Chapter 809: Ultra Low Heart Expectations
Chapter 792 – Super Low Heart Expectations
Vienna Palace, Franz was frolicking with his months old grandson.
The recent period of time Britain, France and Russia are very busy, the domestic operation of all normal, idle Franz can only toss the little one.
A “wow wow” cry sounded, making Franz busy.
At this time, a maid hurriedly came, said eagerly: “your majesty, just outside the palace news, Felix prime minister fainted today just went out, is currently in the rescue.”
Hearing this bad news, Franz could no longer care about his crying grandson, and directly handed Little Charlie to the maid.
He ordered, “Prepare a car immediately, I want to leave the palace!”
People are not grass and trees, who can be merciless.
From the beginning of the Revolutionary era, Felix was Austria’s prime minister, and the two worked closely together for more than thirty years, pulling the Habsburg dynasty, which had fallen into hell, back from the brink of death.
In terms of merit, Felix can be said to be the first major contributor to the revival of the Habsburg dynasty.
Born in 1800, Felix Schwarzenberg is now 85 years old, which is more than double the average life expectancy in this era.
Thinking about it, Franz’s heart sank.
The years were not forgiving, even if he was already the emperor, he still could only watch the people around him leave one by one and could not do anything about it.
85 years old, not to mention now, even in the 21st century, such an age once sick, it is difficult to recover.
……
As Austria’s prime minister, Felix naturally has a private doctor at all times, and even a variety of medical equipment is always at home.
The main reason is that these days, there are not many medical devices. If it were like the 21st century, there would be a whole lot of various instruments, so it would be impossible to keep them on hand.
Everything is readily available, so treatment is naturally carried out directly at home. When Franz arrived, almost all of the medical experts in Vienna had also arrived.
Vienna’s aristocrats also came a large group, but not many government colleagues came. No way this is the rule, now is the work time, even without the prime minister, the government still has to function normally.
Seeing Franz personally arrive, the crowd was not surprised. Almost every important minister was critically ill, he had to personally visit.
Facing the unconscious Prime Minister Felix, Franz swallowed back his thousand words and quietly stood guard outside the hospital room.
Socializing that is non-existent, Franz mood is annoyed, where is the time to pay attention to so much.
Seeing the emperor’s gloomy expression, everyone knows that this time to go up, absolutely looking for scolding.
Time passed by, the weather has gradually dimmed down, the head of the guards reminded: “Your Majesty, time is running out, it’s time to go back to the palace.”
Franz nodded and looked at the large group of nobles and officials outside, waved his hand and commanded, “All disperse!”
It was only at this moment that Franz reacted to the fact that because he, the emperor, stayed behind, the others could only follow and wait.
Returning to the palace with a depressed mood, Franz knew that a new round of political shuffling was about to begin.
With Prime Minister Felix’s current physical condition, even if he recovered, it would be difficult for him to continue with his job as Prime Minister.
Not only was the Prime Minister getting older, but a number of dignitaries in the higher echelons of the government were already in their seventies. Without realizing it, the Vienna government had also entered the age of old age.
Lying on the bed, Franz could not help but think, if he traveled to an era of aura recovery, how good it would be to be able to pursue longevity.
As time passed, Franz turned on the fantasy mode in his dream.
……
Egypt, under the repeated urging of Napoleon IV, Governor Adolf’s counter-insurgency army finally finished assembling in Cairo.
One French infantry division + two Egyptian colonial divisions + one cavalry battalion was the full composition of the counter-insurgency army.
There were no artillery regiments, and the stuff for suppressing colonial rebellions was superfluous; the field guns carried by the infantry divisions were sufficient.
These days, artillery is a highly skilled soldier, not able to shoot the shells out, even if it is artillery, hit rate is the key.
Even if the British and Austrians were willing to provide artillery, the rebels would not be able to find a gunner who could operate it.
On a sunny day, Governor Adolphus led a 36,000-strong counter-insurgency army from Cairo.
Panic had set in among the insurgents in the face of the oncoming French. The reputation of France as the world’s number one army power was so prevalent that some people within the rebel army wavered before the battle even began.
Mahdi held several mobilization meetings to boost morale, but still had little effect.
As an Austrian representative, Lieutenant Colonel Huttil also attended a meeting, and after seeing the scandalous state of the insurgent army’s top brass, he decided not to participate.
