Chapter 661: The Dissolution of the Russian-Austrian Alliance

  Chapter 646 – Dissolution of the Russo-Austrian Alliance

Diplomatic standing is sometimes simple, since the British decided to support Chile, the two countries of Peru and Bolivia had to look to France and Austria for support.

International trade is only a minor issue, these days South American countries are small in size, and if they weren’t rich in resources, and the need to promote monetary hegemony, the Great Powers wouldn’t even pay attention to them.

Just look at the population of each country, Chile has about 2.2 million, Peru about 2.75 million, Bolivia about 1.3 million.

With such a small population, and all being agricultural countries, it was obviously impossible to expect a large internal market.

Chile was relatively wealthy, mainly from saltpeter exports, and had the strongest military of the three countries.

Peru has silver, but unfortunately the price of silver has been falling year after year over the years, and the Peruvian government’s wallet is drying up.

Bolivia can be said to be the most miserable, it was not easy to discover the saltpeter mine, only a few years to live a good life, the war broke out.

There is no doubt that all three countries were unable to come up with huge sums of money to finance the war at once, and loans were inevitable.

In the Vienna Palace, Franz was approving a special loan, and the debtor very generously took out the Atacama Desert minerals as collateral.

“What are the chances of Peru and Bolivia winning the war as things stand?”

Chief of General Staff Albrecht: “Purely from the analysis of military strength on paper, the staff has made a quantitative analysis based on a combination of the number of armies of the three countries, their weaponry, their training, their past performance, their logistical capabilities, and other factors.

The military strengths of the three countries are: Bolivia 1, Peru 1.8, and Chile 2.1.

Theoretically, Bolivia and Peru have the absolute advantage; however, on the battlefield most of the time now, it is the Chilean army that presses Peru and Bolivia.

The two countries, Bolivia and Peru, with their superior military strengths, were only nominally united, but on the battlefield there was no coordination whatsoever, and sometimes they even pulled each other’s leg.

If the cooperation problems of the Peruvian and Bolivian armies are not solved, the chances that they can win this war will not be more than half.”

This is a problem common to all joint operations, and Bolivia, Peru, and Chile have all sworn sovereignty over the Atacama Desert.

The fact that Bolivia and Peru are now united does not equate to the disappearance of the territorial dispute between the two countries, which were forced to unite simply because of their common enemy, Chile.

Against this background, stabbing each other on the battlefield is perfectly normal.

Franz: “Tell the Bolivians that we are not interested in the saltpeter of the Atacama Desert, and tell them to come up with other collateral.

If there is no suitable collateral, you can pledge your domestic minerals to us, gold, silver, copper, iron, oil, and natural gas can all be considered.”

The fact that Bolivia was not favored to win the war did not prevent Austria from supporting Bolivia in this war. Just the fact that “Boliviano” is linked to S.H.I.E.L.D. is worth Austria standing behind them.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the minerals in the Atacama Desert had already been promised to the British by the Chileans, and that Austria couldn’t compete with John Bull in South America, Franz might have sent his men there to encircle the land first.

Of course, the key thing was not enough interest. Although the Atacama Desert is the world’s largest producer of saltpeter, does not mean that there is no saltpeter mine elsewhere, and there are artificial nitrate production.

Originally Franz was ready to pull Peru on board, unfortunately the French grabbed the first. Austrian tentacles deep into South America for too short a time, the influence is still too weak.

If it is not because Chile and Peru preempted the British and French thighs, Franz suspected that Bolivia may not even choose Austria.

Minister of Finance Karl reminded: “Your Majesty, Bolivia’s domestic precious metal mines, has long been mortgaged out.

Copper, iron and these ordinary mines, although a lot of them have been found, have no development value. Oil and natural gas are new energy industries, whether Bolivia has them or not is an unknown.

If these are to be mortgaged, the riskiness of the loan will increase greatly, and the domestic banks may not accept it.”

Franz woke up to the fact that Bolivia’s industrial strength was limited, not to mention heavy industry, which was infinitely close to zero.

Not being able to smelt in situ, the developed ores have to be shipped out to be sold, and with the transportation in this day and age, these minerals naturally lose their economic value.

Oil and gas, needless to say, has just begun to utilize, the importance of the completely did not see, naturally, no one spends a lot of money to explore.

After calculating, Franz realized that these things can’t be used in a short period of time. Even within a hundred years may not be useful, advance layout is completely bullshit.

Austria has declared neutrality in the war, this time to provide loans to Bolivia, naturally, in the mode of private commercial loans, the government is just a needle in the arm to collect a contract fulfillment guarantee fees.

In the current situation, the Bolivian government to win the war is very unlikely, most likely to step on the dust of the original time and space, losing the war naturally have no money to pay the debt.

If the collateral has no value, the private banks will not buy it. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if the government negotiated a good deal and in the end no bank was willing to lend money?

