Chapter 940: The Unreliable English Nurse

  Chapter 921 – The Unreliable English Nurse

“The French are in a hurry!”

After receiving the news released by the French, Gladstone came to this conclusion.

It was not true that Britain was at a disadvantage in the Afghan war, but it was not so bad that it could alarm the British government.

Even if all of Afghanistan fell, as long as the main British army on the front line was not completely wiped out, the British Empire had the backbone to win the war.

There is no other reason, there is money in the pocket, the waist is so hard. The British Empire’s hundred years of accumulation, is not a joke, spelling up the heritage, the Russians are simply not qualified.

Foreign Secretary George analyzed: “The continental war has been carried out so far, the French want a quick war dream, has been ended.

In the next war, both sides will be fighting for the comprehensive national strength. Although the French army is strong, in other areas, their disadvantage is too obvious.

Judging from the current situation, if the French could not cross the Rhine River in a short time and burn the war to the German hinterland, their strategic advantage would be lost.

The next thing that would greet them would be the endless counter-attacks of Austria. It can be said that the longer the war lasted, the lower the chances of the French winning the war.

According to the current intensity of the war, it will last at most another three or two years before the French can’t fight any longer.”

Obviously, George was not optimistic about the French right now. The gap between the two sides’ comprehensive strength was too great, and the French were too disadvantaged to fight for consumption.

Only the prestige of the French army is too much, no one dare to guarantee that the French army will not turn the tide against the trend at the critical moment.

After all, a similar case, in the history of the fight between France and the Habsburg dynasty, has appeared many times.

After taking out a document, the minister of finance Xiaozhi Childers laughed: “two or three years, your honor, I’m afraid that too much overestimation of the strength of the French.

In my opinion, if there is no external intervention, whether the French can survive past 1891 is a question mark.

Let’s put aside the military question for the moment. Let’s do some economic math and reassess the strength of the French.

This is the data collected by the Ministry of Finance, in the last three months, the total import and export trade between us and the French has increased by 5.1 times compared to the same period last year.

Of this, the export trade with France has increased six and a half times, and the total import trade has contracted by sixty-four and a half percent, resulting in a trade surplus of 64,860,000 pounds sterling.

This was only trade with us; if the trade of France with other countries were included, the French foreign trade deficit for the last quarter of 1890 would not have been less than one hundred and twenty million pounds.

If this war had not ended, the French foreign trade deficit would have continued to increase.

In particular, the imminent fall of French Africa, once the loss of this raw material production area, the French need to import more materials.

In the past, the arrogant French want to compete for monetary hegemony, have been promoting the franc to the outside world, the hands of holding the Shield and the pound are not much.

According to the current rate of consumption, it wouldn’t take long for the French to run out of foreign exchange reserves. By then they will only be able to take gold out for trade, and with their pitiful gold reserves, they will not be able to support it for a few days.

This is still the ideal state, I am afraid the real situation will be more serious. From Napoleon III, the French government has been taking the fiscal deficit policy, has long been in debt.

In the case of insufficient preparation, this war was hastily launched, I really have no confidence in the Paris government’s finances.”

Does France have money?

There is no doubt that France, as the world’s third largest economic power, definitely counts as a landlord.

However, the fact that France was rich did not mean that the French government was rich. If the front line is progressing well, the French consortium will naturally throw its weight behind it, and vice versa.

Capital without borders is not a joke. If things really can’t be done, the capitalists won’t be buried with the government.

War is a struggle for manpower, material resources, industrial strength, and ultimately, financial strength.

Supporting multiple fronts at the same time, the pressure borne by France is much greater than the original time and space of the World War, and there is no ally to help share the burden, the problem is sooner or later.

Roughly scanning a statement, Gladstone asked suspiciously, “How did the trade surplus with France increase so much, I remember the increase in trade volume is not so much?”

To know that the trade volume between Britain and France can not be small, import trade decrease can be understood, after all, the French are at war, there is no effort to produce a large number of goods to be exported.

But the export trade volume, suddenly all of a sudden increased more than six times, that is a myth.

Completely inconsistent with the laws of the economy, even if it is because of the war, the French increased imports of strategic materials, but also can not be so exaggerated.

There was no way to produce it! Even if the capitalists desperately expanding production capacity, but also need time to buffer, this is only more than three months?

“It’s simple, all the supplies we export have gone up in price!”

Finance Minister Xiaoji Childers replied nonchalantly.

“France and Austria have been coaxing supplies internationally, and the prices of all supplies have risen to varying degrees.

Especially the prices of strategic materials have basically doubled compared to before the war. The prices of certain scarce medicines have even risen three or four times.

Of course, the fact that we and the European countries have raised their tariffs on France is also one of the factors contributing to the rise in prices.”

It was a foregone conclusion that the capitalists would take advantage of the fire. Only this time, they did it a little too hard, but with one more price-gouging Austria, it seems that doubling is not so unacceptable.

Prime Minister Gladstone asked with concern, “What about Austria?”

Finance Minister Xiaozhi Childers shook his head, “Contrary to the French, Austria needs to import very few materials, basically self-sufficient.

Even if there is a shortage, it is imported from Russia. There is relatively little influence from the outside world.

Although prices have risen, but the total trade between them and us is not rising but falling.

Of course, the interception of the French navy is also one of the reasons that hindered our trade with Austria.

Many times, even if a contract is signed, it cannot be fulfilled properly.”

Gladstone frowned, this outcome was completely different from what he had expected. Originally, he was counting on, France and Austria consuming each other’s strength through this war and stabilizing Britain’s position as the maritime hegemony.

