Start 1861: I just inherited the Dutch throne

Chapter 560: The Chateau rifle that Napoleon III relied on

"The United Kingdom and Upper Burma gathered a total of nearly 20 people for a confrontation in Burma. Countries on both sides of the Atlantic were staring intently at the war that Britain and Upper Burma were preparing to start. William IV did not know what method he used to make it happen. Those people in Burma dare to declare war on Britain."

Crown Prince Frederick of the Kingdom of Prussia asked in confusion.

William I: "William IV has always been a mysterious person. He will keep a low profile when he should be low-key, but when he should be high-profile, I have never seen him willing to bow to anyone. I can't guess this person, but no matter what, William IV We were promised to contain the British Empire, but now we have done it.”

Prime Minister Bismarck also said: "Your Majesty is right. Now that the Netherlands has begun to give us what we want, what we need to do next is to quickly prepare to attack France."

Crown Prince Frederick asked: "I wonder when is the best month for us to start attacking France?"

William I glanced at Bismarck.

Bismarck smiled and said: "Why didn't the French Empire attack us?"

Seeing Crown Prince Frederick's confusion, Bismarck said contemptuously: "We need to create an excuse for the French Empire to attack us first, and Napoleon III will provide it to us."

On June 1869, 6, the 3 British troops assembled around Burma all advanced 8.5 kilometers north.

As Lower Burma also moved southward, the room for relaxation between the two parties became smaller.

In Paris of the French Empire, Napoleon III frowned even more when he received the news that the Five-Party Alliance of Upper Burma had declared war on Britain.

The British were amassing more and more troops, which was not a good thing.

The war potential of the Upper Burmese Empire has actually been almost fully mobilized. Limited by transportation and productivity, this should already be the maximum amount of troops they can use.

At this time, the population of Myanmar was only 210 million, and the entire Myanmar population was 340 million (historically, Myanmar had 1900 million people until 960.6).

In the First Anglo-Burmese War (1819-1822), Britain supported internal rebels in Burma, but was finally defeated by the Burmese royal family.

During the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1837-1851), Britain took advantage of Burma's civil war and diplomatic dilemma to gradually erode Burma's internal power. At the end, it only gave you control of the Arakan region, Lower Burma region and Tanah Sarin region on the western coast. All occupied and became colonies, accounting for one-third of Myanmar's territory.The remaining northern part of Myanmar is inland, and the northern part is close to the ancient power of the Far East.

In the middle of the 19th century, the world's major capitalist countries began to transform from liberal capitalism to imperialism. European countries led by the United Kingdom, led by Queen Victoria, and the French Empire, led by Napoleon III, expanded their commodity markets around the world and plundered them. Origin, fighting for colonies and spheres of influence with all their strength.

Thinking of this, Napoleon III sighed and said unwillingly: Queen Victoria's Britain took the first step.Relying on its strong navy, it actually took over the Indian subcontinent first, and then Bangladesh. Using the Malay Peninsula that it already owned, it slowly surrounded the coast of Myanmar to prevent other countries from intervening in their attack on Myanmar."

Prime Minister Olivier also said: "In the past ten years from 1860 to 19869, the British cabinet government from the former Prime Minister Viscount Palmerston to the current Disraeli has tried to make Upper Burma become a country similar to India. The vassal status of the feudal states has always suffered failure.

It has to be said that the people in Burma are not stupid. They actually know how to take advantage of the contradictions and struggles between our French Empire and the British for the Indian subcontinent and the Southeast Asian Peninsula. They resumed negotiations with our French Empire half a year ago and adopted what the Easterners call The policy of using barbarians to control barbarians. "

Napoleon III laughed at himself: "But haven't we been tricked yet? How can we go to Burma?"

Prime Minister Olivier: "The people in Burma promised us that if we help them defeat the British, then they are willing to secretly support France in the war between the Kingdom of Siam and the French Empire."

Napoleon III: "Do you believe it?"

Prime Minister Olivier: "Letter"

Napoleon III: "Why?"

Olivier: "Because Upper Burma, as the orthodox state of Burma, has always competed with the Kingdom of Siam for influence in the Southeast Asian peninsula. Especially because of several wars over border issues on the Malay Peninsula. Upper Burma supported the French Empire in Laos. Supporting the French position in the war is understandable.

What's more, Upper Burma promised us that after driving the British out of Burma, they were willing to transfer the Tanah Sarin area of ​​Burmese territory on the Malay Peninsula in the east of the Andaman Sea to France. If successful, the French Empire would transfer territory to France for the first time. Expanding to the Malay Peninsula, you must know that it is the core area of ​​Britain, the Kingdom of Siam and the Netherlands.

As long as France enters there, France can intervene in the safe navigation of the Strait of Malacca and officially enter the Andaman Sea. More importantly, the French Empire will use this to play a supporting role in our current invasion of Cambodia. By that time, the Edana Sarin area is close to the west of the Kingdom of Siam, and its capital Bangkok is only a short one or two hundred kilometers away. I think Rama IV will know what to do." Napoleon III looked at his crony Oli Prime Minister Weyer looked like he had pearls of wisdom, but he had to admit that what he said was reasonable, "It is also true that no matter how smart Queen Victoria and Disraeli are, they don't know that in fact, they think that the poor and white natives , in fact, in the past few months, we have secretly purchased 1 Xasebo rifles from the North Vietnam and Laos areas we occupied, which were only installed in our French Imperial Army in 1866.That is our most advanced rifle at present, and it is among the most advanced firearms of its kind in the world. I think it should surprise the UK this time."

