Chapter 490: Friendship Witnesses

  Chapter 479: Friendship Witness

Franz was happy to see that his little brothers had a fighting spirit. Success or failure was irrelevant, the most important thing was this positive spirit, which was worth encouraging and carrying forward.

Austria was also now a bigger family and much more tolerant of mistakes. The success or failure of the war in South Africa was irrelevant to the larger national picture.

Of course, it is still better to succeed and crush the British ambitions in one fell swoop. Lest after the gold is mined, the British have unrealistic fantasies and another war breaks out.

Colonists these days are completely defenseless in front of interests, and only after experiencing failure do they know the height of heaven and earth.

Minister of Finance Karl handed Franz a statement and said with a sad face, “Your Majesty, this is the military expenses for the last two months of the South African war, the total is 12,486,000 God’s Guilders.”

The saying that war is a gold devouring beast was not wrong at all. Just a localized war, on average, consumed more than six million divine guilders every month, if it was a full-scale war that would still be a problem.

Saving military expenses that is impossible, laborers are far away weapons and ammunition are transported from the country, the cost of transportation alone is a considerable expenditure.

In fact, the current military expenditure is already considered low. At least the cannon fodder troops don’t need Franz’s salary, and don’t need to pay pensions, otherwise this figure would have to increase several times.

But no matter how much they saved, these people still had to dress and eat, and eliminating the old muskets and big swords and spears likewise had a cost.

Franz looked at the statement, more than 100,000 cannon fodder troops accounted for about twenty-three percent of the total military expenditure, the rest is the tens of thousands of “Boer Republican” army expenses.

The rest was for the tens of thousands of troops of the “Boer Republic”. Even though it was for the defense of the country, the military pay was still indispensable. Including the private armies of the nobles who brought their own dry food, all have a share of the military pay. Pensions were also paid according to the standards of the Austrian regular army, without discrimination.

Franz did not economize in this respect; he personally vetoed the government’s plan to save money. Theoretically do not give money, the same can also recruit the nobles to fight, just need to divide the spoils of war on the line, since ancient times on the continent of Europe is so play.

But Franz is clear that times are different. Occasionally recruiting a fiefdom nobles to fight is okay, more than a few times over, I guess the emperor will not be able to call people.

Loyalty also can’t withstand wear and tear, and hearts change. If the war was won and there was enough booty to divide, then it was okay.

If the war was lost and the booty was not enough to make up for everyone’s losses, then grievances were inevitable. Having suffered a loss once, the next time people will be masculine.

The South African war naturally did not have the problem of insufficient booty, the gold mine took out a point everything. But then, there is nothing for the government to do.

The aristocrats contributed money and effort to fight down, what right does the government have to intervene? At least in the colonial law stipulates the tax-free period, the Vienna government has no way to benefit from it.

Thinking about it differently, not many nobles dared to invest so much without knowing that there was a large amount of gold buried underground.

With a monthly overhead of over six million divine guilders, even the last top nobles of the Shen Luo Empire couldn’t afford to take this risk.

In case the money ran out and the war wasn’t over, then they would only be able to cry on their own. This kind of antithesis had appeared a lot in the European continent, many noble lords had wars with others and just ran out of money halfway through the war.

Habsburg dynasty ancestors have had, that are the emperor, but also by the debtor forced to dare not go home. Of course, the main thing is still too much face, really if the debt is not paid, a few merchants can not do anything?

Half of the anti-Semitic movement in Europe came from this. Aristocrats can not pay the money, but also do not want to bear the bad reputation of reneging on the debt, simply anti-Semitic good, directly click off the debtor a hundred.

Now the government underwriting is different, everyone’s risk is minimized, do not have to worry about because of the accident lost to the bottom of the sky.

These years in the African continent in the success of the aristocrats quite a lot, the failure of the aristocrats but more. Those who didn’t know how to control risk and were greedy and aggressive are now growing grass in their graves.

Any colonial empire is a vast array of white bones piled up, the later colonial empire collapsed, the main thing is that no one is willing to continue to shed blood for the colonies.

In the final analysis, it is still a problem of distribution of benefits. Bureaucratic groups and capitalists divided nearly all the benefits, and the rest of the people did not even have soup to drink, so who is still willing to continue to sell their lives?

Throughout the major colonial empires, in the early stage of business, few people said that the colonies were losing money, but on the contrary, after operating for decades, or hundreds of years, when the empire went downhill, it was only when the losses occurred frequently.

