same time to attack the port of New Hamburg."

"At the same time, large-scale military movements will definitely attract the attention of East Africans, and I think there are a lot of intelligence spies in East Africa in Maputo, and they will definitely quickly transmit this information back to East Africa, so our strategic deployment may expose the risk!"

Roberts waited until Wilson finished speaking, and did not deny his words at the first time, but said: "Of course I have considered these, but I don't think that the new port of Hamburg is a city that can be manipulated at will, after all, the location of the new port of Hamburg is too special, and the East Africans will not let us take it casually." ”

"And one thing we need to understand is that the location of the Natal colony is not a threat to East Africa, and if we can't successfully take the city of New Hamburg, it is very likely that the use of the army will be limited, and with the Tuguela River and the Drakens Mountains, only a small number of troops will be needed to stop our army in the small area of the Natal colony."

"If we can't open up the situation, won't we let so much military power go to waste? When the time comes, will it be possible to cross the Drankens Mountains to the west to support the Boer battlefield? That will take quite a long time, and I'm afraid that the battlefield will have changed several times! ”

This is also Count Roberts's view of the situation in South Africa, if it is only a unilateral war between Britain and East Africa, then the importance of the Natal colony is indeed very important, but with Mozambique, this gives Count Roberts more options.

"As for military movements, this is exposed, we are only responsible for putting the main forces in Mozambique, but in which direction they will take the initiative is not something that the East Africans can predict."

The long border between Mozambique and East Africa was the basis for Count Roberts to take the risk of mobilizing his army.

You can choose to attack the city of New Hamburg in the south, attack the central part of East Africa in the west, or threaten the eastern core of East Africa in the north.

"Of course, all this requires the cooperation of the colonies of Mozambique, Your Excellency the Governor of Bougivall." Count Roberts looked at Bougival and said.

Bougival said: "Commander-in-chief, of course, our Kingdom of Portugal will fully support your decision, but I still ask you for instructions on how to cooperate." ”

Count Roberts was very satisfied with Bougivall's attitude, although the Portuguese were not very reliable, but they only had to be obedient enough in front of the British.

He said to the high-level officials of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique: "First of all, there is the problem of East African espionage that Wilson mentioned earlier, and I think we really need to guard against this aspect, because this matter is really annoying, and we are not equal to the intelligence of East Africa, and it is easy for East Africa to plant spies on our territory, but we cannot use the same means against East Africa." ”

"At present, there are only a few port cities on the east coast of East Africa that can understand East Africa, but the information we get is fragmented, and it is difficult to analyze the real and useful things, and there is really no good way to solve this, because East Africa is too closed."

"If we can't solve this problem, then we can only interrupt the East African intelligence system in South Africa, at least on our territory, especially the ports, and for the investigation of personnel, after the war starts, basically the army can take over, and we must cut off the eyes and ears of the East Africans."

This was Count Roberts's instinct, he was not at ease with the Portuguese, so he had to enforce it himself, and anyway, the Portuguese merchants who did business with East Africa could not afford to come to him for trouble with the British.

"In addition to intelligence work, and then there is the reception and placement of the army, I think you should be prepared?"

Bougivar frowned: "That's no problem, until we have the black troops, we can let our people share the facilities and camps in Mozambique." ”

As for the black servants, it was just a number for Portugal, and obviously the British Army was more reassuring, so it made sense to suffer those blacks first.

"But the environment may not be good, after all, we have limited conditions in Mozambique, and it is very difficult to raise an army."

Roberts didn't care about that, because soldiers weren't meant to be happy, and he had been in Abyssinia, where conditions in Afghanistan were much more difficult than in Mozambique.

"In this way, the Natal colony mobilized five brigades of the main force of the British army, all of which were mobilized to Mozambique, such a distance, it should be completed within a week, and Natal left only one brigade."

That's 20,000 British troops, and in Mozambique there were already more than 30,000 Roberts brought from India, which brought the main force of the British army in Mozambique to more than 50,000.

With these 50,000 British troops, Earl Roberts felt that he could be invincible, although the British Army had a lot of jokes, but this was also one of the world's top five powers (Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Russia) Army Army, and other countries were not at the same level.

As for the United States, just like East Africa, the world does not know much about the war capabilities of the two countries, after all, the history is short and there is no record of taking a shot, even in the previous life and after World War I and World War II, the capabilities of the US Army could not convince the public, but the Navy and Air Force did establish their prestige after World War II.

(End of chapter)