Start 1861: I Just Inherited the Dutch Throne

As a member of the British Privy Council, the Marquess of Salisbury has been feeling exhausted recently. In the past few months, he has had more than two meetings every week. Such frequency has made him, an elderly man in his 60s, feel... Hard work.

The situation in Europe is constantly changing, and there are constant troubles here in London.

The death of Prince Albert was a huge blow to the Queen. He could clearly see that the Queen had become lazy recently. She no longer gave enthusiastic advice on things, but was forced to face difficulties. This is what the Queen is currently dealing with. mentality when it comes to European affairs.

However, this result frightened the noble representatives of the Privy Council, because it meant that the Whigs, as rulers, could overstep their authority and obtain more authorization from the Queen when the Queen was unwilling to take charge. This makes the Tories even more passive.

This is also the reason why he wants to send his free son Robert to his friend Russell. It is a good choice when the Tories have no hope of being in power.

Robert enjoyed diplomacy, which he discovered at an early age.

He also planned his development route at the beginning, but unfortunately because of Georgiana's incident, the relationship between the two ended up in a crisis, and father and son became estranged.

However, as Georgiana gave birth to three direct grandchildren to the Cecil family one after another, she gained the recognition of the entire Cecil family.

This time is obviously to give his son an opportunity, but in fact it is to ease the relationship. Naturally, his three grandsons can recognize their ancestors and return to the family line, and often return to the Cecil family to meet his biological grandfather.

He was once extremely conservative and did not think that Robert could take on such a big responsibility at such a young age, so he has been very hesitant to promote his rise in British politics.

It was precisely because he saw the young William IV of the Netherlands stirring up trouble in Europe, and after understanding how powerful the young man was, he looked away. He didn't know why for a while, but thought that he was older than William IV. His son Robert, who is nearly ten years old and has been extremely smart since he was a child, is even thinking about what it would be like if his son was in Downing Street's current cabinet, or even if he formed a cabinet and became prime minister?

When this idea came out, he was immediately frightened, and at the same time, he was extremely excited.

If there is a prime minister in the Cecil family, the Cecil family's status in Britain will forever become a part of the aristocratic legend in British history.

If he can really become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, then the strength of the Cecil family will greatly increase, which will also be a great development boost for his own family.

Because of this, he urgently stated the problem directly from the beginning, and at the same time, he also wanted to ignore the original unhappiness between the two of them and not continue to insist on it.

Of course Robert now felt a sudden sense of happiness.

It felt like a pie falling from the sky. Surprising was how he felt at the moment, but he soon calmed down.

After these years of being on the fringes of the political arena, he knew that if he could surpass his father's obvious demands, the Cecil family would have to devote resources to fully support his rise in British politics.

If he wants to pass the level, he needs to devote 120% of his energy to face the next challenge.

"If we take the generalization seriously, I think we should look at the development of things from the most basic perspective."

"Keep talking." The Marquis of Salisbury looked at Robert, and then said nothing.

"In this round of competition between Britain and the Netherlands, France and Prussia, the relationship came suddenly and inexplicably became tense.

Of course, the original reason was that our support for Belgium was too enthusiastic, which caused rumors throughout Europe that the ultimate goal of our British Empire was to station troops in Belgium.

What is abominable is that the Palmerston cabinet government did not offer any rebuttal. This made people feel that it was just right and was the reason why the three countries came together in the end.

In particular, the three countries directly announced an alliance, which made the Palmerston cabinet furious. They publicly expressed their opposition and announced a number of counterattack strategies.

Among them, the most unnecessary thing in our opinion is that the Whig cabinet actually chose to go head-to-head and form an alliance with the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, and even believed that it would support Austria in disintegrating Prussia's influence within the German Confederation. To weaken Prussia's position in the German Confederation and achieve the effect of knocking the mountain and shaking the tiger, so as to make Prussia retreat.

However, William I and Bismarck were obviously dissatisfied, so they simply ignored the British move.

This is when the superficial relations that caused the deterioration of the four countries have completely opened up and entered a stage of white deterioration.

Needless to say, Britain began to fall into a passive situation in Europe. The three countries acted as a barrier, blocking the exchanges between Britain and Europe, which was based on the British Isles, and seemed incompatible with being alone overseas.

In particular, the joint fleet established by the three countries and the establishment of the Indian Ocean disobeyed the British, and eventually the relations between the four countries became rigid.

The Netherlands repeatedly exceeded its own limits and sought the support of Sweden, a major Nordic country. The two countries formed an alliance. France, because of the goodwill released by the two countries, dared to confront the United Kingdom. Prussia changed its low-key style and only prioritized development and came to the forefront.

