In May 1904, the second World Games were held in Shanghai as scheduled. Not long after, the third Olympic Games also opened in London, England. It's a pity that the luck of Coubertin and others was too bad. In the summer of 1904, the British government simply did not have time to bother with the Olympics.

- In April 1904, Britain and France signed a secret treaty, in which France pledged not to interfere in British operations in Egypt; Britain recognized Morocco as a French sphere of influence. This was undoubtedly seen as an infringement of German colonial interests in Morocco. Therefore, this is a secret agreement, and it can be regarded as an important testimony to the strengthening of the friendship between Britain and France.

Just a year ago, the French, after seeing with their own eyes the Anglo-German-Italian fully heavy artillery battleships, finally began their shipbuilding journey. But the scale of French shipbuilding is undoubtedly very small. Compared with the scale of Britain and Germany, France's plan to build only two warships is simply not worth mentioning. However, it is worth noting that in the second half of 1903, the French abruptly stopped the production of the Nomad tank and introduced the Schnader assault tank, which was more powerful in all aspects. Although the maximum speed of this tank is still less than 10 kilometers per hour, the width of the trench, the height of the vertical wall, the depth of wading and the maximum climb have been greatly improved. Also armed with 1 75-mm low-speed short-barreled field gun. This new tank, which is relatively much more powerful than the Little Nomad, is rapidly replacing the Little Nomad tanks in the French army at a rate of 300 units per month.

The French seem to have invested the money that should have been used to build warships into the Army's armored corps.

Liu Xian did not get a sample of the secret Anglo-French agreement, but this did not prevent him from releasing the news of the Anglo-French alliance. St. Petersburg has always been close relatives of Britain and France, and the Germans have also invested a lot of money in Russia, but they use both eggs.

The rumors caught the attention of the Germans, and then in July, the German intelligence services confirmed the existence of a secret entente between Britain and France. What is the specific content. I don't know yet. Such ambiguous news irritated the Germans even more.

So much so that the German high-level people looked at the new interpretation of the respective actions of Britain and France: well, the British developed a navy, and the French strengthened the army.

Look, how well it works!

And just when the atmosphere was tense in England, France, Germany and Austria because of this problem, the Italians avoided the troubled waters perfectly, and they walked into an even more muddy quagmire.

In June of 1904. On June 11, 1904, under the pretext of the injustice being inflicted on Italians in Tripolitania [Libya] and Cyrenaica, Italy issued an ultimatum to the Ottoman Empire, threatening to invade these regions, under the pretext that it had been treated unjustly by Italians in Tripolitania [Libya] and Cyrenaica. The Ottoman Empire called on all countries to stop Italy's aggressive attempts, but the other four of the five European powers were fighting each other, and they had no intention of paying any attention to the Ottoman Empire. Instead, they persuaded the Ottoman Empire to accept Italy's demands. Thus, the Italian-Turkish war inevitably broke out.

China expressed solidarity with the Ottoman Empire, and the Huaxia Daily described the war as Italy's attempt to seize the Ottoman Empire's remaining possessions in North Africa, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. And unleashed an unjust and uncivilized evil war. It is a war that should be condemned and opposed by all countries in the world.

It was then proclaimed that Italy's attempt to seize Tripolitania and Cyrenaica was intended as a base for its expansion in North Africa.

But Britain, France, Germany and Austria ignored it! They're still fighting over the secret enactment!

Tripolitania and Cyrenaica are what would become Libya, desert regions of North Africa that would have had very limited economic value if not for the discovery of oil. But the strategic position of this place is very important. It confronts the Italian island of Sicily and controls the narrowest stretch of the sea in the central Mediterranean.

In 1881, in the process of dividing up the Ottoman Empire's Portay government to occupy the North African territories, Algeria (which was gradually reduced to a colony by French aggression in 1830) and Tunisia (1881) became French protectorates. As a result, the titular possessions of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa were also owned by Western colonizers, and France had always intended to annex the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica on this ground. But such intentions were met by the European powers. Especially the opposition of Italy, which had long wanted to establish a colony in North Africa. Italy joined forces with Britain to turn the French vision into a reverie!

Italy actively engaged in political and diplomatic activities, reached agreements and tacit understandings with the great powers, and Britain, France, Germany and Austria all recognized Italy's presence in North Africa. But it would be impossible for the four European powers to acquiesce that Libya is part of Italy's sphere of influence. Italy has to do it all by itself! 、

In preparation for the annexation of the provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, Italy continued to emigrate and send merchants to the two provinces between 1880 and 1904. Buying land and actively expanding its power; sending naval officers to change into fishermen's clothes and carry out coastal surveys in the name of fishing off the coast of Tripolitania; He instructed Italian Catholic priests to go deep into the interior of Libya to collect intelligence in the name of missionary work. Before the war, so to speak. A lot of preparation has been made. The lesson of the Abyssinia fiasco was painful for the Italians.

