"Just because Germany is much stronger than Austria-Hungary, I think Austria-Hungary is our best alliance, because they will not come to Asia casually, and they will have enough weight to speak on the same level as the British and French, and they have enough international discourse."
President Moe explained, "If we form an alliance with the Germans, the Germans may not only point fingers, but also intervene in Asian affairs. ”Princess Katrina Kafu nodded and said: "So that's the case, the emperor thinks a lot, I haven't studied much of these international relations." ”President Meng smiled: "This is not mainly what I think alone, Li Hongzhang and Zeng Jize both have this view, we have to rely on the Germans, but to be able to form an alliance with Austria-Hungary, which has a good relationship with the Germans, will not only help us get technical help from the Germans, but also prevent us from getting too close to the Germans."
Now it depends on how Zeng Jize develops international relations. ”"I hope there is good news."
Princess Katrina Kafu held President Moe's hand and smiled sweetly.The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a large empire in Eastern Europe, with Russia, Britain, Austria, France, and Eastern Europe.It was the third largest country in Europe at the time, after Russia and the Ottoman Empire; The total population is large, slightly inferior to Russia and Germany, and the third largest in Europe; The prosperity of the machinery and instrument manufacturing industry and the strength of the steel and arms industry rank fourth in the world, after Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.It is also the fourth largest in Europe in terms of its total reserves of resources and the largest number of mobilized troops, only less than Russia, Germany and France.
The variety of agricultural products and the abundance of crude oil production are the highest in Europe, surpassing France, which has refined agriculture, and Russia, which is oriented towards grain exports.The advanced technology of the heavy artillery weapons produced by the Skoda Arsenal is far ahead, ranking first in the world.Another point is that this is a country with serious domestic contradictions and powerful resources, but the core of feudal imperialism makes it impossible for Austria-Hungary to dominate the world, and it is unlikely that it will run to Asia to find trouble, at most it will follow the ass of other countries and eat some shit, similar to the eight-nation alliance in the original history.This all ensured that if China and Austria-Hungary formed an alliance, Austria-Hungary could maintain friendly relations with China for a long time.All this has decided that President Moe wants to form an alliance with Austria-Hungary, which is of great significance.Zeng Jize had already arrived in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with President Meng's handwritten letter at this time, and was entertained by the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I.In fact, President Moe has no good impression of any of the great powers, including Austria-Hungary.In the original history, the Eight-Nation Coalition fought a war of armed aggression against China led by eight major countries, including Great Britain and the United Kingdom of Ireland, the United States of America, the French Third Republic, the German Empire, the Russian Empire, the Japanese Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy.In the spring of 1900, the Boxer Rebellion became the fuse of the Eight-Nation Alliance's war of aggression against China, and under this pretext, the Eight-Nation Alliance carried out the carving up and plundering of China in the name of suppressing the Boxers.The total number of United Nations troops entering China is about 50,000 people, well-equipped, powerful, in 1900, on August 14, the city of Beijing completely fell, Cixi, Guangxu and other cadres fled to Xi'an, Shaanxi, and then Cixi in the name of Guangxu under the "guilty edict", telegraphed Li Hongzhang from Guangdong to the north to negotiate peace with foreigners.On September 7, 1901, as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Xincho, China was completely reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, which brought unprecedented and painful disasters to the country and people at that time.During the Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion of China, the Qing government, under the pressure of the people, ostensibly "declared war" on the great powers, but secretly sabotaged the Boxer Rebellion and compromised and surrendered to the invading army.In addition to the eight foreign countries, three other countries were added: the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Spanish Empire.China was completely reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and the Qing government completely became a tool for the "Western powers" to rule China, and became a "court of foreigners".Although this kind of tragedy has not happened yet, President Meng's hatred for these powers has not decreased by any because of this, but because of the relationship of rebirth, he is even more resentful, so letting Zeng Jize visit Europe as a vice minister of foreign affairs is just an expedient measure, for the sake of national interests, looking for allies, not President Meng wants to be close to Europeans.Franz Joseph I was the eldest son of Princess Sophie Fredrica, Grand Duke Franzkar and daughter of King Maximilian I of Bavaria, and was educated to be the heir-presumed heir to the king because his uncle Ferdinand I had no heirs.In 1848, he participated in the suppression of the uprising of the Kingdom of Lombardy against Austrian rule in Italy, and when the revolution spread to the imperial capital of Vienna, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria was forced to abdicate for mental reasons, and Franz ascended the throne in Olmitz on December 3.During the first 10 years of his reign, the so-called "new autocracy", he personally made foreign policy and strategic decisions, began to restore order to the empire together with the Chancellor and Foreign Minister Felix Schwarzenberg, and in November 1850 coerced Prussia into signing the Treaty of Olmitz, dissolving the