March 10, 1887, Reichstag in Berlin, Germany.

Since the previous 1883~1887 naval plan had expired, Caprivey, who was the Imperial Admiralty, proposed a new 1887 plan. And because of the fact that in 1886 the Legislature had just passed the Guò Army Enlargement Act, it was going to die. Naturally, Caprivi's plan was thwarted by parliament in every possible way. Therefore, the parliament decided to hold a hearing in an attempt to suppress the Navy's efforts to ask for money.

How could Jochen let go of such an opportunity to come to the door to slap his face, and at this time, Jochen, who had been promoted to lieutenant in the navy, participated in the hearing as a staff officer of the Admiralty. It was a hearing, rather a questioning meeting, and at this time the entire parliament was Bismarck's political ally, so it was nothing to do with the plans of the navy, and repeated accusations. Faced with an aggressive parliament and an Army dissatisfied with the Navy's demands for increased funding, the Admiralty simply struggled. So, Admiralty Staff Lieutenant Joachim came into the field to pick up.

"Your Highness Joachim, you ......" At the beginning, I saw the crown prince coming in a naval uniform, and he was a little uneasy when he saw the crown prince coming next to Crown Prince Frederick but sitting with the senior officials of the Admiralty, and at this time, seeing that Johen really came up on behalf of the Admiralty, he didn't know what kind of attitude to use for a while, and estimated that His Royal Highness the Imperial Sun would be angry with a kind and unapproachable attitude towards the Admiralty, but you have to be amiable and estimate that the Admiralty will succeed.

"Please call me Lieutenant Joachim, Your Excellency Speaker." Jochen bowed slightly. That being said, no one dared to really think of him as a little lieutenant.

Standing on the podium in Parliament, Jochen began to express his opinion: "Your Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Your Excellency the Prime Minister, and Parliamentarians. Germany needed a navy capable of protecting its coastline, and this was the lesson of the blood of our two wars with the Danes. But, as I said in my graduation thesis when I graduated from the Kiel Naval Academy last year. The Imperial Navy is no longer able to meet the demand, and our Navy cannot complete the job of protecting its own coastline! ”

As soon as these words came out, the entire Capitol was in chaos. The Liberal Conservative MP immediately jumped out and accused: "Your Highness, can your speech be regarded as a manifestation of the incompetence of the Navy? ”

"Mr. Congressman, I don't know if you are concerned about the current development of the navies of various countries around the world? The naval plan drawn up by the Russians in 1882 planned to build 20 ironclads and 24 cruisers in 20 years. In 1883, the Russians simultaneously started construction of 3 Catherine II-class battleships, and in 1885 and 1886 they started construction of 2 Alexander II-class battleships, and according to their plan, the shipyards along the Baltic and Black Sea coasts were to be filled with the hulls of various warships. And what about us? Apart from the construction of two Oldenburg-class ironclads in 1883, we have no new shipbuilding work. Moreover, the Imperial Navy was the third navy in the world in 1884, and has now been surpassed by Tsarist Russia. You accuse the Navy of incompetence, so how can our Navy face the threat of both France and Russia when it is far inferior to the enemy? ”

"The Reich had a strong army, and the French had no role at all in that war of 1871 with their mighty navy." As soon as this statement came out, it was clear that this person was a loyal supporter of Bismarck, because this argument was also Bismarck's old opinion.

Jochen stole a glance at Bismarck, who was sitting there with the old god there, and decided to teach the old stubborn a lesson: "Yes, the empire has a strong army, and the glorious victory of the army has brought 5 billion marks to the empire, but who has thought that after such a huge defeat, France can pay off the reparations in 4 years, and then still develop rapidly?" And in the face of the soaring French national power, the empire is always worried about France coming back? Last year, the French had more standing armies than the Reich, and what was the reason why the Reich had to expand in a hurry? Moreover, the final outcome of the Franco-Prussian War was a short-term war in which we sat down with the French and negotiated peace, and the French ceded land and paid reparations. If the French fight a never-ending war with us for revenge, there is no guarantee that the military superiority of the Reich will last to the end! ”

