Chapter 488: The British Plan

  Chapter 477 – The British’s Plan

The war in South Africa has worried the government in London. For a time it was thought that Austria and the French had made a secret deal to go after the German Federal Empire.

It was good that the worst did not happen and Austria did not act or they would have had to add a new threat.

Austria, nestled in the Mediterranean, though fearsome, could not threaten Britain. Once the German region was unified and crossed into the Atlantic the situation changed and the distance between the two sides was closed.

Of course, this threat was relative. Franz also worried about the British threat, after all, the Royal Navy is the strongest contemporary.

The fact that it didn’t happen instead made Prime Minister Benjamin even more puzzled; he couldn’t see what the Austrians wanted at all.

Not caring about the threat of Franz? It couldn’t be! The Habsburgs and the French had been entangled in the European continent for hundreds of years, so how could they not be aware of the terror of their opponents?

The annexation of Italy by France could not only open up the territory, but also established the hegemony of France in the Mediterranean Sea, and the hegemony of the European continent.

On this issue Austria didn? Reason will be compromised, even if it is worried about direct confrontation with France to be caught in a fishing expedition, then after the government in London agreed to the alliance, the government of Vienna should also be out of the way.

Prime Minister Benjamin asked with concern, “Have you figured out the inner workings of the Franco-Austrian deal?”

The less you could see, the more you felt there was a problem. In order to figure out the insider dealings of France and Austria, the London government did its best, not hesitating to activate the highest level of the Dark Sons.

For this reason quite a few spies lurking in France and Austria were exposed, and the situation that came back was still only fragmented and needed to be analyzed and deduced.

Foreign Secretary McLean thought for a moment and said: “We do not have enough information in hand and can only make preliminary judgments.

The general idea is that Austria acquiesces to the annexation of Italian regions by France in exchange for the French recognizing their unification of German regions.

There may be other exchanges of interest in this, such as: the joint division of the Mediterranean Sea between the two countries, sidelining us; and the secret partition of the African continent and so on.

In recent years France and Austria have become very close, and in their overseas colonial expansion the two countries seem to have agreed to basically go their own way, with very little direct conflict.

This time the French made a sudden move and caught the Vienna government off guard. Austria simply did not have time to prepare, they want to unify the German region, can not bypass the Kingdom of Prussia.

The Vienna government was initially supposed to be preparing to use the Russo-Prussian War to weaken Prussia, and they didn’t expect the Russians to be so indomitable that they actually lost the war.

If not for this accident, the nationalists would have forced the defeated Kingdom of Prussia to join the Shinra Empire, and now it was time for Austria to unify the German region.

An accident that made the plans of the Vienna government a total failure. Now they’re probably still struggling with whether or not to unify the German region by force.”

Brainstorming was often the most frightening, and the true and false mess of intelligence managed to lead the British off course, with MacLean choosing one of the most logical inferences.

The crowd breathed a sigh of relief and seemed to accept this. The scariest thing was always the unknown, and once you figured out what was going on, there was a solution.

Finance Minister Mottoli analyzed, “In recent years, the government of Vienna has invested a great deal of its revenues in economic development and has not made military preparations.

The Kingdom of Prussia is not weak, and after the lesson of the Russians, it is unlikely that the Vienna government would venture against them with insufficient preparation.

Still, it is necessary for us to prepare for the worst; Austria’s advantage over Prussia is too great, and once the government of Vienna makes up its mind to strike, this time of war preparation will not be too long.”

War is not child’s play, especially modern wars are very logistically dependent. A war between two countries is bound to involve a series of material preparations. This requires a large amount of financial and human resources to be invested, and it is simply impossible to keep it a secret.

Judging whether a country is preparing for war from the flow of materials is still quite reliable.

“There is indeed a need to be more vigilant, a single Great France is already enough of a burden, and there can definitely not be another unified Shen Luo Empire.

After so many years of development, not only has the gap between the strengths of the two countries, Pu-Ao, not only has it not narrowed, but it has further widened.

Although the Prussians won the Russo-Prussian War, but these spoils of war still need time to digest, in the short term can not all be converted into strength.

Now Austria’s standing army has reached as high as 580,000, if war breaks out, they can mobilize another two to three million troops in the shortest possible time.

