Start 1861: I just inherited the Dutch throne

Chapter 511: Is the English Channel ushering in a bad visitor?
Queen Victoria also looked embarrassed and said with some dissatisfaction: "According to your opinion, how should the UK respond to the so-called provocation of the Netherlands now?"

At this time, she still couldn't see that after 10 years of development, the Netherlands, which was originally only her favorite, had become a country that Britain must look up to.

Britain can no longer just randomly send out a local fleet to make the Netherlands tremble and give up Belgium. Britain sees the benefits. Recalling that when he first inherited the British throne 34 years ago, William IV's great-grandfather William I obediently gave up Belgium. The scene seemed to make Queen Victoria unable to believe that the changes would be so drastic. In just 30 years, the Netherlands had completed a drastic change as a great power. Even the British Empire had to take the opinions of the Netherlands seriously, even in recent years. In [-], the Netherlands almost stepped on the shoulders of the United Kingdom to gain power, which made her very angry.

At one point, she even wanted to cancel her marriage to Greece to express her dissatisfaction, but in the end, she thought of something and finally suppressed this impulse.

Just when the three of them were silent again, the queen's palace manager brought another telegram. This telegram surprised the three of them, and their expressions changed drastically.

It turns out that the telegram shows that a Dutch fleet has arrived in the northern part of the English Channel after setting sail from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is preparing to pass through the English Channel. The fleet is composed of the Dutch steam battleship Rotterdam and three second- and third-level sailing battleships to protect a total of four ships. Battleship.

Queen Victoria saw the two men looking uneasy after reading the telegram she sent, and asked, "What should we do now?"

No one would think that these four Dutch warships came empty-handed. They all thought that the person escorting them should be Huntington, the Speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, and the goal was to visit Spain.

This made Queen Victoria, Prime Minister Disraeli, and Foreign Secretary Russell feel that the matter was very difficult.

Interception?Many people in the UK have proposed this idea before, because with the British naval strength, interception is not a problem. Not to mention other things, the British mainland is right next to the English Channel, so it is very close.

Moreover, the Dutch naval fleet is far inferior to the British. This is everyone's consensus. If the British intercept it, there is not much threat at present.

But what gives the three people a headache is that if intercepted, it will mean a sharp deterioration in British-Dutch relations. In that case, the relationship will be difficult to recover in the near future, and may even worsen. For the British, it seems that Some of them are not in line with current interests. Even Disraeli, who was extremely opposed to the Netherlands, had to admit that the quality of relations with the Netherlands had a great impact on the British environment.

The difference between good and bad is striking for the British barometer.

Disraeli thought so, not to mention pinching Queen Victoria and Russell.

For a moment, the three fell into silence again, causing the room to fall into silence.

Prussia, Berlin.

"In the past few months, the prime ministers of the Tsarist Empire and the British Empire have been visiting the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. The main purpose of Disraeli's trip was to win over the Ottoman Empire to continue to block the southern passage of the Tsarist Russian Empire, but he also had to cooperate with the British Preventing European countries from penetrating into the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal can also be regarded as containing Europe's eastward advance. The plan to form a Middle East Anglo-Austrian alliance to cooperate with the British Eastern Mediterranean strategy was okay in the past, but recently it has been difficult to maintain it and has achieved nothing."

“The Prime Minister of Tsarist Russia, Gorchakov, attended the four-nation summit of Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Greece in Constantinople, intending to join the group to warm up when he was isolated by the British and French leaders in the international community, but he could only It can cooperate with regional countries to balance Britain's pressure role.

With the rise of countries such as the Netherlands and the American Commonwealth, as well as our own Prussia, Britain has suffered disastrous defeats in other places in the past few years, so it has limited energy invested in the Balkans. Therefore, it has been strategically shrinking in recent years. Take a look at the Yemen region of the Ottoman Empire. On the Arabian Peninsula, Italy, Spain, France, Prussia, and the Netherlands all obtained territory from the Ottoman Empire with the United Kingdom as a way to implant their influence there.

According to the past, Britain has long liked to be exclusive, so how can we still eat meat along with it?

With the strategic contraction of the United Kingdom in recent years, the autonomy of large and small countries in the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Italy and other regions has gradually increased. In the face of the increasing self-confidence of powerful countries such as Britain, Russia, and France, the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East and Eastern Europe has shown new changes, and the situation has become chaotic. Calm, but actually turbulent.

