Chapter 432: Prussia’s Ambitions
Chapter 422 – Prussian Ambition
The failure of the Winter War made up Alexander II’s mind for him. If the war is not ended, the Russian Empire will be finished.
There were rebels within the country and powerful enemies peering outside. Alexander II did not forget that the black hand behind this war was the real enemy of the Russian Empire.
If you do not end this war as soon as possible, in addition to the Constantinople battlefield, there is Austria can rely on, close to the procurement of strategic supplies supply, the chances of victory is relatively large, other areas have no hope.
Without the logistical supplies provided by the Moscow region, the fall of all of Central Asia is inevitable; there is no rear support, the Far East battlefield is not to be expected.
The Polish region, not to mention, after the loss of this battle, Belarus, the Baltic Sea area will become a battlefield, the fall is sooner or later.
In case Sweden stabbed him in the back, St. Petersburg might not even be saved. Mobilization of troops also needs time, if the Russian Empire is dying, who knows whether the British will continue to fall on the well?
It doesn’t take much, as long as the Royal Navy kills its way into the Baltic Sea, the Russian Empire is really finished.
In this era, the Siberian plains have not been developed, the core of the Russian Empire is St. Petersburg and Moscow, now Moscow has been in the hands of the rebels, and then lost St. Petersburg him this tsar will be mixed to the end.
“Purge the king’s side and punish the tainted ministers”. The point is still to kill the tainted ministers, to kill all his close friends around him, the tsar is still the tsar?
If you don’t dare to take action against the Tsar, is it hard to do it in secret? For example, an accidental fall into the water, or a sudden death.
Throughout history, there have been so many emperors who died by accident, were they all accidents?
Then the chances are too high, it is simply a high-risk occupation, or ranked in the top few kind.
Alexander II would not put himself in danger, as long as he got through this, the future that was lost now could be regained.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sends a note to Austria inviting them to mediate in this war.”
With that decision made, Alexander II sighed. Now was not the best time to negotiate, but it was the most necessary time to negotiate.
Winter was the last line of defense for the Russian Empire, and if they waited until the coming year for the Great War to break out again, the price they would have to pay would only be greater.
Foreign Minister Clarence Ivanov asked with some trepidation, “Your Majesty, should we invite Britain and France to participate?”
There was no way around it, the affairs on the European continent simply could not be separated from Britain and France. If the Tsarist government did not invite them, they would still appear at the negotiating table.
Alexander II helplessly replied, “Invite them together, we have little choice at this point.”
This was a concession to Britain and France. After this war, the weakness of the Russian Empire was exposed, and it no longer had the strength to fight the British for supremacy.
Next they would have to keep a low profile and minimize their presence as much as possible to avoid suppression from various countries.
How much of a difference it made is up in the air, but it was better to do it than not. In times of weakness, it’s good to have a little less hate.
……
Vienna, received the battle report of the Prussian-Russian Winter Battle, Franz was dumbfounded. He really didn’t think that the Tsarist bureaucrats had actually committed a death wish to such an extent.
Misrepresentation of losses, withholding of military expenses, raising the purchase price, these are all minor issues, nothing more than a little bit of money from the Kenzarist government.
Even if they are a little bit more greedy and substitute the best for the worst, they should at least make sure that the basic needs can be met! This is a war, the slightest mistake will kill people.
Now it’s good that the Russians on the front line have been killed. Now Alexander II has no time to seek their bad luck, once the situation is stabilized there will be a big purge.
Franz asked with concern: “How big are the Russian losses?”
Austria sent military observers to both sides at the same time, there is first-hand information on the battlefield, a preliminary judgment of the losses can still be done.
Minister of War Albrecht replied, “Preliminary estimates of troop losses exceed 300,000, prisoners captured by Prussia are nearly 200,000, about 40,000 to 50,000 killed in action, and non-battle attrition is very serious.
Now that the Russian defenses are open, the Prussians are about to occupy the Belarusian region if not for logistical constraints.”
Franz nodded, the Prussians had picked up a big bargain this time, otherwise this war would have dragged on for much longer.
It could be said that Wilhelm I had won the special prize, the whole world hadn’t expected them to buck the trend in the winter. Including Franz, he just assumed that the Kingdom of Prussia would be victorious in the coming year’s battles.
The ability of the Tsarist bureaucrats to die was a revelation to everyone, and the European countries were probably in a state of “shock” and did not react.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sends a note to all parties to mediate in the war. Warn the Prussians not to go too far, and remind them that it’s time to honor their commitments.”
It was natural for allies to behave as allies, and in this respect Franz had always done very well. The covenant was strictly observed, and even the anti-Austrian faction in the Czar’s government never blamed Austria on it.
Minor conflicts didn’t matter, it was absolutely necessary to take a strong position in the general direction and stand firmly on the side of the allies. The Russians lost the war, but saved the Russo-Austrian alliance and kept it alive.
For example: warning the Kingdom of Prussia now would actually do very little, and they couldn’t have fought on whether Austria intervened or not.
This attitude was exactly what the Tsarist government needed most right now, and the Austrian position would help stabilize them and ensure that they didn’t have to pay too much in negotiations.
Because of geopolitics, the position of the government in Vienna could make a decisive difference in the two battlefields of Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
The fact that the Kingdom of Prussia won the war did not make them a world power, on the contrary, their own power declined rather than increased.
If you want to be powerful, first get the spoils of this war and digest them.
