Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 325 Sokoto War

After completing negotiations with the French government, Spain also turned its attention to the annexation of the Guinea colony.

At this time, the Gold Coast had been incorporated into the Guinea colony. What the Spanish government had to do was to connect these two non-adjacent colonies and establish a super-large colony with an area of ​​over one million square kilometers.

The good news was that Spain had already cleared out most of the indigenous people in the area, leaving only the most powerful one, the Sokoto Caliphate, which had not yet been conquered by Spanish force.

The Sokoto Caliphate was indeed powerful. Compared with other indigenous states in the Gulf of Guinea, which had a population of more than 100 million or even less than 100 million, the Sokoto Caliphate had a population of tens of millions at its peak, and currently has a population of nearly million nationwide plus two to three million slaves.

This also means that the Sokoto Caliphate can arm hundreds of thousands or even millions of troops. For Spain, whose Guinea colony and Congo territory combined cannot even muster 100,000 troops, the Sokoto Caliphate is definitely the biggest challenge.

Of course, Spain’s biggest advantage comes from its lead in technology, which is enough to determine the outcome of a war.

Moreover, the Sokoto Caliphate was not monolithic. This country, which covered an area of ​​millions of square kilometers and had a population of nearly ten million, was internally divided into dozens of states of varying sizes.

These states have their own rulers, called emirs, and each state has considerable autonomy. Apart from paying tribute to the supreme ruler, the Sokoto Caliph, these dozens of states, large and small, are no different from independent countries.

Each state had its own army, and the Emir of the state had leadership over these armies.

This also led to the fact that the seemingly unified Sokoto Caliphate was actually highly divided. Not all states were willing to unconditionally obey the rule of the Sokoto Caliphate. There were those who obeyed the rule, and there were naturally those who opposed the rule.

In fact, it is already clear at this point that Spain’s approach to dealing with the Sokoto Caliphate is somewhat similar to that of the Ashanti Federation.

Although one is a union of states and the other is a truly unified country, because the power of the states within the Sokoto Caliphate has been growing, there is no essential difference between the two countries.

In particular, several emirates closer to the south would be more opposed to the rule of the Sokoto Caliphate.

The economic pillars of most countries in the Gulf of Guinea are the same, relying on local crops and slave trade for income.

Whether it is local crops or slave trade, ports are needed for transportation. This also leads to a common phenomenon in the Gulf of Guinea, that is, the closer the country is to the coast, the richer it will be.

This also shows why the southern emirates opposed the rule of the Sokoto Caliphate. Although all emirates need to pay tribute to the Sokoto Caliphate, the question is, how much tax can those poor countries in the interior pay?

The bulk of the tribute was borne by these southern emirates, which made these states very dissatisfied with the rule of the Sokoto Caliphate.

One thing that must be mentioned here is the trade relationship between the Sokoto Caliphate and the British.

As early as 1853, the British government signed a trade treaty with the Sokoto Caliphate. As the British government withdrew from the competition for West African colonies, Spain naturally inherited the trade relationship with the Sokoto Caliphate.

Spain's African fleet was stationed in the colony of Guinea to protect local trading ships from harassment by pirates.

Such a trade relationship was a good thing for both sides. Spain received a large amount of agricultural products and mineral products from the Sokoto Caliphate, while the Sokoto Caliphate received industrial products and other necessary materials from Spain, even firearms, etc.

But it is undeniable that as such trade relations become closer, Spain’s economic influence on the Sokoto Caliphate will become greater.

Especially the states in the south of the Sokoto Caliphate, because they are located on the coast, they have the closest trade ties with Spain.

It is no exaggeration to say that the reason why these countries clearly opposed the rule of the Sokoto Caliphate was precisely because of the support from Spain.

Especially in recent years, Spain has provided a considerable number of firearms to the states of Oyo, Iwo, Ijebu and others in the south of the Sokoto Caliphate, which greatly increased their confidence in fighting against the Sokoto Caliphate.

Yes, against the Sokoto Caliphate. How fierce was their resistance to the Sokoto Caliphate? The annual tribute paid was getting less and less, even less than what the poorer states in the interior paid.

Unfortunately, the Sokoto Caliphate had no way to deal with this. Although each of these states could not resist the central government of the Sokoto Caliphate, if several states united together, the Sokoto Caliphate would not be able to quickly eliminate these rebellious guys.

Especially since these states have the support of Spain, it is quite difficult to make an example of them and ensure domestic stability.

In fact, according to Spain's original plan, the Sokoto Caliphate should be carried out slowly through economic infiltration and support for the opposition.

Although the progress would be quite slow, the advantage was that Spain would not need to deploy too many troops. It would take a dozen or twenty years to infiltrate the entire Sokoto Caliphate and clarify Spain's colonial rule there.

However, because the Berlin Conference accelerated the progress of various countries' colonization of Africa, Spain had to choose a more effective and faster way to establish its own colonial rule.

Fortunately, Spain had already gained the support of several indigenous states through economic infiltration, and it did not need to face the entire Sokoto Caliphate.

In fact, this seemingly powerful indigenous country has also become corrupt. When the country was established by jihad, the fighting power of the Sokoto Caliphate was very strong.

As the country was passed down, something called power and desire replaced religious fanaticism, and devout warriors were destined to become pleasure-seeking dragons.

In July 1885, Spain officially launched an attack on the Sokoto Hari France, intending to destroy this seemingly powerful indigenous country in a short period of time.

Although Spain can be said to be invincible, it does not have the slightest contempt or complacency towards this behemoth with a population of nearly 10 million.

In order to destroy this huge country in one war, Spain decided to dispatch three colonial divisions plus ten colonial garrison regiments after the mobilization of the Colonial Affairs Department and the Ministry of National Defense, and gathered a force of 80,000 people.