The three countries cooperated thoroughly on Belgium, but the United Kingdom was exhausted, which eventually caused Belgium to be torn apart, and more than 60% of its territory and population were lost.

In 1830, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Palmerston made the founding of Belgium a global sensation. However, now that the Kingdom of Belgium is fragmented, he has fallen into passivity and questioned his ability to govern.

It can be said that things in the world are impermanent, and everything comes back again and again every step of the way.

However, I have to marvel that Palmerston is indeed the most resourceful diplomatic figure in Britain in hundreds of years. He finally used the transaction between the Netherlands and Tsarist Russia to see an opportunity to ease tensions and exchange colonies with the Netherlands. , once brought instability to the relations among the three countries, increased suspicion within the three countries, thus proving that the interests of the three countries are not monolithic, and prying open the screws that solidified the three countries.

Taking a sip of Georgiana's coffee, I suddenly found that I felt better after drinking it. Compared with the past, the effect seemed to be particularly good today.

I sighed, as expected, people feel good when happy events happen, and the effect of drinking coffee is different depending on the environment.

"However, although this is in sight, the actions of the three countries in South Africa show that the three countries are jointly acting overseas to break the UK's near monopoly on expansion. Their trust is obviously very firm. If the three countries want to expand, the biggest opportunity is for the UK to fall into the quagmire. Therefore, the whole world knows that the three countries secretly support South Africa.

The purpose is naturally to weaken Britain's overseas strength, and even mobile forces are trapped there because of this.

Militarily speaking, the United Kingdom has almost exhausted more than 50% of its standing army and mobile troops. For this reason, the local troops supporting other places are in a tight shortage. In this regard, I feel that we are in a crisis. After all, if other places have If a war breaks out, we will instantly fall into passivity.”

"Keep talking." After the Marquis of Salisbury said these four words, he continued to close his mouth and leaned on the chair.

"Now that we talk about the source of the deterioration of relations between the four countries, we can see why our relations have been maintained for such a long time."

Robert paused, and then continued confidently: "The three countries are all regional powers, yes, and so is the Netherlands now, at least that's what I think.

I think as one of the representatives of the old British aristocracy, my father can see clearly better than any other British person that these old rivals in the UK are now growing in strength."

The Marquess of Salisbury was noncommittal.

Seeing this, Robert was not angry. Instead, he became more energetic. It really makes people wonder if he is the type of person who gets braver as he fights. However, this is the physical condition that a leader should possess.

"The rise of Prussia in the German Confederation has threatened Austria's dominant position. Think about it, the North German Customs Union has reached 18 countries, and the Southern German Customs Union is a means used by Austria to counter Prussia's plundering influence. Unfortunately, it is There are only 10 countries.

From this we can know that Austria can no longer suppress Prussia, which is why the Queen is willing to marry Princess Victoria to the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick, in order to win over the rise of Prussia.

Take advantage of the trend to grasp the lifeblood of the new situation in Europe.

It is a pity that the rise of Bismarck and others blocked the plan of the Queen and Palmerston. Obviously, the Prussians are not fools. They will not easily accept Britain's desire to interfere in their foreign policy development relations. This time with The alliance between France and the Netherlands is the best illustration. This is an ironic response to the fact that we have been focusing on preventing the alliance between Prussia and the Russian Empire."

"The conflict between Britain and France has reached a bottleneck. This bottleneck is due to the development of colonial disputes in the Far East, especially the fight for the Suez Canal in the Middle East. After France lost to us, Napoleon III was even more dissatisfied.

Later, we launched a campaign to support the Kingdom of Sardinia against Austria. Unfortunately, in the end, we took away this ally they had made during the Mediterranean trip, which made Napoleon III deeply frustrated. I have even less favorable impressions of Britain.

However, this time the three countries gained benefits from their actions in Africa. I think Napoleon III no longer had to raise his pillow and count sheep when he couldn't sleep, and he could sleep peacefully for a few days. "

"As for the Netherlands, father, I have been observing the Netherlands. I found that William IV of the Netherlands has been avoiding a head-on showdown with the United Kingdom. Even if there is a showdown, it is to win over other countries. This move is too smart. It was so beautiful that every time Viscount Palmerston could only spend a lot of time on diplomatic activities with the three countries instead of the Netherlands alone.

Viscount Palmerston is now facing a much smarter and smaller opponent, but this opponent is actually a master who can use his strength to fight."

"Even so, but"

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