The situation in Europe is changing rapidly, the contradictions between Britain and France and Germany and Austria have become more and more intense in the past two years, and this 'secret crisis' is just a small burst of contradictions between the two blocs, but it also reminds Italy that when the contradictions between Britain and France and Germany and Austria are intensifying, Italy also needs to withdraw its attention and completely put its attention on Europe itself.

And before that-

Italy categorically went to war! They believe that if they do not act, they may lose their opportunity forever, and that Italy's industry and army need a lot of oil, and they need a source of oil that they can control!

In later Libya, the Turkish garrison was only a division, a second-rate integrated division, with less than 20,000 men. The Ottomans now learn a lot of things in the army from China, such as the main battle division, the first-class integrated division, the second-class integrated division, and many young officers have also been sent to Chinese military academies for further study.

China also came and did not refuse. Not only did they open their doors to recruit Ottoman officers, but also Persians, Abyssinians, Mexicans, and even individual Egyptians. China has put them on the same level as military students of subject countries. What I have learned, but there is no ambiguity at all. In terms of teachers, there is no difference between them and China's local military cadets, and the only backward point is that there are many fewer opportunities for practice than Chinese military cadets. Every year, the Chinese National Defense Forces hold a large number of exercises of different scales, and many students can be trained with the army, which is an incomparable advantage for foreign students.

It's nothing more than the division commander of the Ottoman army, Omar. Mukhtar was not such a brilliant general. Moreover, the Ottomans in Libya lack air power, and airships, which have a huge investment and are difficult to form a deterrent air strike force without forming a scale, are not something that the Ottoman army can afford. Especially when the Ottoman mainland was still under serious threat from the British, French and Italian navies, one of the most important Ottoman airship units was always stationed in Istanbul. And this air force containing nearly 100 airships, most of which are old Chinese airships that were replaced by new airships after the North American War, are only 25% of the original price! Of course, it is also far behind the new airship in terms of performance. The latter's speed and defense are much improved over the former.

China's eyes are now on Libya, because the exploration team that probed the underground oil for the Ottomans are all Chinese, because this is the best time for China to take a closer look at the Ottoman condition!

In recent years, the Ottoman Empire's finances have been greatly eased, and its military strength has been continuously enhanced, not only with artillery, submarines, and torpedo boats, but also with airships, armored vehicles, and tank vehicles. The military generals who returned to the Ottomans from China and military academies used what they had learned to form the Ottomans' own armored forces.

The strength of the Ottoman Empire is rapidly rebounding, but how strong is the real combat power of the Ottomans? What are they? Tiny Greece can't do much.

Only a strong country, a real strong country, can stretch out the strength of the Ottoman Empire. Britain, France and Germany were too strong, Italy and Austria-Hungary, giving Liu Xian the feeling that he was on the same level as the current military strength of the Ottoman Empire.

Austria-Hungary had sharp contradictions with the Ottomans in the Balkans, while Italy had always had a tendency to develop into North Africa, and it is not surprising that either of these two countries came into conflict with the Ottomans first. Sure enough, after the oil from Libya came out, the Italians were the first to sit still.

"Let Istanbul send a couple of people to Tripolitania. To Omar. Mukhtar served his staff well. To get a closer look at the fighting power of the Ottomans, Beijing needs a detailed investigation report! ”

The General Staff had already estimated the forces that the Ottomans could mobilize in this war based on the intelligence received from the Military Intelligence Agency. The Libyan garrison has a second-rate division with a total strength of more than 16,000 troops. They can also organize local Arabs and Bedouins to defend against them, and they can muster at least 30,000 men. That's the power of 50,000 people. But the weapons are seriously behind the pasta!

The army invested by the Italians in advance was 20,000 men. It's been six days since the girl declared war, and the Italian army, which has absolute control of the sea, has not yet been able to land in Tripoli, but has started bombing with airships. Ottoman government officials were traveling all over Europe to express their wishes. Reinforcements were also not organized to reinforce Libya. Although everyone knew that this was impossible, the Italians blocked the Mediterranean Sea with their own fleet, and it was impossible for the Ottoman army to fly to Libya. But not a single one of them did so, and the Ottoman government was drunk!

Time flies, it's 1904. The economic crisis in Europe has come to an end, and the war initiated by the Italians is not even unrelated to this crisis, and in the next few years, at least in three or five years, Europe will again be less developed than a high stage, and will a second war between East and West also come? (To be continued.) )