Chapter 575: More Soldiers, More Caprices

  Chapter 562 – Too Many Soldiers

The sudden Russian-Polish conflict shattered all of Prime Minister Dombrovsky’s plans. One poorly handled, Russia and Poland will break out into a full-scale war.

Against this background, without the support of the Kingdom of Prussia, Poland would not even have the strength to fight. It can be said that the Tsarist government did the Prussians a great favor by forcing the Polish government to make compromises.

Were things that simple? The Tsars were not stupid, why would they help their enemies if they didn’t have enough benefits?

While the Polish government was still in a state of confusion, Franz, who was far away in Vienna, had already figured out what was going on. It was nothing more than a secret deal between Prussia and Russia to divide up the Kingdom of Poland.

There is no enemy in front of the interests, the tsarist government wants to recover the lost land, the Prussians want to grow in strength, both sides have their eyes on the Poles.

A few years ago the two sides were still fighting to the death, and the scars of the war had not yet faded, and the two sides were united again.

To the average person, this may seem very unbelievable, but reality is such bullshit.

For the Kingdom of Prussia, the sole possession of Poland is certainly tempting, but the volume of the Kingdom of Poland is too large, are 70% or 80% of the Kingdom of Prussia, if a mouthful of swallowed, may be choked to death.

Against this background, the choice of dividing with others to reduce the difficulty of operation and share the international pressure is the best choice.

The Berlin government was also forced to cooperate with the Russians. And Poland bordering on the three countries, Austria, Russia and Austria, Austria is too strong, with the tiger for the skin of the things Prussians do not dare to do, would rather choose to cooperate with the enemy.

Even Franz can boldly speculate that the Prussians are ready to sell goods to two families. It is not unlikely that by this time, has sent people to contact the Austrian Foreign Ministry. The Russians fancy territory promised to Austria, taking the opportunity to provoke the conflict between Russia and Austria.

Put down the hands of the intelligence, Franz is not bothered. No desire, therefore no demand, was not interested in the Polish region, Franz naturally do not care about the conspiracy of Russia and Prussia.

Whatever they how to calculate, Austria as long as the stalwart, all conspiracy and trickery in the absolute strength of the front will pale in comparison.

The more prepared Prussia and Russia are, the worse the next war will be fought. If the two governments are smart people, this time the most important thing to do is to pull people down, it is best to pull down the European countries watching together.

Otherwise, neither Russia nor Prussia will be the victor in the next war. The watching nations of Britain, France and Austria could make their efforts in vain by simply intervening halfway through the war.

Unfortunately, no one is a fool, and the fact that Britain, France, and Austria were able to ally themselves says a lot. Prussia and Russia are not masters of playing diplomacy, want to break up the alliance of the three countries, and pull people to their side, the difficulty of operation is too great.

Austria does not want to expand in the European continent, the French is no effort to fight, the British shit-stirrers never like backstabbing, want them to personally, or forget it!

Three countries are not so good to pull, light this under the field fee is not Prussia and Russia can afford, empty glove white wolf Britain, France and Austria are more than they play smooth.

Theoretically, the existence of the British, French and Austrian three countries of the struggle for world hegemony, the three big countries should be contradictory, but these contradictions have not yet reached the time of the outbreak.

For example: the British maritime hegemony, France and Austria are very interested in the two countries, but unfortunately constrained by the strength of the two countries have not challenged the British maritime hegemony strength.

Another example: the French and Austrian continental hegemony struggle, on the surface it should be you die and I live. In reality, Austria’s lack of interest in continental hegemony, basically lazy to fight; the French are busy dealing with internal problems, temporarily can not care about continental hegemony.

In the overseas colonization movement, all three countries were vested interests. If they stabbed each other, the cost of maintaining the colonies of each country would go up by a large margin; if the three countries compromised, everyone could save a large amount of expenses.

As long as Britain, France and Austria don’t stab each other, even if other countries want to fish in troubled waters, they have to consider whether they can bear the consequences of exposure.

