Chapter 30 A certain Carl from the Austro-Hungarian Empire (2)

Carl looked out the window with some annoyance, "You may not imagine it, Davis. Now the gap between us and our neighbor, the Russian Empire is so close that we only need to work harder. If the domestic military industry develops a little more, we can completely suppress the greedy Slavs in the Balkans...even if our military industry is only half of theirs..."

Speaking of this, Carl seemed extremely helpless. With the increasing development of the power of the Second German Empire in the past two years, the situation where the empire could still move forward in line with it at the beginning of its merger has been gone. Instead, the country not only built the world's largest continental army, but also had the world's second navy that could challenge the British Empire, which completely became the endorsement of the Germans. On the contrary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, during its 51 years of existence, the economic development of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was rapid. The improvement of technology promoted industrialization and urbanization. In these 51 years, the capitalist mode of production spread to the entire empire. The old feudal system continued to disappear. Near Vienna, the hinterland of Austria, the foothills of the Alps and Bohemia were the centers of economic development. The 19th century

At the end of the century, the economic development of the central plains of Hungary and the Carpathians was also very fast. The economic development speed of the entire empire was quite different. In general, the development of the western region was much higher than that of the eastern region. The economic development speed of the entire empire was very high at the beginning of the 20th century. From 1870 to 1913, the average productivity per person per person increased by about 1.45% per year. Compared with other European countries (1.00% in the UK, 1.06% in France, and 1.51% in Germany), this development speed was relatively high. However, the economic development of the country was still lagging behind other countries in general because it started relatively late. The number of Britain was about three times that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and twice that of Germany. This rough comparison could not reflect the imbalance of the development within the empire.

Like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there is their neighbor and old rival - the old empire of Russia. Since time entered the 20th century, its pace has become increasingly staggering and slower, and it has gradually become unable to keep up with the pace of the world!

From winning the second navy in 1900, the first army in the world, to the sixth navy in 1911, the third army in the world, it took only ten years, dozens of small conflicts, a domestic turmoil, and a war, Russia almost lost all the strong financial resources he built in two and a half centuries in this decade, and became the "boss" empire that is now carrying huge debts (France enjoys privileges in Russia, detailed in detail later).

In a Russian-Japanese battle, the Russian army participated in the war with a total of about 1.2 million troops, casualties, and captured about 270,000 people. It lost 98 ships. It does not count the losses caused by the country's territory, rights and domestic price turmoil. The military expenditure alone is 27.621 (it is 2 billion on Baidu, but this is the number I saw in the Russian translation version of "Russian-Japanese Battle") billion rubles. If the loss of warships plus the losses caused by the uprisings organized by Red Lenin in China during the war, the number will be no less than 40 to 5 billion rubles.

It can be said that a battle almost defeated Russia's decades of savings, which made him not breathe until the war!

Looking at the empire for half a century, when competing for the Balkans, the Russian Empire always lost more and won less when competing for the Balkans. The reason is that Russia has been constantly plundering foreign countries for centuries, especially in the modern 50 or 60 years, it has absorbed too much nutrition from this ancient power in the East. In addition, its territory has been nearly thirty times larger than that of the empire. In contrast, after the Austro-Hungarian Empire failed to fight with the Kingdom of Prussia, France and Italy, it not only paid a large amount of military expenditure, but also compensated a considerable amount of war reparations, and even lost almost half of the territory. If industrialization had not come earlier than Russia, it would have fallen under the Slavic chariot long ago!

It can be said that this time was the weakest time period for the Russian Empire and the closest time period between the two countries. He received many years of elite education from the family. Although he had just been recognized by the family, Carl, who had long been eager to reappear the glory of the Holy Roman Empire, made up his mind and planned for a long time before he decided to come to this mysterious country that supported a Japanese, half Russia, one quarter of Britain, Germany, the United States and other European civilizations. Unfortunately, he had just arrived here. The five countries of Britain, Japan, France, Russia and Germany privately signed an agreement on arms export to China, and together they excluded other countries from entering the Chinese market.

He was not afraid that Davis would reveal this news that was definitely a secret, because, as the butler of Count Otto Franz, he was the confidant of his powerful grandfather. One thing is certain, that is, after he made up his mind to come to the East to "make a trip", this man who always seemed to be smiling also received a secret order from his grandfather who had not seen for a long time. As for what it was, he hasn't even found out so far!

He looked out the window quietly for a while, and after seeing the Qing soldiers being rejected by the foreign patrolmen in the embassy area, he could only leave helplessly. Carl frowned and was thinking about whether such a cowardly country that did not even have the courage to resist was half as he planned. However, seeing Davis next to him was still waiting for her explanation, he shrugged, "They are too poor, it's really a headache. I'm starting to regret it now. I regret it's a mistake to choose to come to this country!"

