Bismarck was right, he returned to Berlin on the front foot, and the British came on the back foot.

The British diplomatic operation in France was a complete failure, not because they were unwilling to make concessions to France, but because concessions were difficult to satisfy the appetite of the French.

Britain can even give the hegemony in the Mediterranean that France wants, but the problem is that after giving it, it cannot guarantee that France will stand on the side of Britain.

The two countries are more of a contradiction. Giving up the Western Mediterranean to France, France still wants British West Africa, West Africa to France, France still wants British North America, North America to France, and France wants South America. Give South America to France, maybe France will open its mouth to India again.

All given to France, what did Britain eat?

The geographical structure made it impossible for Britain to win over France, and at this time there was no contradiction and conflict with Britain, but Prussia, which was a land power, was the best choice for Britain.

Britain did not want Prussia to help Britain contribute to the war against China, but Prussia could at least hold back the French in Europe, so that Britain could devote most of its forces to fighting China.

As long as Prussia defeated France in Europe, and then defeated China with the United States, the war was won.

The British thought that this was promising, that Prussia was no longer Wu Xia Amun, that after the annexation of Poland, the gap between his population and that of France was not large, and that he had always been a militarized country, and that his war potential would have a chance to defeat France on land in cooperation with Britain once it had completely exploded with the financial support of the British.

The war against China depends on the battle at sea, and in recent years, Britain has continued to conduct naval competitions with China, and the gap in the number of warships between the two sides is not fighting, Britain is equipped with 100 ironclad ships, and the Chinese have built 120 ironclad ships, and the technical level is comparable.

The biggest problem is that France also has 70 ironclad ships, and the number and tonnage of the joint Sino-French fleet is close to twice that of the British. As long as France is not defeated, it will be difficult for Britain to let go of a fight with China.

At the beginning of the war, Britain believed that they would lose their sea supremacy in the Western Mediterranean, and they did not want to maintain this supremacy. Britain would shrink its fleet to the Strait of Gibraltar and cede the Western Mediterranean to France, and then the British fleet would quickly reclaim the Atlantic, strike at French West Africa, and join the Spanish navy to capture or destroy the French ports here, blockading North Africa and the French coast.

The main forces were deployed in Gibraltar to block the French and Chinese fleets in the Mediterranean bathtub. As long as the opposing fleet could not break through the Mediterranean, it would not be able to threaten the British mainland. The purpose of destroying French West Africa was to prevent China from making a detour from West Africa to attack Britain, and the ironclad ships were simply impossible to attack Britain directly from Africa without the support of coastal bases.

Therefore, Britain believed that the Royal Navy could guarantee its own security, at least at the beginning of the war.

The most unfavorable situation is that France blows Prussia, just like in the Napoleonic era, Prussia submits to France, France's formidable army cooperates with the Chinese and French navies, storms the Strait of Gibraltar, destroys the British fortress here, and then the fleets of the two countries go straight to the British mainland, annihilate the British navy, and land in Britain.

The most favorable situation is that the Prussians overthrew France, and then France withdrew from the war, and the Chinese navy sighed. Britain and the United States united to defeat the French army in North America, and Quebec was ceded to the United States. French Guiana was ceded to the British, and Spain recovered the Viceroyalty of Peru and Mexico, which had been occupied by Carlos with the support of the Chinese.

In the end, the British, Western, and American navies, and possibly even the surrendered French navy, jointly destroyed the Chinese navy, forced China to withdraw from the war, limited the size of the navy, and stopped expansion.

The most favorable and unfavorable scenarios were generally unlikely, and the British believed that Prussia could not destroy France, nor could France destroy Prussia in the short term, and that the greatest possibility was that the French Army was pinned down on the European continent for a long time, as was the case with the Austro-Prussian war against Russia.

The British army fought with the American army overseas, and the Chinese navy conducted a breakout operation around Gibraltar in the Mediterranean.

Britain has confidence in its own navy, and they are not as weak as they are now, Britain's industrial strength is still the first in the world, and once a war breaks out, and it turns into a long-term war, the British navy can double the size of its fleet within a year and narrow the gap with China. This is a judgment based on the fact that the British shipbuilding industry is world-class in terms of technology and scale, rather than blind optimism.

Therefore, the British army believed that the British navy was absolutely sure that it would be able to ensure the security of the British homeland, so that the British mainland would not be attacked until the end of the war.

