Chapter 412: Political Art
Chapter 402 Political Art
With the beginning of the anti-Semitic movement, the atmosphere on the European continent became more and more depressing, with anti-Semitic activities popping up in various countries.
This is only the civil society, the high-level government concern is not anti-Semitism, but the Tsarist government took the opportunity to get rid of the financial crisis. With money the Russian Empire was called an empire.
At the Berlin Palace, Wilhelm I expressed his panic. But Wilhelm I could become “Wilhelm the Great”, naturally there is no lack of sophistication. He was panicked in his heart, but on his face he looked like he was in control.
The king’s calmness reassured the Berlin government. They are not alone in this war, there is a large group of supporters behind them, as long as the big men behind the scenes are willing to increase their investment, they are not without a chance of victory.
At Wilhelm I’s gesture, Foreign Minister MacKnight said, “After our diplomatic efforts, the Swedes have now shown some interest.
As long as we get another big victory in next year’s Great War, they will most likely be on our side.
The Foreign Office is now working hard to publicize the Ottoman Empire, and both London and Paris have given clear answers that they will push the Ottoman Empire to join the war.
The British have also promised to cause trouble for the Russians in Central Asia and the Far East.
We are also lobbying the British Parliament to have the Royal Navy blockade the Baltic Sea and cut off the Russians’ sea transportation routes.
……”
Sounds good, in fact, when read through the lens of workplace hackneyed language, it’s pretty much the truth.
The Swedes were intent, but only the general Swedish population was intent, King Carl XV still had no semblance of joining the war.
Of course, if the Kingdom of Prussia won the Russian Empire, then the Swedish government wouldn’t mind joining in when the time came to fall on its sword.
“Efforts to publicize the Ottoman Empire”, in other words: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did its best, however, without achieving any results.
Britain and France were pushing the Ottomans to join the war yes, yet the Sultan’s government remained greasy and was continuing to wait and see what would happen.
“British promises” are always farts, just let them go, don’t get your hopes up, this war is still up to Prussia.
“Lobbying the British Parliament”, this is a project of the century, I do not know when the parliamentarians will pass the proposal.
To summarize: we have a lot of allies, and as long as the military beats the Russians on the battlefield, all these allies will come up and help divide the spoils.
Those who were able to appear at the meeting were all elites of the Kingdom of Prussia and naturally understood the meaning behind it, but everyone tacitly chose to play dumb.
If the top brass didn’t have confidence in winning, then what about the people below? Whether it was out of a desire to appease the people, or in order to let go of the battle, morale could not be dispersed.
Ron, the Minister of Army and Navy, spoke up and said, “There is no hurry to bring Sweden and Ottoman together, as long as we keep winning, they will join in sooner or later.
The only thing that must be done immediately is to have the Royal blockade of the Baltic Sea. Only by cutting off the Russians’ sea transportation channels will we have any chance of winning.”
Compared to pulling in allies to share the pressure, cutting off the Russians’ sea transportation lanes was the most likely to be achieved. On the issue of fighting the Russians, the British had always taken a firm stand.
Cutting off the sea transportation channel would make it difficult for the Tsarist government to obtain enough strategic materials even if it had the money.
By land transportation, Russian traffic would be Prussia’s best ally in restraining the Czarist government’s number of troops.
The total railroad mileage of the Russian Empire in this era totaled just over 3,000 kilometers, and Spain, the German Confederation, and Prussia all had more than them.
The Russians’ 70,000-odd kilometers of railroads in World War I in the original era could not support the needs of the millions of troops fighting on the front lines, and even less so now.
The Junker nobles dared to challenge the Russians because they saw that the Russians were limited in their power projection. If the Tsarist government could put millions of troops on the front, no country in the world except France and Austria would be able to withstand it.
Foreign Secretary McKnight explained, “It will take time, the British are still in hesitation, they are worried that blockading the Baltic Sea will ……”
Ron nonchalantly interrupted, “No matter what will happen, the sooner we cut off the Russians’ sea lines of transportation, the more chance we have of winning the war next year.
