"Okay." Taaffe had no doubts about Franz's words. That was his greatest strength.
Franz had never underestimated the fighting ability of the East African natives. In every conflict so far, the Austrian Colonial Army had won whenever it committed more than three hundred men to battle.
Not only that, in most recorded battles, the Austrian Empire's Colonial Army needed only a hundred or so men, along with a few Dalit laborers, to send the local Black tribes fleeing in panic.
The king who had once claimed to rule three million East Bantu people, Idi Das, had vanished after clashing with the Austrian Colonial Army three times.
Some said he had taken his army to conquer other countries. Others said he had been so terrified by the Austrian Empire's new rifles that he had fled deep into the interior. Still others said he was dead and his entire empire had already collapsed.
No one knew the truth, and Franz didn't care.
According to the reports from East Africa, even when both sides used only melee weapons, the Black natives were no match for the Dalits.
The weapons the Dalits used were crude as well. Most were farming tools supplied by the colonial government, along with a few weapons they had made themselves, such as spears, bows and arrows, and slings.
The greatest difference between the two sides lay in their organization and will to fight. The Dalits could be divided into dozens of groups based on their region, language, religion, and appearance.
They often fought one another over water sources, land, spoils of war, and even which beasts belonged to whom on the grasslands.
But they obeyed the Austrian colonizers' orders without question. They could set aside their differences and grievances for a time, form an army, and go after the