If it had been Prussia, a small country before the unification, it might have succumbed, but now it is the German Empire that has been united, a great empire with a national mentality that has swelled to the point of incomparability, and if it submits to Britain, not only will the dignity of the monarch be humiliated, but the people will not support it, and no one can guarantee what the angry people will do.

In short, by the time Britain announced the return of the fleet, the German people had already begun to march.

Guaranteed by China, and the two countries urgently drew up an alliance treaty, also a short-term alliance, stipulating that in the event of an attack by a third country, China would side with Germany and fight with all its land and naval forces; In the event of an attack by any third country, Germany has the same obligation. The duration of the alliance is three months.

The treaty was signed urgently, and since there was no time to renew it, it was impossible to announce it publicly until the end of the German ultimatum.

And what choice will France make?

French President Marie Edmi Patrice Maurice de McMahon was a military president, and revenge against Germany was his greatest wish, and he never concealed his attitude in public, that is, to take revenge on Germany and recover the land that Germany had taken away.

Personally, MacMahon was not afraid to fight this battle, although he also felt that it was very risky to go to war without British guarantees. But he could not make a decision to give in, and half of his cabinet said they would resign if they withdrew, and the other half said they would resign if they didn't. There was also a lot of bickering in parliament, with representatives of the middle class supporting war, the working class advocating peace, nationalists strongly calling for war, and pacifists strongly demanding peace. Public opinion circles are also two voices that are at loggerheads. The whole of France was divided in half because of the question of war and peace.

McMahon could neither make the decision to withdraw from the army nor go to war, and in the end he decided that it would be too late for a referendum to be left to the people, but it was still too late for the parliamentarians representing the people to vote.

At the same time, McMahon summoned the members of the cabinet and asked them to take an oath that they would respect the results of the vote, and whatever the result, it would be the most difficult situation for France, and France needed to remain united, asking them not to resign regardless of the outcome and help the country through the difficult times. The cabinet members agreed.

By the time the vote ended, it was late at night, and the results of the vote showed that the majority of parliamentarians who supported the war, or could not accept a humiliating withdrawal.

With only three hours left on Germany's ultimatum, McMahon summoned the German ambassador and made it clear that France would not succumb to pressure from any country to withdraw its troops from Spain.

The German ambassador expressed regret and immediately carried out the order already sent to him by the Kaiser, and said to McMahon that Germany would be forced to sever diplomatic relations with France and that he himself would leave Germany immediately.

News of France's rejection of the ultimatum reached Germany, and the German emperor immediately issued an order for a general mobilization of Germany and Poland, but war had not yet been declared on France.

At this time, the British ambassador urgently asked to see the German emperor, and the British prime minister also summoned the German ambassador at home, expressing only one attitude, continuing to put pressure on Germany, but knowing that war was inevitable, and hoping that France would not be defeated, at least not too badly. Therefore, Britain expressed such an attitude, resolutely opposed Germany's use of the power of a third country, and said that if a third country went to war with France, Britain would be forced to side with France.

Britain's meaning, in fact, refers to Poland, because Bismarck's rejection of Poland back then, Poland has never been part of the German Empire, but it is not a completely independent country, but a United Kingdom with Prussia, and Prussia is the core of the German Empire.

But Germany's public attitude was that Poland was part of the Prussian Polish Union, but not part of the German Reich. As a result, the European countries treated Poland as an independent state and sent diplomats to Poland, but Poland did not send diplomats abroad, but the Kingdom of Prussia represented Poland in foreign affairs.

Britain apparently regarded Poland as a third country, and because of the fighting power of the Poles under the Prussian military system, Britain felt that with Poland in the war, France basically had no chance of winning. Excluding Poland, the contrast of strength between Germany and France is not so overwhelming. Germany will confront France with a population of more than 42 million people, with a population of more than 36 million, and under the condition that the technical conditions are comparable, the military system is similar, and the mobilization system and mechanism are similar, France at least has the possibility of not losing. But if Poland's population of 20 million is added, the number of troops that Germany can mobilize is close to twice that of France, and the technical and tactical level of the German army in recent years has always been higher than that of other countries, which makes it impossible for France to fight.

Therefore, in the inevitable case of war, Britain hoped to make France and Germany a draw with their own assistance, and finally restore peace through negotiations. As for the Spaniards, let Carlos and Alfonso fight each other. It is believed that after the outcome of the Spanish Civil War, there will be no need for the continuation of the war between Germany and France, and the balance can be restored with the mediation of Britain at that time.

Regardless of Britain's calculations, when Germany announced mobilization, France immediately followed suit.

Germany still did not declare war, and it was not until a week later that Germany declared a state of war with France.

This week, of course, was not for mobilization, but for the completion of the final diplomatic procedure, that is, the exchange of the treaty with China, after the completion of the exchange, Germany immediately made its alliance with China public, and the content of the treaty was made public, which was intended to deter Britain.

