Chapter 854: Three Without One

  Chapter 837 Three Without One

The target will be set by anyone, the Austrian Navy will target 80% of the Royal Navy, the French Navy will naturally not be abashed.

As the world’s second naval power, how to exceed the Austrian Navy to do, such as reaching the Royal Navy ninety percent of the tonnage.

Everyone is very facetious, there is no challenge to the British sea power, shipbuilding program are just close to the Royal Navy, there is no shouting to exceed.

Of course, this is only the view of France and Austria, fell into the eyes of the London government is another view.

Whether it is eighty percent of the tonnage, or ninety percent of the tonnage, which affects the hegemony of the Royal Navy.

Everyone is a world empire, the navy can not be concentrated together every day, in case someone is not subject to the rules, suddenly launched a sneak attack, the victory or defeat is really hard to say.

Even if the Royal Navy could win, it would still suffer heavy losses. After taking out one challenger, it wouldn’t have the ability to tackle another.

In this kind of lose-lose war, the two army powers of France and Austria could afford to lose, and even if they lost, they would still have a chance to make a comeback.

Britannia can’t, once the Royal Navy suffers heavy losses, their enemies from the past will pounce on them and carve up their world empire, there is no chance of a comeback.

With a tangible threat close at hand, the British government, which has taken the initiative to provoke an arms race, will naturally not wimp out at this point.

Inside the Downing Street government building, comparing the shipbuilding programs of France and Austria, Prime Minister Gladstone laughed: “It seems that our opponents, the heart is very high ah!

Austria plans to build five battleships, plus the total tonnage of all types of warships is close to eighty percent of our shipbuilding plan; the French to build six battleships, the total tonnage of all types of warships is almost ninety percent of ours.

An eight-point threat theory, a nine-point resistance theory, could it be that they thought the navy was really just building warships?”

In the naval field, Britain had the backbone to despise any competitor. Although the French and Austrian navies had gotten their start many years ago, their essential kernel was still a land power state.

This deep-rooted cultural influence cannot be changed in a day or two. As long as the kernel doesn’t change, it will be difficult to truly compete with the British Navy.

The way of expression is mainly reflected in the money, other aspects can find a way to make up for the lack of investment in military spending that can not be done.

In recent years, the French Navy’s military spending has stayed roughly at about 55% of the Royal Navy’s, and the Austrian Navy’s is roughly about 50% of the Royal Navy’s.

It’s not that the two governments don’t have the money or don’t want to keep increasing, the problem is that there’s a continental army at home to support.

In the case of Austria, for example, the expenses of both the navy and land forces have been nearly equal in recent years. As the son of the army, the annual military expenses, but also only a symbolic one or two points higher than the Navy.

Of course, the fact that the Austrian Navy is able to maintain sixty-five percent of its naval tonnage at half the military expense of the Royal Navy doesn’t mean that training has been discounted.

In addition to the slightly lower expenses for officers and men’s pay, it was more that the overseas colonies were not as numerous and widely spread as the British, and the amount of foreign missions was relatively small, with most of the warships nestled in their lairs.

Foreign Secretary George: “Who knows? But right now French and Austrian morale is high and the desire to build ships is good.

According to word from the embassy in Paris, the French Navy Federation, the French Navy Club, and a number of other civic organizations are calling on the public to donate money to raise funds for shipbuilding.

Only three days, collected more than 18 million francs, a battleship shipbuilding funds came out.

Austria did not accept civil donations for the time being, but the Committee for the Unification of the German Nation, the Federation for German Reconstruction, and many other organizations were doing propaganda now.

If the arms race continued, they would most likely collect donations from the entire German region.

As a result of public opinion, the arms purchase we previously agreed upon with the North German government was rejected by the state parliaments.

The Hanoverian government wants us to provide them with shipbuilding technology to help them fulfill their orders in their own shipyards, or the business will end up in Austria’s hands.”

This was not the first time that the Bundestag had vetoed an arms purchase with the UK, and to be precise it had not been approved once since North Germany had been formally established.

The main reason for the frequent vetoes of orders was nationalism, with the majority of the population believing that Britain was responsible for the division of the German region and opposing military cooperation with the British in any situation.

In the face of the monstrous public opinion, the weak central government of North Germany naturally could not carry the load, and the state parliaments were only tools pushed to the foreground.

Hearing this explanation, Prime Minister Gladstone’s good mood was gone in a flash, cursing: “Damn nationalism again, it is definitely the biggest ideological tumor in this world.