He pointed to a luxurious building area outside the window and signaled Davis to come forward, "I saw it, what a beautiful building over there. This is the paradise of the noble race (Manchus) of this country. They have endless wealth, so much that even a hundred years of luxury, they can't spend it all." He paused, "But look over there, look, they are homeless men and beggars. They don't have enough clothes and don't even have a place to live. No wonder the riots happened!"

Carl sighed.

"But, Davis, now I have begun to doubt, do the rebels in this country who don't even have money to buy clothes will have money to buy a lot of arms from us? Since Yuan (Yuan Shikai) was dismissed, the army unit of this country, which is quite powerful, has begun to use British and even German equipment! Compared with rifles and small-caliber guns, I still have confidence to compete with them, but our capacity is not as good as that of British and German, and it is not as good as that of German Krupp in the heavy artillery line..."

He said with some complaints that Al was so depressed at this time. As the saying goes, the plan could not keep up with the changes. No matter how good he had planned before, he found out that his biggest mistake was after coming to this rich and poor land. He learned that his country had lost a large arms order from the Qing court and also rejected the arms procurement of six towns that had already been signed with the empire with the support of Britain, Germany and other countries. He made a decision to support the rebels, completely overturn the Qing Dynasty's rule, or to make this land chaotic!

The situation in Europe is becoming more and more chaotic now. For those with a little political perspective, the situation in Europe in 1911 is clear at a glance, and it is perfect to describe it in four words - the battle clouds are everywhere!

That's right, since the establishment of two major European military groups in the late 19th and early 20th century, the situation in Europe was suddenly worse. The Moroccan crisis almost caused Russia's ally France and Germany to break the fire. The Algeciras Conference just cooled down the countries that had already fought for colonial interests. The second Moroccan crisis broke out again, and it was even more dangerous.

Perhaps because everyone was not ready, or in order to test the psychological bottom line of the enemy country, the Second German Empire, which was tough in the early stage of this crisis, faced the tough attitude of Britain and was at the same time, and the financial crisis occurred in the country. Germany was forced to give in and negotiated with France on a smaller scale compensation issue. Before Carl came, there was already news in the country. After Germany informed the empire that the empire was not ready for war, the Kingdom of Italy had made it clear that it would not stand on Germany's side. In addition, Russia intends to draw three divisions from the Far East to Europe, so Germany may be the first to compromise. I believe that it will not take long to see the dawn of peace back on the European continent! (On November 4, France and Germany reached an agreement, Germany admitted that Morocco was protected by France, and France gave Germany part of the French Congo territory as compensation.) However, is that true?

Just look at these gangs who were so anxious that they ran all over the world, and there was no!

Yes, no. At this time, the military industry had already jumped to the world's first place, the comprehensive industry ranked second in the world, and the second German Empire, which was the first in Europe, was obviously very disgusted with the old empires such as Britain, France and Russia to divide the best colonies in the world. He not only wrestled with France on the European continent, but also occasionally showed off his strong muscles around Russia. First, he encouraged allies to create a Bosnian crisis in 1908, which touched the interests of the Russian Empire, and even won over his friend, Italy in the future, and then gave enough support to him, allowing him to annex Tripoli in the subsequent "Italy War".

Although Turkey's sick husband, Austro-Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, did not like it, Central Asia and the Balkans have always been Russia's traditional sphere of influence. For empires that also longed to continue to expand in the Balkans, sometimes the two countries joined forces to deal with Russia longed to have a tacit understanding. However, after some actions over the years, the Second German Empire has successfully made the empire's old people who should lie in the coffin finally understand that they have to join and continue to stand with Germany, so war is inevitable!

Although the empire was unwilling to admit it, without Germany's support, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was unable to maintain its interests in the Balkans. Even when dealing with the old empire on the back, it would fall into an unprecedented crisis due to the strong pressure brought by the Slavic chariots, so it must stand firmly with Germany. Since war is imminent, for their rule, it is also for the great Austro-Hungarian Empire. They must prepare before the war. It was not until this time that a group of old guys looked at the empty imperial treasury in shock and discovered something that was gone, and they had no money!

It is an indisputable fact that the empire that has experienced several years of Balkan conflict consumed a huge amount of expenses and was forced to be involved in the arms race between Britain and Germany. Both industrial strength and domestic economy are far less expensive than the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the two countries, and has long reached the brink of the fiscal crisis.

It is precisely because of this that facing the increasingly dense war clouds on the European continent, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was afraid that the Allies would attack, would have to reorganize its military equipment as soon as possible so that it would not lose the disadvantage in the war that could break out at any time. Therefore, Carl's trip to China now has a large number of arms that came with the ship!
Chapter completed!