saint petersburg

Receiving an urgent telegram from Menshkov, Nicholas I had a headache, especially after seeing the estimated ammunition consumption in the remarks later, his heart was dripping blood, this is all money!

For this war, the tsarist government spent three or four hundred million rubles, and if you add the economic losses caused by the war, this figure can be doubled.

Where is the victory? No one can answer this question, and judging by the situation on the battlefield, it is still far from the victory or defeat between the two sides.

If he had known in advance that the war would have turned out to its current outcome, Nicholas I could have assured that he would never have provoked it.

Even if the casualties are counted, the Russian family can afford a great cause, but the cost of the war is completely beyond his expectations.

Before Britain and France entered the war, the tsarist government prepared to attack Constantinople in many ways, conquering Constantinople within three months and killing the Ottoman Empire within a year.

After Britain and France entered the war, the tsarist government thought that after the Battle of Bulgaria, it would be easy to attack Constantinople, and after taking Constantinople, everyone negotiated to solve the problem.

Unexpectedly, when I arrived at the gate of Constantinople, I encountered the French blocking the way again.

200,000 French troops defending a fortified city were enough to make anyone despair, but there was no way but to bite the bullet due to domestic pressure.

Even if the Russians are in the head, they are also dizzy when they are touched, and all kinds of means are exhausted, and the final conclusion they come to must be bombarded with artillery.

Nicholas I asked: "What do you think of General Menshkov's proposal?" ”

War Minister Ivanovich replied: "Your Majesty, militarily speaking, there are no problems with General Menshkov's proposal.

Constantinople is one of the best fortresses in the world, and the enemy has deployed heavy guards, and there is no shortcut to conquer it, but to pull out one fortress after another.

Fortunately, the Ottoman Empire has decayed and neglected the construction of city fortifications, so we can use artillery to advance all the way. ”

This answer is very speechless, if it were not for the Ottomans ignoring the upgrading of the city defenses, even the use of artillery may not be possible now.

This is a fact, the Russians can get heavy artillery, will the enemy on the opposite side be lacking? If the war requires it, even if it is a thousand artillery pieces, Britain and France can easily take it out.

According to the proposal of General Menshkov, it is enough to build an artillery position a few kilometers away and bombard Constantinople, anyway, the target is so big that people can hide, and there is no place for buildings to hide.

The 200,000 French troops were scattered throughout the city, and there were absolutely not enough artillery holes, and any random bombardment could cause the French heavy losses, provided that there were enough artillery and enough ammunition.

Civilian casualties, which were never taken into account by the tsarist government. Knowing that the war is coming, but not knowing how to run away, is self-defeating, and guns don't have eyes.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Arry Stanley Rhodes frowned and said, "Your Majesty, the number of artillery and ammunition consumption requested by General Menshkov is too terrifying, can't they save a little money?"

You must know that these heavy artillery and ammunition are not cheap, even if the Austrians do not take advantage of the fire to rob, this is an astronomical amount! ”

He is not against this plan, but simply worried about money. Constantinople must be captured, otherwise it will not be able to account for it at home, this is the consensus reached by everyone.

This little bit of a big picture, Aristanley Rhodes still has. The problem is that the tsarist government really has financial problems, and it is really difficult for him to come up with hundreds of millions of rubles at one time.

Austria did not take advantage of the fire to rob, which is one of the reasons why the tsarist government supported Austria at the Paris Conference and was not fooled by Britain and France.

Nicholas I was a man of credibility and basically kept his promises as long as he did not exceed his bottom line.

Of course, needless to say, he is also a tsar, just refer to the practices of his ancestors, this is a family talent.

"Mr. Aristanley Rhodes, it is now important to take Constantinople, and when this is done, I can make an armistice with England and France.

If the war continues, perhaps in the later stages of our military spending, it will be even more than it is now. Foreign Secretary Karl Wassel advised

They are all people in the same boat, and if the ship capsizes, everyone will be unlucky.

Now that the river has begun to rise, the only way to get to the port as soon as possible is to get to the port as soon as possible to avoid the wind and waves.

If you want to get to the shore, you have to conquer Constantinople. Taking Constantinople can appease the people internally and have the capital to bargain with the enemy externally.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Arry Stanley Rhodes, said dissatisfiedly: "Marquis Carr, am I the kind of person who doesn't care about the big picture?

The problem now is that the Ministry of Finance simply does not have that much money and cannot afford to pay for the war.

According to General Menshkov's plan, it was simply impossible to do it without two or three hundred million rubles, and this was still based on the fact that everything went well.

On the actual battlefield, there will definitely be changes, and maybe when the time comes, it will continue to increase.

The Caucasus battlefield and the Crimean theater, these two places are also fighting, and the commanders at the front are asking for a change of clothing, which is also an urgent matter, and it still needs money.

