Holy Roman Empire

Foreign Secretary George explained: "The Foreign Office has been working on it, but the results are not optimistic.

Fao now supports the Russians, the main purpose is to let the Russians consume our strength, so that they can reap the benefits.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs provoked conflicts several times, but was suppressed by the governments of the three countries.It is very difficult to cut off the assistance of France and Austria to the Russians in the short term. "

The current passive situation is actually a sequela of Britain's long-term foreign policy.Both France and Austria have grievances against Britain, and supporting the Russians is everyone's means of revenge.

Even if there is no interest, France and Austria will support the Russians.It is right for countries to use interests to speak, but people will hold grudges.

Take France as an example. Under normal circumstances, there is no market for Russian bonds, but the French still bought them.

Many buyers do not simply want to speculate, but more want to take revenge on the British and vent their anger.

As advertised, every franc spent on bonds would be turned into bullets for the British.

The same is true for Austria, which has been suppressed by the British government in recent years and has done little overseas. The Vienna government has long wanted to retaliate.

In addition to hatred, France and Austria can also gain a lot of benefits by using the Russians to consume Britain's strength.

If the British are defeated and India becomes a battlefield, the awesome empire that the sun never sets will fall.

The dominance of the Royal Navy is inseparable from financial support. Once India is smashed, the British Isles and other colonies alone cannot suppress France and Austria.

When hatred meets interests, this is the current situation.France and Austria regarded supporting the Russians in attacking Afghanistan as a means of pulling the British down from their status as world hegemony.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Childers shook his head: "The matter is not that serious, the French are still our allies, and there will be no anti-British alliance.

It can be seen from the level of support that they support the Russians, but only a small group of people in the French government, and they cannot represent the position of the French government.

Austria is not a fool either. Once the Russians occupy India, they will be under great pressure on the Eastern Front. Their support for the Russians must be limited.

If nothing else, Austrian support ended once the Russians won the war in Afghanistan. "

If the three countries of France, Austria and Russia are really close, the remaining sloppy countries will know who they will support with their knees. Once the European continent is united, the hegemony of Britain will end.

The core reason for Britain to provoke the relationship between European countries is to avoid the unification or union of the European continent, which threatens their interests.

After hundreds of years of hard work by the British government and problems left over from history, the European continent has long been full of contradictions.

It is true that France and Austria support the Russians, but this does not affect the competitive relationship between Russia, France and Austria. The position of a European hegemon prevents the three countries from truly cooperating.

From the point of view of development potential alone, the Russian Empire far exceeds that of European countries. Even Austria had no way to compare with the Russians before it annexed the Ottoman Empire.

As long as the economic shortcomings are made up, the Russian Empire will be reborn in an instant and become one of the most powerful countries in the world.

No matter how you look at it, France and Austria have no reason to continue to let the Russians continue to grow bigger.

Especially for Austria as a neighbor, from a geopolitical point of view, the possibility of a conflict between Russia and Austria is infinitely close to [-]%.

Secretary of the Army Rosario nodded: "Your Excellency's analysis is good, logically it is indeed so.

But we can't let the Russians win the war in Afghanistan now, even for a short period of time, and it's simply not allowed politically.

If we want to win this war in a short time, we must make France and Austria give up their support for the Tsarist government.

Otherwise, even if the reinforcements arrived, it would be useless to defeat the Russians.The Russians will continue to increase their troops, just like the Russo-Prussian War, as long as the financial and material resources can keep up, the Tsar will have soldiers.

The Ministry of War suggested encouraging the French to expand into Central Europe, or allowing Austria to unify the German region, intensifying the contradictions between France and Austria, and detonating the European war. "

This is not the best way, but it is the most effective way.Simply provoking relations between countries, the rulers of various countries are not fools, and they will not be fooled at all.

If you want people to be fooled, the best way is to benefit.As long as the benefits offered are large enough, the conspiracy will become a conspiracy, and even knowing that there is a problem, it is still impossible to refuse.

Foreign Secretary George warned: "Letting go of the ambitions of France and Austria can indeed solve the current problems, but what about the consequences?

Once the French and Austrian countries have decided the outcome, the new European hegemon will be born.

If the winner is the French, we may also encourage European countries to start a new anti-French war; if Austria wins this war, we will not be able to start an anti-Austrian war. "

It is true that this world speaks with fists, but sometimes other factors have to be considered.European countries are not fools, and it is impossible to be led by the nose.

The expansion of the French to Central Europe will make everyone have bad associations. As long as we guide it, in order to prevent the birth of the second Napoleon, we have a basis for cooperation.

The victory of the Austrian unification is different. The Holy Roman Empire itself existed, and now it has been reunified, which is not an invasion.

