Holy Roman Empire

Otherwise, once the news of "instructing the Japanese to kill the Russian army in the Far East" is spread, where will Emperor Franz's face be placed?

It doesn't matter if you cheat your allies, allies are used to cheat you.But if you cheat allies with open flames, you will go beyond the bottom line.

As a rule maker, Franz would not do such cross-line things.

By contrast, let the Japanese figure it out for themselves, and whatever happens has nothing to do with Franz.

It mainly depends on the outcome of the civil war in the Russian Empire. If Russia is broken up by chance, it means that the Japanese have not shown sincerity and must be severely punished.

If the Russians have survived the crisis, out of the need to check and balance the Russians, it doesn't matter to keep Japan as a pawn.

Of course, the prerequisite is that the Japanese have killed the Russian army in the Far East, proving that they have the strength to contain the Russians.

Fortunately, Franz's plan was only known to him.If the Japanese government knew the truth, it would probably have a nervous breakdown immediately.

What's even more tragic is that no matter how broken the mentality is, you must follow the established script.

Betting on whether the Russians can survive, at least there is a certain chance; if you reject the content in the script, it is 100% finished.

Prime Minister Chandler: "The Japanese are a minor nuisance, a militaristic agricultural nation, not worthy of our attention.

Including the interest disputes between American allies, it is not a big deal, and it can be resolved in a little time.

The real trouble is the Americans and the Russians.Although the United States has been divided once, the size of the United States is still too large.

No one knows how much they have benefited from the British this time.Once you let them digest the gains, the future is sure to be a problem.

The Confederate States must also be more vigilant. Although they are inclined to us in this war, they have agreed to start a war against the United States, but they have not really taken action until now.

It is clear that they want to use the power of the alliance to expand their own power.If it is not curbed, the future will be another hot potato.

Not to mention the Russians, who have been a threat to the European continent for hundreds of years, and they have been peaceful for a few years after the rise of the empire.

The tsarist government's greed for land was never-ending. If their strength was not weakened, the European continent would not be peaceful in the future.

Now is the best opportunity. Once this opportunity is missed, it will be a big trouble for them to collude with Britain and France, who are unwilling to fail in the future. "

It can be seen that Prime Minister Chandler did not take the British seriously.Before the end of the world war, Britain moved down two positions from Shinra's threat list.

Relatively speaking, targeting the United States is relatively simple.Anyway, they are enemies now, as long as they don't accept their defection, they can pull their allies to suppress them in an open and honest manner.

The most troublesome thing is to deal with the Russians.As a traditional ally of Austria and now an important member of the Continental Alliance, it is impossible for the Vienna government to directly attack them.

Not only could it not do anything, but the Vienna government, as an ally, had to provide help to the Russians on the surface.

Even cutting off the supply of strategic materials, they found an excuse of "prioritizing supply to the front-line Russian army", otherwise they would not be able to explain it.

This is already the limit of what the Vienna government can do.Supporting the National Independence Movement and assisting the Revolutionary Party is absolutely unacceptable.

"The American issue is put on hold for the time being, and will be dealt with after the war against Britain is over.

It is inconvenient for us to directly intervene in the Russian issue, and let the Berlin government figure it out. "

Fortunately, the Holy Roman Empire still has a Prussia that is firmly anti-Russian. Otherwise, Franz would not know who to lead.

Although these small actions cannot be concealed from those who are interested; but as long as the Vienna government firmly refuses to admit it, it is tantamount to doing nothing.

As for the anti-Russian behavior of the Kingdom of Prussia, it is an issue left over from history and has nothing to do with the central government.

……

The Vienna government is preparing for the aftermath, and the London government is also thinking about the way out.At this point in the war, Britain has essentially lost.

With the continuous defection of allies, the supply of materials in the British Isles has become more and more difficult.

Now not only have to beware of the enemy's submarine attack, but also the stabbing from the allies.

Once the allies change sides, all of Britain's assets in the country will be in vain.

In a sense, Britain's huge overseas investment is also one of the reasons why countries dare to change jobs.

These assets of the British were confiscated. Not only did they submit the vote to the Continental Alliance, but they also made up a lot of the price they needed to pay, and some countries even made money.

The war has not yet been defeated, but the British have experienced the sequelae of the defeat first.

A large number of overseas assets were lost, and the British capital industry was also hit hard. In particular, the financial market was devastated, and the stock market was directly cut in half and then cut in half.

