British Parliament

As the last Mozambican resistance force surrendered, the South African War also began to draw to a close. East Africa turned its guns around and began striking Cape Colony with all its strength.

The shifts in the South African situation also thoroughly stirred up a towering storm within Britain, and the pressure facing Prime Minister Cecil grew by the day.

Cecil, whose full name was Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Third Marquess of Salisbury.

Following Gladstone, the "moderate," he was another prime minister profoundly hostile toward East Africa, and his diplomatic policies and methods were even more extreme than Gladstone's.

For instance, during Gladstone's tenure, Britain's political policy toward Ireland had chiefly advocated "self-rule." But after Cecil came to power in 1886, it became "suppression by force." Nearly all of Britain's wars in the late nineteenth century had been actively planned by him.

Examples included the Second Boer War in his previous life, suppressing popular uprisings in the Far East Empire, and promoting British colonial activities throughout Southeast Asia and Africa.

Uganda, Kenya, and Rhodesia had all been brought into the Great British Empire's colonial territory through his efforts. Thus, from the policies he had advocated in his previous life, one could see where the "grudge" between East Africa and him had come from.

During Gladstone's tenure, although Gladstone had also "pursued and intercepted" East Africa from all sides, matters had not yet reached the point of brandishing swords and guns. Economic sanctions had been the principal means.

Even when he acted, he did so through Portugal as a proxy rather than entering the fray himself. Thus, when contrasted with Cecil, Gladstone had somehow become a "moderate" in East Africa's eyes. It was truly a tremendous irony.

Before the Mozambique War ended, the British Government and Parliament in London were