Chapter 1183 Occupation of Lubumbashi

At the same time Alan Wilson was still in Moscow, repeating every day like a repeater what Asia and what Africa permitted.

At the British Embassy, the permanent undersecretary sent several telegrams to Northern Rhodesia, telling Grace that the two superpowers couldn’t really fight, and that it was important to make quick work of the war while things were tied up, and the USSR was all tied up.

“Start laying mines twenty kilometers north of Lubumbashi. Put to drive all the natives out.” Grace greeted his men and ordered, “Put out all the mines you’ve accumulated over the years.”

Having been rooted in Northern Rhodesia for more than a decade, these Slavs had also researched some armaments, such as the mine-laying vehicle, Northern Rhodesia’s mine-laying vehicle, which appeared to be like the Katyusha rocket launcher that the Soviet Union had used in World War II.

This mine-laying vehicle can launch two hundred and eight anti-tank mines at once, and the launching efficiency of conventional mines is even higher, which is considered as the watchword of Northern Rhodesia’s development for many years. The opening mechanism is used to control the mines from the mine storage rack to the conveyor belt; the output mechanism ensures that the mines are at the right distance from the mines; and the switching mechanism enables the mines to enter into the combat state.

The whole process is automatic. No operator assistance is required. In conjunction with heavy trucks transporting the mines, it is possible to turn an area twenty kilometers in length into a minefield within a day.

In order to speed up the efficiency, the mine-laying trucks in Northern Rhodesia had been centralized long ago, and Lubumbashi had stockpiled huge quantities of mine’s as raw material for the work of the mine-laying trucks.

Throughout the entire location north of Lubumbashi, all the time, the scene of the heavenly maiden, and even in some cases, there will be the sound of explosions, the mines that were launched by the vibration, and directly exploded.

But on the whole it was an orderly one, and the tribes that had been driven out, seeing the scene from a distance, hesitated, for as early as the time of the assassination of Punchbowl, Grace had torn off his disguise, and had begun to drive northward the Negro tribes which he had in his mind belonged to his own dominions.

At this point in time, there was no warmth in these people, and there was no way to get these elks to move without a killing spree. A normal colonizer wouldn’t dare to do that, for fear of causing a backlash from the majority, but these Balkan-born toughs did just that.

“We need to go faster!” Grace took the binoculars to supervise the efficiency of laying mines, and commanded deeply, “We can’t just focus on the speed, if we don’t really blow up a group of people, it’s possible that those blacks will come back. Afterward, set up a barbed wire fence to separate the area, put up warning signs, and keep Lubumbashi’s men away from the area from now on.”

“Don’t worry, Colonel, in a week’s time at the most, all five million mines will have been fired.” The officer following Grace was confident.

“Five million is only enough for now, we’ll have to replenish the mines every year.” Grace shook his head slightly and said, “In order for us to be stable and free from racial problems for a long time, these investments are cost-effective now. Don’t be like the South Africans, who want the blacks to be slaves, but also want the blacks not to fight back, memories of Yugoslavia tell the curds that this will lead to big problems in the future.”

Northern Rhodesia, with a population of only 600,000 or 700,000, did not have the time to wrangle with these black aborigines who outnumbered themselves ten to one. Since there was a time to solve the problems, they had to solve them all at once.

Until now, they have expelled more than half a million people, and the blacks who tried to resist were shot dead by thousands. Having gotten this far, it wasn’t too bad to take things a little too far.

“Colonel, are the 80,000 or so Belgian immigrants all staying?” The officer inquired with a frown of resignation.

“Do you think we are offending the French?” Grace turned back and asked rhetorically, although the Belgian Congo was a Belgian colony, Belgium was French speaking, something he had previously concluded during his discussion with Allen Wilson.

More than 80,000 Belgian immigrants is not a large number, if you drive away may offend France and Belgium, to stay can make good relations with two European countries.

Although they did not take the whole province of Katanga, but the land south of Lubumbashi, already enough to be happy. The Belgian-controlled copper mines were also in the bag.

Grace had already negotiated with the chief of the Belgian settlers to guarantee the Belgians the right to distribute the proceeds of the copper mines. It was just the end of the history of mining by black labor, and the end of the colonial history of the Belgians in a sense, who had to do the work themselves.

At the British Embassy in Moscow, Van Sider came in with a grumbling face, as if complaining that his top man had been unkind enough to push himself out to receive Soviet spit at a critical moment, “Permanent Undersecretary, it’s you that Gromyko wants to see.”

