With Christmas just around the corner, it seems that the smell of gunpowder is getting a little lighter between countries, but this is only in mainland Europe.
In the West Indies, the New World, and Indochina, the frequent movements of the British army caused widespread unease, among which the French colonial governors of the New World and the West Indies had sent messengers to Paris urgently.
The Royal Navy was also completely free of festive atmosphere, and the entire Royal Navy had entered a state of first-class combat readiness, and a blockade was implemented for some of the more remote French colonies.
In the Caribbean, the British Navy was particularly aggressive, and although the British Navy did not drop a single shell on the French merchant ships and fleets, the British Navy drove the warships into the path of the merchant ships, connected them in a line, and forced the French ships back to port in the form of a ship wall.
Although the French naval fleet has not yet been fully withdrawn to the country, the French fleet has no way to deal with these arrogant British Royal Navy unless they risk firing the first shot to start a war without the two countries declaring war.
And firing the first shot to fight the war is obviously not something that the French Navy can call the shots, which makes the French Navy feel aggrieved, but in the case of too many concerns, they also bear the grievances alive.
As Britain's tough attitude became more and more obvious, the number of envoys from various countries to and from various places increased significantly, and as a large country in Central Europe, Prussia's geographical location was easy to be attacked from all sides, but its special geographical location also attracted Prussia's attention.
William also sent two groups of envoys to Sweden before Christmas, and Sweden played a very important role in William's next plan, after all, as long as Sweden was stabilized, then Prussia would have much more room to maneuver.
Except for Sweden.
Contacts between Prussia and Austria gradually became more frequent, and although Karl's assassination halted Prussian operations on the Austro-Prussian border, it did not mean that Wilhelm was ready to abandon his invasion of the Mainz region.
Now that there was an inevitable war between England and France, and that Prussia was in the Anglo-Prussian alliance or on the favourable terms offered by the British, it was clear that Prussia and France would no longer be at peace, although France and Prussia did not share a border, and were separated by many states in the Rhine valley.
And if war breaks out.
It is also impossible for France to send troops to Prussia, after all, there is no internal peace in France at present.
But what is not happening now does not mean that it cannot happen in the future, and in Wilhelm's vision there must not be the situation of the Seven Years' War, so once the war has begun, it is necessary to do everything possible to make the war happen outside of Prussia itself.
In William's plan, the Mainz valley was to start in the west and then to Bohemia as the center.
With Silesia as the pillar and Prussian Poland as the eastern terminus, a great power defense line would ensure that the war would be fought outside of Prussia proper.
The most critical areas of this great power defense line were Bohemia and the Mainz valley, and Russia's civil strife made it impossible for St.
Petersburg to deal with Prussia, and even Paul I may have secretly prayed that Prussia would not take advantage of Russia's weakness to turn eastward.
In this way, the most likely enemies for Prussia were Austria and France, and the reason why Bohemia was the center was because of the strategic location of Bohemia.
If Austria declares war on Prussia.
Bohemia then became a choke point, from Bohemia to the east to Silesia, from Bohemia to the north to Saxony in sight, and from Bohemia to the west, the largest Prussian territory outside the Hohenzollern family, Ansbach, was directly exposed.
Therefore, before Christmas, Wilhelm urgently ordered the 3rd, 17th, and 18th Divisions stationed in Brandenburg to move to the Mainz area, and the 7th Division, originally stationed in Saxony, was transferred to reinforce the Bohemian front.
In this way, in the area close to the Mainz valley, Prussia concentrated the strength of three divisions.
Bohemia also concentrated the seventh, ninth, and tenth divisions, a total of three divisions.
Silesia originally had three divisions, and in William's opinion, three divisions were enough to defend Silesia.
After the Sixteenth Division was renamed for reinforcements in North America, the regular army of Prussia itself was left with seventeen divisions in addition to the Royal Guard.
If the 8th and 13th Divisions deployed in Warsaw are added, then William will use 11 divisions and regiments with a total strength of more than 120,000 in order to build the defense line of this great power in his heart.
