March 7, 1888.

After all the preparations were made, the Triple Alliance was officially ready to get started.

Count Roberts made one last deployment before the war: "As soon as the war began, two brigades from the south of Portugal marched together with the British troops in the colony of Natal to the port of New Hamburg. ”

"The rest of the forces were mainly divided into two directions, with two of our divisions as the main force attacking central East Africa, and one division of troops and Portuguese troops in the north along the Zambezi River to fight East Africa."

"The remaining two divisions serve as reserves, ready to support all battlefields."

"As for the Boers......"

As the representative of the Transvaals, Davidson finally had a chance to interject.

"Commander-in-chief, our Boer Republic is an independent battlefield, so we can only carry out countermeasures for the main battlefield, but we will attract troops from the southern part of East Africa to the west as much as possible, so that they cannot support the eastern battlefield."

The Transvaals could not support the eastern seaboard even if they wanted to, as they were surrounded on three sides by East Africa like Mozambique, and the Drakens Mountains in the east cut off the Confederate forces.

As a result, the Republic of Boer could only be used as an independent battlefield and as a main battlefield in the east, as well as the colony of Angola.

The Angolan colony was even more special than the rest of the region, and his position made it impossible for the Allied General Command to incorporate it into its own chain of command.

Therefore, Angola and the eastern battlefield belong to the same level, the commander-in-chief is Portugal's own people, and the corresponding soldiers are basically Portuguese with blacks.

However, the British side will support Angola from the navy, and the naval power of East Africa in the South Atlantic is extremely weak, so it only needs a few small warships to suppress the Atlantic Fleet in East Africa.

East Africa does not care about this, the so-called Atlantic Fleet is nothing more than a coastal patrol unit built on the basis of the southwest African region, and it will not play a big role at all, and the rotten land in southwest Africa is not afraid of being attacked by the enemy.

The desert is the best natural barrier, and East Africa's own people are in difficulty from southwest Africa to the interior of East Africa, and they are even more unfamiliar with the local area, or even ignorant of it, and plunged into southwest Africa, I am afraid that they may get lost in the desert without East Africa's intervention, and finally break down because of problems such as supply and water shortage.

Of course, the premise of all this is that East Africa can stabilize East Africa in the western battlefield with Angola, and East Africa's western defense line is very loose, which also leads to a more flexible strategy in the western part of East Africa than in the east.

On the contrary, it is not possible to build a strategic defense line in the west in the same direction as in the southeast, and replace defense with offense.

Count Roberts said to Davidson: "Of course, but you must not sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, I think you also know how big the gap with East Africa is, even if the three countries join forces, we may not have much advantage in East Africa, if everyone does not contribute to the effort, and is broken by each other, the consequences are very serious." ”

Davidson said with a calm face: "Of course, if you say that you have the deepest feeling about the military strength of East Africa, it must be our Boers, and the powerful military strength of East Africa is definitely second to none on the African continent." ”

The Transvaals had experienced the process of losing their country, so they always attached the most importance to the strength of East Africa, but the Portuguese still did not see the situation clearly.

Although there was the first East Portuguese War, the Portuguese believed that Portugal was not ready for war, and with the support of the British this time, not to mention the subversion of the East African Kingdom, at least it could inflict a heavy blow on East Africa, after all, so far, the Allies have a better chance of winning.

Count Roberts had no doubts about the Boers' determination to fight East Africa, he said: "The results of this war also depend on their contributions, if the Boers want more, they must contribute more on the battlefield, not only to restore the country, but also to get more land, including the original Zulu Kingdom, which is now the city of New Hamburg, I think the sea must be very attractive to the Boers." ”

Anyway, the war had not yet begun, and the pre-war generous promise was no pressure for Count Roberts, either in order not to exaggerate, or the whole of East Africa could be verbally promised to be ceded to the Transvaals.

In the end, the results of the partition were still dominated by the British, and at that time, whatever the British said, it was what they wanted, and the final interpretation was in the hands of the British.

Count Roberts's words were not convincing to Davidson, because now the Transvaals were being forced into Liangshan by East Africa, and there was no other choice but to expand the territory.

At present, Portugal's goal can be divided into three levels: upper, middle and lower, the upper level is to restore the original area of the two colonies, and at the same time, carve up a part of the land in central East Africa and expand the area of Portuguese colonies.

The middle level is to regain the land that was taken away by East Africa last time, and get more shares in the reparations, and the war reparations of a big country like East Africa are also very considerable benefits, and the lower level is to ensure the security of the current colonies and no longer be encroached upon by East Africa.

The first of these three objectives was unrealistic, as Portugal would most likely not be able to get hold of central East Africa, thus uniting the Portuguese colonies because they conflicted with the interests of the British.

The British are not here to do charity, they will most likely turn the rich regions of East Africa into their own colonies after the war, and Central East Africa is the best location.

As for the eastern part of East Africa, that area is not in the scope of the Allies' consideration, it is the land of Longxing in East Africa, and it is impossible to cede it unless East Africa is destroyed.

After all, if East Africa can be directly wiped out, there is no precedent since the Age of Discovery.

Of course, East Africa is large only in terms of area, and the population is actually quite large, but the population data is not easy to obtain.

According to the current British thinking, it is better to repeat the Paraguayan War in South America, and to weaken all the forces in South Africa except Britain one at a time.

In the eyes of countries around the world, East Africa should be the same type of country as Brazil, but Brazil is like a glass box, the whole world can see the mess in Brazil, and East Africa can't see the inside, so a lot of data depends on guesswork.

However, one thing is certain, that is, the East African government must be more incorruptible than the Brazilian government, after all, in terms of the military strength displayed by the two countries, East Africa is not half a point stronger.

Although Brazil is independent, it is stronger than ordinary colonies, and belongs to the economic colonies of various powers, while East Africa is an independent country with real autonomy.

In this respect, Japan was much stronger than Brazil, and Japan began to suffer no less humiliation than Brazil, but Japan has been actively abolishing the unequal treaties signed during the shogunate era.

The most important thing is that all parties in Brazil are mixed, and none of them can lead the direction of the country and form a joint force, otherwise according to the basic conditions of Brazil, it should not have developed to what it is today.

(End of chapter)