This is even more of a hornet's nest of the army, and the speech of His Royal Highness the Emperor Sun is simply an insult to the army. The Conservative MPs immediately issued a reproach: "Is Your Highness's statement questioning the capabilities of the Imperial Army?!" ”

"I have no doubt about the fighting power of the Imperial Army, and I believe that the Imperial Army can defeat the French Army, but war is not only about the combat effectiveness of the army! Without resources and logistics, how can the army alone achieve ultimate victory? Once the war reaches a stalemate, then the war will turn into a protracted confrontation in which the country mobilizes all its resources and strength. Even if the Imperial Army can establish absolute military superiority over the French in a short period of time, how can Germany fight a life-and-death war with France, which has more than 20 times the area of the mainland and has more than 20 times the area of the colony?! And the French powerful fleet can completely block our opportunity to obtain any resources from the outside world! In the absence of access to overseas resources, the only way to solve the shortage of domestic resources is to attack and occupy or form alliances. But attacking and occupying costs us far more resources than the defenders! As soon as our offensive occupation is hindered, then we will immediately find ourselves in a situation where we are unable to follow. The other way is to form an alliance, but the alliance also faces the risk that the enemy of the ally becomes our enemy, so in order to help the ally to fight their enemy, we have to waste our own resources, and in the end the alliance can bring us less resources than we consume, we still face failure! Do not try to think that our next war with the French will be a short war like that of 1871, but that the war of the future will inevitably be a war of vengeance against us in full force by the French with all their national strength, the full mobilization of their industrial capabilities, and then with us an undying war of revenge. So don't leave anything to chance! "Jochen is going to give a shot to these guys who don't have the concept of total warfare and industrialized total warfare." So having a strong navy to break the blockade of the French, and then constantly getting resources from overseas, and using our fleet to destroy the enemy's lines of communication, so that they don't get enough resources to replenish, is the fundamental reason why we need a strong navy all the time. And now our Navy is almost unable to keep even its own coastline! ”

"But if that's the case, then we should develop the army, and then use a strong army to quickly defeat the enemy!" The Conservative Party, as a supporter of the Army, certainly cannot afford to see this kind of squeezing of Army resources.

"However, the expansion of the army will occupy a large number of capable laborers, and with the same amount of military spending, the army will make the domestic labor force smaller, and the amount of equipment purchased will not be as good as that of the navy. Therefore, the expansion of the army inevitably leads to an increase in the level of social wages in peacetime, a decline in corporate profits, a slowdown in the accumulation of social capital, and a slowdown in technological progress! This is intolerable and contrary to the interests of the country as it is developing rapidly in the economy and industrialization of the empire! ”

"Your Highness, Germany is a modern country with stamina, we lack the primitive accumulation of capital, I think the expansion plan of the navy will greatly consume Germany's national strength!" The Conservatives and the Navy are completely on the bar and entangled.

"Quite the opposite! Strengthening the navy will not only not consume the national strength of the empire, but will be conducive to the development of the empire! The Navy is a technology-intensive branch of the military. The shipbuilding industry is the leading industry of the national economy, and its extended industrial chain covers almost all leading industries such as steel, power, chemicals, energy, and mining. The construction of modern warships has not only become the culmination of the industrial level of the entire society, but also the main driving force for the progress of the entire industrial technological level. Orders from the government and abroad feed not only the shipbuilding industry, but almost all industrial workers and the construction industry, which includes the entire industrial chain, which will benefit the entire economy. So the plan and size of the Navy is not just a matter of taxation, but also a myriad of employment issues, technological development issues associated with it! And this is proven by examples, the orders of 2 ironclad ships and 5 cruisers of the Qing State not only brought huge profits, but also greatly expanded the scale and number of workers of the Volkeng shipyard! And not only shipyards, any development of technical equipment will bring huge employment opportunities, in 1873 the Krupp factory employed 16,000 people, now it employs 35,000 people (Note 1)! More than double the growth! Therefore, the development of the navy will quickly pull the empire's gross domestic product, so the argument of depleting the empire's national power is simply nonsense. ”

"Then the Empire's army is no longer developing?" The National Liberal Party is mostly centrist, so it raises its own questions on the merits.

