African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 483: Chapter 161 Orange Joins England

The actions of East Africa greatly upset Cape Town, but they have no means to face the giant that is East Africa on their own for now. However, Cape Town shouldn’t feel too disheartened as East Africa isn’t intentionally targeting them; the Portuguese in Angola also feel alarmed.

Leta province is far from Whale Bay Port, separated by vast desert areas. However, the climate conditions in the western part of Leta province, at the juncture of Namibia and Angola, are quite favorable! One can see this from a map of Namibia, where most of the significant rivers are located in the north.

Although these rivers are primarily seasonal, the plateau area in the north is quite extensive, with a barely sufficient rainfall of about 500 millimeters.

Meanwhile, the southern region, though it has plateaus, also contains mountains, which is the reason East Africa finds it inconvenient to invade Namibia directly from the east.

Imagining the scenario of finally passing through the Kalahari Desert only to be met with endless mountains, moving beyond the mountain plateaus only to encounter more desert, such despair can’t be overcome by determination alone. That’s why East Africa adopted a strategy of simultaneous sea and land advancement in its colonization of Namibia.

In the high plateau region to the west of Leta province, known in previous lifetimes as the Owambo area of Namibia, it is the country’s most important agricultural region, capable of cultivating millet, sorghum, tubers, and other subsistence crops, and it is home to 30% of the nation’s population.

To state the importance of this region to Namibia, consider this: Namibia’s food self-sufficiency rate is only around 20%, and most of this 20% is contributed by Owambo.

No wonder the Portuguese view Namibia unfavorably; indeed, from the perspective of colonial costs, it’s a pretty worthless land. However, this is only considering colonial expenses.

To East Africa, the value of Namibia is entirely different. The significance of the ocean speaks for itself, and if they capture Namibia, East Africa could instantly become a country sandwiched between two oceans.

As for the extremely harsh climate of Namibia, it’s not a problem for East Africa, which already has enough agricultural land of its own and doesn’t need to expand its agricultural pursuits, similar to its initial positioning in the South African region that didn’t necessitate aggressive development of plantations.

April 1877.

East Africa began planning the Congo rainforest area, establishing the Ubangi River inland fleet to conduct regular patrols along the Congo and Ubangi Rivers, which also signifies East Africa’s complete incorporation of the Congo Basin east of the Ubangi River into its national territory.

East Africa is presenting an aggressive stance in the west, and with the support of railways, its transportation capacity has been greatly enhanced, especially the western section of the Central Railway, which directly reaches the Angolan colony and comes to an abrupt stop inland, giving the sensation of a dead-end railway.

The reason behind the construction of the western section of the Central Railway is well-known; it’s one of the indications of the ambition to annex the Angolan colony.

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May 1877.

Bloemfontein.

Under the persuasion of the British, the Orange Free State held its final vote on whether to join the Cape Town colony.

”The voting results are 1,308 in favor, 230 against, and 415 abstentions. I hereby announce that from today, the Orange Free State is dissolved and will automatically join Cape Town.”

President Brand personally dissolved the last Boer Republic, effectively transforming the power dynamics in South Africa from three powers to two tigers confronting each other.

President Brand found himself in a quandary. Although he personally preferred to retain the Orange Free State Republic, if he had truly gone through with it, an internal conflict might have erupted the very next day in the Orange Free State. Thus, merging with the Cape Town colony seemed like a bitter pill he had to swallow.

Apart from the Boers, the remaining factions in South Africa left only the Kingdom of Lesotho, but the Kingdom of Lesotho was declared annexed earlier in the year by the opportunistic British, in accordance with the British character, especially after East Africa had already severely weakened the Kingdom of Lesotho, leaving it without any strategic value. With the Orange Free State also merging into Cape Town, the British had initially unified the southern part of South Africa.

The opposition votes in the Orange Free State represented those unwilling to align with the British. East Africa might not be the best choice, but Britain was certainly a malevolent force. As for those who abstained, most wished to avoid embroiling themselves in the British and German disputes, believing that the Orange Free State should maintain neutrality.

These individuals were predominantly locals of the Orange Free State, but the opposition and abstaining factions were weak in power. More Boers, particularly those driven to the Orange Free State by East Africa, harbored deep resentment towards East Africa, and their emotions influenced the breadth of public sentiment in the Orange Free State, encouraging animosity towards East Africa.

Under British persuasion, the Orange Free State eagerly leaped into the embrace of the British Cape Town colony, becoming part of it.

In a landscape where one encounters wolves ahead and tigers behind, Britain evidently held more sway than East Africa, especially given East Africa’s actions in the Transvaal Republic, with which the Orange Free State was very familiar. They feared following in Transvaal Republic’s footsteps.

British Cape Town envoy Laint: ”The Boers have made the right choice. From today, you are all my dear brothers, and together we shall uphold the peace order in South Africa.”

To court the Boers, the British spared no expense. For the sake of reaching consensus with the Boers, the British generously agreed to share the diamond mines along the Orange River with the Boers, maintaining a 50/50 split, although, due to national defense pressures, the British temporarily managed these resources, purportedly to sustain military funding, intending to return those resources to the Boers three years later.

Furthermore, the British promised to waive previous debts between the two nations, a significant relief for the Orange Free State. Just like the Transvaal Republic, the Orange Free State had financial deficits, having borrowed extensively from the British, as borrowing from native groups like the Zulu was impossible for the Boers.

Henry Barkley, the Governor of Cape Town, also extended terms to the Boers, promising them equality with British citizens, pledging respect for Boer rights, and guaranteeing the inviolability of Boer private property.

Of course, if Ernst knew about the British promises to the Boers, he would undoubtedly scoff at them, such is the British nature of making promises.

Furthermore, the British deception this time was almost indistinguishable from previous instances; they scarcely offered any tangible benefits and merely employed slogans and capitalized on the anti-East Africa sentiments among the migrants from Transvaal Republic within the Orange Free State to incorporate the Orange Free State into their sphere of influence.

This outcome was almost inevitable. The Transvaal Republic initially had a larger population than the Orange Free State, and after East Africa expelled them, a large number of Transvaalers surged into the Orange Free State, quickly leveraging their population advantage to gain influence within the Orange Free State, with British backing minimizing the original Boer authorities in the Orange Free State.

In this aspect, East Africa practically dug its own pit. Nonetheless, expelling the Boers from the Transvaal Republic was the best choice for East Africa; Ernst realized retaining Boers within East Africa would pose a genuine ticking time bomb.

The Boers had already started to form their own national identity ideology, which ran counter to the Germanization efforts in East Africa. Attempting to reform the Boers would require extraordinarily high costs with uncertain success, so it made more sense to have them leave even though East Africa understood they might become adversaries in the future, it was a necessary step.