Chapter 711: The Great Power
Chapter 695 The Great Momentum
The British proposal caused a furor at the top of the German federal government. Although the purchase of the Rhineland region, to make up for the shortcomings of heavy industry, “comedy empire” of the comprehensive national strength has grown significantly.
Unfortunately, the German Federal Reich was not a united country, and the problem of the states within the federation fighting against the central government could not be solved.
The Hanoverian Kingdom did not have an overwhelming advantage, and George I was not an ambitious master, so the problem was left unresolved.
(Remarks: George I of the German Federal Empire, George V of the Kingdom of Hanover)
Unable to complete its internal integration, the strength of the German Federal Empire naturally lagged far behind that of the Pupper Confederation. Personally, George I had no interest in the British plan of “swallowing the elephant by the snake”.
A group of small states at home could make him lose his head, what would happen if there was another Pope’s Confederation?
In these days, strength has the right to speak, once the Pope Federation joined the German Confederation, will immediately become the most influential state within the empire, Hanover’s status will certainly be impacted.
George I: “The British proposal, do you think it is feasible?”
It was evident that he hesitated. The Comedy Empire also has to use the power of the British to fight against Austria and safeguard its own independent status, and it is obviously undesirable to reject the British directly.
But accepting the Pupo Federation is too risky, even if Queen Victoria made a guarantee, in front of the national interest, George I did not dare to fully believe.
Prime Minister Thorben Hoffmann: “Your Majesty, the British offer may seem tempting, but in reality it is full of crises, and if we do not do well we will be caught in the crossfire.
Internationally France and Austria don’t want to see us merge with the Pupo Federation, taking a risk will definitely cause their discontent and may even lead to armed intervention.
Domestically, many states have their own calculations, joining this war will not do them any good, and the Imperial Council is unlikely to pass it.
In such a complicated situation, if we bypass the Imperial Council and forcibly admit the Pupo Federation, it is likely that the Empire will fall into a state of division.
In addition to these risks, what’s more troublesome is the Pupo Federation itself. Their volume is too large, and we are not capable of, nor are we likely to be able to digest the Pupo Federation.
With the advantage in volume, it’s only a matter of time before they turn against us, and this can’t be solved with a single guarantee, unless we can split the Pupo Federation.”
Foreign Secretary Steve Lee: “The risks are indeed great, but this is still an opportunity. Once we miss it, it will be harder for us to go further.
The situation in Europe is clear to everyone, the Prussian-Russian war is a small episode, the future is bound to be a game between Britain, France and Austria.
Other countries can choose to be neutral, but we can not. Austria’s ambition has never been hidden, and what is even more annoying is that many people in the country have been fooled by nationalism, and are eager to join Austria immediately.
The only way to get out of this crisis is to make the Empire strong. Only when the empire is strong will it be able to prove nationalism wrong and dispel their unrealistic fantasies.”
Torben Hoffman shook his head, “Li, you are still too idealistic.
I admit that annexing the Pupo Confederation is indeed tempting, frankly I’m tempted, the problem now is that we simply can’t do it.
Even if the British are able to convince the French and hold Austria at bay, and we successfully convince the domestic states to agree, the possibility of annexing the Pupo Confederation is less than ten percent.
Don’t ignore the gap in power, the Pupo Confederation may seem miserable right now, but their population is twice as large as ours, and their territory is five times larger than ours.
After the merger of the two countries, it’s pretty obvious who will annex who.
Besides, the cruelty of the Russo-Prussian War is a pressing reality. By admitting the Pupo Confederation, we must help them win the war.
After the war, we will also have to come up with large sums of money to pay off their debts and help them rebuild after the war, and our gains will be nothing more than illusory dreams of a great power.
If we really have to pay such a big price just to gain a great power status, we might as well cooperate with the Austrians. At least it wouldn’t require our boys to go to war and the government to tighten its belt to get by.”
The words were not meant to be heard.
Deep down, George I had already planted the seeds of doubt. “Suspicious” is an imperial instinct, and not in a pejorative sense.
Suspicion is suspicion, but on the surface, George I remained calm and seemed to be unconcerned.
Foreign Secretary Steve Lee: “Mr. Prime Minister, you are right. It is true that we are not in a position to swallow the Pupo Federation, and it is also true that the price we would have to pay to enter this war would be very high.
But that doesn’t matter, the Pupo Confederation has never been one of the German states, so what do we want them for?