It's different from the confiscation of assets by the Continental Alliance before. At that time, everyone still thought that after the war was over, they could get it back with interest.

The current situation is very obvious. Anyone with a little knowledge knows that the British Empire has lost the possibility of winning the war.

The most optimistic estimate now is just that: Britain can retreat unscathed after paying a certain price.

Stock speculation is based on expectations, and now that future expectations are gone, it has naturally become the biggest negative in the market.

Compared with ordinary investors, the well-informed consortium reacted more violently, and now they are desperate to cut their flesh.

The meat cutting is not over yet. After getting the cash, the capitalists tried every means to exchange it for gold.Even if a premium is needed now, it still cannot stop everyone's enthusiasm for gold.

In the era of the gold standard, there was a premium for the pound to be exchanged for gold. From an economic point of view, the price of gold rose, or the pound depreciated.

As a currency reserve, the value of gold itself has not changed, so the pound can only depreciate.

And with the continuous rise of the "premium", the "depreciation" of the pound continues invisibly.

Based on the general judgment of the market on the impact of the depreciation of the pound, it seems that overnight, the pound has been reduced from a world currency to a garbage currency that everyone hates.

Affected by this environment, prices in the British Isles set foot on the highway again and began to run wildly upwards.

Not to mention looking forward to turning defeat into victory, and even paying a certain price to get out of the body, everyone has no hope.

The stock market crash came next, and what troubled Prime Minister Campbell the most was the financial crisis triggered by the stock market crash.

Wars are about money, and the financial revenue of the British Empire is not too high, at least when compared with the Holy Roman Empire, the two are not on the same level.

The most critical factor in being able to mobilize enough funds for war is the developed financial system of the UK and the government's strong financing capabilities.

But now that the financial crisis has broken out, the London financial market has been hit hard, and it is almost impossible to raise funds from the market in a short period of time.

War is a gold-swallowing beast. With the little wealth in the hands of the government, if there is no follow-up funding, it will not last long.

The situation was already dangerous, but now there are problems with the supply of supplies and the government's pocketbook. Campbell can't think of panic.

It is useless to panic, the biggest problem in Britain now is "confidence".The public, interest groups, and even government officials are skeptical that this war can be won.

Unless the British army can achieve a major victory on the battlefield and stimulate everyone's nerves, otherwise it is almost impossible to change everyone's views.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Asquith: "Recently, domestic inflation has been very strong, the people at the bottom are miserable, and the market is losing confidence in the pound.

More and more people choose to exchange gold, our reserves have dropped to the lowest point in 50 years, and free exchange has to be temporarily suspended.

However, this is a temporary solution, not the root cause. It can only temporarily curb the outflow of gold, but cannot fundamentally solve the problem.

To avoid this situation, the best way is to decouple the pound from gold and implement a credit standard system.

......"

The methods are all forced out. If it is not for the outbreak of the run, Asquith will never engage in the "credit standard system".

It's not that they don't know the benefits of the "credit standard system", but the main reason is that the risks inherent in it are too great.If you don't pay attention, the value of the British pound will completely cool down.

Chapter 1 Armistice Negotiations

Currency standard reform is nothing new.The gold standard has only been accepted by European countries in the last three to fifty years.

Mishaps have also occurred in the middle. In order to avoid the large-scale outflow of gold, all countries have basically introduced restrictive policies during the reform period.

The most representative is the Financial Control Act of the Vienna government, which directly stipulates that large capital outflows should be restricted.

This is also one of the reasons why financial capitalists hate Shinra. The circulation of large amounts of capital is restricted, and it is impossible to fast in and fast out, which seriously affects the speed at which everyone makes money.

Before the war, Britain was a financial hegemon, and there had been excess capital for a long time. Naturally, there was no need to restrict capital outflows.

Things are different now.As the situation continues to deteriorate, capitalists with a keen sense of politics are ready to run away.

Anyone with a discerning eye knows that once the Oceanic Alliance collapses, even if Britain is able to retreat unscathed, there will be no future to speak of.

Looking around, there are enemies everywhere, so how can we talk about future development?

Capitalists can run away with money, but other vested interests cannot.Without Britain, capitalists can still be capitalists, but nobles and bureaucrats have nothing.

Although the power of capital is powerful, it is not their turn to cover the sky in the British Empire these days.

Blessings are shared, and difficulties are shared.The capitalists want to get out of the vortex, but other forces will naturally not agree.

