Chapter 272: The True Colors of the Great Powers
Chapter 263 – The True Colors of the Great Powers
Sinai Peninsula
In the colonial stronghold camp, the Austrian military representative, Peter Laliva, arrived and was warmly welcomed by the colonial squad.
“Mr. Peter, when will the reinforcements arrive?” Andrea asked with concern
Peter smiled slightly and said, “I’m sorry, the French have stepped in to mediate this conflict, we’ll have to wait for the outcome of the negotiations in Cairo.
Until then, you will have to hold out here alone. If Egypt launches an attack, you can simply retreat to the coast and the Navy will pick you up.
Of course this is ideal, under normal circumstances the government in Cairo would not go to extremes, they don’t have the backbone to go to war with Austria.”
“Sir Peter, this is beyond the scope of our contract. Beforehand, we didn’t promise to act as bait to attract the Egyptians!” Leo Haver protested
It’s not good to act as a decoy, with just their hundred and eighty men, it’s fine to bully the indigenous tribes, but when it comes to the Egyptian regular army, it’s obvious that they won’t be able to make a dent.
In case of bad luck, the whole army was wiped out, they are here to get rich, not run over to send their lives, Reo Haver is naturally not willing to take the risk.
Peter said unhurriedly: “Mr. Leo Haver, the original contract is to let you create a pretext, but did not let you occupy this place, the current situation is caused by your unauthorized action.
Anyone has to be responsible for what they do, the trouble was caused by yourselves, so of course you have to be responsible for it.
Besides, we won’t let you work for nothing. If you succeed in inducing the Egyptian army to attack, you will be the biggest contributors to this colonization operation. The country attaches great importance to this operation, and there is a possibility that you guys will receive knighthoods.”
The two were surprised and asked, “Is there a fiefdom?”
They were able to organize a hundred and eighty people to run out to colonize, and were obviously not afraid to take risks, the only problem was the size of the gains.
Peter humorously replied, “If the fiefdom you want is a desert, then you can apply to try it out and there’s a good chance that the country will approve it.”
The two men laughed awkwardly, clearly they didn’t see any value in the Sinai Peninsula. Since it had no value, the shared gains from colonization activities naturally did not survive.
Austrian noble titles were not easy to get, and most of them were lifelong nobles, so it was hard as hell to get a fiefdom. Even discounted colonial fiefdoms were not that easy to obtain.
Theoretically, the colonization team has the right to get a piece of the colony as a fiefdom. Of course, the government wouldn’t have to pay bonuses after taking a fiefdom.
This was a lifetime fiefdom nobility specially invented by Franz, not enough merit to get hereditary nobility, and wanting to get a fiefdom. No matter, in the colonies this problem can be solved.
When you have a title, the land is fiefdom, but without a title, it is private land, and the government will not reclaim it.
The same applies to the Sinai Peninsula, except that the desert is so vast that even if you discount all the merits for fiefdom, you can only get a few square kilometers of desert as fiefdom, so I guess no one in his right mind would do that.
Leo Haver and Andrea are normal people, naturally, they did not hesitate to choose to exchange the bounty. Not to mention them, even if Franz was allowed to choose, it would be to take the bounty.
Despite the Sinai Peninsula’s strategic importance and rich oil resources, the peninsula was such a large area that not every piece of sand had resources underneath it, and more sand was still sand underneath it.
……
Cairo.
Negotiations between Austria and Egypt over the Sinai conflict have begun, mediated by the French, and no doubt began with bickering around whose responsibility it was.
The French Foreign Ministry, de Lesseps, who is in charge of mediating this conflict, discouraged, “Calm down both of you, it’s all happened, now we are negotiating how to make things right.”
There was no way around it, the negotiations had not started well, Austria had no embassy in Cairo, only an office, and the diplomatic representative was still a part-time capitalist.
The Vienna government also did not send any professional diplomats over for this negotiation, and did not seem to be at all interested in this inconsequential negotiation.
Amateurism does not mean that it is easy to deal with, and there is still the possibility that it will be difficult to deal with.
The Austrian representative, Jonas, said righteously, “De, you are right, it is indeed time to consider the aftermath.
This time, due to the Egyptian government seeing the wealth, robbed our merchant fleet, caused us a large number of casualties, and serious huge losses, the Egyptian government must be responsible for this.”
Mehmed objected, “No, Mr. Jonas. The truth of the matter is completely different from what you say, how could we rob your caravan when we have no government set up at all in the Sinai Peninsula.
It was clearly your people who ransacked the tribe of Ali Kwaisi and forcibly occupied Arish, you must stop this aggression immediately and compensate the Egyptian government for the damages.”
Jonas said tit for tat, “Nonsense, who doesn’t know that the nomadic tribes in the Sinai Peninsula are so poor that they have nothing but camels, and that idiots are the ones who are going to ransack them.
We have proof that the chief of the Ali Kwaiji tribe received an appointment from your government, here is the appointment paperwork we captured during the counterattack, the proof of tax collection presented by the Ali Kwaiji tribe.
Mr. Mehmed, you can verify for yourself if it’s true. The personal integrity of your officials is not up to scratch, and you must be held accountable for that.”
After saying that, he also took out the certificate and handed it to McHammond. The document was naturally genuine, it was a letter of appointment issued by the Egyptian government a year ago.