As early as a dozen years ago, Austria set a record of mobilizing more than 1.8 million troops in a month. In terms of mobilization mechanism, the Austrians have come to the forefront of the world.

Perhaps even Austrian Africa was able to mobilize a million troops. And the fighting power of these troops is not weak, now a group of noble private army can fight with us in South Africa.

And although Prussia’s standing army has 360,000, but limited by financial and human resources, as well as the impact of the Russo-Prussian War, the preliminary estimate of their current limit of mobilization is probably around 700,000 or so.

The Berlin government is now increasing reserve training, and according to the Prussian Staff’s plan to train 1 million reserves within ten years, their future mobilization capacity is expected to exceed 1.5 million.

From the beginning of the Near East War, the pattern of war on the European continent has changed. The wars of the future are bound to be fought by large regiments, and the size of our land forces can no longer keep up with the times.”

The one who spoke was Minister of War Brandt, looking at the great development of the land forces of European countries, while the lobster soldiers were standing still, he was looking at it with anxiety in his heart.

The era of large regimental warfare had come, a problem many had anticipated. The Russo-Prussian War, which just ended not long ago, saw the Russian Empire single-handedly defeat the group, and at one point its total military strength exceeded two million.

This number is in the past they do not even dare to think of, if not limited by transportation, as well as the corruption of the tsarist government, by virtue of the numerical advantage of the Russians have won the war.

After experiencing this once for themselves, everyone had to admit that modern warfare was capable of using far more troops than had gone before. Where the quality advantage is not obvious, man-o’-war is the simplest, most effective tactic.

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli rubbed his forehead and said, “The issue of the army will be discussed later, for now let’s discuss how to deal with this challenge.”

The Army wants to expand, how can this work? The landlord’s family didn’t have any food left over, in order to maintain the Royal Navy, the London government’s financial resources were pretty much depleted, and another gold swallowing beast was too much for anyone to bear.

France and Austria’s annual daily military expenditure is not less than them, some years also on top of them. The Royal Navy is still able to ensure absolute superiority, naturally took the bulk of the military expenditure.

Under normal circumstances, the Royal Navy to take away seventy to eighty percent of the military budget, are normal operation, and occasionally take away ninety percent of the budget is not unheard of.

If the French and Austrians, the navy can get half of the military budget, are considered to take care of, most of the time is the army to take the lead.

Austria, for example, the annual military budget, usually the army will take 55% to 60%, the rest is the navy’s military expenditure.

France is not far behind. Unless it’s a naval arms race, it’s very difficult for the French and Austrian navies to spend more than the army.

It was against this background that the maritime supremacy of the Royal Navy was consolidated. The Army wanted to expand its forces, either by increasing its military expenditure, to squeeze the Navy’s share.

These two points are impossible to do, a substantial increase in military spending, the London government’s finances can not afford to cut the navy military spending that is in chronic suicide.

Once the Royal Navy’s advantage is no longer there, Britain’s good days are over. But wherever there is a semblance of decadence revealed, European countries will swarm to divide up their colonial empire.

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, knowing full well that the Army’s problems could not be solved, did not wait for Brandt to continue, but simply put a lid on the problem.

Knowing the seriousness of the matter, Foreign Minister MacLean smoothly took over the topic: ”Austria is already very powerful, and they absolutely cannot be allowed to unify the German region.

The Kingdom of Prussia is under too much military pressure to face from Russia and Austria. I suggest continuing to strengthen the Kingdom of Prussia, and if necessary, allow them to annex the Kingdom of Poland.

However, this time should not be too early, the Russian Empire has not yet recovered, if we let them annex Poland in advance, it is possible that they will have to join hands with Austria to get rid of the Russian Empire first.

We need a balanced European continent, now this kind of big country is not a good phenomenon, if we don’t change this state, sooner or later the European continent will be unified again.

Therefore, Great France must be split up as well. Otherwise, when the strong countries’ annexation of the weak countries becomes a habit, it will be a big trouble.”

“Unification of the European continent” this result is too horrible, a unified European continent, that would really kill Britain.

John Bull’s sense of crisis has always been very strong, once the European powers appeared to unify the continent’s trend, immediately back to be suppressed by them.