Prussia's big move caught the attention of Austria and France, and at the same time frightened many of the smaller states of the Main region.
In fact, since Prussia annexed Saxony, the small states of Mainz have been living in fear.
After all, Saxony is connected to the Main, and the annexation of Saxony directly means that Prussia's troops have hung over the heads of the states in the Mainz region.
It was also when the Prussian army was just beginning to move towards the Mainz region that the states of Mainz, which had learned the news, sent emissaries to Vienna and Brandenburg, and at the same time.
The Electorate of Mainz and Frankfurt also welcomed emissaries from many states.
The purpose of these emissaries was nothing more than to find out the news, but in Vienna and Brandenburg, these emissaries could not find out anything at all, after all, Vienna did not know what the Prussians wanted to do, and the Prussians, who knew the situation, obviously did not tell the truth to the emissaries of these small states, according to the Prussian government, the three divisions stationed in the western part of Saxony were only a normal military movement in Prussia.
But in response to the Prussian government's rhetoric, those who believe it are the real ghosts.
As a result, the Electorate of Mainz and Frankfurt are the leaders of the Mainz region.
Elector of Mainz Eltar is very depressed now, as the Elector of Mainz, in terms of status, Eltal is undoubtedly above 10,000 people under one person in the Holy Roman Empire, but now because the person supported by Eltar at the Electoral Council is Maximilian, this has caused the embarrassment of Eltar's status.
Although the Electorate of Mainz is very rich, relatively speaking, as a patriarchal state, the Electoral State of Mainz does not have an army worthy of the state's status, and with his wrong choice at the Electoral Council, the appeal of the Electorate of Mainz is also plummeting within the Holy Roman Empire.
The entire Electorate of Mainz has less than 5,000 men, which is undoubtedly a formidable force for the untouchables who resist the religious tax, but compared to the Prussian army, these forces of the Electorate of Mainz are undoubtedly suspected of being used as a mantis.
The Main region is dotted with dozens of states, the largest of which are the Electorate of Mainz and the Free City of Frankfurt, both of which have thousands of armed forces.
The medium ones such as the Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Duchy of Hesse-Kassel, the Bishopric of Würzburg, etc., also have a strength of 1,000 to 3,000 troops, and as for the small counties or the chaotic knightly leaders, they are equivalent to a village or town, and the guards of a few hundred people at most are up to the sky.
The Prussian government once calculated that although there were more than 30 princes of all sizes in the Main region, the strength of these princes was more than 40,000 when they were all brought together, and how could the more than 40,000 rabble, which had been forcibly cobbled together, resist the Prussian elite army of 30,000.
Of course, everything cannot be said absolutely, after all, the 17th and 18th Prussian divisions are newly formed divisions, and there is a considerable lack of veterans in these two divisions, and there is almost no combat experience, so the 6th Division deployed in Saxony also undertakes the task of a reserve.
In Prussia, there were objections to the use of the 17th and 18th divisions, after all, these two divisions had no combat experience, and they had just been formed for less than a year, and even the run-in between the units was quite a problem.
However, in William's opinion, these are not problems at all, and if you don't have combat experience, you can't just send them to the battlefield to fight!
Moreover, no matter how good the training is in peacetime, it can only reduce the casualty rate of the troops, and the real decisive factor in war is the military soul of an army!
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And the military spirit can only be obtained in battle!
Moreover, in Prussia, the new 10th and 20th divisions were also beginning to be formed, and Prussia did not have a year to pass, and even the end of the year was not a checkpoint but a harvest season for Prussia.
Taxes from all over Prussia were collected in the autumn and sent to Brandenburg before the year to be collected, and then Prussian government officials arranged the budget for the new year according to the revenues.
Although the construction of three new divisions was a burden on Prussia's finances, it was within the limits of what it could bear.
And do not forget, what race are the Prussians?
It was a pure fighting race, when the country had only a population of hundreds of thousands, it was still able to mobilize more than 100,000 troops to go to the front, not to mention that now with a series of Prussian territorial expansion, not only the country's territory has expanded, but the country's population and finance and taxation have naturally shown a large growth trend.