Chapter 68: Another fork in the road

Good wishes are often disappointed, but worries can easily become reality, and the world is so wonderful. The author www.biquge.info Fun sought to establish military bases in the Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde islands, and thus resorted to coercion and inducement against the Portuguese government. Although the German government offered to compensate with an African colony of nearly half a million square kilometers, Portugal had no interest in the barren land in Central and West Africa, let alone the Allies. In view of the fact that Spain was fighting fiercely with Germany's close ally Ireland, and the consequences of its annexation by Spain made most Portuguese people feel palpitations, the Portuguese government immediately sought the intervention of the international community, especially the United States and Britain, which occurred in the summer and autumn of 1916.

Although Britain has not completely come out of the shadow of defeat in the war, they have fulfilled all the terms of the London Agreement, and there is not a single soldier of the Allies stationed in its homeland and colonies, so it is not like France that has lost its national dignity and is controlled by others, and on the premise of not touching the bottom line of the war, they dare to argue with the Germans, and use various means to win over all parties to fight against this invincible military empire.

The political affairs of the United States are still not free from the constraints of isolationism, but President Woodrow Wilson is a man of vision and courage, who clearly sees the danger of German dominance and the far-reaching impact of Germany's occupation of the Azores, so under the banner of protecting legitimate neutrality and resisting violent power, he actively calls for the convening of a League of Nations conference on the one hand, and on the other hand transfers the Pacific Fleet to bases in the Atlantic, so as to exert pressure on Germany in both directions.

In 1916, the year of the change of president of the United States, Wilson sought re-election with the support of the Democratic Party, and in his speech accepting the party's nomination, he argued, with rare toughness, that the national security of the United States must not be pinned on the friendship and benevolence of other countries, but should be defended by warships and artillery. He proposed the creation of a fleet that would maintain a balanced pattern in the Atlantic, called on Congress to fully support the expansion plan of the Navy, and mentioned for the first time in public that the American shipbuilding industry had gained valuable technical practice by building large and super-large warships for the United Kingdom, and that it was well equipped to build the current first-class capital warships for the United States Navy.

At the instigation and support of the army generals, the German government initially dismissed the international community's criticism, but continued to coerce and induce the Portuguese government, and made diplomatic contacts with the Spanish government over the annexation of Portugal by Spain. The King of Spain also stated in a personal letter to the Kaiser that the annexation of Portugal would plunge the Iberian Peninsula into a long-term war, and that as far as he knew, the Portuguese government was ready to go into exile in the Azores, and that once Spain forcibly sent troops, the Azores would become a stronghold of Portuguese resistance to aggression, and Germany would not want to get involved in the Azores while avoiding wearing the hat of an aggressor.

Although Kaiser Wilhelm II was very annoyed by the attitude of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and was furious at Britain's efforts to unite with the international community to attack Germany, he had to admit that Germany had fallen into a passive position on the issue of forcibly taking Azore, Madeira and other bases, and even the Italians jumped out to accuse Germany of its hegemonic behavior. Since the two brothers in distress, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, were too busy to take care of themselves because of ********, and the remaining two younger brothers of the Central Powers, Ireland and Bulgaria, had not yet had the economic and military strength to become climatic; if a war was provoked at this time, Germany would basically have to face the first-line support of Britain and Portugal and the second-line support of the American countries with the strength of one country, and it would also have to beware of Italy's opposition and Japan's petty moves, even if it could win, it would be a disastrous victory, and there was even a potential danger of provoking the United States to enter the war.

After much deliberation, the German top brass reluctantly abandoned the attempt to conquer the Portuguese islands, and the diplomatic fiasco, like the second Moroccan crisis in 1911, left the self-righteous Germans feeling lonely and powerless, and instead attributed the political defeat to the lack of military strength - a few weeks later, the first Mackensen-class battlecruiser was keeled at the Dawei shipyard in Danzig, and the remaining four Mackensen-class ships would be under construction in the next four months. At the request of the German military, the shipyards that received orders for the Super Bavarian-class battleships rushed to expand the existing docks to accommodate the construction of new warships of unprecedented tonnage.

In response, in early November of that year, the US government revised the naval expansion plan adopted a year earlier, adding additional budgets for the construction of eight 45,000-ton battleships, four 40,000-ton battle cruisers, and six 20,000-ton aircraft carriers. Together with the ships that started construction in the early stage, the total tonnage of the US Navy will soon surpass that of the German Navy, and the size and quality of the main fleet will also match the German High Seas Fleet in four to five years.