Don’t need to look at the current British, French and Austrian colonial conflicts still occur from time to time, compared to the three countries before the alliance has been much more restrained. At least there is no more colonial exploration team of hundreds of people, lost in a daze and wiped out.

Now Britain, France and Austria have begun negotiations on the division of colonial power, according to the current progress, probably after another year or two will have a result, by then the three countries overseas colonial activities in the conflict will be further reduced.

It was not Franz, nor Napoleon III who pushed all this, but John Bull who acted as a shit-stirrer.

Everyone opened colonies to make money, not to lose money. The British had the most colonies and the most conflicts with countries overseas.

As we entered the late 19th century, the maintenance costs of all the major colonial empires were climbing dramatically. If they kept fighting like this, no one would have to make money.

For its own sake, John Bull also had to establish a system of rules to restrain countries from colonizing overseas, lest everyone stab each other every day and not be able to make money happily.

Of course, this was limited to the owned colonies that were recognized by everyone. When it comes to the fight for unowned colonies, it’s still how ruthless it is, no one will be merciful.

This international pattern was completely different from the original time and space. The main international conflict in Europe now is instead the Prussian-Russian conflict.

In contrast, the Anglo-Austrian conflict, the Anglo-French conflict, and the Franco-Austrian conflict all became secondary conflicts. The fact that Britain, France, and Austria were able to form an alliance proved that the common interests between the three countries outweighed the contradictions.

What John Bull wanted was a continental balance, not the continent of Europe to fight all day long.

War means uncertainty, in the absence of certainty in the case of provoking war, no one can guarantee the final direction of the situation.

What if the situation gets out of control and a giant is born from the fight? Napoleon’s previous experience can not be far away, that one almost succeeded.

Now France and Austria are holding each other back, Russia and Prussia are hostile to each other, the European continent is in a delicate balance.

No matter which country has a change of heart, it is possible to trigger a chain reaction. The last Near East War told the British with the facts that there is a price to pay for easily meddling in continental wars.

Standing on the British point of view, it is best that the situation on the European continent just balances out. When countries have conflicts, they can just be the arbiter.

……

On May 18, 1874, the Tsar’s government sent a diplomatic note to the Kingdom of Poland, ordering the Polish government to hand over the “murderers in the border conflict” within 24 hours and to cede the Kiev region to the Russian Empire as compensation.

Such conditions were obviously not acceptable to the Polish government. Prime Minister Dombrowski was furious, but could do nothing about it.

The Russian Empire’s standing army was as high as 876,000, while the Kingdom of Poland’s standing army was only 136,000 despite its best efforts, and there was no way to compensate for the gap between the two sides’ strengths.

Warsaw, an office with only two desks, four chairs, and a filing cabinet is where Prime Minister Dombrowski is based.

The Polish government is poor, as the head of the government figure Dombrowski prime minister to set an example, as far as possible to reduce office expenses.

In this regard, Prime Minister Dąbrowski has done an impeccable job. Unfortunately, a country cannot be well governed by thrift.

Prime Minister Dombrovsky: “What do the Great Powers say, will they interfere with the Russians?”

The Polish government could not accept the Russians’ terms, the war was counting down, and Prime Minister Dombrowski had to hope for international intervention.

Foreign Minister W. V. Vulubrevskiy: “The British Minister has promised to mediate this conflict, the French Minister has not given a definite answer and is probably waiting for a resolution from the government in Paris.

The Prussians promised to support us, they promised to send the first troops to support us if war breaks out.

Austria has not taken a stand, but because of the Russo-Austrian alliance, they are neutral at best and are unlikely to side with us.

The rest of the European countries are waiting to see what the situation will be, and what choices they will make will need to be determined after the situation has cleared up.”

Hearing this result, Prime Minister Dombrovsky did not feel half relieved.

The reaction of the European countries made him very cold, as the gatekeeper of the Russian Empire for the European countries, the Kingdom of Poland also did its best, but none of the three big countries, Britain, France and Austria, actually made a clear statement to support them.

Seemingly obtaining the support of the Kingdom of Prussia, in reality, all of this support came at a price.

