Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 391 The Dirty Deal

After an agreement, France is bounded by the Loire River, the Morvan Mountains and the Saone River Valley, and the south is owned by Germany.However, other allies raised objections to William's request to divide half of France's overseas colonies to Germany.William finally made a compromise and gave up his claim to the French colonies.Anyway, the current French navy has lost most of the military ports in the south and has become a source of water, while the German navy is growing day by day. It won't be long before those colonies will fall into his hands. Why the rush?

Since the two parties have reached a consensus, the next step is to sign a peace agreement.Under the preparation of the conference secretary, a peace treaty was quickly drafted.The French Foreign Minister Soss and the German Foreign Minister formally signed the peace treaty respectively.From this moment on, the peace treaty came into effect, and the territory of central and southern France officially belonged to Germany, and it has a sacred and inviolable status from now on.

The issue of negotiations with Germany was resolved, and the peace talks entered the second stage, negotiations between other allied countries in Europe and France. The winners of the war began to plunder the losers again.Originally, this had nothing to do with Germany. William and the others could have left, but William insisted on staying.

Due to the successful mediation of Emperor Franz of the Austro-Hungarian Empire just now, Germany and France finally made a compromise, especially the compromise of Germany.Objectively, more land and interests are reserved for these allies.So the important task of formal negotiations with France this time fell on Franz.

Under the strong suppression of these allies, facing the weakness and indifference of the British, Briand had no chance to resist, and was forced to sign a series of unequal treaties, including a series of shameful conditions such as land cession and indemnity.

First of all, France's strength will be withdrawn from other parts of Europe from now on, and it will be strictly limited to France itself.Secondly, the territory of other countries that Napoleon had seized in previous wars must be returned in full.Third, France will pay huge military expenditures and war indemnities to the Allies other than Germany, totaling 10 billion francs, to be paid in 20 years.Fourth, the Allies will deploy troops in France to prevent France from endangering the security of Europe again.For this article, South is actually not particularly disgusted. Although this will affect France's sovereignty, it can protect France's security to a large extent.Especially in the situation where the German army is staring at them, under the current situation, they have no strength to protect themselves. Coupled with the current indifference of the British, the remaining territories of France are also in jeopardy.But if there are garrisons from other allied countries, the Germans will not rush to attack the rest of the French territory. This is like a balance of interests between Germany and other allied countries.

After Briand painfully signed the treaty, peace talks continued.It's just that the next thing to do is to negotiate the distribution of interests within the small allied countries, so neither France nor Germany can participate.But immediately after the meeting, William still got the materials of their peace talks and a copy of the treaty.It is said that the peace talks continued until late at night, and the conference room was noisy all the time. It is conceivable how intense their negotiations were.

"In this war, we Italy contributed the most, so we want 10 million of the 4 billion francs in reparations, which is only a small half."

"What? How can this work? Our Bavaria suffered the biggest loss in this war, and we also need 4 million francs." The compensation of one billion francs was almost divided between the two countries. Of course, other countries did not would agree.

"Friends, don't forget that I forced Germany and France to make a compromise, and our Austro-Hungarian Empire also paid huge losses in the war. Therefore, we want 4 million francs in compensation, which is not at all Not too much." Franz said with a gloomy face.

"Everyone, don't forget that the Saxony Empire was responsible for half of the supplies in this war. In addition, our army also suffered huge losses in the war. We don't need more, we need 3 million in the indemnity .” The King of Saxony also lost no time in making his request.

A few people were dumbfounded. If they had to follow their request, then 10 billion francs would not be enough, and since the treaty had already been signed, it was impossible to pay additional compensation to France.The only way is to suppress reparations from other countries to meet their own demands.As a result, the leaders of several countries quarreled, completely ignoring the alliance's sentiments.

After fierce quarrels, several countries finally reached a final agreement late that night.According to the agreement, France's reparations were divided into five parts, which were paid to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, Ottomans, Italy and the Rhine Confederation.Among them, the Austro-Hungarian Empire received 5 million, Italy received 3 million, Ottoman received 2 million, Bulgaria received 5000 million in compensation, and the remaining 2 million was paid to the Rhine League.Among them, the Kingdom of Bavaria received 1 francs, the Kingdom of Saxony received 5 million francs, the Kingdom of Thuringia received 1 million francs, and the remaining 3 million francs belonged to the small countries in the Rhine League.