“You’re the British Ambassador.” Alan Wilson retorted, unperturbed, “As a distinguished diplomat, you must shoulder the responsibility at a time when the British Empire needs you. Be worthy of Britain’s training.”

“But I didn’t know anything about the Congo. According to the Soviets, you always mentioned it two days ago.” Van Sider was depressed; he felt that the permanent undersecretary was deliberately sending himself out to take a bullet.

There was nothing wrong with that feeling, that was the purpose. Alan Wilson was unperturbed and relieved, “So what do you want me to do? You have to know that money is needed to physical backing, backing things can be gold and silver and other things. But it certainly can’t be on a printing plate and directly printed money. When we fought with France during the colonial era, wasn’t it us, England, who spoke of credit that made the pound the world currency?”

“The copper mines of Katanga are a huge support for the British currency.” Alan Wilson said without taking things for granted, “Money is not despicable because it is stained with blood, and likewise it is not noble because it has not been stained with blood; ultimately, it is printed by a machine, and it is the people who give it its important value.”

“Would Britain still be Britain if it didn’t have vital raw materials in its hands, if it didn’t have the Kuching steel base in Malaya? To put it mildly, what makes me come to Moscow at this moment and sit openly across from the Soviets, do you think that this is something that can be done by virtue of the British Isles?”

“The British Isles can’t support the value of the pound, and once the pound is devalued, the countries that have pounds in their hands will sell their pounds, and whatever the result is, it will be extremely difficult for Britain.”

Fan Sid opened his mouth, he could not refute the British Foreign Office permanent undersecretary, not only because the other party than his own official.

This time the British sound west to strike the east, and then in the south to fall, for and Chilean mines and copper mines are the same name.

Allen Wilson is not greedy, not left most of the land in Katanga? The rest of the land can also support the local people, honestly farming, how dangerous to be a miner?

As it was, with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Alan Wilson himself appeased the insecure anti-Tito elements. Britain had also gained a very loyal fighter, and had already earned it.

“But it looks as if it’s a done deal, and we don’t have to hide from the Soviets, do we?” Van Sider wondered, even even if he was in Moscow, as a high-ranking British official, could the Soviets still arrest the British permanent undersecretary?

“I am respecting the Soviets and preventing the other side and Britain from being embarrassed.” The British permanent undersecretary hiding in the embassy was just hard-headed, “What’s the point of arguing? There’s no way the Soviets will agree to our terms and vice versa.”

There is another reason for avoiding tangling with the Soviet Union over Northern Rhodesia that cannot be made too clear. That is that the main inhabitants of Northern Rhodesia, whether Croats or Serbs, are Slavs.

The Slavs of the Balkans and the Slavs of the USSR, so to speak, are one and the same. According to what the diplomats of the Third Reich said about the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at the time, half of the people in this country were pro-Soviet and half were pro-Russian.

That is to say, the whole country, half of the people favored the Soviet Union, half favored Russia. The former are socialists, or nationalists. Such a country was a huge threat to the Germans after Operation Barbarossa began.

It’s not like those people in Grace were born after the war, many of them were remnants of the war, and even if they were not pro-Soviet, they were not repulsed by Slavic nationalism, and at least at the present time, when these people are not dead, Britain has not been able to build up the loyalty of this group of people to the UK, and perhaps the situation will be rectified in the next generation.

Faced with an ambassador who was accepting Soviet accusations on his behalf, Allen Wilson could not go too far, so he told Van Sider, “You talk more about Asia as a way of putting pressure on the Soviet Union. Is Katanga more important than a war between two populous nations?”

In the final analysis, the Congo was important in Africa, but it still couldn’t make the grade in the world.

At the same time Allen Wilson hid in the embassy to play dead, to monopolize the glory of Kennedy, but also shrugged off the role of the British and French, to Khrushchev’s previous letter to do a reply, but before replying to the letter, the Soviet Union’s second letter was sent to the White House, compared to the first letter, the second letter’s attitude is obviously a lot tougher, and Khrushchev the first handwritten letter attitude is completely inconsistent.

“There is also pressure from hardliners within the Soviet Union.” Robert Kennedy also saw the letter and spoke at his presidential brother, “Replying to the first letter will relieve this embarrassment, and it is important to conceal the existence of the second letter from Britain and France.”

Having said this, Robert Kennedy did not leave and reported to Kennedy, “John, we have received news originating from Africa, British Northern Rhodesia, occupied the Lubumbashi region, taking the giant copper mine there for themselves.”

“The British have been waiting for the opportunity for a long time, right? And really let them wait.” Kennedy’s face was undying, even to the extent that the purpose of the British and French to come to Washington this time, also had doubts.