St. Petersburg, since receiving news that Britain and France were preparing an alliance, Alexander III could not sit still. Watermark Ad Test Watermark Ad Test

Originally, he was counting on winning over the French and gathering the strength of France, Russia and Austria to attack the British, but he did not expect that the situation would be reversed so soon.

Alexander III asked expectantly: "Is the news confirmed?" ”

Deep down, he very much hoped it was a rumor.

Once Britain and France formed an alliance, the Austrian navy would not be able to resist the alliance of Britain and France, and it would be impossible for the Vienna government to take a hard stand on the navy with the two countries.

The ongoing arms race between Britain, France, and Austria is coming to an end.

The Viennese government's previous plan to contain the British with an arms race would naturally come to naught.

Although at the very beginning, Austria was not ready to fulfill the treaty and had prepared an excuse, the Russians did not know.

After all, the credibility of the Viennese government was good enough to have not broken the treaty for so many years, and Alexander III did not doubt it at all.

The arms race was over, and the Russian Empire was faced with a wealthy Britain.

Because of the Anglo-French alliance, Austria would also be pinned down by France, and the Russian Empire could only confront the British alone.

Foreign Secretary Oscar Jimenez replied: "The information has been verified, British Foreign Secretary George arrived in Paris half a month ago, and the two countries are negotiating an alliance.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ordered the embassy in Paris to closely monitor the progress of the negotiations and to return as soon as there is news. ”

Preventing, interfering, sabotaging?

None of this exists, Britain and France are among the most powerful countries in the world and do not care at all about the attitude of the Russians.

Knowing that it was impossible, the tsarist government naturally did not bring humiliation on itself. There wasn't much the tsarist government could do right now other than to keep a close eye on it.

"Alas!"

After sighing, Alexander III asked slowly: "We can't stop the alliance between Britain and France, we have lost the best fighter, do you think the Central Asian strategy will continue?" ”

In essence, provoking a war in Central Asia at this time, in addition to rescuing its ally Afghanistan, is more about picking up cheap.

According to the plan, the tsarist government was ready to take back Central Asia during the arms race between Britain, France and Austria, and push the border line into Afghanistan.

There is no southward movement to India in the plan, it is not that the tsarist government has no ambitions for India, the point is that the current Russian Empire does not yet have the strength to conquer India.

War Secretary Palladru Wald: "Of course it goes on!" Even if it were an alliance between Britain and France, it would be impossible for the French to send troops to help the British fight.

As long as we are fast enough to capture the Khanate of Burhaa before the British annihilate Afghanistan, the initiative of the war is in our hands.

If we miss this opportunity and let the British destroy Afghanistan, we will have to pay an even greater price if we want to seize Central Asia in the future.

Moreover, we have to consider the international implications. Just concluded an alliance with Afghanistan and immediately sold them, what does this make our allies think? ”

Against the British Army, the Russian military still has self-confidence.

Today, although the Russian Empire suffered heavy losses in the two Russo-Prussian wars, the Russians also fought an elite army.

The most important thing is that it is difficult for the British government to make up its mind - to commit a million main forces to fight for Central Asia with the Russian Empire.

It's just the Indian colonial army, that's just for the Russian army to hang. This kind of stress-free tailwind battle has always been a favorite of the Russian military.

Alexander III nodded, the international reputation of the Russian Empire was already terrible, and he did not want to be saddled with the infamy of betraying his allies as a last resort.

Regardless of the fact that the Russians often betrayed their allies in later generations, the tsarist government rarely betrayed its allies in these years, at least not in recent decades.

Of course, the main factor is that the benefits of selling allies are too small, and the cost is too high, and it is not cost-effective overall.

This time was no exception, it was easy to sell Afghanistan, but Austria's ideas, they had to scruple.

Back then, Alexander II went to war with the Prussians for the sake of the Danish allies.

Although the losses were heavy, they also earned the tsarist government a reputation. A solid foundation was laid for the continuation of the Russo-Austrian alliance, at least so was the opinion of the tsarist government.

After all, by the beginning of the nineties, the Russian-Austrian alliance could no longer bring much benefit to Austria, but the tsarist government benefited a lot from it.

Seeing that the tsar had some intentions, the anti-war Chancellor of Finance, Alisher Gulov, hurriedly objected: "Marquis, you see the problem too one-sidedly.

Central Asia is vast, and the three Central Asian khanates are all hostile to us, and it is impossible for them to surrender.

No matter how smoothly our army progresses on the battlefield, it will not be possible to pacify Central Asia in just a few months.