The British are slow to move, or is it that group of capitalists who want to make war money? What is there to say, the orders placed by the Russians, we will eat all of them.
A direct showdown with the London government. If they want us to win the war, blockade the Baltic immediately.
If they don’t want us to win the war, we can’t beat the Russians alone anyway, so we might as well give in to the Russians.
The big deal is to sell the Poles, restore the pre-war border lines, and give in to the Russians. Let the British do what they like.”
Ron was emboldened by this, the Kingdom of Prussia was already hundreds of millions of pounds in debt to the British and could only afford to pay it back by winning the war.
If we lose the war, whether the Kingdom of Prussia exists or not is a question, from whom to ask for money?
If the British didn’t want their investment to go down the drain, then cutting off the Russians’ sea lines of transportation was the only option.
The European political system decided that they people dare to gamble. Win and go further, lose and still be rich.
“Just do it!”
William I made a decisive decision, on the gambling table is a gambler. If you want to look ahead, it’s better to give up before it’s too late. War was not child’s play, and every point of victory was very important.
……
London, Prime Minister John Russell was embarrassed to find that without realizing it, they were actually tied to the Prussians.
Originally, they were only preparing to fight a proxy war, yet as time went on, they invested more and more power.
Especially after the end of the Battle of East Prussia, they sold another 30 million pounds of war bonds on behalf of the Berlin government, and now all the debts of Britain and Prussia combined actually exceeded 100 million pounds.
The holders of the debt were mostly ordinary people, and if they didn’t want to lose the next election, it was better not to let this debt become a bad debt.
Although the Prussians mortgaged tariffs, railroads, and mines, if the Kingdom of Prussia ceased to exist, would these mortgages still be honored?
John Russell did not think that the Russians, the French, or the Austrians would recognize these debts. Even for their own interests, the Prussian pawn was to be preserved.
“Sir Edward, is it difficult to blockade the Baltic Sea?” John Russell asked
Edward, the Minister of the Navy, replied confidently, “No, the Royal Navy is strong enough to accomplish this task.”
Blockading the Baltic Sea is just a matter of blockading the Baltic Sea, it’s not like they are allowed to rush into the Baltic Sea to finish off the Russian Navy, there is really no difficulty for the Royal Navy.
Foreign Minister Raistlin said with dissatisfaction, “Of course you guys don’t have a problem, the Royal Navy is able to finish off the Russians ten times, but we have a big problem.
As a neutral country, if we venture into this war, we are bound to bear tremendous diplomatic pressure and public opinion pressure.”
Interests move people, once the Baltic Sea is blockaded, the trade of many countries will be affected, and diplomatically they are bound to bear the pressure from European countries.
The Prussians can take orders between Britain and Russia, does not mean that they still have the strength to eat the orders placed by the Russians in other countries.
Not all countries were good bullies, and if they were offended now, they would surely be retaliated against in the future. This will bring great trouble to their next diplomatic work, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has naturally become the backstabber.
Prime Minister John Russell smiled and comforted, ”Sir Raistlin, this is just a small problem, I believe you can solve it.
As long as the great strategy of weakening the Russians is accomplished, the price paid now will be worth it. At least compared to the Near East War, the cost we paid this time is much lower.”
The people looked at each other and laughed; there was no comparison. The Near East War not only cost the London government hundreds of millions of pounds in military expenditure and lost a large number of troops, but most crucially, it was also a fucking loss.
A lose-lose war was a defeat for the British. The situation is much better now, it’s the Prussians who are fighting for their lives on the front line, and the money that was lent out has to be paid back.
Just fighting a two-loss war is a great victory for the British, and if Prussia wins the war then they make even more money.
Foreign Minister Raistlin said with some hesitation: “The minister in the Ottoman Empire sent word that the Austrians are again making small moves over there, and they seem to be intent on provoking a war between the Ottomans and the Russians.
