Chapter 391: Sheep in the Tiger's Mouth
The Kingdom of Swaziland is a little-known country. Even in history, it was not until 1907 that Britain turned it into a semi-colonial country. Generally speaking, there are only two reasons why the British did this: one is that they could not afford it, and the other is that it really had no value. The Kingdom of Swaziland belongs to the latter.
But now the people of Swaziland are in bad luck. As the saying goes, disaster may come from the sky while you are at home. A group of troops that came from nowhere directly launched a sneak attack on the Kingdom of Swaziland.
The Kingdom of Swaziland is just a small country with a population of tens of thousands. Don’t be fooled by its small area and small population. In fact, the region where Swaziland is located is one of the most densely populated areas in Africa.
In the 19th century, the entire African population was only more than 90 million, of which Egypt (plus Sudan) and the Abyssinian Empire accounted for more than 20 million, and the East African Kingdom plus the blacks accounted for more than 27 million. These three countries accounted for almost half of Africa's population. If we exclude North African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, the population of other regions in Africa may be only about 40 million. This shows how sparsely populated Africa is, especially sub-Saharan Africa.
This is mainly because the black people originating from West Africa had a very low level of civilization, which resulted in them still being in the primitive society stage after spreading to the entire region. The population growth in primitive society is basically constant. Although there are many births, there are also many deaths.
Therefore, the environment has a great impact on the population of Africa. The Nile River coast of Egypt, the Great Lakes region of East Africa, the Abyssinian Empire, West Africa, the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, the Lake Malawi region and the northeastern region of South Africa are several densely populated areas in Africa today.
Swaziland is located in the northeast of South Africa, adjacent to Maputo, the capital of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, the Zulu Kingdom, the British Natal colony, the Transvaal Republic, and the Gaza Empire (an indigenous country), a buffer state between East Africa and Mozambique.
Swaziland is less than 100 kilometers away from Maputo. After East Africa occupies this place, it can pose a direct threat to the capital of Mozambique.
The King of Swaziland was standing next to Felix at this time and introducing the situation of the Kingdom of Swaziland to Felix.
"The eastern part of my country is the Portuguese country, the southeast is the barbarians of the Zulu Kingdom, and the western part was occupied by the Boers a few years ago. Because of the poor land and complex terrain, generally no one comes to our Kingdom of Swaziland."
It has to be said that the Swazis are more casual. They are of the same origin as the Zulus, but their personalities are completely different. After encountering the East African army, they chose to surrender directly without any hesitation.
This made Felix very helpless. He had thought that since it was an indigenous country, he should at least have a war to fight and have some fun, but it turned out that the other side did not resist at all.
Felix: "Well, I know all this very well. This place is indeed not suitable for human habitation."
However, this is not a reason for the Kingdom of Swaziland to continue to exist. East Africa's strategic intention this time is obviously to control the Transvaal and Zulu Kingdoms, and the Kingdom of Swaziland is located at the key point of East Africa's southward movement.
“My attitude and performance towards you are unique in Africa, so I will report to the Kingdom of Swaziland and try to get you some good conditions,” said Felix.
How to deal with the issue of the Kingdom of Swaziland is indeed difficult to handle. Since they have cooperated so well, we certainly cannot be too rough. Let’s leave this matter to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to deal with in the future!
At this moment, a messenger suddenly came over and reported: "Commander-in-chief, our people have discovered an unknown armed force in the southeast, and they are heading towards Swaziland."
Felix: "Unknown armed forces! What's going on?"
"It is a white armed force, but I don't know whether it is Portuguese or Boer armed forces."
"How many of them are there?"
"There should be three to four thousand people."
Felix turned to the King of Swaziland and asked, "You Swazis have offended people recently!"
"How is this possible, General! We in the Kingdom of Swaziland have always loved peace."
Of course, the King of Swaziland said this but he did not think so in his heart. The main reason was that Swaziland had too small a population and weak military strength, otherwise he would have left this broken place long ago.
The Kingdom of Swaziland has remained here since the 16th century and has had no chance to expand outward, mainly because the Zulus, their fellow countrymen, were too good at fighting and were all crazy people who were willing to risk their lives. As for the indigenous kingdoms in the north, they were all "big countries" to the Swazi people.
Felix said to the messenger: "Let our people stop them. If they are Portuguese, we will invite their leaders to talk. If they are Boers, we will just fight them."
If you don't ask, you may not be able to tell where they are from. From the appearance of the Portuguese and Boer armed forces, you can't tell what they are like.
At this time, the Boers on the mountainside were also confused. There were people from other forces here! Wasn’t Swaziland said to be a black kingdom?
So both sides looked at each other cautiously. At this time, someone had recognized the East African military uniforms. These were probably the East Africans who invaded Transvaal.
"Who are you?" the East African soldier shouted.
When the Transvaal Republic soldiers heard this,
"It's German. It must be East Africa!"
"What should we do now!"
The Boer commander said: "Don't pay any attention to them. We will just go back the way we came for now."
At this time, Felix's messenger had arrived, "Captain Berk, the commander said that if the enemy is the Boers, leave them behind."
Although he had not yet figured out whether the other side was the Boers, seeing that they wanted to run away, Belk could not sit still.
"Pass on my military order. Don't let the Boers on the opposite side escape!"
At present, Berk only had a brigade of troops, but the Boers were tired from the long journey and had to climb the mountain, which was extremely physically demanding, giving the East African Army a good opportunity to take advantage of the situation.
As the bugle sounded, the Second Brigade of the Mountain Division rushed out like a tiger out of a cage. Berk led the troops and rushed directly towards the Boers.
This made the Boers who wanted to sneak away suddenly caught in a dilemma. In addition, the terrain restrictions of the mountain road made it impossible to disperse. The retreat turned into a rout, and trampling was inevitable. The entire army was in chaos. On the other hand, the East African Army played its advantage of attacking from a high position, and the Mountain Division was obviously more adapted to this terrain. It moved briskly on the Drakensberg Mountain Road. In less than two hours, the East African Mountain Division ended the battle and all the main members of the Boer were captured.
Felix, who heard the sound of fighting, also led his troops over and asked the captured Boer commander: "Are you the main force of the Transvaal Republic?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Then how did you end up in Swaziland?"
"Alas, because Pretoria urgently summoned our troops to defend, the Zulu Kingdom noticed our abnormality, so the Zulus sent a large number of troops to encircle and suppress us. Although we tried our best to shake off the Zulus, we could not make a breakthrough. In the end, we had no choice but to go through the Kingdom of Swaziland and then return to Transvaal."
After hearing this, Felix laughed out loud in an unkind way. This time he failed to borrow the money and instead fell into the tiger's mouth, and he got military merit for nothing.
(End of this chapter)
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