"The Imperial Army does not need to increase its strength in peacetime, but should improve its ability to mobilize in wartime, not to occupy valuable labor in peacetime, but to quickly convert labor into combat effectiveness when needed, and like the Navy, the Army should pay attention to the research and investment of technical equipment in peacetime. Through the installation of a large number of technical equipment, the combat capability of the troops will be enhanced, rather than relying on blindly increasing the number of troops. The research and large-scale production of advanced technology and equipment will also drive related industries, increase employment opportunities, and improve the technical level. ”

Jochen continued: "And the stronger our national strength develops, the higher our national will be, the more railways we will have, the more productive our military equipment will be, and the higher our mobilization capacity will be!" Therefore, a large-scale increase in the number of land forces in peacetime must not be possible. Moreover, in order to increase the mobilization capacity of the Imperial Army, it is possible to increase the training of grassroots officers and non-commissioned officers, increase the number of grassroots backbones of these units, and then in the war period, use these grassroots personnel as the skeleton to quickly fill the soldiers as muscles, and quickly form combat effectiveness. Moreover, after training a large number of grassroots officers and non-commissioned officers, the number of the army can be increased while maintaining the size of the army. ”

"Your Highness, you mean to increase the number of troops, but the troops are not satisfied in peacetime, right?" The old Conservative diehards were Junker aristocrats, and therefore very sensitive to the establishment of the army, and they could see at a glance what Jochen meant.

"That's right, when we train a large number of junior officers and non-commissioned officers, we can't let these people be crammed into one unit or have no troops for them to stay. Therefore, the number of units has been increased, and middle-level officers and veterans have been drawn from various units to form new units. Set up the framework of the new troops, and in wartime, fill these units with experienced officers and veterans, and in the case of veterans leading new soldiers, these recruits will grow into veterans after a few battles, and this is also more advantageous than a unit that has always been full of veterans and loses all veterans after the battle. Veterans are the most valuable asset of the army, so it is really beneficial for the Imperial Army to bring out more veterans than to maintain the combat effectiveness of a particular force. “

This was Jochen's second purpose, to increase the number of civilian officers in peacetime, thereby diluting the power of the officer corps. The Imperial Army had always been ambivalent about enlargement, with the middle elements of the General Staff wishing to expand the army and the recalcitrant officer corps fearing that their privileges would be taken away. But the massive expansion of the army in Tongguò and the increase in the number of civilian officers were clearly not what Yochen wanted to see. And when civilian officers were augmented along with a large group of recruits, the officer corps was still completely in control. However, in the case of only expanding the number of officers, not the number of soldiers, and the number of soldiers and many officers, these civilian officers will still be excluded in peacetime, but in wartime, as experienced veterans, when more civilian officers and recruits fill in, they can quickly have their own leadership, and then form an independent circle of civilian officers. That's exactly what Jochen wanted to see.

In conclusion, Jochen concluded: "Your Royal Highness, Your Excellency the Prime Minister, Your Excellency the Generals, Members of Parliament and Gentlemen, we need a navy that can protect our coastline, a navy that can break through the French blockade, a navy that will allow us to obtain resources from overseas. And these will not only not bring a burden to the empire, but will bring huge benefits to the empire! ”

As Jochen stepped off the podium with his head held high, he received a round of applause from his fellow Admiralty colleagues. In the end, the Reichstag voted in favor of the Admiralty's 1887 naval program. This was the first step in the expansion of the German Navy.

Note 1: The same number jù is calculated as the average value, which is calculated by averaging the number jù of 16,000 employees in 1873 and 70,000 in 1912

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