Was less wealth created? Or did the cost of rule really skyrocket to the point where it didn’t pay for itself?

Obviously, running a colony for decades creates more wealth. But government revenues rarely increased and the money went into private pockets.

Instead, expenditures were on the rise. An example of this is the already declining Portuguese, whose colonial system, as far as Franz knew, was no longer able to bring wealth to the government.

Not only Portugal, but all the major colonial empires were increasing the cost of their rule, except that most of the colonies were still able to cover this expense with their tax revenues.

The growing corruption of the bureaucracy and the greed of the interest groups were almost insurmountable problems. Even the mainland had similar problems, let alone the colonies.

The free trade doctrine, now on the rise, has begun to attack the colonial system, arguing that it will place a heavy financial burden on the government.

It cannot be said to be prescient, but this section of the population, which has mainly not directly profited from the colonial system, stands condescendingly bashing it from a moral point of view.

In Franz’s view this was a typical case of putting down chopsticks and cursing while eating from a bowl. Obviously enjoying the dividends brought by the colonial system, but do not admit it, but also think that the maintenance of colonial rule is costly.

I don’t know that the industrial revolution is to eat people, the primitive accumulation of capital is bloody, either externally or internally.

The so-called free trade did not exist in the 19th century, and the British were just shouting slogans, wanting countries to open their markets to them.

Of course they didn’t mind opening up their markets to countries as well when they maintained their competitive advantage. Once that advantage disappeared, they turned their backs on them.

Why else would the Germans have challenged the old world in the original time and space? It wasn’t the lack of industrial raw materials, and commodity dumping markets that pushed them by capital to start the chariot.

When the British and French free-traders got what they wanted, and got rid of the corrupt colonial system, what they ushered in was not a new life, but a rapid decline.

Native area is small, resource-poor, industrial development is inherently limited, in front of the cruel reality, had to play de-industrialization to quench their thirst.

These problems, for the time being, are not troublesome. Before the colonial system entered the era of great losses, this kind of call will not become a climate.

Free trade is shouted loud and clear, but only if everyone cooperates. Now they are all playing with trade protection, your family runs to play with free trade, are you afraid of dying fast enough?

Franz calmly said: “Do not worry, South Africa’s geological conditions we have a preliminary understanding.

The local land is fertile, the climate is pleasant, mineral resources are relatively rich, the future development potential is still promising.

Comprehensively assessed, the South African region should be the land with the most development potential in the African continent. All the inputs now can be recovered in the near future.”

The issue of gold Franz did not mention, before the dust settles, it is best not to make a fuss. Driving the British out of the continent was part of Austria’s state policy anyway.

Finance Minister Karl explained, “Your Majesty, no matter what the development potential is, that’s a matter for the future, and we don’t lack a land with unlimited development potential.

In fact this kind of land where most of the resources are available may not be a good thing either. If we don’t make preparations in advance, there is still the possibility of tailing off in the future.

It is still imperative to end this war as soon as possible. Now that the French have stabilized the situation in Italy, our purpose of sharing the pressure for them has been achieved, and there is no need to continue to spend time with the British.”

There was nothing wrong with this statement, and having too much resources might not be a good thing. With resources for everything, the dependence on the empire is reduced.

Franz nodded thoughtfully, it seemed that fragmenting South Africa was imperative. The province system of administration should be implemented as soon as possible to replace the current South African Governor’s Office, lest there be a geographical hugging of the local area in the future.

“The war doesn’t need us to worry about it, the officers and soldiers on the front line still want to end the war as soon as possible for Christmas, it’s only a month or so, there’s no need to add more pressure on them.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs find a chance to remind the French, but we have fulfilled our agreement, this time we have held back half of the British Army for them.”

There was nothing wrong with this statement; in terms of numbers, the British had committed more than half of the total Army to the South African region.

Doing good deeds also needs to leave a name, how can others know if you don’t say so? The more you give, the more you receive, this is a time of equal exchange.

This is an era of quid pro quo. Even brothers have to be clear about their accounts, not to mention allies. This kind of thing, or put in the open better.

Even if the countries only talk about interests, when talking about the friendship between France and Austria, this is also a witness of the friendship between the two countries.

It didn’t seem to be of much use now, but there was no chance that it would be needed in the future. It was enough to take it out to fool the middle-aged teenagers. This kind of propaganda material is needed when France is cultivating pro-Austrianism.

(End of chapter)