During the Crimean War that began in 1853, the Balkan Peninsula was once the focus of competition between the two major groups, Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and the Tsarist Russian Empire. After the failure of the Tsarist Russian Empire, Britain and France were the two dominant powers, and the Austrian Empire was once neutral. Together they dominate the affairs of other countries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.But after Metternich died, the Austrian Empire began to be overtaken by Prussia. The two countries almost fought within the German Confederation, and finally occupied the north and south of the German Confederation respectively. In the past few years, Prussia unified the German Confederation outside Austria. , this seriously impacted the situation in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and the British gradually suffered defeats in North America and South Africa, which damaged the British image and lost its majesty, causing the British strategy to shift to competing with the Netherlands, France and Prussia.The Middle East is gradually becoming lighter in weight.

After the war between Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire two years ago, Britain had no choice but to join the war. However, Britain, which had no intention of war, was defeated miserably by the Tsarist Empire. Britain once again lost points. This time, even the Ottoman Empire was disloyal and no longer completely dependent on Britain. .

However, the current situation has changed, and the British government represented by Disraeli is unable to cope with the current situation. The capabilities that the United Kingdom has shown in previous times have exposed the weakness of British national power. Countries in the Near East and Europe are no longer following Britain's lead.This is why the UK's recent diplomatic trips to various European countries seem to have gone wrong, and it has repeatedly hit the wall. For example, in North America, it is neither willing to support the Commonwealth of America's sovereignty over the south. However, they were unwilling to recognize the status of the Confederacy. As a result, before he returned to London, both countries announced their dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Disraeli's formation arrangements, which even caused demonstrations and protests among locals against the British government.

Disraeli exaggerated the Dutch threat in North America and tried to create a plan to remove the Dutch from power. However, he was met with more anti-British influence within the American Commonwealth. In the end, Andrew Johnson continued to become the president of the United States, while the British He became a scapegoat and was also treated coldly by all parties in the American Federation.Many American families have even announced that they will not do business with the British.

Britain tried its best to win over Europe and Italy to maintain its influence in the Mediterranean, but Emmanuel II publicly poured cold water on it, stating that it had no intention of becoming a British pawn to check and balance the European powers.

The British urged Portugal to counterbalance the Dutch influence in South America. However, after Louis I was defeated by the Dutch in Africa, it was obviously difficult for him to take direct action against the Dutch. He was obviously keeping a low profile.

The United Kingdom strongly proposed the establishment of an alliance of maritime powers. However, various countries were dissatisfied with the United Kingdom as the leading force and believed that the United Kingdom should not be dominant, so they were unwilling to support it. In the end, they participated in the Pacific Partnership established by the Netherlands, which was advocated by the United Kingdom.

The UK intended to take advantage of the stalemate in relations between Spain and France to win over Spain, but it did not expect that Spain would be more willing to be with the Netherlands. They even recently went so far as to conduct a so-called visit to Spain by the Speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives and support Spain's sovereignty over Gibraltar. On the contrary, it has already It may be considered a strange move by the British government to overcome the mutual dislike between the British, Dutch and even Spanish citizens.

In short, according to the "European Times", the current image of the UK is too bad, triggering a flood of negative comments from public opinion. "

King William I of Prussia and Moltke listened quietly to Bismarck's analysis. As they listened and understood Bismarck's thoughts more and more deeply, they both felt that their hearts were beating faster and faster.

The decline of Britain represents the coming of opportunities for other countries. The French Empire has been dragged in the Far East and is unable to launch another war on the European continent. Moreover, the favorability of France in various countries has almost dropped to below zero.
In this regard, Prussia was at least better. After all, compared to the blatant invasion of the Russian Empire, Prussia was an internal matter in the German Confederation.

At this time, Britain's influence is declining, which is an opportunity for many countries to be promoted. Can Prussia be promoted?

Just thinking about it made both of them tremble.His eyes were full of expectation.

Bismarck also saw this familiar look. He was no stranger to this, he himself was like this.

"We will not let the United Kingdom interfere in our actions, and we will not let the Netherlands, Austria-Hungary, and Spain take advantage of the situation." Bismarck analyzed: "Only in this way can we get the largest share of the cake in the next war against France. For this reason , Your Majesty, we need to compromise with these countries."

"How to compromise and issue laws?" Bismarck's statement made William I full of curiosity.

It's different to have a good subordinate. I think that when I didn't take Bismarck under my banner, I was too tired to use my brain.

"If we want Prussia to complete its mission and pay a lower price, then we must make some concessions," Bismarck said. "For example, for Belgium, which the Dutch have always valued, we should clearly support it."

"Public support? When will it start?" Moltke asked.

"Starting today, after our meeting, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will start publishing support for the Dutch interests in Belgium in newspapers to support the other party. I think the Dutch government will understand our good intentions?"

"Is it too late?"

"No, this is the effect we want."

(End of this chapter)