To the late stage is developed to the point, who is powerful on the point of suppressing who. More than ten years ago, the Russian Empire bullishly suppressed the European continent, and then John Bull worked to suppress the Russians.

Now that the Russians have gone down, France and Austria have risen again. Fighting one against two is not their style, and after an initial attempt, they decisively chose the strategy of fighting whoever pops up first.

Originally, the London government had chosen Austria as its target and was in the process of formulating a plan to implement it when the French emerged.

Not only did they emerge, but after annexing the Italian regions, they forced their power out of the Mediterranean.

This could not be tolerated and the government in London had to change its target. However, the plan didn’t work out, and Austria wasn’t cooperating anymore. Without a battering ram, John Bull watched as the French were unable to do anything.

Prime Minister Benjamin said seriously, “Italian revolutionary leaders Garibaldi and Mazzini, have both arrived in London, hoping to get our support to restore the country.

They and the former Sardinian royal Vittorio Emanuele II have already met, and the two sides have reached an agreement and decided to unite against the French rule.

In addition to this, some Italian regional nobles have contacted us, hoping that we can convene an international conference to stop the aggressive actions of the French.

It’s just that these forces are too dispersed, and even with our support, it will be difficult to shake the French rule in the Italian region in the short term. We need the support of more allies.”

After saying this, he turned his gaze to Foreign Minister MacLean, expecting him to give a satisfactory answer.

Without disappointment, Foreign Minister McLean gave an answer, “This time, all European countries have stood against the French, only to be deterred by the strength of the French, everyone does not want to offend the French excessively.

Even the Austrians also do not want to see the French so smoothly eat Italy, on the surface may not interfere, but secretly the Vienna government absolutely do not mind to make trouble for them.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already made contact with various countries, and everyone is willing to support the independence movement of the Italians and break the ambition of the French to monopolize the European continent.

The exception was Austria, who feared that the Italian independence movement would spread to Lombardy and Venetia and refused to support the Italian Revolutionary Party.

That old fox, Felix, suggested that we contact the French Revolutionary Party to encourage the French people to rise up against the colonial invasion.

By the way, he also proposed to support an anti-French Spanish king to cause trouble for the French.

Theoretically all of these are feasible, the only problem is to grasp the degree, otherwise the French will fall and Austria will be alone.”

Everyone played the yang game, and together they added to the chaos of the French. Only Austria refused to step up to the plate this time and put it all on the British.

Knowing that, things still had to be done. If Austria belonged to the potential threat, the Great French Empire was the real threat.

If action is not taken soon, there will be no place for the British in the Mediterranean. In the future, Britain’s overseas trade to the Indian Ocean will be subject to the French.

Prime Minister Benjamin said with a sneer: “Let the Austrians be complacent for a few days, the future has them crying time. Do not care what they have calculated, according to the original plan, first suppress the French.

After splitting up Great France, we will slowly settle the score with them. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is using anti-France as a cover to make secret contacts with various countries to prepare for the establishment of an anti-Austrian alliance.”

The anti-Russian alliance, the anti-French alliance, and the anti-Austrian alliance were carefully prepared by the British for the three rivals of Russia, France, and Austria.

The anti-Russian alliance had now succeeded and had defeated the Russians in a single stroke in the recent war, burying the Russian Empire’s European hegemony.

It was not the first time that the anti-French alliance was established, but Napoleon III changed his foreign policy from the Napoleonic era of being the enemy of the world, and chose to mend fences with European countries, which led to the delay in the establishment of the anti-French alliance.

Now the situation had changed and the establishment of the Great French Empire laid the foundation for the re-establishment of the Anti-French Alliance.

If not for the lack of the key link of Austria, it is estimated that by this time the anti-French alliance has openly erected the flag. In the face of this alliance, Napoleon III wanted to be uncompromising.

The anti-Austrian alliance has been diving, in fact, the British early in the preparation. If you open the map, you will find that Poland, Prussia and Switzerland around Austria had anti-Austrian tendency.

If the situation changes, it is not impossible to have the Russian Empire stand against Austria; if Italy’s independence is successful, this newborn country is naturally a member of the anti-Austrian camp.

It can be said that the Vienna government can step into the trap laid by the British and fall into isolation if it is not careful.

(End of chapter)