The Russian Empire has so much revenue for a year, and because of the war, our taxes will continue to decline this year, where can I get so much money? ”

The lack of money was a big problem, but in peacetime it was fine, but once the war broke out, the weakness of the feudal rule of the tsarist government was exposed, and it was far from being able to compare with the capitalist countries in terms of raising funds.

To put it mildly, Britain, France and Austria are countries that really have no money and can still print money, but the big deal is inflation, and it is still possible to solve urgent needs.

Can the Russian Empire do that? The rubles they used were always real money, and paper money was issued by other European countries, and the international capital market issued by the tsarist government did not recognize it.

Even in the country, there are not many who like paper rubles. The main thing is that there are too many criminal records, and the Russians are equally skeptical about the credibility of the tsarist government.

"How big is the funding gap?" Nicholas I asked with concern

The lack of money is expected, the key is how much is missing, if the amount is not large, they still have a way to solve it.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Aristanley Rhodes analyzed: "Your Majesty, if General Menshikov's plan is implemented, it is tentatively estimated that in 1854 our military spending may exceed 400 million rubles, more than the sum of the previous year and a half.

Through the issuance of bonds, we raised 65 million rubles, government taxes could provide 80 million rubles, and 58 million rubles were raised from domestic banks.

Now that Constantinople is at hand, we can still collect a war tax at this time, which is estimated at 120 million rubles.

The final funding gap is 77 million rubles, which is only ideal, and if the situation changes, this figure is likely to continue to increase. ”

Nicholas I was silent, the gap was too large, domestic taxes could not continue to increase, and if they were added, something would have happened.

War Minister Ivanovich asked: "Is it possible to get a loan from overseas, for example, from the Austrians?" ”

Chancellor of the Exchequer Aristanley Rhodes shook his head and said: "It's impossible, we have run out of channels to raise money overseas."

If the Austrians hadn't started a war of unification last year, maybe they would have been able to give us this loan, which is not possible now.

Don't look at them swallowing Bavaria almost bloodlessly, but in order to deter Britain and France, they mobilized nearly 1.8 million troops in one go, which still consumed a lot of financial resources of the government. ”

There is no way, Austria's financial situation is slightly better than that of Russia. However, the Vienna government was speeding up the process of industrialization, and a great deal of financial resources were invested in domestic construction.

Combined with the cost of last year's war, from a professional point of view, Arry Stanley Rhodes judged that the Vienna government would not be able to come up with the money.

After hesitating for a while, Nicholas I slowly asked: "How much military spending can be saved by suspending the war in the Caucasus first?" ”

Now the three-front war, for the tsarist government, the most important thing is to take Constantinople, followed by the Crimean peninsula, both of which cannot be abandoned.

As for the Caucasian theater, the Russian army has an absolute advantage, and the initiative in the war has always been in their hands. If they stopped the offensive, the half-pinned Ottomans would only rejoice, and it would be impossible to take the initiative to provoke.

After some calculation, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Arry Stanley Rhodes, replied: "It will save about forty or fifty million roubles, and if we first truce with the Ottoman Empire and withdraw most of our troops to the Crimean battlefield, then we can save another ten million roubles." ”

This is equivalent to reducing the number of troops, and since the troops in the Caucasus have been withdrawn, there is no shortage of their troops, and the army mobilized in the country does not need to be as much.

As soon as the cannon sounded, there were ten thousand taels of gold.

This is not an exaggeration at all, and it is even much smaller. In the war of this period, 10,000 taels of gold was really not enough, at least it started with 1 million taels of gold.

Without hesitation, Nicholas I said: "Okay, that's it." Let's spare the Ottomans first, and in the Caucasus we will switch from offensive to defensive, and send troops to reinforce the other two battlefields, and wait until we conquer Constantinople!

The remaining funding gap, the Ministry of Finance has to think of a way, in short, now is a critical moment, we cannot cause the war to lose because of lack of money. ”

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Arry Stanley Rhodes replied helplessly

This is a difficult question, and despite the fact that the funding gap seems to have been solved for the most part, in fact the remaining gap is still astronomical.

Especially when all kinds of channels for raising funds have been exhausted, it is definitely not so simple to solve this problem.

But sitting in this position, Arry Stanley Rhodes can only bite the bullet and have to find a way to solve this problem.

The problem of funding was barely solved, and under the unanimous decision of everyone, the Constantinople demolition team led by General Menshkov was officially established, and the slogan was to raze Constantinople to the ground.

The issue of preserving ancient buildings is not yet considered so much by the tsarist government, and it is not a big deal to conquer Constantinople first, and then rebuild it after the war.

It is also possible to shift the blame to the French, as long as the Holy Land is recovered, no one will care about such a small flaw. It can be said that in order to conquer Constantinople, the Russians have gone to great length.