The several countries that have received the benefits they deserve are very satisfied. Although the losses paid by the war are huge, the benefits they have obtained are also considerable.Maybe the benefit they get is less than the cost of the war, but they eliminated the opponent that they feared, and this is the biggest benefit they got.

With the last representative, the King of Thuringia, signing his name to the treaty, the Allied spoils came to an end.The purpose of their coming to Paris was basically accomplished.

"Everyone, while everyone is here, I propose that we discuss a problem. That is, although the French Third Republic has been defeated by us, please don't forget that there is still a difficult Chinese army outside Paris. They even It is more troublesome than the German army, I think this army will become our confidant’s serious problem sooner or later, I hope everyone can come up with a solution to solve this problem.” Franz looked at the excited monarchs with a glass of wine Said.

"What's the use of thinking so much? Isn't it enough to just defeat him?" The army commander of the Saxon Kingdom said with a flushed face. It was obvious that he drank a lot of wine.

"Idiot!" Italian President Orlando scolded, if I could win the fight, I would have fought it long ago, and you still need to talk.

The military commander of the Saxon Kingdom was a little confused, but he still heard someone scolding him, and was about to get angry when he saw that the man was Orlando, and he clearly thought that this was Beijing, not the Saxon Kingdom where he could do his best. He just curled his lips, sat down on the seat resentfully, didn't say anything, drank the wine in big glasses, as if the wine was his life and death enemy.

"Are we still going to continue fighting? The war that just ended has caused heavy losses to all countries, and I'm afraid they won't be able to fight another large-scale war." Bulgarian Chief of Staff Clausewitz said worriedly, other Let alone the country, as far as Bulgaria is concerned, after the baptism of this war, I am afraid that it will not have the strength to carry out large-scale wars for a long time.

Franz agrees with Clausewitz.Now that the war in Europe is finally over, he has to get away to deal with a series of domestic crises, so naturally he doesn't have the energy to deal with another war.

"Hehe. I didn't say that the war is about to start. Our Kingdom of Saxony will also need time to recover. I mean, after the strength of all countries is restored, how should we treat German tanks?"

"We should bring Europe back to the track of peace. As for Germany, that is our leader, and we should not expect to get more benefits from him." The King of Bavaria said loudly.

Franz frowned. He knew how powerful Germany was. If they broke up with Germany, all countries would definitely suffer huge losses, and perhaps they would be defeated by German tanks in one fell swoop.What's more, the Austro-Hungarian Empire borders Germany. Once you dare to disrespect Germany, Austria-Hungary will be the first to be hit.

"In addition, there is another problem that needs to be solved urgently, that is, how do we guard against our German allies. Not to mention northern France, we must deploy heavy troops here to protect our interests there. In addition, in France To the east, it must be the channel for the Germans to enter Central and Eastern Europe, and our ally, the Rhine League, on this channel, I doubt they have the strength to stop the German tanks, so I think their strength must be strengthened. The only The best way is to end the current division of the Rhineland League and form one or several powerful countries. In that case, the road for the Germans to advance eastward will be completely blocked by us." Franz said calmly.

As soon as he said these words, it immediately caused a huge shock, especially Bavaria and other small countries, all cast grateful eyes on him.Everyone has already understood what Franz meant, that is to let a big country like the Austro-Hungarian Empire promote the unification of the Rhine League, so as to control this alliance.But the Rhineland League was originally a loose alliance, how could it possibly agree to merge with other countries.

What followed was another inevitable quarrel, and it was not until dawn that a final agreement was reached.Italy expanded its territory to the south, Austria-Hungary also gained several city-states, and the remaining territory was divided among the Kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia.In this way, although those small countries were also members of the Allies, they did not enjoy the benefits of the victorious countries at all, but were divided up by these big countries.

At 7 o'clock in the morning, these monarchs walked out of the conference room with dark circles under their eyes. Although their faces were tired, their eyes were shining with excitement.

(End of this chapter)