German Confederation and claiming to be a vassal to Austria, which the Prussians considered the second Jena shame.But the prime minister's brutal rule at home and the intolerant police apparatus provoked a rebellion in the hearts of the people, which became even more threatening in 1851 when the government withdrew its promise of 1849 to a constitution under revolutionary pressure.The consequences of withdrawing the pledge were far-reaching, leading to a long period of distrust of Franz Joseph's rule by the Liberals, leading to the assassination attempt in Vienna in 1853 and the riots in Milan.After Schwarzenberg's death in 1852, Franz Joseph ceased to appoint prime minister and took power into his own hands.Although he is very diligent, he is not very intellectual, and he often takes the wrong path in complex international politics.The mistakes of the Austrian Empire in the Crimean War were mainly of his own making, and he, despite the consistent support of the Russian Empire for him, transferred troops in Galicia to the Russian border, forcing Nicholas I to withdraw his troops from the banks of the Danube, which caused a permanent rift between the two countries, and Tsar Nicholas I lamented the betrayal of Austria before committing suicide: "I am the greatest fool in the world, and I should expect others to repay me." ”And the Western countries, because he did not directly participate in the war, saw him as a treacherous figure who tried to get something for nothing, and in the end he did not please both sides.In 1859, he began to cut military spending because of the country's complex financial problems, but he fell for Cavour's tricks and could not resist provoking war on the Kingdom of Sardinia.Unexpectedly, the rat was caught but the elephant was brought out, Napoleon III of France changed his face as fast as turning a book, and suddenly drew his sword without warning to help the weak Sardinia, and for the first time in history, he quickly brought 100,000 troops to the Italian battlefield by railway maneuver, and the expected punitive operation of the border guards turned into the main confrontation between the great powers, and Franz himself did not have the slightest effect in rushing to the battlefield, the command of the two armies seemed disorganized, and Austria appeared even more chaotic, and the defeat in the Battle of Solferino seriously damaged Austria's military reputation.In July, he hastily concluded the Peace of Liberty and ceded Lombard to his rivals to end the war.The atmosphere of crisis that arose after the defeat prompted Franz Joseph to revisit the constitutional question, alternating between a federal constitution and a central group constitution until 1867.In the 1864 war against Denmark, Joseph formed an alliance with Prussia in an attempt to delay its dominance in Germany, but in vain.After the victory of Prussia, a quarrel broke out, and war between the two sides was inevitable, and Prussia formed an alliance with Sardinia to form a flanking attack on Austria.Diplomats proposed to avoid this unfavorable situation by ceding Venice to Sardinia through the hands of Napoleon III of France.Although he was destined to lose Venice, Joseph thought that it would be undignified to lose a province without a war, and it would be more glorious to die, so he immediately switched the positions of Archduke Albrecht Friedrich Rudolph, who was good at attacking, and Ludwig von Benedek, who was good at defense, and the end of the Austro-Prussian war was the defeat of the northern front and the victory of the southern front.Relations between the peoples deteriorated further as Franz Joseph failed to reach a federal solution to the satisfaction of the peoples.In 1867 it became clear that a compromise had to be made with the Hungarians, who did not listen to their commands, and the result was a "dual monarchy of empire and kingdom", in which half Austrian and half Hungarian coexisted in equal partnership.This compromise gave the Hungarians considerable rights to expand their influence, and it was the Slavic peoples who suffered the loss; The Bohemians, Czechs, and Poles did not share in the privileges enjoyed by the Austrian Germans in the Austrian part of the Reich, the western half; The Croats, Slovaks and Southern Slavs did not share in the privileges enjoyed by the Hungarians in the Hungarian part, the eastern half.Franz Joseph endorsed this partiality, which violated the core law of the fundamental equality of peoples in this multi-ethnic country.The relationship between the states and the emperor formed over a long period of history was replaced by the submission of the peoples to the Austrian German monarch or the Hungarian monarch.In this way, the country continues to be at peace.The last attempt to give Slavic languages an equal footing with Hungarian and German was also rejected by the Austrian emperor under pressure from the Austrian German nation.As for the question of the recognition and restoration of the ancient rights of the Czechs, it shackled the foreign policy of Austria-Hungary and threatened its internal affairs.Even more unfavorable was the question of the southern Slavs, where, from 1867 onwards, the Croats under Hungarian rule felt that they were constantly Hungarianized, and that Hungarian rule had finally made Serbia, inhabited by its fellow Slavs, a mortal enemy of the dualist monarchy.Count Andrách was Franz Joseph's most outstanding foreign minister."
Mr.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, since China and other countries are at war, and with the participation of Britain and France, it is not very convenient for our two countries to discuss the matter of establishing friendly relations at this time."
Count Andráhi said politely to Zeng Jize.Zeng Jize nodded and said, "Mr.
Earl, our Hua Guo has already sent a request to your country last year, and we don't think that Hua Guo is at war now, we are just maintaining peace in our own territory. ”"Dear friend from the East, you are very eloquent, but in any case, I am sorry that we in Austria-Hungary have no way to form an alliance with China, and there is no precedent for Europe to form an alliance with Asian countries."
Count Andráhi smiled, already meaning to send off the guest.t1706231537: