Chapter 790 The King's Flag Falls
"This is the map we have observed of the entire Chokwe terrain over the past few days. Although Earl Roberts attempted to rely on the Limpopo River to resist stubbornly, the battle yesterday dealt a fatal blow to the coalition forces. With limited manpower, the defense system planned by Earl Roberts also had huge loopholes, especially in the western part of Chokwe. Earl Roberts wanted to use the river bend here at the beginning, but now he can only retreat to the narrow area in the east. Therefore, the west is now the weak point of the coalition forces. We should be able to wipe out Earl Roberts's troops soon by concentrating our artillery and manpower to attack."
Commander-in-chief of the Western Military Region, Ledeen, told everyone that with Merk going to the south to command the combat missions against Cape Town and Natal, Ledeen is now the highest military commander in East Africa in Mozambique.
The Western Military Region is also the main force now fighting against the Mozambican army, especially after the main force of western Mozambique was surrounded by the Western Military Region in the São Jorge area.
Now Mozambique has become the fat meat in the mouth of East Africa, and the way to solve the Mozambique problem as soon as possible is to eliminate the Allied Forces Headquarters headed by Earl Roberts and the Mozambique government, and then surrender the main force of the Western Mozambique Allied Forces.
If this still fails to achieve the goal, then after destroying Earl Roberts's troops, the East African Army will move westward and cooperate with the four divisions that are besieging the main force of the coalition forces to completely wipe out the enemy forces in São Jorge.
Of course, the most important thing now is to capture Chokwe. The terrain of Chokwe is very conducive to defense. The only pity is that the coalition forces have been operating here for too short a time, so there are huge loopholes, especially at the bend of the Limpopo River in the west.
Originally, according to the coalition's plan, the natural river here would be used as part of Shaokuei's city defense, but unfortunately, due to lack of manpower and materials, the construction of Shaokuei was not fully completed.
As the war progressed, the grassroots order in Mozambique had already collapsed, so it was impossible to recruit soldiers here. The Mozambique colony was originally vast and sparsely populated, with many jungles, mountains, and canyons. After the war broke out, many indigenous people went into hiding, so it was impossible for the Portuguese to go deep into these areas and find them out.
The lack of labor ultimately led to the failure of Earl Roberts' plan, but in this situation, Earl Roberts could still use the old city of Chokwe to deal with East Africa.
December 25, 1888.
With the General Staff temporarily authorizing Delain as the temporary commander-in-chief on the battlefield, the various units of the East African Defense Force, major military regions and the Guards Division launched a massive counterattack against Chokwe.
The Eastern Military District troops, the Western Military District troops and the Guards Division served as the main firepower output, concentrating thousands of artillery pieces of various types to bombard the Shaokui ammunition area for half a day.
The Eastern Military Region is separated from Shaokwei by only a river. It is not a good place to attack Shaokwei from land, but it is more convenient to concentrate artillery units and conduct corrective artillery bombardment on the core area of Shaokwei on the other side of the river.
Earl Roberts's troops, which were shrinking in Chokwe, could not cross the Limpopo River to counterattack the East African armies in the east and north, so they could only passively take the beating. At the same time, they had to prevent attacks from the main forces of East Africa in the west and south.
Earl Roberts had to concentrate most of his only remaining artillery to deal with the artillery of the Guards divisions in the Western Military District, while he could only leave the East African troops in the east and north to themselves and wait until they showed signs of crossing the river before launching a counterattack against them.
Prior to this, the Chokwe defenders could only hide under fortifications to avoid artillery bombardment from the Eastern and Northern Military Regions of East Africa.
The daily training of the East African artillery is very strict, so the artillery accuracy is very high and can basically accurately aim at large targets on the opposite bank.
Under the bombardment of artillery fire, the temporary fortifications built by Chokwe on the other side of the Limpopo River were vulnerable. Due to the rush of time, some of the fortifications in Chokwe were still mainly made of rammed earth, which became the death warrant during the war.
The British and Portuguese hid in the trenches, with dust flying all around them. The roar of the shells hitting the ground made the Allied soldiers very uncomfortable. Although there was no river of blood, the smell of gunpowder and blood wafted through the battlefield, and occasionally one could see broken limbs and intact corpses. The entire defense line was like hell on earth.
At the same time, in the south and west of Shaokwe, the coalition forces faced even more difficult tests. The artillery fire of the Guards Division and the Western Military Region was several times that of the Eastern and Northern Military Regions.
Under such intensive artillery attacks, Shaokui's fortifications were almost completely destroyed, leaving only a scorched earth.
Eight o'clock in the evening.
Under the East African charge horn, the general attack on the city of Chokwe officially began. Under the cover of artillery and machine guns, the East African infantry advanced step by step towards the Chokwe position and the top of the city.
At this time, most areas of Chokwe had been bombed into ruins. The East African infantry climbed onto these ruins and engaged in a fierce battle with the enemy who had emerged from nowhere.
The enemy was very tenacious, but they were only a minority. Most of the enemies surrendered after seeing the East African flag, and at this time they had completely lost their chance.
The British army and the black troops were okay, but the Portuguese soldiers and Indians seemed to have seen their biological parents and begged for mercy from the East African soldiers.
This disharmonious situation also completely tore apart the coalition forces' resistance. After all, no matter how hard they tried, how could they fight this battle if they had such bad teammates?
The "demonstration" set by the Portuguese and Indians was eventually transmitted to all the coalition forces. The outer coalition forces basically surrendered, and those who tried to fight to the death were also sent to hell early by the East African soldiers.
At this time, Earl Roberts had only less than 3,000 reserve forces left. Looking at the surging East African army, his face was as pale as water, his cracked lips were slightly open, his eyes were dull and his gaze was dull.
"Vote now!"
At this time, a voice came from behind Earl Roberts. It was the Governor of Mozambique, Bougival. Bougival also looked very depressed. He looked at Roberts gloomily and said.
"Surrender?" Earl Roberts muttered at this time, but he was still in the miserable state of a dead fish, as if he had not yet come out of it.
"Your Excellency, wake up! We have no chance. We can't let these young lives die in vain. Any further resistance will only add cold numbers to the East Africans' credit book. We have failed, completely failed."
After saying this almost in a roaring voice, Bougival's energy and spirit were drained out of his body and he collapsed to the ground.
Earl Roberts clenched his fists, and his old skin formed wrinkles full of the breath of time on the back of his hands.
"well!"
…
At nine o'clock in the afternoon East African time, the sky had already darkened, but some shadows could still be vaguely seen, and several conspicuous white flags were slowly rising on the top of the inner city of Chokwe.
With the surrender of Earl Roberts and the Governor's Office of the Mozambique Colony, East Timor officially conquered Chokwe, and another colonial flag of the Kingdom of Portugal in Africa quietly came to an end.
The glory of the Kingdom of Portugal was completely buried in the historical dust of the late 19th century by the East African Kingdom. Many such wars of the century took place in the 19th century, but for the Portuguese, this was their last chance.
Without territory and population as a foundation, it would be basically impossible for Portugal to rise again in the future, unless their descendants, like their ancestors, stood at the forefront and accomplished new feats, but that was basically impossible. As Ernst knew in his previous life, the two waste materials on the Iberian Peninsula had been in a state of decline.
(End of this chapter)
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