Chapter 582: The British Plan

  Chapter 569 The British Plan

At the Austrian Embassy, a staff member in his thirties reported, ”Your Excellency the Minister, this is the intelligence we have recently gathered.

It is worth noting that at the same time as Marquis Maclean’s visit, the British Foreign Office’s Permanent Undersecretary Crowe also entered the French Embassy at the same time.

The two men met in a secret room, the exact content of which no one knows. The preliminary judgment is that the content of their conversation should be related to the war in the Near East, and there is a 50-50 chance that the question of German unification was involved.”

Pulling in Austria to check and balance France, and pulling in France to check and balance Austria, using the Anglo-French-Austrian triple alliance to maintain the stability of the European continent and consolidate their world hegemony is the foreign policy of the British.

The British and the French contact, Hummel did not feel the slightest surprise. The British wanted to keep the nail in the coffin of the Ottoman Empire, and the Vienna government was prepared to leave behind this rotten empire to slowly shear the sheep.

If the Ottoman Empire was really killed at once, Austria could not swallow this piece of meat. At that time, the European countries together divided, not only destroyed the Vienna government to implement the fraud strategy, but also put Britain and France into their own backyard.

“Unification of the German region” shouting slogans on the line, if you really that will lose. As a high-ranking government, Hummel knew very well that the Vienna government was not ready to unify the German region.

Hummel nodded: “the document here, I will take the time to read. Now continue to keep an eye on the British, I always feel that things are not so simple.”

Things were going too smoothly, so smoothly that Hummel didn’t need to do anything to get the desired result.

If it had been anything else, it could have been an early celebration. But in the international diplomacy of deceit, the more times like this, the more vigilance was needed.

No one can guarantee that this will not be a smokescreen put out by a rival. Britain and Austria just reached a verbal agreement, not half binding, want to back out too easy.

……

Inside the Prime Minister’s residence on Downing Street, the top of the British Cabinet gathered.

Prime Minister Gholston: “How is the plan going, have France and Austria taken the bait?”

Foreign Secretary Maclean: “It’s going very well, France and Austria are very wary of each other. As long as we control the timing and proceed step by step as planned, not leaving them time to make private deals, the big picture is set.

Compared to France and Austria, I am more worried about the German Federal Empire. There are too many states in the German region, Austria has too much influence in the German region, and local nationalism has awakened.

I’m worried that even with us behind them, they may not go along with our plan. In case they don’t hold out, our investment will be wasted.

You know that so far, Hanover hasn’t really grasped this country. Their Reichstag still follows the traditional model of one state, one vote, which is very headache-inducing.”

“One state, one vote”, this is a prerequisite for the establishment of the German Federal Empire, otherwise why would the many German states follow Hanover?

Behind the right to vote, there was also the handiwork of Austria. Creating this model of political structure was designed from the beginning to put an end to the consolidation of the German Confederation.

It has worked very well, and after all these years, the German Federal Reich is still the same “Comedy Reich”, which quarrels about everything.

It is reasonable to assume that such a political structure will affect the development of the country, however, the fact is the opposite, the local economy is developing very well.

These states had a high degree of autonomy and could formulate their economic policies flexibly, without the intervention of the central government led by Hanover.

The economic basis determines the political structure. Due to the influence of geography, culture, politics and diplomacy, many states in the German Confederation inevitably tied their economy to Austria.

Not every small state had ambitions. For many small states, economic development was enough. Anyway, no matter who is the boss, it is not their turn to be the boss, as long as it is one of their own people are acceptable.

Many village and town level states simply abolished even their armies. To them, it was the same whether they raised an army or not.

Dueling is no longer popular these days, moving tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of troops, all exceeding their total population, and they can’t win when they encounter a foreign invasion, so it’s better to embrace their thighs to ensure their own safety.

According to the British plan, the back of the German Federal Empire will do cutting with Austria, completely get rid of the influence of Austria, become a truly independent country.

