Chapter 822 Cabinda
Cabinda.
As an important port established by Portugal in Angola, Cabinda was built too late and cannot be compared with Luanda or Benguela.
At present, Cabinda is actually a small village on the Atlantic coast left by the Portuguese, or a small military fortress. Not only is it small in size, but its infrastructure is also incomplete.
Cities like Luanda and Benguela have a development history of more than a hundred years, while Cabinda is a northern coastal fortress city that the Portuguese only began to build in the 1980s. If it were not for the Berlin Conference and the establishment of the Belgian colony, the Portuguese would have no interest in this coastal rainforest area.
Of course, Cabinda also has an important function, which is to control the outlet of the Congo River. East Africa and Portugal were in a hostile relationship before, so the Portuguese developed Cabinda with the purpose of blocking East Africa from going out to the sea from the Congo River.
Now East Africa has decided to expand and rebuild this important military town on the west coast, which is only the size of a fishing village.
"The Portuguese stronghold in Cabinda is less than 300 meters long from east to west, with an area of about 5,000 square meters. There are less than 300 buildings in this area, and about 1,000 people lived there before."
East African urban designer Deerka said to Cabinda's military governor, Barco: "So the demolition of Cabinda is not difficult. The difficulty lies in the huge rainforest around it, which is not conducive to urban construction. Therefore, a large number of people are needed to cut down and destroy the rainforest first, and then space can be freed up to build the port of Cabinda."
Currently, Cabinda is the base of the 4th Regiment of the 2nd Brigade under the 331st Division. Barco is the commander of the regiment. During the South African War, the 331st Division captured this place, but Cabinda was too small and could only accommodate a small number of troops, so the 4th Regiment remained here.
In fact, it is a bit difficult for a regiment of troops to be stationed here because supplies are difficult to transport here.
Previously, the 331st Division conquered Cabinda through land, and it can be said that they had to wade out a path. Now this path has been completely covered with vegetation, restoring its original appearance of the rainforest.
Now the main supplies of the Fourth Regiment are actually mainly transported by sea, from the New Hamburg Port around Cape Town and then delivered to Cabinda.
In fact, this transport route also includes ports and outposts in southwest Africa, mainly because sea transportation is more convenient and has a large cargo volume.
Luanda is more convenient, but Luanda destroyed all the ships before Portugal withdrew, and land transportation is inconvenient, especially the Congo River. Every crossing of the Congo River is actually an adventure.
The water flow in the lower reaches of the Congo River is too turbulent and is not suitable for small ferries. Of course, the fundamental reason is that the lower reaches of the Congo River have not been developed at all. If East Africans want to cross the river directly, they can only use local materials to build simple rafts. This kind of raft is fine for temporary use. After all, time is tight during wartime. Of course, the 331st Division had already crossed the river in Kinshasa, and there was actually no difficulty in getting from Kinshasa to Brazzaville.
Of course, Kinshasa can also transport supplies, but Kinshasa itself has limited capacity. Bangui and Kissan, the cities upstream, are both in remote areas of East Africa. If East Africa wants to build Cabinda, it is simply impossible to achieve this by relying on these cities.
Therefore, the development of Cabinda ultimately depends on Luanda, and then relies on sea transportation between Luanda and Cabinda to complete it.
But now the land route between Cabinda and Luanda is blocked and the conditions for sea transportation are not met, so East Africa can only go around in a big circle.
In peacetime, there was no need for East Africa to take the risk of sending soldiers across the river on rafts. During the war, many soldiers heading south were washed into the Atlantic Ocean along with their rafts by the Congo River.
Moreover, although Luanda can now be directly connected to the interior of East Africa by land, without railways, the time and energy consumed are far less convenient than sea transportation.
"Cabinda's geographical location is very important. It is the beginning of the western coastline and the border area between our country and the Belgians. The straight-line distance from Cabinda to Pointe-Noire, the capital of Belgian Congo, is only 90 kilometers by sea, and it is only 600 kilometers away from the port of Chantil in French Gabon." Barco said from a strategic perspective.
The capital of French Gabon is Liperville, which is also Gabon's largest port city, and Chantil Port is an important port in the central coast of Gabon. They are currently the only two ports in French Gabon and were also the two most important ports in Gabon in the past.
As an old colonial empire, France had an impeccable vision in selecting colonial locations. The geographical conditions of both Libeville and Chantil Port far exceeded those of the ports in Belgian Congo and the west coast of East Africa.
Liberville is located at the mouth of the Como River and has a natural harbor as its support. It is a typical port with dual attributes of bay port and estuary port. It can undertake both sea transportation and connect with Gabon's inland shipping.
Most ports in East Africa, such as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, are Gulf ports, built based on the bay. Bagamoyo is similar to Liperville.
But Lippeville and Bagamoyo are on the same level, and the Como River is not a small river comparable to the Little Rhine (Ruve River).
Of course, if we compare the economic attributes, Bagamoyo is currently far more valuable than Liperville. The large tracts of tropical rainforest within the French colony of Gabon are difficult to develop even with excellent ports and inland shipping value.
The economic value of Bagamoyo is based on the premise that the interior of East Africa has been effectively developed, while Cabinda on the west coast obviously cannot be compared with Liberville or Port Chantil in all aspects.
The Portuguese did not encounter this problem before because Portugal itself is a maritime power, and most of the inland areas have been occupied by East Africa, so developing only the coastal areas is enough to meet their needs.
But East Africa is obviously not satisfied with this. Its goal is to connect Cabinda with the interior of East Africa and build Cabinda into a bridgehead for future economic development between East Africa and the Atlantic countries.
"In the future, this will be the communication center between East Africa and the Belgian colonies. If we want to open up this node, we must carry out a comprehensive transformation of the current Cabinda, especially in terms of transportation."
"The easiest thing for Cabinda to achieve now is to resume sea transportation. As for land transportation, it requires overcoming many difficulties, especially the Congo River, which is a natural barrier between Cabinda and Luanda. However, Kinshasa can be used as a temporary option. The only difference between Kinshasa and Cabinda is a road."
Currently, Brazzaville on the other side of Kinshasa is a small military base with only one platoon deployed there, under the jurisdiction of Kinshasa. Therefore, the highway that Balko mentioned is built from Brazzaville in the previous life to Cabinda, which is the only condition that can be considered for land transportation at present.
When conditions are ripe, a highway or even a railway can be built between Luanda and Cabinda. As for the Congo River, the problem can be temporarily solved by ferry.
This requires East Africa to first build shipyards and other facilities in the lower reaches of the Congo River, or directly introduce small ships and establish a ferry.
This will take a long time for the impoverished Angolan region. Under hundreds of years of Portuguese rule, Angola has not been developed at all except for a small part of the plantation industry. Transportation problems, in particular, are the biggest headache for East Africa.
When fighting in Angola and Mozambique, the biggest headache for the East African army was transportation between the two places. Fortunately, there were many grasslands in these two regions, which alleviated this problem.
However, the climate around Cabinda is a typical tropical rainforest, which is the biggest challenge in developing Cabinda in East Africa.
(End of this chapter)
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