Prime Minister Dombrowski was certain that if William I was unable to serve as King of Poland on a part-time basis, the Prussians would inevitably row in this war.

Now the Tsarist government was not prepared for war, there was no problem to beat up the Kingdom of Poland, if it wanted to destroy the Kingdom of Poland, the Tsarist government first had to consider whether it had enough money in its pocket.

Prussian kingdoms have the motive of paddling, a half-dead Polish kingdom, just convenient for them to annex, can minimize the backlash.

Prime Minister Dombrowski made a snap decision, “Immediate national mobilization, we must be ready to fight the Russians to the death.”

The Great Powers couldn’t be counted on for a while, the French didn’t have time to pay them any attention, Austria was an ally of the Russian Empire, and the British knew it wasn’t a good idea when they thought about it.

Mediation was easier said than done, but in reality it was entirely up to the Russians to buy into it. The Tsarist government’s 24-hour ultimatum, has passed most of the time, it is estimated that the British diplomatic note has not reached the hands of the Tsarist government, the Russian army has already killed over.

The only thing the Kingdom of Poland counted on was the Kingdom of Prussia, and Prime Minister Dombrowski was ready for a temporary compromise. In the face of life and death, many things can be conceded.

In any case, the volume of the Kingdom of Poland is still so large that the Prussians, even if they have a good appetite, are not able to swallow it in a moment.

Before that, they still had to hold back the first wave of Russian troops. It would be disastrous if the Kingdom of Poland was already defeated without waiting for Prussian reinforcements.

You can’t expect Prussia to help recover the lost territory and drive the Russians back home, can you?

Don’t look at the last war they won, in terms of national power Prussia still can’t catch up with the Russians. Prussia would have been no match for the Russian Empire if they hadn’t been funded by their gold masters.

The Czarist government is broke, and the Berlin government is practically no better. Don’t be surprised if you hear one day that the Berlin government is broke, they have always been on the verge of bankruptcy.

Instead of the Kingdom of Prussia defeating the Russians, it was the gold masters behind it who crushed the Tsarist government with money.

The countries of Europe came together to fund it, and Britain and France generously lent money; such good things don’t happen every day. The borrowed money also had to be repaid, and for so many years both Prussia and Poland struggled to repay their debts.

After slimming down the Russian Empire, it could no longer frighten Europe, and everyone’s funding naturally disappeared.

Against this background, Chancellor Dombrowski did not think that Prussia had the strength to hang the Russians. If it had, the Berlin government would have annexed Poland long ago, and would not have had to wait until now.

The Polish government never neglected the “war preparation”, but according to the estimation, the war would be in more than ten years, so the Polish government was not well prepared.

The Russo-Polish conflict came so suddenly that the Polish government just got the news and the ultimatum from the Tsarist government came, which didn’t give them any time to prepare.

Wanting to complete the war preparations within 24 hours was a pipe dream. Unless it is a small country like Monaco at the level of a village chief, the national mobilization can be completed in a few hours.

Poland began to mobilize, and the Russians were not idle. The Tsarist government, which had prepared for this, had already assembled 20 infantry divisions and 5 cavalry divisions on the Russian-Polish border, and deployed 20 infantry divisions on the Prussian-Russian border.

Obviously, the Tsarist government did not trust the Prussians before stationing heavy troops on the border.

Nowadays, unlike in the past, the Tsarist government had hoarded a quantity of grain beforehand, and the problem of feeding the Russian soldiers had been solved. The logistical pressure on the Russians, has been greatly reduced.

Twenty infantry divisions may not be able to defeat Prussia, but they are more than enough to defend the border. Even if the Berlin government wanted to play tricks, it had to consider its own strength first.

There was no other way, but to have more soldiers was to have more power. The Tsar’s government had mobilized more than half a million troops, which exceeded the combined strength of the Prussian and Polish armies.

The tragedy is that the Polish government actually did not notice beforehand, even now Prime Minister Dombrowski does not know how many enemies to face.

In this respect, the Polish government is really unqualified. It showed the eye of the beholder to the fullest, and paid no attention at all to intelligence work.

(End of chapter)