If you want to die, you have to die together. You can't let everyone work hard on the battlefield and let the capitalists stab their knives in the back.

"Standard system reform" is the countermeasure that everyone has put forward.Once the capitalists withdraw funds on a large scale, the British pound and gold will be completely decoupled.

Just like the French government did at the end of the European Continental War.While abandoning the gold standard, the free convertibility of the franc into gold was also stopped.

In the era of the gold standard, a currency that cannot be freely exchanged is worthless, and the international capital market does not recognize it, and it is waste paper when it is taken out.

With no reserve limit, the French government printed money recklessly to raise funds, and inflation quickly swept across the country.

In order to preserve their wealth, capitalists who hold a large amount of francs have to buy assets.

After the defeat of the war, the capitalists who held a large amount of assets were successfully locked up in France and severely injured.A few unlucky ones were tried as war criminals.

The nobles who were originally economically disadvantaged gradually gained the upper hand in the subsequent struggles and returned to the era of nobles and bureaucrats.

There are ready-made examples out there, and the British government will naturally use them to frighten domestic capitalists.

There is no problem with running away, and it is impossible to withdraw money.Either spend money to buy national debt and transfuse blood for this war; or overturn the table and collapse the market and everyone will die together.

No, to be precise, it's just the big capitalists and financial groups that are going to die.Other interest groups will only suffer heavy losses, not necessarily fatal.

If anyone pays attention, they will find that the correspondence between the great British nobles and their relatives in Europe has become more frequent recently.

It's hard to say whether it's a normal exchange between relatives, or someone looking for a way to bridge the gap and prepare for the future.

After all, the Holy Roman Empire is the stronghold of conservative forces, and it is very stubborn in maintaining fine traditions.

Just look at France after the war. Except for a few unsightly nobles who were sent to military courts, the rest were gently let go.

With such a ready-made case, it is not surprising that everyone is active.After all, the ship is going to sink, and the people on board have to find a way to survive.

The specific manifestation is: the voices of the British Isles advocating negotiations are getting louder and louder, and more and more people are asking the London government to end the war.

As for how to end the war, that is the government's business. Anyway, "anti-war" is definitely right now.

……

In Buckingham Palace, a distraught Edward VII was holding an encrypted telegram that had been crumpled up and reopened.

Compared with the content of the telegram, what needs to be kept more confidential is the address of the telegram - Vienna Palace.

As the two major royal families in the world of European monarchs, the Gotha family and the Habsburg family naturally had a marriage, and not only once.

Franz and Edward VII are still genuine sons and daughters.But in the European world, it has always been "relatives to relatives, wars to wars".

The First World War in the original time and space was a big scuffle between relatives, and this time was no exception.

It's just that Edward VII was a bit tragic. His great uncle in Europe unfortunately stood on the opposite side of all relatives, and now he is being beaten by everyone.

In the early days of the war, in order to avoid suspicion, Edward VII took the initiative to reduce the contact with relatives.

It's a pity that the development of the situation is very embarrassing, and it seems that the situation is about to die. For the future of the British Empire, in order to keep their own throne, they have to restore contact again.

Different from the original time and space, affected by the butterfly effect, the central figure of the European royal family has now become Franz, not his European uncle.

Judging from the reaction of Edward VII, it is known that the "in-laws" of the Palace of Vienna did not give face.

After calming down, Edward VII was soon relieved.It involves national interests, and it is not easy to put it on anyone.

The war has progressed to the present, and it can no longer be stopped just by saying stop.

The voice of anti-war among the British people is high, mainly due to the impact of bombing and shortage of supplies, and everyone's life is almost unbearable.

But the Holy Roman Empire is different. Now, from top to bottom, they want to pull down the British Empire and become the world hegemon by themselves, drinking and eating meat.

Now that Britain wants to negotiate an armistice, the conditions cannot be harsh.As requested on the Telegram three points:

[-]. Transfer of all colonies;

[-]. Irish independence, Scottish independence, and Welsh independence;

[-]. Compensation for the losses of the participating countries of the Continental Alliance.

Except for the third article of compensation for losses, there is no specific figure, and there is still room for negotiation. The first two are rigid regulations.If you are satisfied, you can talk. If you are not satisfied, there is no need to negotiate.

If Edward VII dared to agree to such a condition, Buckingham Palace would change its owner within three days.

Even though he knew that the ending was not ideal, George who was approaching couldn't help asking, "Father, what did the telegram say?"

"See for yourself!"