Only then did Germany declare a state of war with France, and the German army crossed the German-French border and launched an attack on France.

At the same time, France declared war on Germany, and the French army began to counterattack the invading German army.

At the same time, the French began to withdraw their troops from Spain, and if they had withdrawn a few days earlier, the war would not have begun, but once the war had begun, France would have to gather all the forces that could be gathered.

And the occupation of the Basque Country and Catalonia by 100,000 French troops in the past few days was not without gain, because under the successful command of Alfonso, the government forces completely repelled the Carlos army, and then switched to a counteroffensive. First the Aragonese region was recovered, then the Carlist forces in Seville and Cadiz were eliminated, and the Carlos faction was squeezed north of the Iberian Mountains. It only occupies the regions of Catalonia, Basque Country and Valencia, and relies on the mountains to resist stubbornly.

Many military commentators have once again found a market and began to write articles to earn money from newspapers, and most half-baked military commentators believe that Carlos's defeat is a foregone conclusion and will soon be completely defeated by the Spanish government army, and at the same time, most military commentators believe that the German-French war will not be able to distinguish between victory and defeat for a while and a half, and the war will develop into a long-term pattern, which is the common trend of all wars in the past ten years, with the two civil wars of the American Civil War and the Russian Constantine Rebellion being the most obvious.

However, Carlos slapped the military critics in the face, relying on the terrain of the Iberian Mountains, equipped with a large number of machine guns from China, and learning the correct defensive methods in the retreat, successfully blocked the attack of the Spanish government army, blocked the Spanish government army in Iberia, south of the Cantabria mountains, and even established a second line of defense on the Ebro River in the rear.

On the contrary, in the Franco-German War, although the French army has studied defensive tactics very thoroughly over the years, in the early days of the war, the French army adopted the wrong tactics, emphasizing active offensive, and the army and the government were agitating public opinion, desperately advocating that the French army would drive the Germans out of France in a short time, and also recover Alsace and Lorraine.

However, although Germany mobilized in Poland in response to the British threat, it did not mobilize Polish troops into the war. But the combat effectiveness of the German army under Moltke's command in the war of movement still taught the French a lesson.

The enthusiastic and offensive French army attacked fiercely, but Moltke constantly seized the gap, surrounded and annihilated many French troops, and lost nearly 100,000 troops in just one month of the war.

However, since the French army had been losing troops in the attack, the Germans were pushed back to German territory at this time. After heavy losses, the French went on the defensive. The role of defense has become more and more obvious in recent years, and although Europeans generally look down on the experience of the United States, after the Russian Civil War, defense has been valued by all countries.

France built a large number of fortresses on the Franco-German border, and the Lorraine Plateau in the border area was already mountainous, with fortresses and fortresses, which were easy to defend and difficult to attack, so the French army after being transferred to the defense made the German offensive stagnate.

Military commentators were once again active, saying that their judgment had been fulfilled, that the Franco-German war would be ensued in a brutal war of attrition, and that after both sides had bled dry, they would have to accept peace, just as in the Russian Civil War, when the valiant Ural army was unwilling to go on the offensive in the end.

But the Germans slapped these half-hung men in the face again, Moltke, as the most outstanding military strategist in the world, how could Moltke not notice the phenomenon that these half-hung men could see.

As early as 30 years ago, when he was a consultant in the Ottoman Empire, he saw the powerful power of defense in the age of firearms by studying China's battles with Russia in Kazakhstan, and later when he commanded the Ottoman army in the Black Sea region to fight the Russian army, he had already begun to use defensive tactics to consume the Russian army.

The two civil wars between the United States and Russia made Moltke see that the defense in the machine gun era has become much more advantageous than the offense.

Moltke had to think about how to crack this brutal war of attrition. In his long-term thinking, Moltke more than once remembered the great Kazakh miracle created by the Chinese military officers in those years. With the mobility of the Chinese army more than 30 years ago, it was able to make a detour over a range of thousands of kilometers, and there is no reason why the German army today cannot do this.

After ten years of exploration, Moltke formulated a detailed battle plan, and Germany wanted to make a great detour to France, bypassing the mountains stretching along the Franco-German border, and the German army had no choice but to pass through Belgian territory, from the Belgian coastal plain, back to the north of France, and carry out a direct attack on Paris.

As a result, the world was stunned, and just when all countries thought that Germany did not allow the Polish army to enter the war because it was afraid that Britain would enter the war, the Polish army suddenly moved and invaded Belgium!

Without a declaration of war, but only three hours before the war, Belgium was notified and asked to open its territory and allow the passage of Polish troops.

However, this move is tantamount to tearing up the face with Britain, not mentioning that Belgium's neutrality is protected by Britain, that is, Britain warned that Germany is not allowed to use third-party forces, and it is also violated by Germany, is Germany really not worried about Britain entering the war? Or did Germany believe that Britain would not enter the war even if they had used the Polish army, even if they had invaded neutral Belgium?