I bet: if one day the situation in Europe gets out of control, it will definitely be caused by nationalism.

Don’t bother with them, what’s the difference between giving them the shipbuilding technology and giving it directly to the Austrians?

Tell the North German government that we can do without these warship orders, but they absolutely must not fall into Austrian hands, or they will suffer the consequences.”

There was no way around it, the German region was originally the cradle of European nationalist ideology, and it was simply not something that could be controlled just by talking about it.

The vassals had been fighting for hundreds of years, and everyone had long been tired of fighting. The reason why Prussia was able to easily annex the many states of North Germany in the original time and space was because of the spread of nationalism and the peace of mind of the people.

Now is similar, even because the powers interfered in the unification of Germany, the people think that they have been humiliated, nationalism than the same period in history is even a few points higher.

Together with Austria’s push and pull, anti-British has become the mainstream of the German region’s thinking, and the Hanoverian little brother, which was supported by this influence, is not so obedient.

The British government is not without counterattack, but unfortunately the effect is not good, not only the people do not buy, even the rulers are also interested in very few.

If the Austrian threat had been promoted before the nationalist upsurge, it would have been effective, but unfortunately the time was not right.

In the minds of the nationalists, the Austrian threat theory was similar to the Austrian unification theory, which did not scare anyone at all.

Against this background, it would be too difficult to expect the shipbuilders of North Germany to keep British shipbuilding technology a secret.

Gladstone Prime Minister angry is not surprising, the face of a only see the input, do not see the return, and the position of the wavering little brother, put aside who will have a psychological opinion.

……

Sir Astley Cooper Key, Secretary of the Navy, “Your Excellency the Prime Minister, the Admiralty’s new shipbuilding program, has been drafted.”

Prime Minister Gladstone received the document, just swept a glance at the number of ships to be built, the cost, as for the specific parameters this is not something that he, a layman, needs to consider.

“Add six more main ships, is this too much, in case it scares away France and Austria, how can this game continue?”

Prime Minister Gladstone’s concern was justified. For a country, face was important, but face could not be a meal.

If Britain played too hard, it was only natural for France and Austria to retreat, after all, those were two land power countries.

Losing the naval arms race is losing, it’s not going to kill you. Anyway, with or without a referee, to put it another way, anyone can declare themselves a winner.

Hearing this figure, the Minister of Finance, Xiaoji Childers, jumped the gun and said, “This year’s budget has already been allocated, and even next year’s budget, it all has a place to go.

France and Austria’s shipbuilding program, both three years, five years, we have absolutely no need to rush. The navy’s shipbuilding program, why not hold off for two years.”

In fact, the Royal Navy’s shipbuilding program most of the time is also carried out separately, this time only in order to pre-empt, in front of a “six battleships” to start work.

The effect is naturally strong, Britain to the world to show their strong shipbuilding ability, once again shocked the world.

In addition to Britain, there is no other country in the world that has a record of building six new battleships at the same time.

However, the world’s first place comes at a price, and that is money spent exceptionally fast.

Although a fortune from the Jews, but the bureaucrats’ ability to spend money is not to be questioned, only a few months, the departments reported spending plans greatly exceeded the total.

In order to control the government’s spending speed, foresight Xiaoji Childers, early choice to reduce government debt.

In addition to individual important plans being approved, most of the plans have been put on hold indefinitely, to be implemented just wait for any year to think of it!

In this respect, this British government is excellent, at least in terms of accountability.

Astley Cooper Key frowned and locked eyes with the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a moment, before finally losing the battle helplessly.

There was no way around it, the moneybags couldn’t be messed with. Even if the shipbuilding funds were allocated, the increased military expenditure behind it would likewise have to be supported by the Ministry of Finance.

Astley Cooper Key retreated and said: ”Shipbuilding can be postponed, but the plan I think it’s better to announce it earlier.

To consume the financial resources of France and Austria, we have to put more pressure on them to be able to do so, to and like now so lukewarm, it will not be able to play any role at all.”

Indeed it was lukewarm, the arms race was only opened in theory. The shipyards of each country were not in full swing, building two or three battleships a year, and that was good enough to call it an arms race?

You know, Britain in normal years, every year to build two or three battleships. Otherwise, it can’t make up for the Royal Navy’s main ship retirement gap.

……

As the British continued to ramp up, the arms race was in full swing. Watching the brilliant performance of the British, French and Austrian governments, Alexander III looked particularly forlorn.

It was amazing that the Russian Empire was absent from such an important moment.