Hearing about the American ship-building move, the Germans were shocked. You must know that this is still the effect achieved when the US government did not fully mobilize shipbuilding resources and only issued two additional national bonds, and the multiple gap in national strength is so surprising. At that time, as long as the United States and Britain join forces, whether Germany occupies the strategic bases of the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde, it will fall into a passive situation.

Thus, at a high-level meeting in Germany, the plan for a preventive war against Britain was approved by the majority, and the German navy and army were asked to make corresponding preparations in secret, and for the sake of secrecy, the plan was carefully locked in a safe, and only a few people but the senior generals present at the meeting were made aware of it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Natsuki had no choice but to become one of them.

Ireland's existing capital ships were still included in the German fleet's operational order, and as part of the German shipbuilding program, Ireland's heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers were required to speed up the construction process, the Irish Army was required to increase its size by 50 per cent, and to increase the training of reservists, for which Germany would provide additional financial support to Ireland - the main source of funding would be the export proceeds of Middle Eastern oil, and ironically, Britain, Italy and Japan were the main oil importers, and they will most likely be on the opposite side of Germany in the next war.

At the beginning of the signs of the war in which Ireland began to rearm itself, the Americans began to use the trick of carrots and sticks, first the Ford Company, which had invested in the Limerick Vehicle Company, proposed to the Irish government that if Ireland could not guarantee its stay out of a military conflict involving the interests of the United States, they would have to withdraw their investment in Ireland and all their technical personnel, and then the United States ambassador to Ireland conveyed to Ireland its intention to cooperate in the industrial sector, as long as Ireland agreed to maintain good faith neutrality without affecting its own security. The United States intends to transfer the order of about 20 10,000-ton ships to Ireland to solve the delay in the order of civilian ships under the US government's additional shipbuilding plan. American politicians have suggested that the economic booms of countries such as Spain, Portugal and Switzerland during the war are examples of goodwill neutrality.

Natsuki didn't scoff at it, as the king of Ireland, his starting point of thinking had shifted from Berlin to Limerick, and many things had to be weighed from a new perspective, because if he was not careful, all the efforts he had made before, as well as those unavoidable opportunities, could be wasted.

In the winter of that year, another young man from another country was faced with an equally heavy choice: Crown Prince Karl of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, grandson of Archduke Karl Ludwig, brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I, and nephew of the former Crown Prince Archduke Ferdinand.

In the history of the old time, the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was considered to be peace-loving - or extremely pessimistic about the war situation, and after his accession to the throne he tried several times to renounce the alliance and make peace with the Entente alone, the most promising of which was the peace negotiations with France in 1917 through his brother Sixtus, Prince of Parma, but his secret diplomacy failed completely because he refused to cede any of the Habsburg possessions to Italy, and because of his support for French claims to Alsace and Lorraine, When his efforts were revealed, his reputation was tarnished both in Germany and at home, and Austria was put in a very embarrassing position. At the end of the war, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire was mired in civil strife and ********, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson proposed a fourteen-point agreement advocating the independence of the Austro-Hungarian peoples. Karl convened a royal parliament and accepted the Fourteen-Point Agreement, agreeing to establish a federal state with national self-government, but the reforms quickly got out of control, and the national self-government declared full independence and withdrew from World War I. In March of the following year, the Austrian parliament deposed Karl from the throne. Two years later, Karl twice tried to be reinstated with the help of Hungarian conservatives, but failed to win the support of the Hungarian Führer, Admiral Horti Miklos, and was exiled to Madeira, where he lived in extreme poverty, dying of pneumonia in 1922 at the age of 34.

At the end of November, the sad news came that the 86-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph I had died. The legendary figure of the Habsburg dynasty, who held this multi-ethnic dual monarchy together, died.

During the 68 years of Franz-Joseph's reign, Austria rose and fell several times, but his many mistakes were offset by his many brilliant achievements, the social legislation enacted by the Prime Minister in the eighties of the 19th century, Count Tafe; The new Penal Code of 1852, the Trade Regulations of 1859 and the Commercial Code of 1862 were all examples of civil administration that were highly valued throughout Europe, and all of these achievements were marked by the Emperor's silent dedication.

All of this became a thing of the past with his passing.

In this way, this country, which had been so devastated in the last war, with a chaotic and complicated political situation and irreconcilable ********, but with a vast territory and a huge population, was handed over to a young man who was 29 years old at the time.

(End of chapter)