South Africa is in turmoil, and the London government is worried. At one time, it was thought that Austria and the French had made a secret deal against the Federal German Empire.

Fortunately, the worst did not happen, Austria did not act, otherwise they would have added a new threat.

Austria, nestled in the Mediterranean, was a terrible threat, but it did not threaten Britain. Once Germany was reunified, the situation changed when the Atlantic was crossed, and the distance between the two sides was narrowed.

Of course, this threat is relative. Franz was also worried about the threat from the British, after all, the Royal Navy was the strongest of its time.

What didn't happen, but it only made Prime Minister Benjamin even more confused, and he couldn't see what the Austrians were trying to do.

Don't care about the French threat? That's impossible! The Habsburgs and the French, who had been entangled on the European continent for hundreds of years, could not have understood the horrors of their opponents?

France's annexation of Italy not only expanded its territory, but also established France's hegemony in the Mediterranean and continental hegemony.

Austria does not have on this issue? Reason will be compromised, even if it is worried that it will benefit from a direct confrontation with France, then after the London government agrees to the alliance, the Vienna government should intervene.

Benjamin asked with concern, "Do you know the inside story of the Franco-Austrian deal?" ”

The more I can't understand it, the more I feel that there is a problem. In order to find out the insider trading between France and Austria, the London government did everything in its power to activate the highest level of shadows.

For this reason, many spies lurking in France and Austria have been exposed, and the situation that has been transmitted back is still only fragmented, which needs to be analyzed and inferred.

Foreign Secretary Maclean's thought for a moment and said, "We don't have enough information to make a preliminary judgment.

Roughly: Austria acquiesced in the annexation of Italy by France in exchange for French recognition of their unification of Germany.

There may be other trade-offs, such as the two countries uniting to divide the Mediterranean Sea and exclude us; and the secret partition of the African continent, among others.

In recent years, Franco-Austrian relations have become very close, and the two countries seem to have agreed on overseas colonial expansion, basically going their separate ways, and there are few direct conflicts.

This time the French acted suddenly and took the Viennese government by surprise. Austria did not have time to prepare at all, they wanted to unify the German regions, and they could not bypass the Kingdom of Prussia.

The Vienna government was supposed to be preparing to use the Russo-Prussian War to weaken Prussia, but they did not expect the Russians to be so uncompetitive that they would actually lose the war.

Had it not been for this accident, the nationalists would have forced the defeated kingdom of Prussia to join the HRE Empire, and it would be time for Austria to unify Germany.

An accident caused the Viennese government's plan to fail completely. Now they may still be struggling with whether to unify the German regions by force. ”

Brain supplementation is often the most terrifying, true and false mess of intelligence, which successfully leads the British astray, and Maclean's choice is the most logical inference.

The crowd breathed a sigh of relief and seemed to accept the statement. The scariest thing is always the unknown, once you figure out the ins and outs of the matter, there is a solution.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Motoli analyzed: "In recent years, the Vienna government has invested a lot of fiscal revenue in economic development without military preparations.

The Kingdom of Prussia was not weak, and having learned the lessons of the Russians, it was impossible for the Vienna government to act rashly against them without being prepared.

However, it is necessary to prepare for the worst, Austria's advantage over Prussia is too great, and once the Vienna government has made up its mind to do so, it will not be too long to prepare for war. ”

War is not child's play, especially in modern times, which is very dependent on logistics. In the event of a war between the two countries, a series of material preparations are necessitated. This requires a lot of financial and human resources, and it is impossible to keep it secret.

Judging whether a country is preparing for war from the flow of materials is quite reliable.

"It is indeed necessary to be vigilant, one Great France is enough, and there will definitely be no more unified HRE Empire.

After so many years of development, the gap between the strength of Prussia and Austria has not narrowed, but has further widened.

Although the Prussians won the Russo-Prussian War, it will take time for these spoils to be digested, and they will not all be converted into strength in the short term.

At present, Austria's standing army is as high as 580,000, and if war breaks out, they can mobilize another two or three million troops in the shortest possible time.

More than a decade ago, Austria set a record for mobilizing more than 1.8 million troops in a month. In terms of mobilization mechanisms, the Austrians have come to the forefront of the world.

