African Entrepreneurship Record

The Battle of Fite River shattered the fragile balance between East Africa and the Boer Republic, with the Boer Republic’s southern defense line along Fite River being broken through overnight by East Africa.

The next morning, after counting the battle results, East Africa captured and killed over twenty thousand Boer Republic soldiers, causing the Boer Republic frontline to directly collapse.

However, a considerable number of Boer soldiers managed to retreat from the frontline, estimated to be around ten thousand, swiftly withdrawing in the direction of Bloemfontein.

Merk: ”After cleaning up the battlefield, the units should continue pursuing southwards, with the western route targeting Kimberley, the northern route targeting Bloemfontein, and the eastern sector supporting the northern troops.”

Once Bloemfontein and Kimberley are taken, the war against the Boers would be basically over, and the war in the southern military district within the Boer Republic would transition from offensive battles to security operations.

Bloemfontein and Kimberley are the only two major cities in the Boer Republic; capturing them means the Boer Republic would have no more defensible positions.

Of course, East Africa’s current headache is dealing with the ”legacy” left by the Boers on the Fite River frontline, primarily the treatment of the wounded, then the cleaning of bodies, and finally the large amount of weaponry left on the battlefield.

With so many wounded and corpses, East Africa needs follow-up troops to carefully clean up. Africa basically has no winter, so leaving these bodies here could cause serious problems.

East Africa seized a total of fifty-three cannons, which is estimated to be most of the Boer Republic’s artillery assets, highlighting the firepower gap between the two sides.

However, East Africa’s heavy artillery mainly remained on the north bank of the Fite River yesterday and did not participate in the battle; thus, in terms of firepower advantage, the Boers actually had the upper hand, even though their effective artillery attack advantage was not realized.

The Boers couldn’t carry these heavy artillery pieces away, mainly because the nighttime retreat was already urgent – who had time to drag these huge things while fleeing?

Likely before long, they would be captured along with their weapons by the pursuing forces.

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The achievements of East Africa in the Boer Republic quickly reached Count Roberts’ desk, and it has to be said this was quite bad news for the Allies.

However, Count Roberts had no way to lend a hand to the Boers at this time as East Africa launched a counterattack against the Boer Republic while East Africa’s eastern and northern military districts were also initiating offensives in northern Mozambique.

The Allies, previously ”enjoying a prosperous situation,” quickly found themselves in dire straits.

”An East African cavalry division and three infantry divisions have launched an attack from the north. They are attacking us fiercely from Kaya, Tambala, and Malomeu directions. Apart from the Kaya region, the other two directions have been breached by East African forces.”

”Given this situation, we can only abandon the Zambezi River line. Our troops were not sufficient in the first place and the Zambezi River is too long to prevent East African forces from crossing it. Now we should activate the Pongui River defense line as the place to withstand East Africa’s counterattack.”

The Pongui River stems from Nyangani Mountain in western Mozambique, a critical divide between the Matebel Plateau and the Mozambique Plain, and a strategic defense point in East Africa’s Matebel Province – a place so precarious it is not the focus for either East Africa or the Allies.

The Nyangani Mountain area has not seen development and remains mostly as primitive forest and mountains, with scanty human presence apart from some native tribes, thus lacking conditions suitable for any marching.

Neither East Africa nor the Allies see it as a breakthrough point; if an army were to traverse it, they might face collapse without even engaging in combat.

Lack of roads is only one issue, then there are the dense forests and vegetation – the vast areas of primitive forest cannot be traversed. In Africa, the forest represents enormous risk, with poisonous insects, diseases, problematic water sources, and frequent natural disasters such as floods and landslides posing the risk of army devastation, especially during the rainy season when Mozambique experiences abundant rainfall.

The Pongui River is also one of Mozambique’s important rivers, with Bela Port, the second largest port of past Mozambique, situated downstream.

Today, the Bela region remains an uninhabited wasteland, with Bela’s city-building time dating back to 1887 in history.

At present, responding to East Africa’s military threat, the Portuguese have abandoned much land north of Mozambique’s rivers and instead mostly built strongholds on the south bank.

Thus, the north bank of the Pongui River’s estuary lacks Bela Port, whereas Anthony on the south bank has seen significant development.

The so-called significant development is certainly not economic but military. The Mozambique colony was clear from the start that if it were to wage war with East Africa, the threat from the north would outweigh the south.

As for the east and west directions, defensible positions are absent, so only the initiative to attack from the west remains, using offense as defense.

”Count Roberts, if we initiate the Pongui River defense line, can we use the river to block East Africa’s offensive? Our western fronts have not attained results, and in the south, we’ve merely isolated New Hamburg Port City from East Africa’s homeland without eliminating New Hamburg Port City’s garrison, so the war situation is becoming increasingly unfavorable for us.”

Facing everyone’s questioning, Count Roberts also struggled to think of a solution since the difficulty of the war with East Africa far surpassed the Allies’ pre-war estimates.

East Africa directly withstood the pressure of the Allies’ initial offensive, which surprised Count Roberts, given that the Allies’ total forces were nearing five hundred thousand, a number capable of launching a major battle or even a war of conquest anywhere globally.

Count Roberts was able to command forces totaling around three hundred thousand, but now these three hundred thousand couldn’t even break through East Africa’s eastern defenses, striking a severe blow to the Allies’ morale.

East Africa had just over seventy thousand troops stationed at the eastern defenses yet endured triple the soldiers from the Allies – ignoring the Allies’ numerical superiority, East Africa’s ability to mobilize so many troops alone had exceeded Count Roberts’ expectations.

After all, East Africa not only had eastern defenses but also defensive lines along Tugela River, Fite River, Orange River, Zambezi River, the western areas, and other major battle zones.

Across these major battlefields, East Africa has deployed around two hundred thousand soldiers, and East Africa still has other regions with undeployed troops, such as Jezira city in the north, a critical military stronghold holding against Egyptian British forces, along with Dedradawa for dealing with British Somaliland – East Africa certainly has troops prepared for emergencies with Belgium, the Abyssinian Empire, and Italy’s Red Sea colony, indicating East Africa’s military potential has been gravely underestimated.

Of course, besides the exceptional soldier allocation, even more astonishing to Count Roberts was the combat capability of East Africa’s Defense Army.

The tactical level of East Africa’s Defense Army is at least equal to the British forces, possibly surpassing them slightly, which is extremely frightening.

British troops certainly are not like the Portuguese, Indians, Boers, or Black armies – they are real British Army units. Currently, in the entire South African war, British troop numbers have risen from sixty thousand at the start to nearly one hundred thousand.

This also represents a substantial pressure on Mainland Britain, yet no significant impact has been made on the South African battlefield, especially among allies like Portugal, and other units have suffered severe losses facing East African Forces, with worrying combat effectiveness.

Even if he could go back to pre-war times and replace all troops under his command with British soldiers, Count Roberts wouldn’t dare say East Africa could be defeated.