During the war, the West African colonies will stop transporting food supplies to the Spanish mainland. All of this food will be transported to the Guinea battlefield as strategic materials for the war.

In addition, Spain will also send transport fleets to transport large amounts of weapons and ammunition from its homeland to the Guinea colony. The Spanish government is very serious about this war. This may also be Spain's last colonial expansion in Africa. In the future, except for Morocco, Spain will basically not be interested in African land.

The reason for the lack of interest is very simple, that is the barrier of the Sahara Desert. Because the Sahara Desert spans the entire Africa, it is impossible to connect West Africa and North Africa.

Although it looks like a whole on the map, in fact the part in the middle located in the Sahara Desert cannot be effectively controlled at all.

Moreover, the existing colonies were enough for Spain to develop. The agricultural development of a West African colony alone was enough for Spain to invest a lot of manpower and material resources and persist for several years to complete.

Not to mention the development of the Guinea colony and the Congo territory, unless Spain has a sufficient population, perhaps results can be seen within ten years.

In the absence of sufficient population, it will take at least several decades to see the results of developing the territories of Guinea and Congo.

These 80,000 troops will be divided into two groups and launch attacks on the Sokto Caliphate from the east and west respectively.

The Western Army was the main force of the Spanish offensive, consisting of two colonial divisions plus five colonial garrison regiments, with a total number of approximately 50,000 people.

The main combat mission of the Western Army was to start from the Dahomey region and head eastward, integrate the armies of the states in the south of the Sokoto Caliphate that opposed the Caliphate, and then head straight for Oyo Iboho, the capital of the Sokoto Caliphate.

Oyo Iboho is only more than 200 kilometers away from the Dahomey region of the Guinea colony. The Western Army has the hope of surrounding the capital of the Sokoto Caliphate before the Sokoto Caliphate can react and eliminate those states that are still loyal to the country.

As long as the Sokoto Caliph and his government can be dealt with, the Spanish army will not even need to take any action. Those states that were already dissatisfied with the Sokoto Caliph will naturally take the initiative to stand up and express their loyalty by leading the Spanish army to ensure their own safety.

As for the other army, it consisted of a colonial division plus five colonial garrison regiments, with a total strength of 30,000 troops.

The main task of this army was to advance northwards from the Cameroon region and block the reinforcements from the northern states that were supporting the Sokoto Caliphate before the western army captured Oyo Iboho.

Although the Sokoto Caliphate did not have many hot weapons, their population was something Spain needed to be wary of. If the Western Army could not capture Oyo Iboho in a short period of time, it would be very important for the Eastern Army to be able to stop the reinforcements.

If the enemy were to encircle the Spanish army, it would be very difficult for the Spanish army.

Although the Spanish army has powerful thermal weapons, if they are surrounded, logistics problems will sooner or later arise.

Without logistical supplies, thermal weapons would become useless fire sticks. The Spanish army would then be without its sharpest weapons, and it would become very difficult to defeat the army of the Sokoto Caliphate.

After the entire combat plan was formulated, Spain immediately launched relevant operations.

Spain did not intend to reveal its war plan to the southern states that opposed the Sokoto Caliphate. Although these states could be used, no one could be sure whether there were still people loyal to the Sokoto Caliphate in these states.

If these unexpected factors led to the disclosure of Spain's battle plan and the Sokoto Caliphate strengthened its defenses of the capital, Oyo Iboho, it would be a loss.

Anyway, when the Spanish army reaches the territories of these southern states, it will be easy to control the armies of these southern states.

The fact that they were able to remain unscathed despite their clear rebellion against the Sokoto Caliphate was due to support from Spain.

They had to agree to Spain's request for the command of the army. After all, their army's firearms and ammunition supply depended entirely on Spain. Without Spain's support, their firearms would be useless.

Without troops equipped with firearms, what could they use to resist the rule of the Sokoto Caliphate? There was a reason why the Sokoto Caliphate could rule more than 30 states of varying sizes and maintain the stability of the country. He had a powerful army. In front of the army of the Sokoto Caliphate, these small states would not be his opponents at all as long as they did not have firearms.

The Western Route Army's attack was quite smooth. All the way eastward from Dahomey, the indigenous states they encountered were against the Sokoto Caliphate.

This also led to the Spanish army gaining large tracts of territory without firing a shot, and also gaining command of tens of thousands of indigenous troops.

Of course, speaking of command, the Spanish side would not frequently command the indigenous army.

The greatest role of these indigenous troops to Spain was to consume the enemy's manpower when attacking Oyo Iboho, the capital of the Sokoto Caliphate. In other words, they were cannon fodder during the siege.

Since they are cannon fodder, they naturally do not require any detailed command.

When the time comes to attack the city, just rush in. Whether they can survive depends entirely on whether God blesses them.

In order to make these indigenous states feel at ease in handing over the command of the army to themselves, Spain also promised some benefits.

After the defeat of the Sokoto Caliphate, these indigenous states would be incorporated into Spanish colonies and continue to exist as protectorates.

Their trade relationship with Spain would not end. It can be said that except that the annual tribute payment was changed from the Sokoto Caliphate to Spain, there would be no other changes.

This can be regarded as a guarantee for these indigenous states. After all, when Spain conquered those scattered indigenous countries, it showed quite tough means.

Not only did the conquered indigenous nations disappear, but a considerable portion of their populations were also massacred.

For these indigenous states, since they were unable to resist Spanish colonial rule, they could only ensure their own safety as much as possible.

As for the ruler above them, the great Caliph of Sokoto, who would care about his future after the war launched by Spain?

(End of this chapter)