The plan could never keep up with the rapid changes, and the main purpose of the Viennese government was to create a conflict, to use military threats against the Egyptian government, and to force them to sign a treaty.

In any case, the Sinai Peninsula was not valued, and its only purpose was to act as a buffer with the Ottoman Empire, and the indigenous tribes were under the leadership of two governments at the same time.

As a result, the conflict was created, but the operation was too violent, and the place was occupied. The Egyptians did not act aggressively either, but simply ran over to protest.

If possible, Franz would rather the Egyptians come over regardless of it, then the rest of the matter will be easy to do, anyway, he has no pressure to single out Egypt.

Obviously, the Egyptian government is not stupid and did not come up recklessly, but sent people to reason. Military threats, this time is no longer appropriate.

Franz has always paid attention to his appearance, and made an excuse to come to the door to find trouble, which has already refreshed his lower limit, and his conscience is very uneasy.

Now that they have occupied the places that are considered cities by others, it would be too much trouble to find others.

The Egyptian government doesn't care about the cause and effect of the incident, no matter whose fault it is, anyway, the parties involved are dead, and the debts are gone. Now only the Austrians evacuated, and no reparations were claimed.

Franz had a headache and asked, "What do you think should be done about this problem?" ”

He admits that he is not black enough, so he can't do such a domineering thing. If possible, he would prefer to resolve the issue by peaceful means.

Unfortunately, Austria's influence in Egypt was not strong enough to compete with Britain and France, so it had no choice but to make a breakthrough in the Sinai Peninsula.

Metternich replied calmly: "Your Majesty, the Sinai Peninsula itself is not of great value, and the main reason why we occupy this place is to seize the opportunity so that we can intervene in the excavation of the Suez Canal.

Since the Egyptian government wants to negotiate, we will negotiate with them. It's a big deal to pay for these areas, anyway, the sand is not worth a few dollars.

Now Britain and France do not know our aim, and even if they intervene, they are only worried that our continued expansion of influence into the Egyptian region will affect their interests.

At most, we assure them that we will not continue to expand into Egypt. As for the issue of the Sinai Peninsula, we are also great powers and need to save face! ”

It's a bit excessive, but it's a very powerful one. Rightly or wrongly, when colonizing overseas, everyone was very domineering.

The Vienna government is willing to spend a little money symbolically, that is, to step down the Egyptian government. If the Egyptian government doesn't agree, I'll take up the space anyway and see what you can do.

Is it for the sake of a desert with nothing, to fight with Austria on the Sinai Peninsula? It is estimated that the Egyptian government does not have the courage to do so, in case it loses its wealth and loses its money, just wait to be divided!

Don't look at the Egyptian government is preparing to carry out modernization, it seems to have a bit of a rich country and a strong army. In fact, after losing the last war to the Ottoman Empire, they recognized their strength.

Prime Minister Felix reminded: "The French have already obtained the right to dig the Suez Canal, will this be an obstacle? ”

Metternich explained: "Don't worry, we don't need to occupy the entire Sinai Peninsula to pay attention to the Sinai Peninsula, we just need to get a foothold on it.

At present, the construction of the Suez Canal has not yet started, and it is unknown whether it will be navigable in the future.

As far as I know, the British were strongly opposed to the excavation of the Suez Canal. They are strategically located to access the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope and do not need this Grand Canal. ”

The attitude of the British towards the Suez Canal in this era was so indifferent, and many Britons believed that the navigation of the Suez Canal would weaken their advantage in maritime trade.

After all, in terms of distance, the navigation of the Suez Canal is more beneficial to the Mediterranean countries, and the access of France, Austria, Spain and other countries to the Indian Ocean has become closer.

They were originally the closest on the route, but suddenly became farther away than their competitors. This will undoubtedly make the cost of sea freight for British goods exceed that of competitors, reducing market competitiveness.

