Chapter 701: Hot
Chapter 685 Hot
Time rushed by, and the Austrian army soon withdrew from the Panama area, except that the handover was not to the Colombian government, but to the local Panamanian government.
Precisely should be the Panama Independence Organization, the original Panama local government has long been changed, and now the main government is an independent organization.
The Colombian government troops were blocked halfway by local militia, who would not let them enter the country.
The two sides were facing each other, and the Panamanian Independence Organization, which had not yet issued a declaration of independence, was refusing entry to the government forces on the grounds of bad military discipline.
Although Colombia is not a U.S.-style federal system, the local government has a lot of power, and there is no precedent for refusing entry to government forces.
Knowing that the Panamanian region was going to become independent, President Rafael Núñez had no choice but to resort to political means before independence began.
Repression, non-existent! Whoever fires the first shot now bears the responsibility of provoking a civil war.
This is what the government in Vienna wants most, a civil war breaking out just after the Austrian troops have withdrawn, how it looks.
Besides, the longer the delay, the more prepared the independent organizations will be. Control of the territory also needs time, the independent organization has only been established in a few months time, to be able to put up the frame is good, there is no time to clear the internal affairs.
……
Foreign Minister Weissenberg: “Your Majesty, the Colombian government is once again urging us to pay compensation. According to the news coming from the embassy, they have been besieged for three days by the families of the fallen soldiers.
Some have even stormed the embassy area to claim their pensions. Now it has become difficult to even go out and pick up living supplies, so we have to let the Colombian government send them in.”
Hearing this news, Franz’s mouth smiled slightly. It’s just being protested, which power doesn’t experience it a few times these days, and if you encounter it more often, you won’t take it seriously.
“Tell the Colombian government to provide proof of identity for the families of the fallen soldiers, and as long as the identity is verified, we will immediately release the pensions.
The property losses are all concentrated in the Panama area, the only people who need to be compensated are the local people, in order to avoid the money being diverted for other purposes, we will send the funds directly to the local government.”
“To the local government” for what, a civil war?
Given the choice, I’m guessing the Colombian government would rather not have this compensation. It’s not just hot, it’s deadly.
Retaliation. This is real retaliation. Compared to this, the “misunderstandings” of the previous conflicts are only child’s play.
Foreign Minister Weissenberg reminded: “Your Majesty, the Colombian government has relaxed trade controls on the Peruvian border in order to show us goodwill.
Now that we do this, I’m afraid that they will block the border line again, and smuggling will not be able to proceed, and Peru and Bolivia will have to ……”
Franz waved his hand, “This is only a small problem, Peru is the French’s little brother, and the supplies purchased now are mostly French goods, even if they are blocked, what does it matter to us?
As for Bolivia, haven’t we already opened up the trade lines to Argentina? The supplies smuggled through are not much, but if they use them sparingly, it’s probably barely enough.”
The Panama “misunderstanding” just past, knocked not only Colombia, also with the Austrian neighbors of Argentina was also very frightened, and even embraced the British thighs of the Chilean government are scared.
These days South American countries, no one is much better than anyone else, one is a weak chicken, South America’s three strongest have not stood out.
Just a “misunderstanding”, Colombia’s loss of troops, catching up with the “guano war” more than a year of all the battle losses, no one can not panic.
Seeing the strength of Austria, as a neighbor of Argentina, naturally, to adjust foreign policy. Directly release the trade embargo can not, that will offend the British.
However, this is not difficult to defeat the shrewd Argentine government bureaucrats. Can not trade on the surface, but also can secretly smuggling.
It’s a win-win situation. Not only will Austria be satisfied, even the British will have nothing to say, and the bureaucrats will be able to make a fortune out of it.
……
Austria in action the French also did not idle, now the French Empire can be more bullish than the original time and space. The tiger has not been poked and prodded, and there is French Guiana, deterring a few South American countries is not simple.
The Vienna government was able to convince the Argentine government to relax the blockade, the French can likewise make the Brazilian government turn a blind eye.