Ground warfare, if it is on the Eurasian continent, Britain believes that unless the forces of the whole of Europe are united, it will be difficult to compete with China, but in the Americas, China cannot take advantage of its huge population, and can basically only rely on the independent support of the American territory, according to the experience of the last war, the British army judged that the Anglo-American coalition could not completely defeat the Chinese North American Army, but at least it could hold on undefeated. The British and American armies, however, were absolutely sure of defeating Quebec and pulling out all the nails of France in the Americas.

The Spanish Army also had the ability to crush Carlos' forces and reoccupy Spanish colonies such as Mexico and Peru.

In ground warfare, there will be a third battlefield, and that is the Asian theater. Over the years, the British have continued to strengthen the military power of British India, but the British understand that no matter how much Britain strengthens the number of Indian native soldiers, it will not be able to compete with the scale of China, and the British army has developed a new tactic in British India, that is, defensive tactics. He built a large number of forts in the border areas of British India. Once the war began, the British thought that they could rely on the Ganges fortress group to hold back the Chinese army. British India will use defensive tactics to hold back the main force of the Chinese Army and give other theaters of war the opportunity to win partial victories.

In the end, the war would take several years and then end with partial interests on the part of Britain and the United States and limited concessions on the part of China.

This is the best outcome that the British can think of, and even the craziest British military personnel would not expect a war to crush a large country like China. Britain did not expect this war to substantially weaken China, but it would be possible to defeat France. From this point of view, Britain believes that an alliance between France and China is not a bad thing, at least so that Britain can completely eliminate the French threat. After that, Europe will have no rivals to challenge Britain's sea power, and the British will be able to concentrate on challenging China.

To start a war with an old empire like China, you have to be patient, just like weakening Napoleon's empire, weakening him bit by bit, or infiltrating him bit by bit, as with India, before you can finally kick him over.

However, in the implementation of these plans, a European country was indispensable to hold back the French army forces, otherwise Britain would not have had a chance to defeat France in North and West Africa, so Prussia became crucial.

Of course, Austria can also play this role, but at present Austria and France have close relations, the only European nobles married by the Napoleonic family are the Habsburgs, and there is no rift between the two countries at present, and Britain thinks that the most they can do is to let Austria remain neutral, and it is already difficult for Austria not to help France, and it is difficult for him to stand on the opposite side of France, especially when France is becoming stronger.

Britain's absolute dependence on Prussia gave Bismarck the opportunity to open his mouth.

"£10 million a year in aid, to be allocated from the date of the signing of the treaty."

Bismarck's request was reasonable and unexpected, Britain could use nothing more than money to win over Prussia, but Bismarck's request was not like France, which would only provide aid in war, and Bismarck actually asked Britain to allocate funds from the day the treaty was signed.

"Whether there is a war or not?"

British Foreign Secretary Henry John Temple Palmerston was astonished and repeatedly confirmed.

Bismarck nodded with a serious expression: "That's it!" ”

Palmerston frowned: "You are blackmailing!" ”

Bismarck shook his head and sighed: "Prussia is a small country, and it is difficult to fight against a big country like France. You should know that once again our parliament vetoed the armaments budget. Without decent support, it will be difficult for us to expand the size of our army and the size of our reserves, and in this case, we will go to war with France and be easily defeated. We, like you, are now in a country with a parliamentary noose, and you should understand that nothing is going to happen. ”

After the 45 years of the revolution, the king of Prussia had to accept a parliamentary system and a constitution, so that Prussia could no longer expand his army as much as Frederick the Great did.

Palmerston pondered: "We will consider your request. But I would like to say that your request is dishonorable blackmail. ”

Bismarck said indifferently: "Your Excellency, as far as I know, this is the politics of our humanity!" ”

He doesn't care, if the British can give him 10 million pounds a year in aid, he will be happy to call him a bastard.

He was sure that the British would pay for it, even if it would empty the British purse bag in the arms race. Now it's time to think about how to spend this huge amount of money, in fact, he told a lie, Prussia is not short of money, it is true that the parliament did not pass the budget, but that is not to approve the spending of money, not no money.

The current contradiction between the parliament and the king is that the parliament wants to reduce the length of service of Prussian soldiers from three to two years, but the previous system of fiscal revenue for the three-year service period has not changed, so what Prussia lacks is not money, but the authorization to spend it.

He now has another amount of money, which must not be wasted, it must be spent wisely.

The council didn't approve it, it wasn't his job in the first place, but he needed to intervene now.