Chapter 512: Providing a stage for the Russians
There is a small village more than 60 kilometers north of Kabul.
A group of Afghan resistance organizations gathered here. Before the outbreak of the second Anglo-Afghan War, the Russians were Afghanistan's allies. Afghanistan and Tsarist Russia formed an alliance in July last year. As a result, Britain invaded Afghanistan in November of the same year.
Obviously, Russia has no deterrent power against Britain, or Britain attaches great importance to Afghanistan. In order to prevent Russia from entering the Indian Ocean, even the slightest possibility must be nipped in the bud.
This is the same as the United States in its previous life. Everyone knows that Russia’s breakthrough points are the Black Sea in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
If Tsarist Russia can really open up an outlet in the Indian Ocean, then Tsarist Russia’s geopolitical influence will be invincible without exaggeration. Although Tsarist Russia is now invincible due to its large land area, there is no ocean. Tsarist Russia will never be able to achieve its coveted world hegemony.
Since the Age of Discovery, the ocean has almost equaled trade. Controlling the ocean will naturally lead to world hegemony. This status is something that Russia, the former European gendarme, and France, the former European hegemon, can only hope to achieve, so it is also necessary to gain continental hegemony. It cannot compare with the gold content of the British maritime overlord. Marine overlord is equivalent to world hegemony. Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands are fully aware of this. Of course, France has also been a maritime overlord for a few years, but France has never had such an overwhelming advantage as those maritime overlords. .
Of course, the dispute between sea power and land power shows that land power is still relatively competitive, but Ernst does not think that land power can compete with sea power, unless there is a centralized empire that controls the Eurasian continent, and there may be A glimmer of hope.
Let’s not talk about whether this empire can appear. Even if this empire appears, its scope of influence will be Europe, Asia and Africa. After all, the land is cut by the ocean.
The British, a maritime hegemon, can intervene in the affairs of the world through the sea. Wherever British warships go, there is the British sphere of influence.
Therefore, it is understandable that the British are so targeting Tsarist Russia. If Ernst were British, he would definitely want to block Tsarist Russia inland. Of course, as long as Ernst was not a Russian, he would definitely support blocking Tsarist Russia. Inland.
Russian territory is equivalent to monopolizing a continent. Only the United States, East Africa, and the Far Eastern Empire can compare with Russia. If most of the Russian territory had not been in a bad environment, then only the United Kingdom, with its huge colonies, could compare with Russia. Stabilize the Russian side.
This time Russia watched its allies being annexed by the British, and was quite unhappy. However, the Russo-Turkish War lasted longer than in history, so Russia could only stare at the British.
Even simple support to Afghanistan is not possible. It can only send a few military instructors and a small amount of weapons to Afghanistan as a token to support the Afghan opposition forces in fighting the British.
The main reason is that the Russian-Turkish war consumes a lot of money, so weapons supply is given priority to the Russian-Turkish battlefield. However, Russia’s industrial and logistical capabilities cannot cope with the Russian-Turkish war.
Therefore, the weapons provided by East Africa have greatly alleviated the urgent needs of the Afghan resistance forces. Although these weapons are relatively backward, they are quite satisfactory for Afghanistan, a country with zero industrial base.
So the Russian military instructor Ilya who was stranded in Afghanistan today was surprised to find that the Afghans got a batch of weapons from nowhere.
He found Mulati, the leader of the Afghan resistance organization, and asked: "Where did you get this batch of weapons?"
For the Russian who supported Afghanistan against the British, Mulati Not disgusted, he said to Ilya: "It is said that the weapons were sent from Persia by international friends, but they are not willing to reveal their identities."
Persia? However, Ilya does not think that the Persians have the courage to provide support to Afghanistan. After all, the British are not easy to mess with. If they get burned, it will be over.
"Persia should be unlikely. After all, they are scared to death of Britain. They should not have the courage. Do you know who sent these weapons?"
"Mr. Ilya is indeed an Arab. The wealthy businessman provided us with sponsorship. According to him, these weapons are most likely provided by you Russians.”
Hmm! This made Ilya unbelievable: "This is impossible. If it is the weapons provided by Russia, how could I not know about it? And if it is domestic support, their person in charge should always meet with me, and not go through a third party Right?" Mulati scratched his head and said, "I don't know the specific situation, but the wealthy Arab businessman said he was Russian, because the leader who sent him this batch of equipment is Russian, and it is said that he is from St. Petersburg."
Feeling something fishy, Ilya asked seriously: "Could someone be impersonating me?"
Mulati: "That's probably not the case! That wealthy businessman has been doing business with your people all year round, so he should be able to tell if he is pretending to be a Russian."
"So that's it? Am I just being paranoid? "Ilia was a little confused.
At this time Mulati said: "Mr. Ilya, you don't have to worry about this issue. The forces that provide us with weapons must be friends of the Afghans, and at least they should be enemies of the British. We happen to be short of weapons, so this matter is beneficial to us.”
Hearing what Mulati said, Ilya also felt that he was in trouble. After all, his mission was to the British. To cause trouble, this batch of weapons and equipment can just improve the combat effectiveness of the resistance organization, and the British should be the ones who have a headache.
"Mr. Mulati, you are right. It is impossible for the British to be kind enough to send us equipment anyway."
Speaking of Britain, Ilya was suddenly surprised to find that there were many British weapons mixed in this batch of weapons.
"Is this an Enfield? There is also a French Martini, this is a German Dreiser, and various models of flintlocks."
This discovery aroused Ilya With great interest, he rummaged through the weapons pile and found that the sources of this batch of weapons were quite mixed. There were weapons and equipment from various countries, but they were mainly German, British and French weapons, with very few from Russia.
So there are two possibilities in Ilya's analysis. One is that this batch of weapons may really be provided by Arab countries. After all, the sources are too mixed, and it feels like they were temporarily pieced together from second-hand goods purchased from European countries. Second, this batch of weapons was provided by Russia, because Russian guns are the smallest among this batch of firearms. This is very suspicious. Is it really a domestic force that supplies Afghanistan, but does not want to reveal its identity.
The second guess is not impossible, but Ilya is more inclined to the first, because if the country supports Afghanistan, there is no need to be so secretive.
In fact, this batch of weapons was the equipment of the East African Black Legion that had just retired from the East-Portuguese War, plus some captured Portuguese equipment, which were weapons provided by Britain and France.
Of course, the East African intelligence agency was extra thoughtful and specially mixed it with weapons from other countries. Many countries had a share.
"This batch of weapons does not look very new. Can it be used against the British? Will the failure rate be too high?"
Ilya no longer worries about the source of the weapons, but instead thinks about it. The quality of batches of weapons began to be picky.
But Mutila said with satisfaction: "It doesn't matter to us. With these weapons and our brave soldiers, we can definitely deal a heavy blow to the British."
”
(End of this chapter)