But the Kingdom of Afghanistan was different, and the British only needed two regiments of troops to make the Afghan government compromise.

Everyone knows the terrain of Afghanistan, and if the British control Afghanistan before us, the war will not be easy to fight.

As long as the war cannot be ended in a short period of time, it will eventually turn into a war of attrition. The British have their backs to India, and they have to spend manpower and money on us.

In recent years, the finances of the empire have improved, but this is only temporary.

An agricultural crisis is looming, and based on the intelligence gathered, the Ministry of Finance estimates that grain export revenues will fall by 11 percent this year and even more next year.

The British were not dragged down by the arms race, and the empire could not compete with them financially. Persisting in this war with no end in sight will only end up in debt.

In view of the current complex international situation, the Ministry of Finance proposes to use diplomatic means to resolve the conflict in Central Asia and try to maintain the status quo. ”

There is no way, the three khanates of Central Asia were once dependent on the tsarist government. It's just that the Russians have too much appetite and want to eat them. In the First Russo-Prussian War, it was rebelled by the British.

There are some things that cannot be turned back, and since you have become a traitor, you can only fight the Russians to the end.

This means that Central Asia cannot go to war in a single battle, and with the support of the British, it is very likely that the war will continue.

By contrast, the Afghan government is not unfavorable. A semi-slave and semi-feudal agrarian country, what to fight with the British?

In John Bull's usual approach, both diplomatic and military, it is very likely that the Afghan government will be forced to compromise.

There are already too many similar success stories.

In fact, the Afghan government of the original time and space also chose to compromise, but the British had too much appetite and were ready to swallow them in one gulp.

Without any surprise, the British army easily defeated the Afghan government. And then it turned out unexpectedly that Afghanistan without a government is even more terrible.

This point was also personally verified by the United States and the Soviet Union in later generations. Defeating Afghanistan is very simple, the trouble is to rule Afghanistan.

It has not yet been verified, all you see is the strength of the Afghan government, and two regular regiments of the British army are more than enough.

Military problems, or minor problems. As long as there was money, the tsarist government had nothing to fear.

If you open the history books, you will find that financial resources are the biggest shortcoming of the Russian Empire, and except for a certain special period, there is no time when the Russian government is not short of money.

Because the agricultural tax allowed the payment in kind, grain exports became the most important income of the tsarist government, accounting for more than half of the total export trade.

As the fourth oldest of Europe's largest exporters of raw grain, the Russians have suffered a completely unwarranted disaster.

The decrease in grain export earnings does not mean that the total amount of grain exported has decreased, but that international food prices have fallen.

In any case, the food self-sufficiency plan of the British and the large-scale farm plan of the French still have some results.

Although the total amount of grain imported by the two countries each year has fallen by only a negligible one or two percentage points, it is still a terrible reflection on the international grain marketing market.

The market as a whole is in excess of supply, and the trading price of raw grain naturally falls sharply. The price of food fell, and the tsarist government's wallet, naturally, could only be injured.

You can't fight without money, and in this context, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was in charge of the government's purse, passively became the leader of the anti-war faction in the Russian government.

War Chancellor Palladru Wald was unmoved: "The deterioration of the government's finances will make this war even more necessary."

As long as our plan goes well, first to seize Central Asia, and then to capture India in the future, all problems will be solved.

The problem of insufficient government financial resources to start this war is only temporary, and the Ministry of Finance can find a way to raise it.

Without this war, we will never be able to get out of our financial predicament. ”

There is nothing wrong with it, the wealth plundered by the British from India every year was higher than the financial revenues of the tsarist government.

If India had been seized, the financial predicament faced by the tsarist government would indeed have been solved.

Perhaps it was because they had suffered in the westward expansion, and no one wanted to come a second time, and the Russian military basically went south to Indian supporters.

There was no shortage of supporters of this view in the tsarist government.

After all, to carry out the strategy of going south to seize India, the only enemy to face is the British; However, the strategy of westward expansion into Europe has to face all European countries.

Even if they fail against the British, the price they need to pay is very limited.

No matter how open the British were, it was impossible for them to go all the way along Central Asia into Siberia, and they had a chance to make a comeback.

It is different when it goes west to the European continent, and if you make a mistake and are beaten by European countries, the consequences will be much more serious.

At worst, the loss will be heavy, and the vitality will be greatly damaged, half of the body will be paralyzed, and the worst may even be directly destroyed.

In this respect, the Russo-Prussian War was meaningful for the European world. Woke up the greedy polar bear and made an outstanding contribution to the peace and stability of the European world.

……