As long as the Austrian Emperor does not kill them all, and keeps the existence of the states, everyone will not feel sad when the rabbit dies.

For a small country, no matter who is the boss of Europe, it is not their turn. As long as it does not harm their own interests, they will not go all out at all.

Secretary of the Army Rosario smiled and said: "Your Excellency, you are too worried, France and Austria are both big countries, so it is not so easy to tell the winner.

Once this war starts, it is destined to be protracted.No matter who wins or loses, they will suffer a lot in the end.

The winner may become the overlord of the continent, but the loser cannot die.As long as we intervene in time, the loser will still be one of the few great powers in Europe.

Under the power of hatred, the two countries will continue to confront each other for a long time.

The French won the war, and the pattern of the European continent was the Russian-Austrian alliance against France; Austria won the war, and the pattern of the European continent was France and Russia against Austria.

After paying hundreds of thousands, or even millions of casualties, and only winning the nominal European hegemony, there are no winners.

Besides, don't you think France and Austria are too powerful?If this continues, the Royal Navy may also..."

This is also the reason why the French and Austrian governments exercise restraint. After all, it is easy to defeat an opponent, but it is difficult to eliminate an opponent.

Both France and Austria are incapable of annexing each other. Even if the country is destroyed now, a new regime will still be born, and the situation of confrontation between the two countries will not be improved.

Unless you are playing genocide, solve the problem once and for all.It's a pity that it's the 19th century now, and it's okay to do this overseas, but if you play this way in continental Europe, other countries will interfere.

Faol doesn't even have the ability to fight alone, so naturally he has to exercise restraint.Otherwise, it will only hurt both sides, and it will be cheap for the fisherman who goes to the theater.

1 Forty chapters of foreign relations that cannot stand the test

The international situation is changing, and Franz has not paid much attention to it. Now he is staring at the list of price changes in the first quarter.

According to common sense, the prices of just-needed daily necessities such as grain will inevitably increase during the war, especially when Europe's largest exporter of raw grain is involved in the war.

Because of the war, the total amount of food exported from the Russian Empire has been greatly reduced since last year, and the amount of light flowing into Austria has decreased by a quarter.

Undoubtedly, this part of the gap was offset by the increase in Austria's local grain production.

Although the promotion of potassium fertilizer was just started last year, and the private sector has not used it on a large scale, there are state-owned farms in Austria!

In fact, the number of state farms directly controlled by the government has been decreasing.Because of management costs, many small and medium farms are rented out to individuals.

No matter how much it is reduced, the land area occupied by state-owned farms is still not low.Counting only the European part, the area occupied by state-owned farms is already less than 5.00% of the arable land area, but it is different when other regions are included.

For example: In the Asia Minor peninsula, except for the lands granted by the nobility and military meritorious service, the rest of the arable land basically belonged to the state-owned farms.

It's not that Franz is willing to build so many state-owned farms, it's mainly due to practical needs.If the government does not arrange for someone to take over, the farmland left by Ottoman will be abandoned.

It is impossible to sell to the people, which will weaken the temptation of military meritorious service and shake the foundation of Austria.

Except for the initial land redemption and the period when colonies were established, the best way for ordinary people to acquire land was military meritorious service.

Don't ask why, who knows that there is still a European war waiting, and preparations must be made in advance.

If there is not enough return, why make soldiers work hard?If you don't hoard enough land, how can you reward soldiers after the war?

The European continent is now densely populated, and there has long been no unclaimed land, and the spoils of war cannot be counted on at all.

In this context, even knowing the high operating costs of state-owned farms, Franz could only admit it through gritted teeth.

It is really unbearable to sustain losses, and it can also be contracted to individual operations.Anyway, as long as the property of the land still belongs to the country, it will not affect the use of land as a reward to individuals in the future.

In fact, the French government's large farm plan was also brought out by Austria.

Seeing that the Austrian government had a bunch of farms in their hands, they followed suit.It's just that they don't know that the farms in Austria are also struggling to support them.

Because of the support of supporting processing enterprises behind them, on the surface, Austrian farms are operating well and can turn over profits to the government every year.

In essence, profits are contributed by the farm's affiliated enterprises.Most farms can only keep their capital, and very few directly generate profits.

It is not a listed company, and the financial statements of state-owned enterprises are also confidential, and the public announcement is only the total profit. The specific corporate structure and asset allocation are completely unknown to the outside world.

In the eyes of Napoleon IV, these are good data.

If someone proposes to follow suit, then follow suit. There is no reason why France cannot do what the Austrian government can do.

How could the emperor in the inner courtyard of the deep palace know if the bureaucrats under the specific inside information did not report it?

Especially after the trip to Algeria, Napoleon IV directly attributed all the problems to - bureaucratic malfeasance and corruption.

