Chapter 566: The Throne
Chapter 553 The Throne
On April 21, 1874, Napoleon III died in Versailles after a long illness. The news quickly grabbed the popularity of the war in the Near East, and all eyes were on Paris.
At the Palais de Vienne, Franz sighed deeply. A rival was gone.
Regulating his emotions, Franz quickly recovered.
“Napoleon III went, the transition of power in France is less than a storm, in a short period of time we should not worry about the threat in the west, the next step in the plan to catch up.
Our people in Berlin and London, can start to move. This change in the situation in Europe has a bearing on the international landscape for decades to come, and it is absolutely impossible to let the situation get out of control.”
It had to be said that strategic layout was trouble. A mistake in any one place could trigger a chain reaction.
Including the death of Napoleon III was within the scope of calculation, if he had held on for a few more years, Franz’s European strategy had to be pushed all the way back.
Foreign Minister Weissenberg: “Your Majesty, the situation in France is even more chaotic than we estimated beforehand. Napoleon III has just died, and the French government is caught in a power struggle within itself.
The soon-to-be-acquired Napoleon IV is not powerful enough to suppress the senators in the government, and several major factions are currently fighting very hard.
If the internal struggle doesn’t end, I’m afraid that in the short term the French won’t have the energy to intervene in international affairs, and I’m afraid that our plan to lure the enemy won’t work.”
The infighting in the French government was deliberately created by Napoleon III, only when the ministers under him fought, the emperor’s rights could be secured.
Napoleon III died too early, and the time to pave the way for Crown Prince Eugène was too short to build up his prestige and be able to overwhelm the crowd.
In this case, the ministers below were allowed to be at each other’s throats, and the young emperor appeared as an arbiter. After a few years of time, when the emperor’s position is secure, just replace the ministers below.
This was a very clever power tactic that could achieve a smooth transition of imperial power. Only that the aftermath was also very great, and the government wasted a lot of energy in infighting, which would affect the development of the country.
France has a big family, and it is not a big problem to develop a little bit slower. External threats were almost non-existent, and no country would think twice about running off to invade France.
France, with its constant internal strife, will obviously not jump out to make things happen. Even if it is again salivating for the resources of Belgium and the Rhineland region, there are many pulling back teammates in, it is difficult to become a reality.
As long as the main force of the French army does not come out, Austria can not help the French. According to the plan, that is to tempt France to send troops to the Rhineland region, Austria pulled the European countries together to form an anti-French alliance.
Don’t look at France’s strong army, but now they really don’t have the Napoleonic era can fight, another anti-French war, they simply can’t hold out.
Franz nodded: ”There is no relationship, the possibility of this plan was originally very low, it is naturally best if it becomes a success, and there is no harm if it fails.
France is not our real enemy, none of the European countries are our real enemy, our real enemy is always ourselves.”
As he uttered the last sentence, Franz could not help being excited. After so many years of development, Austria had finally developed to the point of ignoring external threats.
The situation on the European continent had been stirred up. In the situation where Prussia and Russia were pitted against each other, there was only one France left, which could no longer threaten Austria’s security.
From the beginning the Vienna government had two sets of plans: to balance the power of Prussia and Russia, or to defeat France.
Whichever one was realized, Austria would get rid of the crisis of fighting on many fronts. It was not easy to defeat France, so the strategy of balancing Prussia and Russia was continued.
This was a lesson learned from the British. John Bull managed to maximize his interests while executing the policy of continental balance, and it was natural for Franz to follow suit.
……
Berlin, received the news that Napoleon III died, William I almost went crazy with joy, this is simply “want to doze off to meet a pillow”.
Russia and Austria were beating up the Ottoman Empire, and the French had lost their emperor, so the biggest obstacle to William I’s accession to the Polish throne was gone.
Foreign Minister Jeffrey Friedman reminded: “Your Majesty, things are not so optimistic, Napoleon III is dead, it only means that the chances of France’s intervention is reduced, but does not mean that it will not intervene at all.
Although the Near East War has held back some of Austria’s energies, they still have the strength to intervene. We also have to consider the reaction of the British, the government in London doesn’t want to see us truly rise to power.
To annex Poland, we’d better be able to get the support of two of the British, French, and Austrian countries, or at least their acquiescence.”
The excited William I instantly sobered up, it was too early to be happy. Before settling the three great powers, the annexation of Poland is a mirror image.
“This is indeed a problem, if we make a deal with France and Austria, how much do we need to pay?”
Benefits are always the best solution to a problem, and if it can’t be solved, then it must be that the benefits aren’t big enough. Don’t look at the European countries’ opposition to Prussia’s annexation of Poland, as long as the benefits are in place, opposition can be turned into support.
The choice to buy France and Austria, that is also a practical need. The Russian Empire is a mortal enemy, the Berlin government is unlikely to buy; the British strength at sea, the possibility of intervening with troops is very small.