Not to mention the Ottoman Empire, their strength was limited, completing the reforms did not equal the country to be powerful, it still needed time to develop.
In this war, they were originally forced by everyone to go to the battlefield, and they didn’t behave too actively in the war. Sort of played a wave of soy sauce, and didn’t have any outstanding battle results.
Berlin, William I face recently hung full of smiles, breakthrough fell down the pie smashed him dizzy, now have not woken up from the joy.
For the victory on the battlefield had made what had been a whimsical plan, feasible. The Kingdom of Prussia’s road to the Empire was about to set sail.
A sudden warning from the government of Vienna interrupted his good mood and drew William I back to reality. The family knew its own business, and winning the war did not come without a price.
The war had gone on so far that the Prussian army had successively lost 460,000 troops one after another, of whom 176,000 had been killed in battle and 12,000 from other causes.
Strategically speaking, these losses were worthwhile. Not only did it solve the threat of the Prussian Kingdom on the Eastern Front, but it also made its own reputation, so that the countries of the world did not dare to despise Prussia.
In addition to the army losses, the demographic and economic losses were even more of a headache for Wilhelm I.
Population loss has broken one million, of which the East Prussia region is the most serious, the local people only one or two tenths left.
Economically, in addition to the Rhineland region can still barely support, other regions are considered to be finished.
This is the credit of the Russian Navy, every day in the coastal areas to cause havoc, a large number of refugees into the rear, the economy has been seriously hit.
If not for the support of the gold masters, the Kingdom of Prussia would have collapsed long ago. Now is not much better, the domestic economy is considered to be ruined, want to recover from the distant future.
William I asked, “What do you think of the diplomatic note from the Vienna government?”
Mauch opened his mouth without hesitation and said: “Now we have reached the limit, continue to fight is not worth the loss. It would be better to be at the negotiating table and finalize the benefits that we get our hands on.”
Having won the war, the military’s influence in politics went further. As the commander of the war, Mauch, was also as popular as ever.
In days gone by he would never have stated his position so clearly, not anymore, as a successor, Mauch has more say than the Prime Minister.
William I was relieved that the military was willing to stop the war, otherwise he would have to use the pressure of the Great Powers to make the military stop the war.
As for Mauch’s attitude, that is a small problem. William I is not short of this thing, the original time and space, there is a Bismarck he can endure, not to mention just a Mauch?
Prussian three except Ron, Mauch and Bismarck in character flaws, ordinary people really can not help it.
Prime Minister Frank frowned and said: ”It’s not that easy, acquiring the two duchies and part of the Baltic Sea is not much of a problem, but I’m afraid that it’s hard to get hold of the Polish regions.
In addition, there is another problem in front of us which is ‘Silesia’. We promised the Austrians in front of us, and whether or not we want to honor that promise now must also be considered clearly.”
The two duchies of Schleswig-Holstein were the least controversial, and the Czar’s government would not dwell on the question, while as for the Kingdom of Denmark, it had no bottom to dwell on it.
It was also relatively easy to gain access to the Baltic region, the locals were staunchly anti-Russian, and as long as they were able to break away from the Tsarist government, many issues could be negotiated.
(present day: the three Baltic states, with the area of the region to be extended partly inland)
The most important thing was that the British supported Prussia’s acquisition of the Baltic region, and France and Austria also had a tacitly approving attitude on this issue.
It would be really hard to annex Poland. First of all, the current Polish Provisional Government, was the first obstacle.
Although, Mauch had been using the opportunity of fighting with the Russians to consume the strength of the Poles, and the Provisional Government’s military force had suffered heavy losses, but people still wanted independence!
Trying to swallow them in one breath was not as easy as it sounded. If the Polish Provisional Government didn’t agree to a merger, Prussia couldn’t just turn on its ally, could it?
If these factors could be overcome by force, the reaction of the Great Powers was desperate. After the annexation of the Polish region, the territory of the Kingdom of Prussia is the existence of only Russia and Austria, and the population also caught up with France.
Such a colossus, France and Austria could never have watched them emerge, and the recently defeated Russians would not have agreed.
As long as the Great Powers intervened, the Kingdom of Prussia was doomed to be unable to annex Poland. If they dared to force their way in, they had to be mentally prepared to be killed.
Minister of Army and Navy Ron spoke up and said: ”Annexing Poland is not an overnight problem, we can first make the Polish region independent and look for opportunities later.
The Silesia region can never be ceded just like that. Austria didn’t remain absolutely neutral in this war, if they weren’t supporting the Russians, the war would have ended last year.”
The Silesia region was a bad debt, the two sides had only agreed verbally, not on paper, and it was not impossible for the Prussian government to simply renege on the debt.
The main problem was that Austria was not to be messed with, and if they reneged on the debt now, retaliation would follow.
Perhaps this is not enough to trigger a war between the two countries, but just diplomatic difficulties, are enough to make the Kingdom of Prussia difficult.
The atmosphere in the conference room was tense, it was a dilemma. No one wanted to cede land, and equally no one wanted to confront Austria at this time.
Especially since the Prussian-Russian negotiations were imminent, if the government in Vienna fully supported the Russians, would they be able to get everything they wanted?
No one could answer this question, and no one knew where the Vienna government’s bottom line was!
After contemplating for a while, William I said cautiously, “The issue of Silesia region, it’s better to delay it for the time being, we can’t give up every inch of the country until the last resort!”
Drag the word decision, not the best way, but the most effective way.
(End of chapter)