Chapter 397: The Prussian Counterattack

  Chapter 387 The Prussian counterattack

Europe is in the wind, the first to sit down is not Austria, nor John Bull, but the swirling Berlin government.

There is no way, no matter how many people the Russians counted, once the plan succeeded, they are absolutely the most miserable.

“No matter what, we must also destroy the Russian borrowing plan.”

William I said cautiously. He didn’t want to be ousted from power yet, the Kingdom of Prussia had already gambled on the fate of the country, and the people couldn’t afford to fail.

Once the Russians were allowed to obtain loans from France and Austria, the war would really be impossible to fight. Even if they won the upcoming decisive battle, the Kingdom of Prussia still could not change the fate of defeat.

The Tsarist government was not short of soldiers, they were just short of money! Losses, however heavy, were just that for St. Petersburg.

It’s a matter of history, hundreds of years ago Russia fought for years and years, and in the end they fought until they ran out of men, and then they organized women soldiers to continue the fight.

Nowadays, the Russian Empire has a really large number of people, 80 to 90 million. William I did not think that it would be possible to fight the Tsar’s government could not stand.

Foreign Minister MacKnight proposed, “Your Majesty, against France and Austria I suggest different measures to block their loans to the Russians.

Against the French, we can start with the Joint Defense Plan. Take advantage of the European countries’ fear of the French and apply pressure by diplomatic means.

Austria’s ambition to unify the German region has never been quenched, and with the French plotting the Rhineland, they are on the opposite side.

The British were likewise very jealous of the French, and if the French were to annex the Rhineland region, the London government was likely to intervene.

All we have to do is to make Napoleon III think: as soon as they annex the Rhineland, they will be boycotted by the joint British and Austrian forces.

Vienna and London will play along with us in this diplomatic drama. They just need a strongly worded diplomatic statement, and the French will hesitate.

Against the Austrians, I suggest utilizing the nationalists and creating public pressure to accuse the Vienna government of colluding with foreign enemies and selling out the interests of the German nation.

Originally, this loan was the result of the Russians’ calculations, and it was only because of public opinion that the Vienna government agreed to it. Now we make the same use of nationalism and give the anti-Russians an excuse to sabotage this loan.”

The positions of politicians have never shifted with the needs. Initially, for the sake of expansion needs, the Kingdom of Prussia engaged in German nationalism, advocating the unification of the German regions into one great empire.

With the revival of Austria, they found it impossible to unify the German region, and instead there was a high probability that they would be the object of unification. In order to secure their own interests, they again developed Prussian Independence.

Now in order to sabotage the Russian loans from Austria, MacKnight did not hesitate to offer up German nationalism again, ready to use it to influence the decisions of the government in Vienna.

Chancellor Christian thought for a moment and said, “All these plans will only delay things unless we achieve a great victory on the battlefield and dispel the view that the Russians are bound to win.

Otherwise, at the end of the day the Russians’ plot will still succeed. In front of benefits, all conflicts are not worth mentioning.

Compromise between France and Austria is not a possibility, and all that is needed is a pretext for the division of Prussia by the three houses to become a reality.

Nationalism at best influenced the decisions of the Viennese government, but it could not sway them.

They opposed the French occupation of the Rhineland not because of nationalism, but more because they didn’t want to see the French get bigger, and also because they had lost out in this spoils sharing scheme.”

That’s the essence of the problem, the unification of the German regions was just a political slogan for Franz. Shout it up when you need it, and throw it aside when you don’t.

It’s not the same as when the South German region was annexed, now that Austria’s ethnic problems are not as serious and integration is steadily progressing, unifying the North German region is no longer the only option.

In the end the heart of the matter came back to the battlefield. If the war was lost, the Kingdom of Prussia would naturally be at the end of its life, and it would be hard to escape the fate of being partitioned.

Now they were thinking about what would happen if they actually won the war. The Russians were not easy to deal with. After losing a battle, the Tsarist government could organize another one.

The only thing that could restrain the Tsarist government was finance. Now they were thinking about how to cut off the Tsarist government’s financial resources.

After hesitating for a while, William I made up his mind and said, “The Foreign Office can rest assured and do it boldly, it’s all come to this, no matter what, it can’t be worse.

If necessary, France and Austria can be given a blank check, the Russians can promise, we can also promise.

As long as we can get more from the Russian Empire, then sell them these lands, and it is not wrong!”

This was William I reassuring himself that even if he won the war, how much meat he could bite off the Russians was still an unknown.

The promise to France and Austria, since it was a blank check, he was not prepared to honor it.

Unless forced to do so, William I would not have traded his well-run homeland for Russian land.

Just look at the map and you will know that the areas bordering Prussia and Russia are the territory of the big boobies. Although the geographical conditions are good, resources are also rich, the problem is not good to rule ah!

The Kingdom of Prussia has a lot of Poles, once the annexation of Russian Poland, then Prussia from a German country, into a Polish country.

If Prussia had not given up the Warsaw region for the Rhineland and Prussian Saxony in the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Germanization movement would not have succeeded so easily.

It is important to realize that after Prussia, Russia and Austria divided the Polish regions, 4.5 million of the 10 million Poles were in Prussia, 1.5 million in Austria and 4 million stayed in the Russian Empire.

It can be said that the First Vienna System, saved the Kingdom of Prussia from the awkward situation of having a Polish majority.

To continue jumping into the giant pit that was Poland now was clearly not the best option. Unfortunately, reality was not a choice for William I. The Junker aristocracy could not tolerate Prussia turning into a second-rate country.

Of course, the Prussian kingdom had experience in assimilating the Poles. William I also did not prepare to annex the core of Poland, their goal was the Lithuanian region, if possible to take the three Baltic countries in one fell swoop.

Since it was definitely a bigger goal, could it be achieved? The ideal is always there, how do you know the result if you don’t try?

This was also part of the British strategic plan, both: Polish independence, Prussian occupation of most of the Baltic, and weakening of the Russians.

……

Politics requires military cooperation, and while the Berlin government took diplomatic action, the Prussian army began to counterattack.

Mauch changed his previous strategy of staying still and wearing out the Tsarist government to taking the initiative and looking for an opportunity to fight the Russians.

This change made the Russians very uncomfortable, caught off guard, the Russian army into the East Prussian region suffered heavy losses, in just a week took 30,000 people.

For the entire war, the total strength of both sides combined was more than a million, 30,000 troops seemed insignificant, but in fact the impact was really huge.

In the field, the power of the breech-loading rifle was astonishing, and the exchange ratio between the two sides on the battlefield was a staggering 1:2.7.

This is not defending a city, such a disparity in the exchange ratio in the field battle is undoubtedly telling the world that the two armies are not in the same level of combat power.

(End of chapter)