Jeffrey Friedman thought for a moment and said, “With the current situation, we can give France and Austria a promise to: support Austria’s annexation of the Ottoman Empire and the German Confederation, and support France’s annexation of Belgium as a deal.
If necessary, promises can also be made to the French to sell the Rhineland and to Austria to sell part of the southern territory of the Kingdom of Poland.”
Promises are promises, whether they can be honored or not that depends on the actual situation. As when the division of the Ottoman Empire, Franz also promised half of the Balkan Peninsula to the Russians, the result is that most of the area finally fell into the hands of Austria.
The Vienna government also did not violate the agreement, the extra territory is Austria from the hands of the French to buy, not from the hands of the Ottoman Empire.
Only when it was Prussia’s turn, the situation changed; France and Austria were a little too powerful to have a change of heart, and the present promise was likely to become a reality in the future.
A silence fell over the room as everyone weighed the pros and cons. In this respect they were not as bold as Bismarck, who wrote a blank check directly to Napoleon III and turned his back on it.
After hesitating for a while, Prime Minister Mauch broke the silence: ”We can try to fight for it, as long as we can annex Poland, the power gap between us and France and Austria will be drastically narrowed, and the situation will be different then.
In the future, we can also direct the French gaze to the Low Countries and Austria’s gaze to the Ottoman Empire.
Don’t forget the reaction of the rest of Europe, perhaps the promises made now don’t all need to be honored.”
This is not the first time this has happened on the continent, and France and Austria have no way of accusing Prussia of breaching the contract if other European countries intervene and make it impossible for the deal to go through.
This was pretty much what William I had intended, and he had long been prepared for the British to finally come out of the woodwork and stop France and Austria from expanding into central Europe.
After a pause, William I made a decision, “Then let’s take action, first create an established fact, then negotiate later, the result will be a little more favorable to us.”
If possible, William I preferred to annex the German Federal Empire. It was just a pity that the difficulty was just too great for Britain, France and Austria to agree.
Austria’s strategy of German unification was well known, and even for the sake of political propaganda, the Vienna government would interfere with it with all its might.
The French also wanted to annex the territories west of the Rhine, separated by the German Confederation, and the Prussian Rhineland was an enclave. If Prussia had annexed the German Confederation, the territory would have been connected, and it would not have been easy to pay attention again.
Unlike the original time and space, in order to prevent Austria from annexing the German Confederation, John Bull invested a lot of resources in the German Confederation, and was completely treated as his own son.
The close relationship between the two sides, but also above the Belgian Netherlands. The German Federation is also playing the balance, the navy is clear British equipment, the army is basically Austrian equipment.
Just rely on good diplomatic relations, the Vienna government are not able to move against the German Federation. Want to unify the German region, negotiate well. As long as Austria can swing the European countries, they have no objection.
What seemed like a cooperative move was actually a very clever political maneuver, putting all the blame for destroying the unification of the German region on international forces.
Whatever the final result, the interests of the ruling class would not be jeopardized. Even the security of the national defense did not have to be worried about, and in case of trouble, it could legitimately ask for help from Austria.
The Vienna government’s abandonment of the state policy of the German unification program also had a factor in this regard.
Seemingly cooperate with the unification, in fact, hidden a lot of mystery, through the negotiations to complete the peaceful unification, the government can only get a nominal unification, but also for the empire to split the hidden dangers.
Franz is not a person who sells his reputation, only a nominal right to rule, it is not worth Austria to take the whole empire as a bet.
Then we all acted together, the more the German Confederation cooperated, the more European countries worried about Austria’s unification of the German region, will be completed in a short period of time to integrate the strength of the skyrocketing, we desperately try to prevent Austria annexation of the German Confederation.
……
Warsaw, as if overnight everyone was concerned about the succession to the Polish throne, experts and scholars have published comments in the newspapers, attributing all the problems encountered by Poland to the lack of a king.
This is not nonsense, and they have proof. All the powerful countries in Europe had monarchs, either kings or emperors.
Republics can’t even elect a representative, and the American Civil War split has been propagandized in Europe as the opposite. “Emperors take turns” was seen as one of the main causes of the American Civil War.
Who knows if this is true? Anyway, monarchies are propagandized as such, and people will believe it if they say it more often.
The more radical newspapers have begun to publicly accuse the government of deliberately preventing the creation of a king for the sake of power.
This argument, too, cannot be considered wrong. It is true that the Polish government did not want the king to appear and affect the power in their hands.
But this lid was lifted, then it could never be recognized. This was the age of monarchy, and Poland had established a constitutional monarchy when it gained its independence.
It is clearly written in the constitution, and the Provisional Government of Poland cannot afford to take this offense. Looking at the crowd of demonstrators outside, Prime Minister Dombrowski knew that it could not be delayed.
(End of chapter)