In a sense, the “blockade line” that the British had worked out had a lot of loopholes from the very beginning.
The so-called “blockade” only blocked ordinary merchants. The real effect was probably to reduce the inflow of goods and to raise the cost of goods purchased by the two countries.
Business groups with strength and background never cared about the blockade. As long as there are enough benefits, there is no blockade line that capitalists cannot cross.
Even if the Royal Navy personally guarded the coastline, there are also merchant ships to break through. As long as the background is big enough, there is no fear of being caught.
What the British can’t do, other countries don’t even have to expect. In addition to the powerful nobles in the country, there are a bunch of bold and powerful background merchant groups.
If they are caught, at most they will be persuaded to return. Holding them accountable is non-existent, or what if it causes a diplomatic conflict?
The only country that has really implemented a strict embargo is probably Chile. When it comes to personal interests, it is impossible not to be strict.
……
Perhaps the South American region was too rich, or perhaps the South American countries were too weak. In any case, the South American region managed to arouse the interest of Napoleon IV.
Seeing Austria hitting the Panama region, Napoleon IV also wanted to expand the French South American colonies.
France had not expanded abroad for some years, which was too bad for Napoleon IV who wanted to surpass his father.
To the emperor’s great plan, the top of the French government is both excited and helpless, who all want to build a career and leave a name in history, the problem is that the conditions do not allow ah!
Foreign Minister Dumbledore persuaded, “Your Majesty, the current international situation is not suitable for foreign expansion. The Russo-Prussian War has reached a critical moment, and we cannot afford to spread our strength.
According to the current situation, once the Russo-Prussian War is decided, the European continent will undergo another reshuffle, which is the best opportunity for us to expand our influence in Europe.
If it weren’t for the impending change in Europe, the Vienna government wouldn’t have given up the Panama region that was in their hands, and mere international public opinion isn’t enough to make them give in.”
It’s true that “Eurocentrism” is all the rage these days. According to this principle, both continental countries had to concentrate on the post-war situation.
Napoleon IV shook his head, “Your Excellency the Count, this does not contradict my plan. Colonial expansion is a long-term state policy, it’s not like it’s going to be launched right away.
What we need to do now is just preliminary preparations, and it’s not too late to take action after the dust settles on the European continent.
The world has already been divided up, the most obnoxious Brits got the richest areas; even those southern European barbarians took a big piece of the cake.
All that’s left for France are the scraps; nominally we are the third colonial empire of the world, but in reality, as we all know very well, it’s just a big pile of sand.
One step at a time, we are now left with few options. In addition to East Asia is South America, relatively speaking the South American region is full of small countries, more easy to get.”
Expansion, expansion, and more expansion, this is not Napoleon IV’s personal desire, this is the urgent need of business and industry within France.
This is the price that industrial powers must bear, without the blow of the Franco-Prussian War and the annexation of the Italian region, the French industrial capacity has increased too much compared to the same period in history.
The increase in industrial capacity, brought not always a good thing, along with it there is the urgent need for raw materials, commodity sales market.
Affected by the impact of large imports of raw materials, the high cost of French industrial and commercial products, limited competitiveness in the international arena.
To solve this problem, the best way is naturally expansion. No raw materials – rob; no commodity market – rob. In short, there is nothing that the word “rob” can not solve.
Hearing this explanation, Dumbledore wanted to stop talking. Would like to say that South American countries strength is not weak, how Nai words to the edge of his mouth, he can not speak.
Strong and weak are all need to compare, and compared to France, South American countries is really too weak. Even if all of these countries together, it is impossible to be the opponent of France.
The emperor’s position is firm, and the domestic colonial expansionist faction is powerful, see the situation is not right, in order not to immediately form a resolution, the same anti-war minister of finance Roy hastily change the topic:
“The South American problem is not yet in a hurry, the most important thing right now is still the Russo-Prussian War. All indications are that Austria has plans to annex the German Federal Reich.