Waking up, Franz didn’t have the slightest embarrassment, and immediately changed his words, “Since the precious metal mine is gone, these things in the back can only be considered a hitch, so that the Bolivian government can come up with something else to collateralize.”

No collateral? This was impossible. At least it is a country, how can it not have a little bit of family background? If you can’t, you still have land.

Don’t worry about “reneging on your debt”. It’s still the 19th century, and armed debt collection has happened more than once. Unless it is the Russians kind of giant, the cost of debt collection is too high, everyone can only admit it.

……

Foreign Minister Weissenberg: “Your Majesty, our alliance with the Russians expires in only three months. The negotiators already sent by the Tsarist government have arrived in Vienna.”

The Vienna government was also divided on whether to have another Russian-Austrian alliance. Franz, included, wavered in his position several times midway through.

It is not that we are not strong-willed, but in the final analysis, it is still a matter of interest. Whether to continue the alliance or to abandon it, there was a great deal of interest involved.

After all these years, the Russian and Austrian economies are essentially tied together. Austria imports industrial raw materials from Russia, processes them into products and sells them back to the Russian Empire.

Since 1854, Russia and Austria have been each other’s most important economic partners. At its peak, trade with Russia once accounted for two-thirds of Austria’s total foreign trade.

With the rapid development of the Austrian economy, Austrian industrial and commercial products continue to open up new markets, this figure began to decline year by year.

Even now, trade with Russia is still the most important part of Austria’s foreign trade, accounting for 29.7% of Austria’s total import and export trade.

If not for the fact that the Russian economy has not kept pace and the domestic market is growing too slowly, this percentage would be even larger.

There is no doubt that the Russian-Austrian alliance has made an important contribution to the economic exchanges between the two countries and has facilitated trade between them.

There were also advantages and disadvantages, and the Russo-Austrian alliance also limited Austria’s expansion. For example, during the Russo-Prussian War, the government in Vienna lost the chance to take advantage of the opportunity to fall on the Tsarist government.

Constraining further expansion was only a minor problem. The continent of Europe was not big enough to expand much, but rather a lot of trouble.

The main problem was the international image, the Russians were too much of a hatemonger. The existence of the Russian-Austrian alliance allowed Austria to follow and share the pressure.

This has always been good at flexible diplomacy of the Vienna government’s hands and feet, many times even play no room.

The economic gains, too, were not for nothing, and Austria was still the Russians’ biggest debtor.

Borrowing money is just a matter of course, but the Tsar’s government is not credible. From time to time, it was unable to fulfill its obligations properly, and it also reneged on many of Austria’s debts.

Debt is not paid, absolutely the most hateful. The Austrian financial sector are firmly anti-Russian, and even the folk of the Russians are not good impression.

Agriculturally, the two countries are in a state of competition. To the Russians, a competitor that destroys market conditions, the Austrian domestic farmers are abhorrent.

The Austrian peasants were not voiceless country peasants, but included a large proportion of the nobility. These people were all victims of the benefits of Alexander II’s policy of the Great Exploitation of the land and naturally hated the Tsarist government.

Franz asked expressionlessly, “Do you think that by now we still have the need to renew the contract?”

History seems to be repeating itself, the original time and space German II empire broke out with the Russians because of agricultural friction, Austria is now similar.

Of course there are different, Austria in addition to the aristocracy, peasants anti-Russia, the financial sector because of the debt problem also hate the Russians, support for the continuation of the contract renewal is only the domestic industrial and commercial sector.

Being in a similar position, Franz somewhat understands William II’s foreign policy of alienating Russia in the original time and space.

In front of the interests, not personal power can make up for, the emperor must also consider the position of the domestic people, can not be against the majority.

Prime Minister Felix hit the nail on the head when he said, “Continuing to renew the contract is somewhat useful economically and worthless strategically!”

Minister of Agriculture Holles: “Economically worthless as well, it’s the age of free trade now, the tariff advantage we originally had no longer exists.

Even without the Russo-Austrian alliance, at most it would reduce the purchases of the Tsarist government by a fraction, the impact would be minimal.

After so many years of hard work, many parts of Russian industry have to rely on us, and even if the Tsarist government wants to kick us out, it depends on whether or not they can afford the loss.”

This was the main reason why the Vienna government was emboldened. Austrian industry was self-contained, and used different standards than Britain and France, and did not match the set at all.

Russian industry was heavily influenced by Austria from the beginning, and the capitalists, in their greed for cheapness, adopted the Austrian standard directly.

Adopt the Austrian standard is not much, the key is that the Russian industry has not formed a complete industrial system, machinery and equipment rely on imports from Austria.

Now to withdraw, it means that the vast majority of industrial equipment will be scrapped, the loss is not the tsarist government can afford.

(End of chapter)