Chapter 438: The Debtor’s Trouble

  Chapter 428: The Debtor’s Trouble

It was very unreliable to expect the African people to fight against the British invaders. If they really had such a strong fighting force, the colonial era would have ended a long time ago.

But the pit still had to be dug, no matter how useful it was, it could at least delay the British expansion.

There is a limit to the expansion of any country, and the British Empire, as the world’s number one colonial empire, is no exception.

Population is a hard nut to crack, and the British Isles add up to 30 million people. It ranked last among the four major European powers. With the completion of industrialization in France and Austria, the contrast in power between all of them was undergoing a striking change.

Not needing to wait until the twentieth century, now the total economy of the mainland, the British became the third in Europe and the fifth in the world.

Of course, they were still the world’s number one industrial power. Agriculture is still so important a part of the total economy in this era that the British are still ranked behind India.

Nothing surprising there, there may not be a lot of power in numbers, at least in terms of economic total.

Unfortunately economic aggregate is not equal to national power, it is industry that determines the strength of a nation, and the British Empire is still the most powerful nation in the world.

However, they suffered in the expansion, the British population was less than two thirds of France (including Sardinia) and less than half of Austria (including the Balkans). This was in addition to the millions of centrifugal Irish who thought about independence every day.

This underpopulation was compounded by the fact that the British colonies were so large that on average each Briton had more than 1 square kilometer of colony.

After the Near East War, the government in London began to avoid European wars, and it’s easy to see why.

It wasn’t easy to maintain this colonial empire, with thousands of colonists falling every year. If there were a few more major wars, the British would not be able to hold out.

This was the opportunity that Franz saw, to give the British trouble in the colonies, insignificant on the surface, but in fact building up and slowly depleting their manpower.

This war in Ethiopia was a good opportunity. As long as he could bring tens of thousands of casualties to the British, Franz would be satisfied.

There is no such thing as winning against the British, the British Army is not the Italian Army, and this kind of century-old joke is not yet a joke.

……

On the way to kill the British army to Ethiopia, the London peace conference has changed, the Russians’ diplomacy is really not to be complimented.

Sweden did support them, but not by the Russians, it was mainly the Kingdom of Denmark that played a role.

Help relatives do not help, the Kingdom of Denmark is about to set up the Nordic Confederation in a member of Sweden, the boss naturally have to take care of their emotions.

From now on, the Kingdom of Prussia has added another enemy to the soon-to-be-established Nordic Confederation.

Of course, the threat of this enemy is very small, the Danish people can not occupy the dominant position of the new government, at most it is hostile, but not to the point of triggering a war.

The German Federal Empire did feel threatened by Prussia, however it was of little use, the Russians were not able to gain their support and in the end they chose neutrality.

The rest of the countries needless to say, Switzerland is neutral that is what they call: eternal neutrality, no need for PR, the rest of the countries are Prussian supporters.

Almost forgot, the Duchy of Montenegro and Greece also supported the Russians. The former was always supported by the Russians, the latter was just there to be a lapdog.

Prussia was thousands of miles away and it didn’t matter if she was offended. And the Russians were so close that the Greeks couldn’t afford to be offended.

In terms of supporting countries, the Russians were not only inferior in numbers, but also in weight.

In order that the Russians might not lose too badly, Weissenberg had to propose, with a stiff upper hand, a reduction in the number of negotiators.

In addition to the three mediators, Britain, France and Austria, only the participating countries were present, and the rest of the delegates were turned into spectators.

Fortunately, the Russian representative, Clarence Ivanov, was smart enough to successively dispatch the four Central Asian states and the Eastern Empire to sign an armistice treaty.

The Russians were still in power, and after satisfying their own interests, these countries chose to remain silent. As for the Prussian allies, I’m sorry, but they never made an alliance, so naturally there is no obligation to be an ally.

Seeing that the momentum was not right, the Ottoman Empire also retreated. The Russians gave up the territories they had claimed in the Caucasus in the previous war and backed off a bit, ending the war between the two countries. (Remarks: the region of present-day Georgia)

By July, it was left to Prussia and Poland. When it came to Eastern Europe, the Czarist government had a very different attitude compared to the concessions made in other areas.

First of all, regarding the definition of the Polish region, the Tsarist government did not recognize it, and surrendering the Lithuanian region and part of Belarus was their limit.

However, the Prussians also wanted the Latvian region, did not demand Estonia, that is too close to St. Petersburg, the Berlin government was also afraid of irritating the Russians.

The Prussian-Polish representatives also claimed the whole of Belarus, and it was clear that they had reached an agreement to divide the region.

The Polish delegates also made territorial claims to the Ukrainian region, mainly the Volyn Oblast extending all the way to the Kiev area. There was no part of Lviv, and under this era Western Ukraine was Austrian territory.