Although the state-owned farms have a lot of land, but the area of ​​grain cultivation is not large, the real significance is still the leading role.

There is no shortage of smart people in this world. The government is promoting potash fertilizers, and state-owned farms are using them on a large scale. Naturally, some people dare to take risks.

In particular, officials in the government were the first to accept potash fertilizers and use them on their own land.

The final result, of course, was that Austria's grain production capacity increased significantly last year.

The final increase in production is not [-] percent as estimated by the Ministry of Agriculture, but [-] percent.

Of course, this also includes the newly increased arable land area, resulting in an increase in grain production capacity.

Don't underestimate this [-]% error. Based on Austria's grain production capacity base, this is the annual rations for millions of people.

Coupled with the respective agricultural plans of Britain and France, the colony's food production was increased and food imports were reduced.

The end result is that Russian grain exports have decreased, and prices in the international grain trading market have fallen instead of rising.

If food prices fall, it is still acceptable.Then the prices of various commodities such as textiles and steel also fell, which made Franz unable to understand.

This is a time of war, Britain and Russia are fighting fiercely, how can the price of strategic materials fall?

Holding the document in his hand, Franz asked in disbelief, "Are you sure you got the price list correctly?"

Reinhardt, Minister of Economy: "Your Majesty, we have confirmed many times that the above statistics are indeed the average price of the first quarter.

Not only domestic prices have not risen, in fact the whole of Europe is the same.Except for the wave of rising prices at the beginning of the war last year, the prices in the first quarter showed that the market returned to rationality.

The impact of the Anglo-Russian War on the European economy was not as great as we expected in advance.Especially the demand for materials is much less than what we planned.

The British aside, they can rely on domestic production.The lack of Russian imports is mainly due to two reasons according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs:

First, the Tsarist government prepared for war in advance, and many materials were purchased before the war. Our export trade list last year can prove this;

Second, the material consumption on the Afghan battlefield is far smaller than we expected.

I have consulted with the General Staff, and the reduction in the consumption of Russian military materials is due to the fact that the terrain of Afghanistan is not conducive to the deployment of heavy weapons; "

This answer left Franz speechless.The intensity of the war is not enough, and the consumption of materials is naturally not high.

The food with the highest consumption, but the Russians have no shortage, so there is no need to import it at all.The British can raise money from India, and there is no need to transport it from Europe.

After receiving the news of the outbreak of the Anglo-Russian War, capitalists all over Europe let go of their hands and feet to expand production capacity in an attempt to make a fortune.

However, the production capacity has increased, but the strategic materials imported by the two major belligerent countries have not kept up with expectations. This is a tragedy.

In the era of free trade, no matter whether it is a commodity, once the market supply exceeds demand, the price decline becomes inevitable.

If the Anglo-Russian War hadn't continued and market confidence hadn't collapsed, the situation would have been even more serious.

After sighing, Franz said helplessly: "Just count the time, a new round of economic crisis is coming soon.

The capitalists all fantasized that the Anglo-Russian War was more grand than the Prussian-Prussian War, and all of them rushed to make war fortunes.

The current situation is very obvious. No matter how the Anglo-Russian war expands, it is impossible for millions of troops to fight in melee.

If the current situation does not change, I am afraid that this Anglo-Russian war will be the fuse of overcapacity in European countries. "

Every overcapacity is a mistake made by capitalists in market expectations.If you are a smart person, now you still have the opportunity to cut the meat and stop the loss.If it lasts until the end of the Anglo-Russian War, it will really be over.

If you know it, you know it, but Franz has no intention of interfering.This is a thankless thing, and there will be no benefit other than pulling hatred and taking the blame.

Foreign Minister Weisenberg: "Overcapacity is only a small problem, nothing more than an industry reshuffle, and it will pass after gritting your teeth.

The trouble is that in the recent period, Britain, France and Russia have been making small moves.Especially the British, constantly creating friction between us and the French.

Once or twice is enough. If there are too many times, our relationship with the French cannot stand this kind of test.

Especially not long ago, the British government also stated very implicitly that as long as we give up our support for the Russians, they will support us in unifying the German region.

If nothing else, the British made similar promises to the French, and possibly even more. "

Don't talk about Austrian relations. The relationship between any two countries cannot withstand long-term toss.

Knowing that this is a British conspiracy, but these contradictions exist in France and Austria, and they are still insoluble.

No matter how much the French and Austrian governments suppress it, it will leave a lump in their hearts.Over time, these conflicts will always erupt.

Prime Minister Karl shook his head: "The core of the problem is not on our side, the key depends on what the French think.

If the French could not withstand the temptation and accepted the British proposal, then the European war would be inevitable. "

According to the original plan, going step by step, it is only a matter of time before Austria unifies the German region, and the Vienna government can naturally restrain its desire and not take risks.