However, the plan did not change quickly. Utilizing this war, Britain did ruthlessly slaughter France, but unfortunately ran away from Austria.

Regardless of how the international market prices soared, and the Russian-Austrian trade relations are not big. After all, the tsarist government in the export of industrial raw materials and Austria in exchange for strategic materials, really if the price rose, that is also together to rise.

The wool comes out of the sheep, the Russians naturally do not need to come together this hilarious.

Then France became the only victim, after all, speculation high material easy, and then want to bring down prices will be difficult.

After hesitating for a few moments, Prime Minister Gladstone slowly said, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs first negotiated with the French, as long as the French are willing to take the benefits out of the exchange, find a reason to tariffs will be down, or simply tariff-free.”

This is within the scope of authority, Gladstone can give the French to provide the greatest help. As for whether prices could come down, that still depended on the French themselves.

After all, the capitalists are not easy to mess with, the government forced to order them to reduce prices, that will cause public anger.

After all, now the purchase of supplies is the French government, but not the British government, Gladstone simply do not need to offend people for them.

The matter of bargaining, or to the French themselves to fight with the capitalists. How much can be gained depends on their ability to kill the price.

Foreign Secretary George: “The Foreign Office has no problem with this. However, I’m afraid this support is not enough just to cut tariffs.

If we want to make the French and Austrians consume their strength together, we have to find a way to increase the French’s economic strength or lend them money directly.

Along with economic support, we must also limit the French military strength and not allow the warring parties to have an imbalance of power. It is very difficult to do this.”

Wincing is a true reflection of the British government. On the one hand, it is being held back by the war in Afghanistan, which is dragging most of the government’s energies, and on the other hand, it is trying to maintain the balance between France and Austria.

Fear of triggering any changes that could cause the situation to spiral out of control. It can be said that this is the British Foreign Office for decades, the most challenging moment.

Prime Minister Gladstone nodded helplessly: ”Try it first! Adjust it later, according to the actual situation.

Before the strength of France and Austria is drastically depleted, we must act cautiously, lest the situation get out of control.”

……

At the same time as the Anglo-French negotiations opened, Alexander III, far away in St. Petersburg, had his new toy – an airplane.

Watching the beautiful flight formation show, Alexander III’s mood is extraordinarily comfortable, spiritedly asked: “This batch of airplanes, when can they be put into the battlefield?”

Watching the show to watch the show, Alexander III still did not forget the real purpose of the introduction of airplanes.

It had already been proven in the Continental War that airplanes against airships were a massacre. In order to increase the chances of victory at the front, Alexander III desperately hoped that this batch of airplanes could be put into service earlier.

Minister of War Ivanov: “Your Majesty, we don’t have pilots yet. Airplanes and airships are different, and the requirements for pilots, are a bit stricter.

The Ministry of War has reached an agreement with the Austrians to help train a group of pilots, and preparations are already underway.

If nothing happens, after three months, our first brigade of airplanes, will be ready to enter service.”

In just three months, a batch of pilots were to be trained. At this speed, the pilots that were trained would naturally not be any elite.

Anyway, the enemy was just airships, there was no need to test the overall quality of the pilots, being able to fly the airplane and launch attacks normally was almost enough.

The remaining part of the knowledge, pilots in the back of the actual battle slowly accumulate experience well, anyway, now the Russian army to pay attention to efficiency, meet the fast on the line.

After hearing “three months”, Alexander III’s smile suddenly disappeared.

“Why so slow, can not speed up some progress?

Knowing the urgency of the war at the front, the sooner we put the airplanes into the battlefield, the sooner we can take the sky from the British!”

In the face of the Czar’s demands, Marshal Ivanov’s heart was broken. According to the Austrians, being able to train the pilots within three months was already very rare.

Any faster, and I’m afraid that the quality of the crash course, which was already of low quality, would be even less guaranteed.

Ivanov replied stiffly, ”Your Majesty, pilots are an emerging technical military service, we don’t have experience in training them and can only learn from the Austrians.

If we want to speed things up, I personally suggest including airship pilots in the training course, which should save a lot of time.”

Whether it was a bad idea or not, Ivanov did not yet know. Anyway, the Tsar had asked, so he couldn’t run out of ideas.

As for how effective it would be, it would be good to talk about it when the time came. Anyway, it was a new type of soldier, the Ministry of War was unfamiliar with the situation, and it was reasonable to say that there was an error in judgment.

………

Just now, I saw someone talking about the problem of British and French industry, Hai Yue here to explain a little. Developed industry does not mean that all fields are awesome.

The premise of the cottage is to have an industrial system, from the supporting supply chain, to production equipment, industrial workers, nothing to take what to cottage?

Airplanes belong to the new equipment, Britain and France do not have supporting industries, want to copy the first to solve the personnel, production equipment.

Not to mention the production technology, even the aircraft designers are not, at most, a few folk enthusiasts.

The so-called imitation, either the original copy, or according to their own industrial system to modify the design program.

How many pits are in here, no need for Hai Yue to say more!

Cultivating talent takes time, rushing to the horse first to pay tuition, without experiencing failure immediately successful, that is open.

Direct copy, the first thing to change is the standard of the entire supporting system, or spare parts size can not match.

Alter the ratio, it is true that you can build an airplane, but whether it can fly is not known.

Of course, some people want to bar to build the first generation of airplanes, counting Hai Yue did not say, would not have been on a channel.

Anyone knows the initial wooden airplane, what kind of goods. Built in addition to give away the head, what is the use?

(End of chapter)