Whether it is unfounded or not, there is nothing wrong with this sense of crisis. It was this sense of crisis that brought the British Empire to where it is today.

Whether the Suez Canal could be navigable was doubtful not only by the British, but also by many in the Austrian government.

The European continent has never seen such a long Grand Canal, and the total length of 190 kilometers is more than everyone can afford.

Franz also had no way to convince everyone that the Suez Canal would be navigable, and even if it did, it would be a test.

If only a few small boats can be passed, then the same fails. For strategic reasons, Austria needed the Suez Canal capable of navigating at least 40,000 tons of ships.

Otherwise, in the era of dreadnoughts, this canal would have been abandoned. When the time came, the British would have hindered the construction and allowed the Austrian warships to be navigable only through the Strait of Gibraltar, thus establishing a strategic advantage.

Franz confidently said: "Don't worry about the problem of navigation, the history books record that in the 6th century AD, there was a great empire of the Sui Dynasty in the east to dig a north-south Grand Canal, with a total length of more than 2,700 kilometers.

Even after a geographical change, the new Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has 1,797 kilometers and can now be navigated normally for ships of 500 tons.

With the technology of the ancients, without using any machinery, such a long canal could be dug by manpower, and our current scientific and technological level could not dig a canal of less than 200 kilometers?

From a topographical point of view, the construction difficulty of the Suez Canal is far from being comparable with the North-South Grand Canal, so what is there to worry about? ”

Prime Minister Felix exclaimed: "Your Majesty, are you sure that there is such a long Grand Canal in the east? ”

Franz replied in the affirmative: "Of course, do you think I will lie?" The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is still operating normally, and it is in that decaying Manchu Empire, you can check the information to find out. ”

Prime Minister Felix hurriedly explained: "No, I didn't doubt what you meant.

It's just that it's incredible, more than 1,300 years ago, someone dug a 2,700-kilometer Grand Canal.

If true, then this should be the greatest project in the history of mankind. That great empire must be very powerful, and it can actually complete such a huge project. ”

Franz smiled and said nothing, he couldn't explain that because of the excessive consumption of people's power by digging this Grand Canal, this empire died directly, right?

Wouldn't everyone ......

Oh, no need to worry at all. To dig the Suez Canal, you don't need to draw labor from within Austria, you just need to have money ready.

Even direct food can be delivered, anyway, in addition to the need to pay salaries for technicians and managers, ordinary laborers can take care of the food.

The largest expense, labor costs, is thus saved. Historically, the Suez Canal has cost a total of £18.6 million, more than double the budgeted cost.

This is mainly because the British planned the slave labor riot and created public pressure to condemn it, so that the French had to pay salaries and hire people, resulting in a significant increase in construction costs.

As the price of the canal's navigation, 120,000 laborers are buried here.

This issue is not on the radar of the Austrian Government. Franz also decisively chose to be out of sight, and any major project in this era was piled up with human life.

Austria's large railway network is an example of this, in just five or six years, Austria's domestic railways have become the largest in Europe, and tens of thousands of workers have also fallen behind.

It can be said that the faster the construction speed in this era, the greater the casualties, and the efficiency is piled up with human lives.

London

When the British cabinet received the news of Austria's attack on the Sinai Peninsula, the British cabinet immediately reacted that the Austrians were about to invade Egypt, and if they couldn't, they had to stop it.

Prime Minister Granville asked suspiciously: "Who told me what the Austrians are going to do, is it possible that the Vienna government has a brain in water and wants to go to the Sinai Peninsula to eat sand?" ”

On the face of it, there is no colonial value in the Sinai Peninsula. The richest places in Egypt are in the Nile Valley, hundreds of kilometers from the Sinai Peninsula, and there is a desert in the middle.

Foreign Secretary John Russell laughed: "It is said that this was done by an Austrian civilian colonial army, which originally wanted to do things in Egypt, but found that it was not strong enough.

