Chapter 392: Strategic Security
The Vette River is a tributary on the right bank of the Vaal River's northern branch of the Orange River in South Africa. At its confluence with the Vaal downstream is what was, in later times, the Bloemhof Dam. Upstream lies the important Transvaal city of Wijnburg (Wenburg), which also forms the boundary river between the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State.
Wijnburg sits on the plains between the forks of the Vette River (the upper Vette forming a "Y" shape). It was once one of the Boer republics founded by old Pretorius. In 1852, it was merged, along with the Leidenburg Republic and other Boer colonies, into the Transvaal Republic. It is the southernmost city of the Transvaal.
A few days earlier, East Africa's 513th Division had occupied this place. After Pretoria fell, the Transvaal Republic's command system collapsed entirely, so East Africa took the Transvaal with remarkable ease.
"After taking Wijnburg, everything north of the Vette River is fully under our East African control. The land south of the Vette is the Orange Free State. According to the Crown Prince's instructions, once we occupy Wijnburg, we'll center ourselves here and control the northern bank of the Vette. Unless the Orange Free State provokes us first, the East African Army won't cross the Vette to fight," said 513th Division Commander Keli Rhodes, pointing to the map and speaking to his subordinates.
With the capture of Wijnburg, East Africa essentially wrapped up its campaign against the Transvaal Republic—or, one might say, Ernst's strategic goal was initially achieved. The original purpose of attacking Transvaal was to leave the gold in the soil around both banks of the Vaal's main course. By controlling the Vette, East Africa effectively claims 99% of the region with gold deposits. As long as East Africa forbids development on the land between north of the Vette and south of Pretoria, those gold mines remain undiscovered. That means the Johannesburg of previous times cannot possibly appear.
They already have a ready-made reason to bar development of this area: it is deep in the interior of the South African highlands, and with Lesotho blocking maritime moisture from the Indian Ocean, it's very dry, the land poor, and the ecosystem fragile.
East Africa can easily cite ecological protection as a reason to ban anyone—individuals or organizations—from exploiting it. Ernst plans to establish a wildlife/nature preserve here, similar to the Galan Sedi Grasslands elsewhere.
Regarding the Orange Free State on the opposite riverbank, East Africa doesn't care much. On the one hand, the East African Kingdom declared war on grounds that the Transvaal Republic supported the Ndebele rebellion; but the Transvaal and the Orange Free State are separate countries, so there's no legal excuse to fight the Orange. Though the two Boer states are like brothers, their interests aren't entirely the same. Young Pretorius previously tried to merge the two but was rejected by the Orange Free State.
Ernst believes there's room to cultivate a relationship with the Orange Free State. He never really bore enmity toward the Boer states; he just had conflicts of interest and national security with the Transvaal. Meanwhile, the East African Kingdom needs the Orange Free State as a buffer zone between East Africa and Britain's Cape Colony. Since the Kimberley diamond mines had already been discovered and developed, Britain has a direct stake in the Orange Free State, so it can't allow East Africa to annex it.
By contrast, Ernst absolutely will not allow the Transvaal Republic to continue. If it remains, one day it'll be a huge threat. In the past, once gold was discovered in places like the Rand, it fueled Britain's zeal to expand in South Africa. British military presence and intensified colonization shaped the South African Colony of old, leaving it the sub-Saharan region with the largest white population. The Boers alone might number six or seven hundred thousand; adding British, Irish, Indian… the white population easily surpassed one million—gravely endangering East Africa's security.
With East Africa now having seized the Transvaal, the only strategic assets left in South Africa besides Cape Town are the diamond interests in the Orange. And diamonds are something East Africa itself doesn't lack; in fact, it has the world's largest reserves.
Relying on diamond mines alone, that inland Orange Free State cannot achieve industrialization. Moreover, it suffers from water scarcity; its future development potential is locked. It might end up worse off than Mongolia in earlier history.
Simultaneously, as East Africa's policies unfold, large numbers of Transvaal Boers will voluntarily relocate to the Orange Free State, greatly increasing the Boer presence there. Judging by the speed at which the two Boer republics grew in the past, the Orange Free State could easily surpass four hundred thousand people if fully developed. At least it might become a decent agricultural country. In real history, both Boer republics were rather mediocre, but now the Orange has a chance at real growth, hopefully enough to prevent an easy British annexation.
Because East Africa invaded the Transvaal, it's certain the Orange Free State currently has no goodwill toward East Africa. They might even directly align with Britain. But Ernst prefers the Boers to maintain a surface-level relationship with the British, while harboring conflict underneath—just as happened historically. After all, the Orange's only major resource, the diamond mine, is in British hands, and the only way the Boers could take it back is if the British were to evict them as East Africa did the Transvaal's Boers. But Britain can't pull that off.
Finally, East Africa's absorption of Transvaal guarantees its own strategic security. With the gold-bearing region in East Africa's hands, Britain won't enact the same "2C Plan" it did before. Apart from no longer being drawn by that huge profit potential, from a purely military standpoint, even a Cape Colony plus an annexed Orange Free State can't match East Africa. Previously, the South African economy centered on the northeast, but now that area belongs to East Africa.
Not only does that kill the 2C Plan, it also rules out France's 2S Plan. If the major powers want to partition Africa, the first great mountain they must overcome is the well-entrenched East African Kingdom. And it's not as though Britain and France alone can subdue this new centralized state. They'd have to divert the resources they typically use confronting other European countries and focus on East Africa. East Africa, however, isn't helpless. It can in turn ally with Germany's "big brother" (Ger-Aust) to balance France and England. All that would cost is for the Hechingen royal family to cede a bit of its interests.
Anyway, given the relationship between Britain and France, they won't cooperate unless it's a global war. Their rivalry in Africa might be fierce. The existence of the East African Kingdom means there's not much "blue ocean" left to develop in East or Southern Africa. The only big, unclaimed, fertile area remaining in Africa is West Africa.
So as long as East Africa grows steadily and remains solid, from 1880 onward, other powers will be forced to scramble in West Africa. Competition there will become extremely intense. Britain and France already have colonies in West Africa, so pressing deeper there suits them. We can also foresee other areas—South America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East—experiencing an even fiercer wave of colonization in time.
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