Agreeing to these conditions would have meant that the Russian Empire would have lost 860,000 square kilometers of land, and more than 21 million people, as well as thirty percent of its industry.

At the same time the Russian Empire would have lost its demographic advantage over Austria; after all, Central Asia was already independent, and the Far East and Caucasus had given up a lot of land.

With less land, the population naturally declined. The good thing is that these regions are all sparsely populated, and apart from Central Asia, which has a population of five or six million, the other two regions only have a million or eight hundred thousand.

The same could not be said for Eastern Europe, which was the core region of the Russian Empire. Any piece of territory is valuable, and naturally the Tsarist government would not stop easily.

Once again, the conference was at an impasse, and the representatives of Britain, France and Austria held a secret meeting. There was nothing to be ashamed of, weakening the Russians was something the three countries were happy to see.

After all, the Russian Empire was too large, and once industrialization was completed, everyone’s interests would be lost.

At the same time, France and Austria didn’t want to see the Kingdom of Prussia get bigger, and on this point the British had the opposite attitude, they wanted Prussia to give France and Austria a hard time.

The French wanted to support Poland, and again Austria had the opposite attitude.

The French wanted to support Poland, and Austria had the opposite attitude.

In order to contain the rise of Poland, Austria went out of its way to support Prussia in acquiring the Lithuanian region and blocking the Poles’ access to the sea.

This was also creating conflicts. The problem of access to the sea could not be solved, and the relationship between Prussia and Poland would break down sooner or later.

Of course, they could have done a land swap. Obviously this is even more impossible, the Poles can’t just swap out the Warsaw region for the sake of access to the sea, can they?

The Kingdom of Prussia also could not have fought a hard battle and in the end gained no advantage at all. Geographical location determines the expansion to the Lithuanian region, is their only choice.

The contradictions between Britain, France and Austria complicated the negotiations.

By the summer, the smell of gunpowder in the Eastern European region was once again strong, and if the negotiations still could not come to an agreement, the war would continue to break out again.

Don’t look at the battlefield Prussians dominate, but they have no money ah! Once the war continued to break out, the last to pay was still the British.

The government in London is not a big shot, they are always calculating the cost. Now the goal of suppressing Russia has been accomplished, and if they continue to kill Russia, they won’t gain much.

Don’t look at Russia and Austria as allies, in times of weakness allies can be dangerous. In case the Prussians got lucky and won another general war and the Tsarist government simply collapsed, who knows if Austria would fall on its sword?

The shrewd British would not do anything to pay their own way and let their rivals pick up the slack.

Moreover, the money they lent to Prussia and Poland is already a lot of money, the debt continues to increase down the road, the possibility of the future into a bad debt is also increasing.

To end this war, first of all, Britain, France and Austria to reach an agreement, otherwise everyone stabbed each other, in which to fan the flames, a bad war ignited again.

For the face of the pound, Raistlin must also convince France and Austria to join forces to pressure them to end the war.

Not only the British have this worry, France and Austria are also worried. Everyone was a debtor, except that Britain and France had mainly lent money to the two Prussian and Polish countries, while Austria had lent money to Russia.

At present the British have lent out the most, totaling as much as 320 million pounds; Austria is close behind, with a total debt of 240 million pounds; and the French have the least, and that is 120 million pounds.

Whether it is admitted or not, this war was actually a capital game. There is no doubt that the black hands behind the scenes are all winners, and everyone is joining hands to manipulate the game.

Even if all this debt dies, everyone can still recoup their costs elsewhere. Of course, no one was willing to do that.

Why turn a loan that can be recovered into a dead debt?

Don’t look at the fact that several debtor countries have a lot of collateral, but if something really goes wrong, these collateral may not be able to be honored.

Take Poland as an example, in case the Polish government is finished, Britain and France to find who to ask for money to go?

In contrast, Austria also has an advantage. Distance close, really can not cut a piece of land back to make up for the loss.

The French can also play the attention of the Rhineland region, anyway, debt repayment, which is also a reasonable excuse.

The British would be miserable. Even if someone else dares to cut the land, the question is, do they dare to either?

Various taxes, minerals, right-of-way mortgages, the precondition for wanting to cash in, you have to ensure the stability of the regime in the debtor country.

This means that after the war, they still have to continue to lend money to the two countries of Pupo. Otherwise, these two poor governments will either declare bankruptcy and renege on their debts, or collapse due to financial crisis.

Of course, high risk and profit are directly proportional. The British made a bloody fortune in this war.

Not only did they gain the position of world hegemony, but they also gained a few more little brothers, secured India, and completed their strategic layout of the Eurasian continent.

(End of chapter)