African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 610: Chapter 288: Military Discipline Deteriorates

The territory of East Africa is not as exaggerated as Russia’s, but the effect presented on the map is quite astonishing, like slicing off a small half of Africa with a knife.

Fortunately, countries along the equator appear relatively small on maps due to visual effects, making the more than ten million square kilometers of East Africa look roughly the same size as the approximately seven million square kilometers of the United States. Of course, this is also related to the inability of data measurements in this era to be extremely accurate, especially within the African continent. Outside of East Africa, there are very few non-Black people who venture there.

Many Europeans could only guess at the situation in the African interior, and many adventure novels would use a mysterious narrative style to describe Africa.

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While the people of Transvaal were seeking to restore their country, East Africa’s stationed troops in the Southern Border Province were not idle over the years.

The forward military outposts, centered around Warm Castle and built near the Fall River, have been almost fully constructed, primarily consisting of fortresses.

The defensive strategy of East Africa towards the Orange Free State is obviously different from that towards Mozambique. The conflict between Mozambique and East Africa is considered normal, even though East Africa was the victor, the Portuguese did not hold an extreme grudge against East Africa.

As a former colonial power, Portugal’s heart is much stronger than ordinary countries, or rather it is somewhat unambitious like some old empires.

The colonial land in Mozambique was largely acquired by East Africa through formal warfare, so the Portuguese face East Africa with a somewhat apathetic attitude. If it weren’t for the British support, some in Portugal might want to sell off their last two African colonies.

But Transvaal is different. Even though East Africa also seized Transvaal through warfare, the justification was rather flimsy. In different terms, Transvaal was wrong but not to the extent of death, and East Africa’s wiping them out seemed somewhat unreasonable.

Moreover, East Africa did not completely eliminate Transvaal’s living forces, which provided Transvaal with the conditions to rebound.

Of course, Ernst’s reason for sparing the Transvaal people was not due to kindness; the intent was to keep the Transvaal people so that they might provoke East Africa at some point in the future. After all, leaving a country north of the Orange River creates an unappealing concave shape in East Africa’s southern territory.

Furthermore, Ernst had no desire to accept the Transvaal people as East African citizens, which would cause major trouble, especially due to the conflict in political systems between the two countries. In East Africa, most lands are nationalized, while in Orange, the land is owned by large landlords. Ernst did not intend to implement the Southern and Northern Dynasties system and naturally would not leave such a hidden danger.

Lastly, Ernst wanted to see if it was possible to divide the Boer people. So far, the results seem promising, as there are already two groups, the Orange people and the Transvaal people, appearing in the Orange Free State.

The point of conflict between both sides is that the Orange people look down on the Transvaal people. After all, the Transvaal people are losers who lost even their own country, and as they flooded into the Orange Free State, they took over most of the social resources originally belonging to the Orange people, acted as pawns for the British, and caused the Orange people to lose many of their rights. Additionally, the Orange people oppose conflict with East Africa.

The attitude towards Britain and East Africa are the two major points of difference between the two brotherly nations.

East Africa is understandable; now that East Africa is powerful, the Orange people naturally do not want to offend East Africa, and there is no animosity between the two countries, whereas the Transvaal people are the opposite and want to drag the Orange people into the conflict.

The attitude towards Britain is quite interesting. When the Transvaal Republic was still in existence, the Orange Free State had a relatively good relationship with Britain, implementing an appeasement policy, while the Transvaal Republic, being relatively far from Cape Town and separated by the Orange Free State, was more anti-British.

Now, the roles are reversed, with the Orange people being anti-British and the Transvaal people having a friendly relationship with Britain because the Transvaal people, relative to the Orange people, are outsiders, sharing a similar status to the British.

So, the British utilize this point to govern the Orange Free State, just as they used large numbers of Indian auxiliary forces throughout Africa in previous generations. Now, the Transvaal Rebel Army is essentially a puppet force among the Boer people.

The Transvaal Rebel Army, though not openly thieving and committing burglary, are quite adept at misdeeds. Within a few short months, they have already ruined their reputation in Bloemfontein and have become a detestable presence. The most absurd part is that most of them originate from the former Transvaal Republic, so they even practice regional discrimination in Bloemfontein.

This behavior can be aptly described with a phrase like ”wolves with ungrateful hearts” and is reminiscent of the farmer and the snake fable. Refugees like this are not easy to accept, even among brotherly nations.

The immoral conduct of the Transvaal Rebel Army, in this era, is not unexpected and can even be considered normal; in contrast, East African troops stand out as a rare clean stream or anomaly.

A large part of the Transvaal Rebel Army’s military funding needs to be self-financed, with taxes being the most important component. With British support, the Transvaal provisional government can levy war taxes in the Orange Free State to build up its military.

This was non-existent in the former Orange Free State or the Transvaal Republic, which implemented a system of universal conscription.

In other words, there was no standing armed force during peacetime; only during wartime would there be extensive conscription of troops. Without a standing army during peacetime, there was naturally no concern about military discipline.

However, now with the Transvaal Rebel Army as a standing armed force, it has allowed the Orange Free State to once again experience the sensation of a military presence scouring the land.

The Orange people in Bloemfontein are increasingly dissatisfied with the Transvaal people, and the British are happy to see it and even mediate, enjoying the fun of balance of power.

Even though the Transvaal Rebel Army’s military discipline is poor, East Africa does not underestimate this reactionary armed force.

Many in the Transvaal Rebel Army are battle-hardened veterans who have fought against the Zulu people or East Africa. They possess courage and audacity, and with the British Army’s systematic training and provision of advanced weapons and equipment, their combat effectiveness may be better than expected.

East Africa became aware of the existence of the Transvaal Rebel Army due to its pervasive intelligence system. Over the years, the East African National Defense Security Bureau has been infiltrating the Orange Free State.

Surrounded on three sides by East Africa, specially trained agents can easily infiltrate the Orange Free State, mostly under the guise of British or Boer identities from within Cape Town, to operate within the Orange Free State.

In this era, not many countries had established professional intelligence agencies, especially countries like the Orange Free State, which had very rudimentary governance.

Thus, East Africans could easily infiltrate the Orange Free State to gather intelligence. However, due to the backward transportation and lack of external connections in the Orange Free State, information transmission speed is not swift.

Even so, the Transvaal Rebel Army and the Transvaal provisional government have been understood by East Africa almost entirely. After all, the Transvaal Rebel Army behaves like street hooligans daily in Bloemfontein, it’s hard not to notice them. As for the Transvaal provisional government, it was established in a very conspicuous location in Bloemfontein.

Moreover, they frequently hold ”National Salvation Rallies” to lobby across societal levels within the Orange Free State, or solicit ”donations” from citizens on the streets.

The actions of the Transvaal provisional government and the Rebel Army are almost completely under the control of the East African National Defense Security Bureau.