It's all reactionary to me, Comrade.
*Waves Red Flag while singing the Communist Internationale*
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It's all reactionary to me, Comrade.
*Waves Red Flag while singing the Communist Internationale*
Göring's Little War
We all knew that the war would take some time and movement trough the thick jungle would be hard. Thankfully the colonial forces of Portugal were few in number and they were mostly concentrated on the coastal capital region of Angola in Lobito and southern Mozambique near the border of South Africa. This would give our troops eased movement in Eastern Angola and Northern Mozambique before facing any resistance. Every able bodied man in the CSF was to take part in this operation and the Navy under von Looff would patrol the West coast to prevent any daring rescue operations or naval assaults by the Portuguese.
Our air forces were to seek out the enemy and conduct small bombing operations against them to hamper their movement as well as assist our ground units when they called for it. Portugal had no air forces present in their colonies so the skies were clear for good old morning raids. Steady. Steady. NOW! Bombs gone. . . They’re running...
Directing the air raids wasn't enough. It was time to get on to the field and direct our forces directly. The Battle of Lobito started in May 5th and was the first major resistance from Portugal. General Pinto did his best to hold of our advance but they were eventually forced to surrender when our forces began to encircle them.
In Mozambique Mj. General Schörner faced of against President General Carmona Fragosa in 11th of May near Beira. The Portuguese were low in number and our forces were victorious and President Fragosa was sent running back to the south, hoping for evacuation.
Seeing Portugal in trouble the opportunistic National French government saw it fit to occupy Guinea. As expected Portugal didn't have the means to defend it now that they were fleeing from us. Admiral von Looff reported success from the oceans. Apparently his naval forces had managed to sink one enemy transport ship carrying supplies for Sao Tome.
Indeed the tribute has to be paid. Makes spying and influence hard.
Next Portugal will lose Goa, Macao and Timors?
Well Goa usually goes to the greedy princes but about Timor or Macao Im not so sure. I know that if Germany enters the war too Portugal can surrender all the colonies. But we shall see how this goes.
The Wars that no one remembers
While we were busy with defeating the Portuguese other nations had their own wars. In India Afghanistan had declared a war on Delhi to remember something that happened in 1926. This, just like Portugal refusing our offer, was a big mistake since in May the Entente backed Delhi announced that Afghanistan was now to be part of British India. Our enemies grew stronger.
The Black Monday had hit Germany and Europe rather bad as well as the whole world economy. Many companies filed for bankruptcy and government owned projects were cancelled. One of these was DPAEB, the life line of Africa. German Empire decided to sell this now useless ore transportation company to whoever was willing to save it. For the growth of Free State this railroad was a necessity so whatever money there was was used to buy the Free State part of the railway to prevent it from falling completely in to Ethiopian hands who had bought the section of railway on their side.
The last defenders in Portuguese colonies were routed in July 26th in southern Mozambique. President Fragosa unfortunately had already left Mozambique to South Africa where he had made his way back to Portugal in a Royal Dutch Naval vessel. His capture would have given us a great leverage to use against the Portuguese but now we had to come up with another solution for peace. News of Portuguese naval transports near Gold Coast soon reached us. Were the Portuguese going to try something desperate to save their colonial power?
Late September 1936 more news from Asia arrived. Apparently there had been a conflict between Baron Khan Roman Friederich Nickolaus von Ungern-Sternberg's Mongolia and Xibei Lianbang Yiyuan. A conflict that had ended in Mongolian victory. For now we will keep an eye on Mongolia and her leaders. They could stir up trouble in Asia that could cause a domino effect for the collapse of German Empire. Even though von Falkenhausen is our main competitor for funds coming to the Empire we need him to keep the Chinese under German domination.
Offer that Göring couldn't refuse
Great news have arrived! It has come to our attention that Wilhelm Solf has passed away in April this year. The man behind these unhumane social security laws we have here in Free State. Laws that have prevented Africa to become an industrial power for the Empire, there has been such a potential for free labour to work on our mines, railways and oil fields but none of that could have been used due to these restrictions. Now that Solf has passed away the final obstacle between Freistaat Mittelafrika and economic supremacy has vanished. Let us cut the social security and institute free labor.