Perhaps Austrian Africa will be able to mobilize a million troops. And the combat effectiveness of these troops is not weak, and now a bunch of noble private armies can fight with us on a par in South Africa.

Although Prussia has a standing army of 360,000, it is initially estimated that their current maximum mobilization is about 700,000 due to financial and manpower resources and the impact of the Russo-Russian War.

The Berlin government is now increasing the training of reserves, according to the plan of the Prussian General Staff, to train 1 million reservists within ten years, and their mobilization capacity is expected to exceed 1.5 million in the future.

From the beginning of the war in the Near East, the pattern of warfare on the European continent changed. Future wars will inevitably be fought by large corps, and the scale of our army can no longer keep up with the times. ”

It was the Minister of War Brandt who spoke, watching the great development of the armies of European countries, while the lobster soldiers were standing still, and he was anxious in his eyes and in his heart.

The era of large-scale corps operations has come, and this problem is expected by many people. In the just-concluded Russo-Russian War, the Russian Empire single-handedly defeated the total number of troops that once exceeded two million.

This figure was unthinkable to them before, and if it were not for the limited transportation and the corruption of the tsarist government, the Russians would have won the war by virtue of their numerical superiority.

After experiencing it once, we have to admit that modern warfare can use far more troops than in the past. In the case of no obvious quality advantage, the crowd tactic is the simplest and most effective tactic.

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli rubbed his forehead and said, "The issue of the Army will be discussed later, but for now we will discuss how to deal with this challenge." ”

The Army wants to expand its army, how can this be done? The landlord's family also had no surplus food, and in order to maintain the Royal Navy, the financial resources of the London government were almost consumed, and no one could stand another gold-swallowing beast.

France and Austria spend no less on their daily military expenditures every year, and in some years they are still above them. The Royal Navy was still able to guarantee absolute superiority, and naturally took the lion's share of military spending.

Under normal circumstances, the Royal Navy takes 70 or 80 percent of the military budget, which is a normal operation, and it is not uncommon for the Royal Navy to take 90 percent of the budget occasionally.

If you go to France and Austria, the navy can get half of the military budget, which can be regarded as taking care of it, and most of the time the army will take the lion's share.

Taking Austria as an example, in the annual military budget, the army usually takes 55%~60%, and the rest is the military expenditure of the navy.

France is not much different. Unless it is a naval arms race, it will be difficult for the naval forces of France and Austria to surpass that of the army.

It was against this background that the Royal Navy's maritime supremacy was consolidated. If the army wants to expand its army, it will either increase military spending and squeeze out the share of the navy.

It is impossible to do either of these things, and to increase military spending by a large margin, the London government's finances cannot afford it, and to cut the navy's military spending is to commit suicide in a slow way.

Once the superiority of the Royal Navy was no longer there, Britain's good days were over. But at the slightest sign of decadence, the European nations will rush to carve up their colonial empires.

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli knew that the Army's problems could not be solved, and without waiting for Brandt to continue, he simply covered up the problem.

Knowing the seriousness of the matter, Foreign Secretary Maclean's took over the topic: "Austria is already very strong, and it is absolutely impossible for them to unify the German regions."

The military pressure on the Kingdom of Prussia was too great and it needed to face military pressure from Russia and Austria. I propose to continue to strengthen the Kingdom of Prussia and, if necessary, to annex them to the Kingdom of Poland.

However, this time should not be too early, the Russian Empire has not yet recovered, and if they annex Poland in advance, maybe they will join forces with Austria and kill the Russian Empire first.

We need a balanced European continent, and it is not a good phenomenon that there are such great powers now, and if this state of affairs is not changed, sooner or later the European continent will be united again.

Therefore, Grand France also had to be dismantled. Otherwise, when it becomes a habit for a strong country to annex a weak country, it will be a big trouble. ”

The result of "unification of the European continent" is too terrifying, a unified European continent will really kill Britain.

John Bull's sense of crisis has always been very serious, and once a certain country on the European continent has a tendency to unify the continent, it will immediately be suppressed by them.

In the later stage, it has developed to the point where whoever is strong will suppress whom. More than a decade ago, the Russian Empire coerced and coerced the European continent, and then John Bull tried to suppress the Russians.

