Chapter 690： Deployment of troops in the west

Chapter 690 Deployment of Troops in the West

There are countless "small conflicts" on the East African border, and the conflicts with the Portuguese are the most numerous. This is especially obvious on the border between Mozambique and East Africa.

As for Angola, it is a secondary direction in East Africa’s strategy. Don’t look at the fact that Angola occupies the fertile land and excellent ports on the Atlantic coast. Although this is what East Africa is “greedy” about, the Indian Ocean coast has always been the core of East Africa.

The areas controlled by Mozambique are the focus of East Africa's attention. You can know this conclusion just by looking at the implementation deployment in East Africa. Mozambique is almost surrounded by East Africa on all sides.

Although the direction of the Indian Ocean is an ocean, there are also naval bases in the Comoros Islands in East Africa, so Mozambique is much more dangerous than Angola.

However, contrary to East Africa, Portugal’s management of Angola is obviously higher than that of Mozambique. The most obvious thing about this is that three Portuguese brigades are deployed in Angola, while Mozambique has only one local brigade.

However, the British support Mozambique, and the last main battlefield was in Mozambique, so Mozambique has formed an army with a size of about 20,000 people. All 20,000 people are in accordance with European army standards, or British standards. , formed two divisions.

In addition, there are more than 10,000 black servants. The number of black servants can actually be more, but they are classified as reserves by the Mozambique Governor-General. Therefore, the main military personnel of Mozambique are about 30,000. If the army is expanded during the war, it should be It can reach hundreds of thousands of people, and the soldiers are mainly black.

Angola’s military strength is neither strong nor weak, but Angola’s military strength is more reflected at the direct leadership level of the kingdom, focusing on the two local infantry brigades and one cavalry brigade.

Angola alone has more than 13,000 Portuguese local troops. In addition, there are more than 40,000 Angolan colonies formed on their own and under the leadership of the Portuguese army.

So there is a big difference in the military models between Angola and Mozambique. Mozambique is obviously more independent, while the Angolan army is mainly under the jurisdiction of the Portuguese mainland, and basically only has the same name as the Portuguese mainland.

What is something extraordinary, that is, illegal border crossing, or East Africa taking the initiative to attack? In this way, the initiative lies entirely in East Africa's hands. When thinking of this, Brenzino felt depressed.

In fact, East Africa is also very depressed, especially the Western Military Region. Currently, the entire Western Military Region can actually use only two divisions of troops, and the remaining troops have been concentrated in the three central provinces and are on standby at any time.

In this way, the Western Military District is under the greatest pressure in the country. The Western Military District has a total of five divisions, two of which are in the center, one division is deployed in Southwest Africa, and only the 414th Division and the 412th Division are on the Angolan border.

Furthermore, the western part of East Africa has a long national border and is not as developed as the eastern part. The railway is only the western section of the Central Railway, and it only reaches Mongu City.

In this way, East Africa actually does not have many advantages over Angola in terms of transportation and logistics. As for the highway, there are several trunk lines in the entire west, which is the traffic lifeline of the western region, but it is not necessarily any better than Angola.

Before the East-Portuguese War, the total strength of these two divisions was only more than 13,000, and now it has been expanded to more than 20,000, while Angola opposite has more than 50,000 military personnel.

The reason for this result was that the southern military region faced greater pressure, including the three forces of the Transvaal, the British and the Portuguese.

So Brunzino said: "Don't conflict with the East Africans. The black people on our side are not trustworthy. The three of us alone are not enough to pose a threat to the East Africans on the opposite side, and we cannot bear the corresponding consequences. If the East Africans We didn’t do anything too outrageous, so we could only turn a blind eye.”

Therefore, in order to support the southern battlefield at any time, four divisions in East Africa are deployed in the three central provinces. These four divisions will provide support in three directions: east, west, and south according to battlefield needs.

Therefore, Hans also gave up when he saw what was good, and could not overly stimulate the Portuguese. He said to his subordinates: "We will continue to patrol. There is no need to stare at this group of Portuguese here. Karls, you three will continue to stay here and stand guard. If something happens If there is any accident, fire a warning shot."

"Yes, squad leader!" Seeing the East African patrol disperse, Brunzino could only leave with a group of unlucky black soldiers, pretending that nothing happened.

It is worth mentioning that the division of military districts in East Africa is very different from the administrative divisions of East Africa. Because of the expansion of East Africa's territory, or the development of the central and western regions, the original division of military districts has become somewhat outdated.

For example, the three central provinces are now considered one of the core regions in East Africa in terms of both economic strength and population size.

But it still falls within the scope of the Western Military District. In the west of East Africa, the scope of military activities has expanded. For example, the Nile Military District controls the northwest of East Africa, including the former Sudan and the Central African Republic. It originally had only two divisions.

Later, the scope of activities in East Africa expanded to the easternmost city of Bangui, and the main channel of the Congo River was also included in the East African military jurisdiction. In this way, the scope of the Nile River Military District was greatly expanded.

The strength of two divisions was not enough, so a new 312th Division was added to take charge of the defense of the Ubangi and Congo River basins.

In fact, this also resulted in the Nile Military Region being responsible for the defense of the north against forces such as Egypt (Sudan), and also shouldering the heavy responsibility of supporting the Western Military Region at any time.

With the help of the Ubangi River and the Congo River, the 312th Division troops can quickly reach Kinshasa, using this position as a position to deter and attack the Portuguese sphere of influence in the lower reaches of the Congo River.

As for the 312th Division, it actually borders the Belgian Colony and Sigmaringen. There is basically no conflict between the two, so temporarily borrowing the strength of the 312th Division is a feasible solution.

The Western Military District was also merged with Southwest Africa (including southern Angola), and its area was directly expanded by nearly one million square kilometers.

So one of the main factors affecting the national defense in western East Africa is the development of the central and western regions, especially the construction of the three industrial provinces in the central region, and the development of Hesse Province in the Congo River Basin.

One is the expansion of the western area, including the Congo rainforest and southwest Africa, which are included in the sphere of influence of East Africa.

Given the economic strength of the central provinces, they should actually be separated from the western military region to form a new central military region. However, there is already a central region in East Africa.

If East Africa "moves its capital" in the future, the Central Military Region should move to the central region of East Africa, and the original Central Military Region will be changed to the "Eastern Military Region".

However, although the current division of military regions is somewhat unreasonable, it is still usable and is generally in line with the national conditions of East Africa. Because the original development intensity of the entire western region was too low, there has not been much change in East Africa in recent years except for the construction of a few more roads. .

Furthermore, the development of transportation in East Africa has made military mobilization in East Africa more convenient. Especially after the opening of the Hesse Railway, the East African railway network layout with New Frankfurt as the center has basically taken shape.

 In the future, New Frankfort’s status as a national railway hub will not change, and then New Frankfort will be well connected in all directions.

According to the East African Railway Network, you can basically go to anywhere in East Africa from New Frankfurt, and it is the most convenient access.

(End of this chapter)