You know, even the declining Spain, Portugal, Holland and other small countries, have gritted their teeth and announced their shipbuilding program.

Although the scale is a little smaller, or symbolically build a brush with existence, after all, still participated.

It is not that the Russian Empire has been poor to the point that even the money to build a warship can not be taken out, the key is that they do not have the technology ah!

Russia’s several major shipyards have not received orders for warships for decades, the technology has long been abandoned, not to mention the new battleships, even if it is the original ironclad they have not built.

The so-called shipbuilding information is still stuck in the era of sail battleships. Without any accumulation of technology, it is not a joke to step into the era of the former dreadnought.

Alexander III asked with concern: “How is it, did the Austrians agree to transfer the shipbuilding technology?”

These days, shipbuilding technology is basically a country’s highest level of science and technology embodiment, everyone is strictly confidential.

Foreign Minister Oscar Jimenez: “The Austrian government agreed to the transfer of technology, but the specific cost needs to be negotiated between ourselves and the shipbuilders.

Our people separately visited the person in charge of several Austrian warship manufacturing plants, the results are not optimistic, they asked for bundled sales not to mention that the offer is also far more than we can afford.

The Venice Shipyard with the lowest offer, the latest battleship technology transfer condition is also as high as 8 million Shendian, plus 4 battleships, 10 destroyers, 6 cruisers, as well as 36 subordinate warships order.”

This was no longer technology transfer, it was clearly a knockout. But there was no way around it, there were only a few countries that mastered these technologies.

There were less than twenty shipyards in the world that possessed the technology to build new battleships, and even fewer were willing to sell the technology.

As a matter of fact, Oscar Jiménez had not yet said that the Venice Shipyard, which offered the lowest price, had never built the new battleships.

The question of how advanced the so-called advanced technology really is is one that no one can answer.

As a matter of fact, many Austrian shipyards were capable of building warships, although their main business was still building civilian merchant ships.

The main goal of participating in warship building was still to make a name for themselves, similar to advertising.

Generally speaking, the standard recognized by the outside world is: the shipyard that can build the main ship for the military is the first-class shipyard;

Shipyards that can build destroyers and cruisers are considered second-rate shipyards;

Shipyards that can only build subordinate warships are third-rate shipyards;

Shipyards that are unable to build warships are small family workshops, no matter how large they are.

Just as this Venice shipyard, in the bidding process was given pk down, still did not give up the relevant technology research and development.

Originally prepared to continue to bid next time, heard the Russians want to introduce technology, is ready to knock the bar.

As for the other several shipbuilders involved in the offer, of course, together with the joint price of the TO. If the business negotiated, Venice Shipyard will give everyone a compensation.

Expect shipbuilders because of the competition to pressure each other’s prices, that’s completely overthinking, no one will and money is bad.

Alexander III was surprised: “How can it be so expensive?”

Foreign Minister Oscar Jimenez explained, “The main reason is that there are very few shipbuilders who have mastered these technologies, and it also involves the core technology of the company, which is generally not for sale to the public.

If it wasn’t for the sake of obtaining orders from our navy, these shipyards wouldn’t even quote a price.”

Alexander III nodded, people don’t even want to sell their technology, it would be normal to deliberately quote a sky-high price to scare them off.

Outsourcing warships, this option never existed. If they couldn’t obtain the most advanced shipbuilding technology, a few more warships didn’t mean anything to the Russian Empire.

After a few moments of contemplation, Alexander III said bitterly, “Take your time to talk! We are in no hurry, and this arms race has nothing to do with us anyway.

If we can’t get the most advanced shipbuilding technology, we’ll settle for the second best and take the technology related to these warships in our hands.”

If Austria hadn’t sent a bunch of warships to his door, Alexander III definitely wouldn’t have had the idea of buying shipbuilding technology.

Now there is no way, not to buy technology from Austria, the warship’s late maintenance, but also to drive the ship to the Austrian shipyard to carry out.

Engaged in the Russian Navy can only be in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea around, want to split a fleet into the Baltic Sea can not.

As for the Russian shipyards, there are a lot of volunteers that they can do a good job of late maintenance, but the Navy up and down do not dare to believe that these baby bumps for fear of being scourged by them.

Not only the navy did not believe, in fact, Alexander III also did not believe. He was educated in the new style of education, clear navy this thing is how complicated.

A problem with the maintenance of a warship may be insignificant in normal times, but in critical moments it can kill a person.

(End of chapter)