The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1414 Backlash (Part )

At this moment, Franz was not as relaxed as he had imagined. In fact, the troubles at home and abroad were overwhelming him.

Due to its previous predatory demands for colonies and high-pressure policies, the Austrian Empire's colonies in Africa were in flames at this time.

The black natives were not capable of attacking the fortresses and towns built by the Austrians, and they could not even capture a village.

But this does not mean that they did not cause much trouble, as the Austrian Empire's aggressive expansion strategy in the colonies led to a serious shortage of manpower.

The black natives gradually figured out this pattern during the war with the Austrians, so they would only attack lone Austrians and then kill them in the most brutal way to achieve a intimidating effect.

The effect of this method was very significant. The expansion of the Austrian Empire was greatly slowed down, and the colonies had to organize a large number of militias for self-defense.

The Austrian Empire's colonies were already very short of manpower, and a large number of manpower were invested in security warfare. Not only did the development of the colonies stagnate, but even many basic functions were paralyzed.

In particular, the paralysis of the transportation system prevented materials from being transported in from the coast and goods from the inland from being transported out. The stagnation of development exposed many potential problems of the colony itself.

Now many inland colonies don't need the British to fight at all, they will choose to surrender.

In addition to the attackers, the black natives also learned how to set fires from somewhere, and they even had matches and flints on them.

This had never happened before. Before, the natives would only set fire to unimportant places, but now they specifically burned the Austrians' cash crops and warehouses.

Especially those coffee trees and cocoa trees, which usually need a growth cycle of 3-4 years or even 5 years before they start to make a profit.

Women and children dare not even leave the village, let alone walk at night.

Under the continuous attacks of the natives, some colonists were on the verge of mental collapse, but what was even more disgusting was that some colonists took advantage of the chaos to fish in troubled waters, robbed property, kidnapped women, and made the already chaotic situation even more chaotic.

Franz's desk was piled with letters for help from various colonies and settlements. In fact, the official organizations were still okay, but the reclamation groups organized by the private organizations were the worst off at this time.

The vast majority of these commercial reclamation groups organized by non-governmental organizations are unqualified. Some reclamation groups organized by unscrupulous businessmen lack both reclamation capabilities and guards, and they even have no experience in surviving in Africa.

They were beaten by the natives and abandoned their wives and children. They were afraid of being punished by the authorities and concealed the incident. By the time the regular colonial army learned the news and arrived, the best opportunity had usually been missed.

The most hateful thing is that there are people who fabricate stories and mislead the colonial army with wrong information.

Some people claimed that they found thousands of natives near the village, but when the colonial troops hurriedly arrived, they didn't find even a trace of a native.

Someone claimed that his child was kidnapped by several natives and was hiding in the valley. A dozen brave warriors rode fast horses to the so-called hiding place, only to find that there were several hidden large tribes inside, with as many as thousands of people.

Some people reported seeing giant beasts that were over 12 meters tall, but when the army arrived with heavy weapons shipped from their own country, all they saw was a stray African elephant that was less than 4 meters tall.

In addition, there are lion prides with 8 male lions, mosquitoes larger than heavy draft horses, giant lizards over meters long, zebras with flaming feet, crocodiles with nine heads, exploding dandelions, Bigfoot, and unicorns.
The whole thing is a "Journey to the Dark Continent", but as an official organization, it cannot turn a blind eye. In fact, there was no place for unofficial organizations in Franz's original colonization plan. After all, he did not want his colonies to be decentralized and independent like the United States.

But as the size of the colony expanded, it became increasingly difficult to rely solely on official organizations to organize immigration and labor.

On the other hand, the methods of the private reclamation groups are wild enough to always attract a large number of people, and they are also cheap enough.

By the standards set by the Austrian Empire, the cost of colonization was too high.

In addition, some nobles and businessmen also saw business opportunities in the colonies. From Franz's own standpoint, he hoped that the aristocracy could grow stronger and restore its former glory.

As a result, the colonies of the Austrian Empire began to open up to private capital, and initially achieved quite good results. The entry of a large number of reclamation groups filled the gap in official power.

But it was precisely because of the barbaric development of these colonization groups that the official power of the Austrian Empire in the colonies was unable to cover all areas at that time.

It seems that expensive things nowadays often have only one disadvantage, which is that they are expensive.

Some colonies advocated increasing the number of troops to conduct a comprehensive cleanup of the area around the colonies and to regularize the militia. The indigenous military force was not worth mentioning at all. Before they adopted the sneak attack strategy, the indigenous people's lethality in the colonies was even less than that of diseases, mosquitoes and wild animals.

Burn forests, deploy large numbers of cavalry troops at key strategic nodes, and establish a rapid response system to prevent indigenous invasions.

Some colonies advocated compromise with the natives and restoration of the previous cooperative relationship, which would allow the natives to continue to provide labor and save a lot of costs.

Indigenous people who have land and homes are less likely to take risks. At the same time, because those indigenous people have land, liquidation becomes simple and easy.

After all, the biggest problem the Austrian colonial army faced in dealing with the indigenous people was that they could not find the enemy in the vast grasslands.

The suggestions of the Austrian Empire's expert team were even more diverse. Basically all experts believed that the indigenous problem could be solved by building enough fortresses in the colonies, connecting them with railways, and finally carrying out grid-like attacks.

Franz couldn't help but hold his forehead. It was not difficult to build some simple fortresses in the colonies, but building railways in the inland of the colonies was basically wishful thinking.

Putting aside the technical and policy aspects, the cost alone has exceeded the acceptable range of a large empire. Unless Franz uses Austrian blood to help Africans build roads like the Italians did in the past.

This was obviously impossible. At least within ten years, the Austrian Empire would not be able to build railways in the interior of Africa.

The experts of the Austrian Empire also had a unique skill: they were prepared to use biological control. According to the Austrians' research on the natives of Africa, their main asset was their cattle.

So in theory, the Austrian Empire could find a disease that only spreads in cattle and then poison all the indigenous cattle.

In addition, they could also adopt the advanced experience of the British, which was to support a puppet and let him conquer the natives, and then the Austrian Empire could directly exploit this puppet.