We conducted an in-depth analysis and did not find any benefits that Austria could gain from the outbreak of war between the two countries.
If it is to weaken the Russians, just a slight delay in their transportation of supplies would be enough to cause the Russian army to suffer heavy losses.”
In this day and age the Arabian Peninsula is a desert with a herd of camels at best, not even worth the prying eyes of a great power.
Finance Minister Aggarwal guessed, “Perhaps it has something to do with the Suez Canal, the Austrians want to hold the dominance of the Suez Canal and have started to lay out their plans in advance.”
Navy Minister Edward questioned, “But this is somewhat unreasonable, many experts in the country believe that the Suez Canal is not navigable.
Even if it is dug through, in the end, it will only allow some small boats to pass through, and it doesn’t have any strategic value at all.”
It was all the experts’ fault, the British had long organized experts to conduct exploration, and the experts came to the conclusion that the Suez Canal was not navigable.
This erroneous conclusion directly affected the London government’s decision-making, and while France and Austria were excavating the Suez Canal, the British pounced on the Suez Railway project.
As in history, until the Suez Canal became navigable, the British did not see the value of the Suez Canal.
Minister of Finance Agarwal said indifferently, “Who knows what the Vienna government thinks, they have the courage to invest large sums of money in the canal, will they still worry about not being able to navigate it?
Of course, it’s not always about the canal. Franz is the King of Yerushalayim, so perhaps they want to recover the Holy Land.”
The latter explanation is obviously more plausible than the former; Austria already has the Sinai Peninsula, control of the Suez Canal is halfway in, and even if they control the Red Sea, it’s unlikely that they’ll continue to add to it.
In contrast, taking advantage of the war between the Ottomans and the Russians to recapture the Jerusalem area is much more convincing.
Colonial Secretary Steve proposed, “In recent years, France and Austria have been expanding very rapidly on the African continent, and it is necessary for us to curb their actions.
The Colonial Ministry’s strategy for Africa also includes a plan to occupy Ethiopia, and it just so happens that the Red Sea’s gateway, the Babel of Mandeb, is over there as well.
We can make a preemptive move and occupy Ethiopia, interrupting the Austrians’ East African strategy in the process.”
The “East African strategy” was a smokescreen put out by Vienna, and in order to cause trouble for Austria, in recent years, the British hadn’t sold a lot of weapons to the indigenous countries of East Africa.
However, the plan could not catch up with the fast change, the Austrian colonization progress slowed down, and did not venture into the East African region, on the contrary, in the consolidation of the existing achievements.
The world has been divided almost, the British colonial department naturally do not want to be idle, the African colonization plan also came out.
Foreign Secretary Raistlin objected, “It’s easy to block the Mander Straits, except that if we do do it, let’s prepare for an alliance between Vienna and Paris!
They are digging the Suez Canal at all costs to get rid of our control over the Straits of Gibraltar, and venturing into it is bound to trigger a fierce backlash from France and Austria.
It is not in our interest to confront France and Austria in advance before we are sure whether the Suez Canal is of strategic value.”
The butterfly effect is powerful, there is only one naval power in the Mediterranean Sea in the original time and space, the Royal Navy still waited for the Franco-Prussian War to pass before gaining control of the Suez Canal.
Now the situation is different, the French and Austrian navies together are strong enough to challenge the Royal Navy, at least in the Mediterranean Sea the Royal Navy lost its advantage.
Moreover, the strait and the canal are not the same, the difficulty of control is not a grade. At least there are dozens of kilometers wide, to block the door is the navy open.
It looks like France and Austria in the Mediterranean Sea in the big bathtub is very tempting, the actual operation of a bad, will bury Britain’s maritime hegemony.
Colonial Secretary Steve retorted: “This situation is indeed possible, but as long as the operation is good, it may not be against France and Austria.
We’re just laying out in advance and saving for a rainy day, and we’re perfectly capable of compromising when necessary.”
……
(End of chapter)