In order to recover the cost of their colonization, they went to the Sinai Peninsula to rob a tribe and captured an abandoned city. ”

William, the colonial minister, scoffed: "This rookie colonial army must be the master of the brains, maybe the booty they have harvested is not enough to pay the pension for the loss of personnel."

In the Sinai Peninsula, we have already sent people to scout, and the nomadic tribes on the island have nothing but camels and sheep.

These camels and sheep are worthless, and unless they can be shipped back to their home countries to sell, they can only sell their fur locally.

The locals are too poor to live, and the Egyptian government is too lazy to send people to collect taxes, and there are still people robbing them. ”

Everyone laughed, this kind of thing happened not once or twice in the colonial movement, and many civilian armed forces who had just engaged in overseas colonization often made this kind of mistake.

Sheep and camels are indeed goods, and in some places they are worth a lot, but unfortunately they are worthless in Sinai, because there is no buyer for them.

At most, they will kill the cattle and take the furs to sell to a fur merchant. If you want to sell these animals, it is estimated that it will not be enough to pay for the freight.

After laughing enough, Granville said, "Then the Foreign Office will continue to keep an eye on the Vienna government, see what they do next, and what we decide to do in response."

Anyway, it is the French who have the greatest interest in the Egyptian region, and now that a competitor has been added, it is better to let them have a headache first! ”

Throughout, Granville didn't take it seriously. Overseas colonization is a game, a game of plundering wealth, which is completely different from the situation on the European continent.

As long as it is not a threat to India, the London government will not overreact immediately. Otherwise, the news of the colonial conflict alone every day would be able to anger them to death.

This is no joke, since the beginning of the 19th century, on average, there have been more than 100 colonial conflicts in the London government every year.

Most of these minor conflicts were handled by colonial officials, and only those that escalated needed to be handled by them personally.

If they do not learn restraint and use force at every turn, then it will not take them three months to fight all the colonial empires of Europe.

They were concerned about the problems of the Sinai Peninsula, mainly because they feared that the Austrian invasion of Egypt would be carried out by civilian forces.

Specifically, you can refer to the British civilian colonial team, such as the East India Company, they have destroyed several countries overseas, and the London government may not know the news.

Weaker individuals organized colonial forces, robbed one area today, and another tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow they got into trouble with a great enemy and were annihilated by the enemy......

This kind of thing happens too much, anyway, if it is profitable, the British government will go into battle to stand up for them, and if there is no interest, even if it is destroyed, the London government will not bother to pay attention to it, and it will not be able to control it.

……

Paris

Napoleon III confidently said: "The Austrians have reached deep into Egypt, shall we cut them off immediately?" ”

The French were not small in the Egyptian region, and it was enough to encourage the Egyptian government to expel the Austrian invaders.

Of course, it is estimated that the Egyptian government will not listen to them now. After all, in the last war with the Ottomans, the Egyptian government was miserably pitted by the French.

The promised aid, but under the pressure of European countries, the Paris government decisively coaxed. Without their weapons and equipment, the Egyptian government was quickly beaten down by the Ottoman Empire.

Foreign Minister Auvergne advised: "Your Majesty, let's negotiate first!" We can mediate this conflict, and if we can't reach a consensus in the end, we can take extreme measures. ”

He was not as confident as Napoleon III, and with a push from the Egyptian government, the matter was settled.

In case the situation is out of control, and the Vienna government refuses to admit defeat and arrests the Egyptian government and beats it, will they go up or not?

The French government, which had just fought a war with the Russians and suffered heavy losses, did not want to fight Austria again, and no one wanted to do this kind of loss-making business.

Napoleon III was just talking, and he didn't really want to take risks. Now he is already wearing shoes, otherwise he would dare to bet on anything during the struggle of his youth.

The reality of the war in the Near East told him that the current France is no longer the France that hangs the European continent.

Napoleon III nodded and said: "Then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will mediate this conflict, as long as it does not harm our interests!" ”