Why this letter of appointment existed was, of course, that Austria had bought it from an Egyptian government official. A nominal Arish tax collector, not even an official, a position equivalent to a temporary laborer.
This time, it became the basis used to pull the wool over the eyes of the people. The Egyptian government can be implicated in this incident, making it difficult for them to get out of it.
After carefully looking at it, Mehmed was not sure if it was forged by the Austrians, but he would not recognize it whether it was true or not.
Mehmed questioned, “Mr. Jonas, it is known that the Sinai Peninsula is penniless, what is your caravan doing over there?”
“Those idiots are preparing to reopen the interrupted ancient merchant routes and restore your country’s road lines of communication with the Ottoman Empire.”
Jonas replied through gritted teeth, an expression of hatred leaping onto his face, as if he felt that those peers had disgraced him.
In this day of the advent of the great voyage, running to restore the land-based trade routes could not really find a better adjective other than to describe it as idiotic.
This explanation barely makes sense, the forest is big what kind of bird there are, capitalists in the emergence of an idiot, there is no good strange.
Of course, this kind of argument can only fool the uninformed ordinary people at most, we all know that the so-called caravan is a colonial team.
McHammond sneered, “Mr. Jonas, your reasoning doesn’t hold water. Now that the people of the Ali Kwai Si tribe are dead, all the talk is your side of the story.
I don’t think a nomadic tribe that has the guts to ransack a heavily armed caravan, this kind of thing would not be done by normal people.”
Jonas said unconcernedly, “That’s right, normal people couldn’t do it. The fact that they have done it only shows that they are ignorant and have no idea of the power of muskets.
There are many more such ignorant people in the world. Many of the natives have taken the musket as witchcraft, and it’s not at all surprising that they’ve done something stupid.”
Listening to Jonas’s skewed reasoning, the French minister de Lesseps knew that he couldn’t go on like this or the Egyptian government was going to get sidetracked.
In international negotiations in this day and age, the great powers were allowed to mess around, and the smaller countries had better be good and reasonable, or they were out of luck.
De Lesseps opened his mouth and said: “Mr. Jonas, no matter what, the person concerned is dead, even if it is a big crime, it can be offset.
As for your country’s loss, it would be good to be compensated by the legacy they left behind, a tribe’s property should be enough to pay the pension.”
Jonas’ face changed and he immediately retorted, “Are we people who are greedy for that small amount of money?
The most important thing right now is to seek justice for the dead, this can’t be solved with money, talking about money is insulting the great New Holy Roman Empire.
If we can’t get a satisfactory answer, then our people won’t leave. Whenever we get a satisfactory answer, when will we talk about compensation.”
There was nothing that de Lesseps could do about Jonas’s nonsense. The Austrian government evidently had no intention of invading Egypt, and this would not affect the interests of France.
Since there would be no loss to his own family, the question of the Sinai Peninsula became a secondary one, and it was impossible for the French government to go out of its way for the benefit of the Egyptian government.
Just look at the reaction of the British, watching all this with cold eyes and quietly watching the farce unfold.
This is the common practice of countries in overseas colonization, when there is no conflict of interest, people usually do not directly conflict.
McHammond warned, “Mr. Jonas, if your people don’t quit Arish, we’re going to have to take action and expel them by force.”
Expulsion by force? Hearing McHammond’s threat, Jonas said disdainfully, “Then you can take action, anyway, any action by your side on the Sinai Peninsula, we regard it as a declaration of war against the great New Holy Roman Empire.
If your country thinks it is strong enough to challenge the New Holy Roman Empire, then let’s go to war!
Mr. Mehmed, I must cautiously remind you that once war breaks out, we will not guarantee the scope of the war.”
The threat of force also depended on strength, originally this was just a means of negotiation for McHammond, but as a result, it was about to evolve into an all-out war between the two countries.
Going to war with the New Holy Roman Empire, this is obviously not something that Mehmed can decide, and the Egyptian government is not likely to make such a decision.
To put it bluntly, what is now occupied is a small oasis in the desert. It was neither strategic nor economically valuable.
De Lesseps helplessly persuaded, “Both of you calm down first, war can’t solve problems, it will only make things more complicated.”
Jonas sneered, “It’s true that war can’t solve problems, but war can make some people wake up and not open their mouths to threaten force.
Don’t think that just because we are peace-loving, we’re weak and can be bullied. If it’s really necessary, it’s not impossible to use war to solve problems.
The New Holy Roman Empire is willing to be friendly with the countries of the world, and even if we take extreme measures, we will still safeguard the interests of all countries.”
Threats, this was the real threat. Once the Vienna government promised to safeguard the interests of all countries from being jeopardized, then the Egyptian government would be left to fight alone.
Britain, France and Austria have all infiltrated Egypt, but now Egypt is still an independent country, and the countries have not gained many rights and interests.
It would not be impossible for Austria to take the lead and beat up Egypt, and for all of them to divide the benefits of the Egyptian region together.
The knuckleheads of the Great Powers were only in the interests, and the strategic position of Egypt at this time was not as important as it had been after the opening of the Suez Canal.
Even if there was a war, it would not affect the balance of power of the countries. To put it bluntly, Egypt is only a small country with a population of three and a half million, and the interests it possesses are not enough to make everyone turn their backs on each other.
……
(End of chapter)