The British can’t be relied on, and if the Prussian-Polish Confederation loses the war and the Russians only win a crushing victory, then we are the only ones with the strength to block the Austro-German merger.
If the government in Vienna is bent on it, and we have to stop it, then war will be unavoidable.
We have all seen the tragedy of the Russo-Prussian War, and I fear that if we go to war with Austria, it will be even worse than that.
To ensure victory, we must prepare in advance. This will require a great deal of money, which our finances cannot afford.”
It wasn’t pure flimflam, Austria had always had plans to annex the German Confederation and it was still changing over time.
Once the international situation changed, there was no chance that the plan would become a reality. The Russo-Prussian War happened to be an opportunity.
If the Prussian-Polish Confederation won, then there was no saying, even with heavy losses, the Berlin government had no choice but to fight Austria to the death. This was a matter of principle, and there was not the slightest possibility of compromise.
If the Tsarist government had won and suffered heavy losses, the situation would have been different.
While the Russians certainly didn’t want to see Austria annex the German Confederation, the Czarist government wouldn’t have been able to smash its way to the top just to stop Austria.
It’s a matter of interest, even if Austria united Central Europe, the Russian Empire would still be the Russian Empire, and at most they would lose their way to expand into Europe, the threat would not be fatal.
Austria put out so many loans is not for nothing, or can influence the tsarist government decision-making at the critical moment.
If some benefits are promised, the possibility of compromise between the two countries is very high.
In this context, the Vienna government has the ability to convince most of the European countries to be neutral, and the final outcome is most likely to be France and Austria alone, at most adding an unreliable British ally.
After Napoleon IV succeeded to the throne, he basically continued his father’s economic policy, and the domestic economic development rate, although slowed down, was still very good in general.
The finance minister said “no money”, but also really gave him a shock. Then he was relieved, the government of Paris has always been very heavy debt, this is an indisputable fact.
The world owes the most money is not the bullish John Bull, not the revival of Austria, not the war between Russia and Russia, but the dominant Western Europe of France.
There is no way, remodeling Paris, building infrastructure, revival of armaments, foreign colonial expansion, annexation of the Italian region, these are all to spend money.
What the Orléans dynasty left behind was a debt-ridden mess. Although Napoleon III revitalized the French economy, he was not able to change the situation of the government’s high debt, but rather the debt increased even more.
It’s not that this economic model is bad, in fact, many later generations of government investment to stimulate the economy are the same idea.
It’s just that in this way, government debt is going to keep climbing. In the credit standard era, you can still rely on the issuance of additional currency to make up for this hole, the gold standard era will have to fight hard.
In this economic model, while the French economy is growing, the government’s debt is also increasing day by day.
The total government debt of Paris has exceeded 28 billion francs, a figure that exceeds the combined debt of Russia and Prussia, making it the world’s largest debtor nation.
Of course, owed more debt does not mean that the Paris government is really poor. Government investment is not all public welfare, there are a lot of investment into assets, can produce income, but these assets can not be realized within a short period of time.
After a few moments of contemplation, Napoleon IV shook his head: “The situation in Europe is not yet so serious, the Austrians have not even begun to prepare for war, which means that the Vienna government is equally unprepared.
Your speculations are, in reality, only likely to happen. There are too many assumptions involved, and it would have to end the war with a disastrous Russian victory to have anything behind it.
The fact is that the Russo-Prussian War has gone on so far that no one can be prepared to grasp the extent of it.
It is true that the Russians have a better chance of winning, but not necessarily a crushing victory. The Pupo Federation, even if it lost, did not necessarily lose its entire capital.
It is true that the British cannot be relied upon, and did we not count on them?
Besides, why do we have to go to war with Austria, dividing the German Confederation is just as good an option.
Don’t tell me that the Austrians want a full-scale war with us? If we really fight, the cheap ones will only be the British.”
The main reason why a triple threat is the most stable structure is that people are worried about “sniping and fishing”.
Both Austria and France were in a much worse strategic position than the British, who were alone overseas.
Embarrassing. Wrong title.
(End of chapter)