Eighth Division headquarters, the newly appointed Huttil Division Commander said worriedly: “The insurgent army is too complex, a large number of internal contradictions, whether it is training, or combat awareness are not enough.
Judging from the current situation, a head-on collision with the French is only a matter of time before they fail.
The perfect strategy that the British helped them formulate has completely ignored the execution of the insurgent army. It’s been so long, and they still haven’t determined where to intercept the river from.
Now a bunch of people are still bickering, and I guess when the French hit, they won’t even be able to determine the place.”
The volume of the Nile is not so large all year round, and intercepting the river during the dry season to store water to impact the lower reaches of the river will not be effective at all.
Unfortunately, it is just now entering April, the Nile River from January to May is the dry season, and the earliest the water level will start to rise in May, and the peak will be in August.
This means that the insurgents will have to sustain themselves for at least 40 days under the French attack before the “perfect strategy” of the British will have a chance of being realized.
It would be better to wait until August to destroy the delta downstream by flooding.
Every year in August, floods would occur downstream, destroying farmland, and even occasionally affecting the city of Cairo.
Falkingham: “The British plan simply won’t work, the French won’t leave them enough time.
If the Mahdi is smart enough, he will immediately choose a suitable spot to blow up a small peak to block the river.
Even though it’s the dry season and the damage to the lower reaches is limited, it’s better than nothing, and no matter what, it will be able to slow down the French counterinsurgency army.”
The upper reaches of the river itself held the advantage, and once the river was blocked, the French who were on their way would have to take a detour.
If they continued to march down the Nile, they would have to feed the fish in case the rebels suddenly released the water, and there was no way the French would take the risk.
Except that once the plan was advanced, flushing the delta became a dream. After all, there wasn’t enough water to do the damage.
Hutile shook his head, “Don’t count on it, the insurgents have been fooled by the British.
Perhaps that Lieutenant General Jarrett, still thinks that the insurgent army is as capable of doing what it is told as the British army.”
A strong flavor of contempt overflowed, if he wasn’t able to determine that Lieutenant General Jarrett’s identity could not possibly betray Britain, he would have to wonder if it was a spy sent by the French.
It appeared that the total strength of the rebels amounted to nearly one hundred thousand men, almost three times that of the French, and possessed an absolute superiority of force.
However, superiority in strength is not the same as being able to win a battle. In the battle to suppress the colonial rebellion, not to mention fighting one against three, even fighting one against a hundred was nothing new.
Potiorek proposed, ”Since the top brass of the insurgent army has been dumbed down, it’s better to leave them alone.
Find an opportunity to separate from them. Then each fight their own way, so that they can hold back the main force of the French army, and we go deep into the Egyptian hinterland to wreak havoc.
If we can’t beat the main French army, can’t we bully the plantation owners? Burn the French’s cotton fields and let that guy Adolf go cry!”
Expectations were that low, despite relying on the airborne drop of equipment from the airships to arm and briefly train the 8th Division. Still, Potiorek had no expectations for a showdown with the French.
In his opinion, even if he was bullying the plantation owners, it was all about superiority in strength. In the case of equal numbers, this group of rabble can not do the plantation owners raised fighters.
Faginhan frowned and asked, “It sounds like a good idea, but after entering the Egyptian hinterland, how should we evacuate?”
This was a realistic problem, it was easy to go deep behind enemy lines, it was just easier to get in than to get out.
Once the French found out that someone had burned their cotton fields, they wouldn’t beat them to death.
Potiorek shook his head, ”The French are not fools, when they have reacted, they will soon send troops over to encircle us, evacuation is simply impossible.
But our mission is to wreak havoc, why must we evacuate?
Take the troops and fight in a flurry, throw away the troops if the momentum is not right, a few of us in disguise and run away is all.”
Although ruthless for a bit, the feasibility was indeed very high. These days and no ID card, a few more strangers out in the colony, simply can not identify the identity.
Even if they were caught by the French, they could still pretend to be an Austrian expedition that had mistakenly entered the Egyptian region.
The world has never lacked road kill, every year because of lost mistakenly into another country’s colonies of the expedition team a lot of to go.
If they were caught, it would be fine, but it would only be a matter of informing the Austrian colonial government to collect the people, and demanding a ransom in the meantime.
This is a common practice, in the absence of conflict of interest, the colonizers will not kill people at will.
(End of chapter)