The highest authority of the German Federal Empire is the Reichstag, and under the basic system of one state, one vote, these small and insignificant states, if united, can veto any decision of the central government.

Maclean’s concern was justified, in case the Reichstag of the German Federal Empire stood up and sang a different tune, it would be a joke then.

Prime Minister Gerston frowned, ”This is indeed a problem, but it can be left to the German Federal Government to deal with on its own.

If the states cannot be convinced, the big deal is to have the Emperor order the closure of the Reichstag. This may cause a small disruption, but I believe they can still overcome it.

After the German Federal Empire annexes the Rhineland region, they will have a qualitative breakthrough in power, and their total economy and industry can be ranked in the top five in Europe.

If Austria annexes the German Confederation, then the European continent will really be dominated by one country, which is something none of the European countries want to see.

Now let the German Confederation and Austria further cut, completely cut off the possibility of German unification, has been the general trend. Even if the Vienna government is angry, there is no way to resist the common will of all European countries.”

The German Federal Empire was already the most economically prosperous region in Germany, and with the addition of the Rhineland, it was even more impressive.

If you open the map, you will know that the essence of the original time and space German Second Empire is here, purely looking at the industry and economy, it is equivalent to the strength of half of the German Second Empire during the same period in the original time and space.

This volume is already not small, the total economic volume are more than Spain itself, the per capita income is also more than the current France and Austria.

The only shortcoming is that there are many internal states, dispersing the national strength, especially pulling down the military strength. Otherwise, the German Confederation could have joined the club of great powers.

If you simply calculate the total economy of the mainland, France and Austria are now more than Britain, Austria is already the world’s largest economy.

The economic structure determines the superstructure, the volume is large to a certain extent, at the same time the development of sea power and land power, in fact, is not impossible.

Once Austria annexed the German Federal Empire, it possessed the strength to develop land and sea power at the same time, and had already seriously threatened the hegemony of Britain.

Finance Minister Laluk Lloyd: “We seem to have overlooked something, merely changing the name of the country may not be enough to achieve the goal.

Don’t forget that the German Federal Empire has long been an independent state, and has not the slightest relationship with the Shenroe Empire pounded by the Austrians, but the Vienna government holds the banner of German regional unification as usual, and the German regional populace is just as likely to buy it.

The nationalism that the French had created has now flourished in the German region and is not limited by the previous rules of the game at all.

If you can’t get the people to make the cut, changing the name of the country will actually have very limited effect, and may even further stimulate nationalism.”

Legally speaking, Austria is not in the least related to the German Confederation. It is logical that the population within the German Federal Reich would not buy Austria’s argument.

Unfortunately the situation changed when it met nationalism. The nationalists insisted that the German region was a whole, and they recognized the new Shinra Empire as the successor to the legal system of the extinct Shinra Empire, instead of recognizing the current German Federal Empire.

This complicated things; the German Federal Empire was independent yes, but Austria still had the popular base to unify the German region.

The British wanted the German Federal Empire to change its name, in effect making further political cuts and laying the groundwork for watering down the theory of a great German unification.

Foreign Secretary Maclean shook his head: ”The cultural traditions of Germany and Austria are one and the same, and it is very difficult to make the folk split.

Even for the earlier independent countries that broke away from the Shinra Empire, it was actually only Holland that did a better job, basically completing de-Germanization.

Belgium and Switzerland were deeply influenced by German culture, but they had already cut themselves off from Austria, and neither country was included in the Vienna government’s strategy for German unification.

The Kingdom of Prussia also did well, and it wouldn’t take many years to get rid of the influence of the Great German Unification idea.

The German Federal Empire was slow to move because of internal problems and lack of a strong government.

Now we have to give it a push, or else it may be that one day, with a nap on our part, the German region will be unified.”

……

PS: “I really don’t want to be a system” Crossing into the warring states Lin Mu originally thought he would be on the road to greatness, but it turned out that he had become a system, and also turned into a cat, and became the host’s tool cat? No, I want to be the host’s father! Do not want to be the host’s father system is not a good system!

(End of chapter)