Grave news from Germany. They have recently decided to lower the funding for the colonies they don't directly control, that meaning us and General East Asian Company. Well that gives us more than enough justification for our new labor policies. Let us show the Empire that Mittelafrika doesn't need their funding anymore.
More news from Asia, from Mongolia. The Baron has gone mad after the recent victory and has declared himself the new Dschinghis Khan and the Mongol Empire reborn. He has clearly lost it and this might turn out to be dangerous for Asia. He, Reiter; ho, Leute; he, Reiter, immer weiter.
Well this is a pleasant surprise I wasn't expecting. Portugal has offered us a peace treaty with more than we have hoped for. In the addition for our claims for Angola, Sao Tome and Mozambique they are offering their Atlantic island in Madeira, Cape Verde and the Azores. This would leave Portugal only with their colonies in Macao and in Timor since they tell us that the Princely Federation seized Goa during our war. Well this is an offer I cannot refuse and we have to concentrate on our economy now that funds are being drawn from us.
Is that a typo, or is that Mittelafrikan doublespeak for 'forced labor'? (Honestly, I could imagine either.)
Shhhh...we need to trick Enewald into thinking that Mittelafrika is free and will become a NAP society in the future.
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Economic Expansion
Now that peace had come once more and one threat to colonial well being was eliminated it was time to concentrate on expanding our economy with the means of free labor. First on the list was our mining industry in Katanga region situated around the upper reaches of Congo river. These mines had always provided us lots of metals and rare materials but to become leader in the supply of them we would have to expanded them, and now with Solf out of the way we could use every means necessary to aid the expansion.
Of course everybody would need to make a little sacrifice if we were to make this dream become reality. With Germany taking it's tributes from our income as long as forcing us to provide them with materials our surplus was too small to sustain this project on it's own. So to get the mines up and running we needed more power, energy to bring electricity to the workers in the region. So our Armaments minister came with an idea that we should build a dam in Kolwezi to create an reservoir to give us a supply of hydropower. This of course would mean that several native tribes would need to move elsewhere. Surely they will understand that this will benefit their families too.
Coup!
It seems that the humiliating defeat of President Fragosa was too much for the military leaders of Portugal and in November we heard that Fragosa had been deposed and replaced with Jose Norton de Matos as Head of State while General Joâo Tamagnini Barbosa acted as Head of Government. But this was only temporary since both men were pro-democratic and elections were to be hold early 1937.
When Germans cut the funding to Asian East Company and to Africa I don't suppose they thought trough what the consequences might be. Mid November news came from China that Republicans had taken arms against the German company and had taken vast number of key regions in their hands while von Falkenhausen and his armies tried to put down the rebellion. There was also a rumor that von Falkenhausen was actually working with the Republicans as a revenge for Germany.
It was a new year. And Portugal held their elections as promised. It was a close election but the Liberal Coalition managed to come out on top under Norton de Matos and Jaime Cortesäo. I wonder what kind of Portugal will emerge from this new Liberal government.
I wonder what will happen if the Germans will lose the war in Europe.
Bad things.
Nice peace result.
Just be careful with that Dam, lets say that the free labour likes to hold spontaneous rallies.
Just be careful with that Dam, lets say that the free labour likes to hold spontaneous rallies.
Katanga Revolt
But then came the internal problems. With the building of the dam in progress and the mines working full speed the people in Katanga decided that it wasn't good enough and they started murdering Europeans and attacking our armies. This just wouldn't do.
The small security forces protecting the mines and villages was soon over run and the whole Katanga region soon fell in to rebel hands. Colonial Security Forces were immediately sent towards the area to defeat the rebels.
For the first units to arrive it took few weeks but our airforces had all ready begun to bomb the rebel positions and kept them at bay until our forces arrived to attack them. As soon as our forces reached the area invasion was begun to bring order back to the Katanga regions. That was lovely! hundreds of the rebels. It worked out better than we could have.. . they ran straight into the bombs.
I guess I have heard that before, in similar circumenstances.
"Beautiful. Jesus Christ, you want to see all those f**. Those f*** bombs were beautiful."
Yet, Goering still has to invent golf bombs.