Now that the Russians have gone down, France and Austria have resurfaced. After making initial attempts, they decisively chose the strategy of attacking whoever came first.

Originally, the target chosen by the London government was Austria, and a plan was being drawn up to implement it, and the French came to the fore.

Not only did they rise to the top, but after annexing the Italian region, they also forced their power out of the Mediterranean.

This was unbearable, and the London government had to change its goals. However, the plan could not keep up with the changes, and Austria did not cooperate. John Bull, who has no thugs, sees that the French have no way to start.

Prime Minister Benjamin said solemnly: "The leaders of the Italian revolution, Garibaldi and Mazzini, have arrived in London, hoping to get our support for the restoration of the country.

They had already met with Vittorio Emanuele II of the former Sardinian royal family, and the two sides agreed to unite against French rule.

In addition to this, some of the Italian nobility contacted us in the hope that we could convene an international conference to stop the French aggression.

It's just that these forces are so scattered that even with our support, it will be difficult to shake the French rule in Italy in the short term. We need more allies to support us. ”

After speaking, he set his eyes on Foreign Secretary Maclean, expecting him to give a satisfactory answer.

Not disappointing, Foreign Secretary Maclean's answer was: "This time all the European countries are on the opposite side of the French, but they are intimidated by the strength of the French, and they don't want to offend the French too much."

Even the Austrians did not want to see the French eat Italy so smoothly, and they might not interfere on the surface, but secretly the Viennese government definitely did not mind causing them trouble.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been in contact with various countries, and all of them are willing to support the Italian independence movement and break the French ambition to dominate the European continent.

The exception was Austria, which refused to support the Italian Revolutionary Party, fearing that the Italian independence movement would spread to Lombardy and Venezia.

Felix, the old fox, suggested that we contact the French Revolutionary Party and encourage the French people to rise up against the colonial invasion.

By the way, he also proposed to support an anti-French Spanish king and cause chaos for the French.

Theoretically, these are all feasible, the only problem is to grasp this degree, otherwise the French will fall and Austria will be dominant. ”

Everyone is playing with the conspiracies and causing chaos for the French together. It's just that Austria refused to come forward this time and blamed the British for everything.

Knowing is knowing, things still have to be done. If Austria was a potential threat, the Empire of Greater France was a real threat.

If action is not taken soon, there will be no place for the British in the Mediterranean. In the future, Britain's overseas trade to the Indian Ocean will also be subject to the French.

Prime Minister Benjamin sneered and said: "Let the Austrians be proud for a few days, and then there will be a time when they will cry." Regardless of their calculations, they all follow the original plan and suppress the French first.

After the break-up of Grand France, we are slowly settling accounts with them. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs used the anti-French campaign as a cover to make secret contacts with various countries in preparation for the establishment of an anti-Austrian alliance. ”

The anti-Russian alliance, the anti-French alliance, the anti-Austrian alliance, this is what the British prepared for the three rivals of Russia, France and Austria.

At present, the anti-Russian alliance has succeeded, and in the recent war, the anti-Russian alliance defeated the Russians in one fell swoop and buried the European hegemony of the Russian Empire.

It was not the first time that the anti-French alliance had been established, but Napoleon III had changed the foreign policy of the Napoleonic era, which was the enemy of the whole world, and chose to reconcile with European countries, which led to the delay in the establishment of the anti-French alliance.

Now the situation has changed, and the Empire of Grand France is established, laying the groundwork for the anti-French alliance to be established again.

If it weren't for the lack of Austria's key link, it is estimated that the anti-French alliance would have publicly raised its flag at this time. Faced with this alliance, it was difficult for Napoleon III not to compromise.

The anti-Austrian alliance, which has been diving, was actually prepared by the British early on. If you open the map, you will find that Poland, Prussia, and Switzerland around Austria all have anti-Austrian tendencies.

If the situation had changed, it was not impossible to put the Russian Empire in opposition to Austria; If Italy succeeds in independence, the nascent country will naturally be part of the anti-Austrian camp.

It can be said that if the Vienna government is not careful, it will step into the trap set by the British and fall into a state of isolation.