All we need to do is absorb the Duchy of Brandenburg, Duchy of Schleswig, and Duchy of Holstein in and that’s enough, the other non-Germanic territories can be completely abandoned.
We don’t need to do much now, just stall for time and wait for the Russians to win this war before we strike.
England, France, and Austria won’t let the Russians annex the Commonwealth of Pupo, so when they step in and intervene, we’ll take the opportunity to take back the German region territories, and not only will we gain the support of the English, but France and Austria won’t react as violently.”
Steve Lee’s proposal was obviously much more feasible than the British plan. After giving up the Puppo Confederation and only absorbing the German states in it, the Comedy Empire wouldn’t have to worry about choking to death and would need to take much lower risks.
If you open a history book, you will know that the Kingdom of Prussia was formed by the merger of the Duchy of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia.
The Duchy of Brandenburg was one of the German lords, while the Duchy of Prussia was formerly the Teutonic Knights State, which was gradually assimilated because most of the domestic nobles were Germans.
Regardless of how assimilated, from the narrow way of geographical division, the area of the Duchy of Prussia did not belong to the German area, and kicking it out was also justified.
George I was moved by the fact that the territories of these three German states, although small in size, were the best areas of the Prussian Confederation.
If he could get his hands on them, both his national strength and his personal prestige would be further enhanced. And, there was no need to take the risk of going to war with the Russians.
Recovered Poland, Lithuania area, and annexed the Prussian principality, if the tsarist government is not satisfied, Britain, France and Austria are going to blow up.
Do not need to pay much price, can pick a fat fruit, George I really can not think of reasons to refuse.
After a little thought, George I said joyfully: “Li, your plan is great, you must be able to become a great diplomat, just like Prince Metternich.
I’ll leave this matter to you, tell the British that we agree with their plan, but the specific details need to be negotiated.
Next you have a heavy job ahead of you, not only do you have to stall until the end of the Russo-Prussian War, but you also have to gain the support of Britain, France and Austria for me after the war.
Do you have a plan?”
Stalling time is not difficult, the excuse is very good to find, the Reichstag is the biggest backstabber, really can not also “leak”, borrow the Austrian hand to terminate the program.
Trouble is that after the war, Britain, France and Austria are not charity, want them to work for nothing is impossible, it is necessary to pay the price.
After hesitating for a moment’s effort, Steve Lee replied: “This requires the Russians to cooperate, the more greedy the Tsarist government shows, the more likely we are to succeed.
If the Russians stop after recovering the lost territories and leave a complete Prussian kingdom, we naturally have no chance.
But this is impossible, the Czarist government has paid so much for this war, without the spoils of war what are they going to make up for their losses?
As far as I know, the Czarist government mortgaged a large amount of territory to Austria, with the Czarist government’s finances it was very difficult to pay back the money, and after the war they would probably take the land in the German part of the Prussian Confederation to offset the debt.
This is not what Britain and France wanted to see, with Austria getting these territories, they took the initiative strategically and no one could stop them from unifying the German region anymore.
Most European countries would have supported Britain and France on this issue. The Russians only wanted to pay their debts, not to see Austria unify Germany.
This is our chance to strengthen our power in order to hinder Austria from unifying the German region.
Of course, this is not enough. In order to gain everyone’s support, it’s also necessary to make an exchange of benefits, for example: we can sign a coal supply contract with the French.”
The value of land and land is also different, and the same piece of land is worth very different things to different countries.
Steve Lee judged that the Russians, after winning the war, would take the territory of the German region against their debts, mainly because this part of the territory was politically significant for Austria and could be sold at a high price.
After all, after taking the territory of Prussian Germany, the road to the unification of Germany is left to the “Comedy Empire”, public opinion will form a unified momentum.
Once the idea of unification had taken hold, it could no longer be stopped. For Austria, the “momentum of unification” could not be measured in monetary terms.
In contrast, the Russian Balkans, Poland, Ukraine, the land, there is no political significance added to the Austrian dispensable, the Vienna government does not pressure the price is good.
Standing in the position of the German Federal Reich, want to continue to maintain the present independent status, it is necessary to interrupt the unification of Austria’s momentum.
To do this, it was necessary to annex the Prussian German regions and form a political pattern of North and South Germany in order to stabilize the people.
This is also the reason why Steve Lee is confident in gaining the support of the European countries, Austria is already strong enough, and then let them unify the German region, then it will be the proper hegemony of the European continent.
(End of chapter)