Olivier nodded and said: "Your Majesty can't explain it. France was weakened by the Kingdom of Siam under Britain's 'expectation', so how could Britain 'survive' alone?"

Dutch Royal Palace.

"Follow Burma and tell them to ask the French Empire to provide more guns and ammunition. It is best to move the French arsenal to the Far East."

William IV asked Mackay Sean, director of the Dutch International Intelligence Agency: "Which type of firearm is the French Empire?"

McKay Sean: "The French military currently mainly uses Chassepo rifles"

"Is that it?" William IV frowned.The Prussian equipment in the 19s was the Dres bolt-action striker gun, which conquered many countries, including France. Although European countries generally believed that this weapon was airtight and not as good as a muzzle-loading rifle in terms of performance, it also I also more or less realized the advantages of rear-mounted weapons and began to consider the issue of replacement.

Later, the Prussian-Danish War in 1863 and the Prussian-Austrian seven-week dynastic war in 1866 accelerated this urgency.

In this context, it was at this time that the Chasepo rifle, an excellent example of early breech-loading rifles and a combination of honor and disgrace, was developed in France.

Mackay Sean: "This France Chassepo rifle has a full range of 130 centimeters, a glare length of 79.5 centimeters, a weight of about 4.6 kilograms, a caliber of 11 millimeters, a rate of fire of 410 meters per second, and an effective range of 800 meters."

William IV: "What's the problem?"

Mike Sean: "The lead bullets are easily deformed in flight when using the Chassebol rifle, and their lethality is less than that of the traditional Migne rifle. However, this is not a big problem from the perspective of France."

Wilhelm IV asked: "How is it better than what we have in Mauser rifles?"

"Of course it's incomparable," McKay Sean affirmed: "On August 1866, 8, the Châsepo rifle was approved for use in the French army. In the same year, Châsepo, who developed the rifle, was awarded the Legion of Honor (Legion 30) by Napoleon III. Knight) and a reward of thirty thousand francs, but both Napoleon III and the French officers valued it very much."

See the questioning look in William IV's eyes.

McKay Sean explained: "The first drop of blood of the Chassepo rifle came from the Italians. In October 1867, Garibaldi led the volunteer army to press against Rome. The French Emperor Napoleon III sent troops to Rome first and fought with the Pope. -The emperor formed a coalition army. On November 10, in the Battle of Mentana, the Garibaldi Volunteer Army, which was poorly organized and lacked cavalry and artillery, was severely beaten by the French army equipped with Chacebo rifles, killing more than 11 people. They had to evacuate Rome the next day, and the wounded even included Garibaldi himself. The French army suffered only 3 casualties, and the Papal Army suffered 1000 casualties."

He pointed out, “It was precisely because of the miracle created by the Chassebol rifle that the French were very excited for a while. It was precisely because of this battle that the French found something out of the fear of the Prussian-Danish War and the Prussian-Austrosian War. They believed that there were almost no comparable breech-loading rifles at the same time. For the French military, the emergence of the Chassepo rifle might reverse the military strength of the Franco-Prussian War in one fell swoop."

"William IV asked uncertainly: "In other words, in terms of France's current threat to Prussia, do you think France has an overwhelming advantage when facing Prussia due to the superiority of the Chateau rifle? "

McKay Sean: "Not bad"

"He who does not know is fearless," William IV secretly said.

He thought: "Historically, in 1882, after France took control of North and South Vietnam and Cambodia, and occupied the northern territory of Laos under the Kingdom of Siam, France's active expansion in the Southeast Asian peninsula made Britain uneasy. In May 1883, the Burmese Tin Pao It sent a mission to France to win France's commitment and assistance to itself. After learning the news, Britain felt even more threatened, decided to put pressure on France, and planned to annex Upper Burma in one fell swoop.

In March 1885, when France was busy fighting wars with the ancient northern powers and competing for the island of Madagascar, Britain officially issued a diplomatic note to France regarding the political alliance between France and Burma. France denied its alliance with Burma and recalled its consul in Burma.

After containing France's power, Britain issued an ultimatum to the King of Myanmar on October 10 of the same year under the pretext of the Bombay Burma Trading Company's teak logging case, demanding that Britain be given the power to supervise and control Myanmar's foreign affairs activities."

He thought that now we have disrupted the rhythm of history and let the Netherlands, driven by people inside Upper Burma, make Upper Burma and France secretly form an alliance in advance at the beginning of this year, and not in the later French Third Republic-and- The countries are loosely allied.

Just now, Mackay Sean also mentioned that France has provided 1 state-of-the-art Xasebo rifles to Burma. Now that Britain is keeping up with the war in Burma, France will probably sink deeper.

He told Mackay Sean: "Prussia has seen that our promise to them has been fulfilled. We urge Prussia to ask them to hand over the Bahrain Islands to us first."

(End of this chapter)