Chapter 186 Great Slavic Plan

"Metternich! You short-sighted fellow! Is Belgrade so easy to take? Who gave you the right to sign such a stupid treaty!"

Although Count Korolov was a Croatian, he had no interest in his suffering compatriots.

Count Korolov was a pan-Germanist. He was more worried that Russia would take targeted measures after Austria got Belgrade and Bosnia.

He felt that he would definitely be able to overthrow Metternich this time, but he didn't know that his words had offended the Austrian imperial government.

In fact, as Count Korolov worried, although the Tsar agreed to the deal on the surface, he still contacted Prussia.

William IV was of course willing to accept the Tsar's support. Although the Tsar had once cheated Prussia during the food crisis and even indirectly led to the death of William III, under the strong pressure of Austria, the evil neighbor, Frederick William IV urgently needed allies.

On the other hand, as long as Britain and France do not continue to oppose Russia's hegemony in the Strait, Russia does not need to maintain an alliance with Austria.

After all, the Austrians took away the land of the Slavs. As the emperor of the Third Rome, he will sooner or later recover all the land of the Slavs.

Nicholas I's ambition has never been just the hegemony of the Black Sea.

Nicholas I nominally wanted to recover Constantinople and fulfill the dream of the Third Roman Empire for nearly 500 years, but in fact he wanted the entire Balkans and all the land bordering Russia.

When Alexander I was still in power, Nicholas once proposed a "Western Slav Plan" with the aim of establishing a Slavic Empire from the Elbe River to the Near East and from the Adriatic Sea to the Arctic Ocean, but it was rejected because it was too crazy.

Now Nicholas I has become the Tsar, and no one can veto his proposal.

In order to realize the Western Slav Plan, under the instruction of the Tsar, experts from St. Petersburg and Moscow cooperated with the Special Third Department to compile a pamphlet and spread it everywhere.

They advocated the establishment of a Pan-Slavic alliance to confront Europe. Russia brainwashed the people in the Balkans under the banner of liberating various Slavic brothers and protecting Orthodox Christians from persecution.

There are six core contents in this pamphlet.

First, all Slavs must be "liberated" and the areas where they live should be merged with Russia.

Second, this alliance must include Constantinople, together with the Sea of ​​Marmara, the Bosporus and the Adriatic Sea around it.

Third, Constantinople will serve as the third capital of the alliance.

Fourth, the Pan-Slavic alliance must be loyal to the Tsar, who is the leader of the alliance, and the other kingdoms will be ruled by monarchs selected by the Tsar.

Fifth, the alliance will include eight kingdoms: Tsarist Russia, the Kingdom of Bohemia-Moravia-Slovakia, the Kingdom of Serbia-Croatia-Slovenia, the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the Kingdom of Romania, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Greece, and the Kingdom of Constantinople.

Sixth, Poland, Albania, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine should be directly subordinate to Russia.

Although this plan seemed absurd at the time, Russia never gave up on implementing it for hundreds of years after it was proposed.

Corresponding to the Western Slavic plan, there is also the Eastern Slavic plan, but this book does not discuss some areas involved.

In order to realize the glory and dream of the Romanov family, there must be a war between Russia and Austria.

Moldova and Wallachia, the two Danube principalities, were already Russian protectorates at this time, and were blocked by the Carpathian Mountains, so the Tsar did not think that Austria would attack these two regions.

Therefore, Austria had only one direction to the east, and Belgrade, the key to the Balkans, had fallen into its hands, so Serbia became the last barrier to prevent the Austrian Empire from getting involved in the Balkans.

Russia would naturally provide military training and sell it advanced weapons and technology, but it was still a bit naive to want to stop Austria with Serbia alone.

Therefore, Russia must strongly support Prussia and make it an important force to contain Austria.

Although the Austrians used their actions and words to tell the world that their focus was on the Italian peninsula, the Tsar would not believe this, he only believed in his own judgment.

The short-term alliance between Russia and Austria was nothing more than a deal between Russia, which wanted to dominate the strait, and Austria, which wanted to seize Belgrade.

Historically, Russia's "military assistance" to the Ottoman Empire in 1833 actually turned the Black Sea into Russia's inner lake.

In the secret clauses of the Russo-Turkish Alliance Treaty, the Ottoman Empire acknowledged that the Black Sea Strait was open to Russian warships, and for the sake of Russian interests, it blocked the Dardanelles and prohibited any other country's fleet from entering the Black Sea Strait at any time and under any pretext.

Coupled with the misleading of Nesserlov, a pro-British faction, Russia always believed that they had the possibility of peace and common hegemony with Britain, and Austria was their biggest enemy.

In this life, under the intervention of Franz, Britain failed to make Russia give up the Russo-Turkish Alliance, so Russia still maintained its hegemony over the Black Sea and control over the strait.

This made the Russians take it for granted that the British were no longer their main threat in the Near East, but that Austria, a traditional land power like them, was.

So they began to guard against Austria, but the British were not satisfied with their unsuccessful goal. Expelling French forces only achieved half of their goal.

What the British wanted was hegemony in the Near East. Neither France nor Russia could be left. Historically, attacking Austria was just a matter of convenience.

Now that the Egyptian navy has been destroyed and surrendered, it is only a matter of time. The French influence in the Near East has basically been reduced to zero. Only Russia can compete with Britain for hegemony in the Near East.

As for the so-called Russo-Turkish alliance, it is just a piece of waste paper that can be discarded at any time.

I am afraid that only the Russians themselves believe that this paper alliance will work.

Historically, under the clever operation of Palmerston, the London Conference successfully formulated the "Straits Convention", abolishing the Russian privileges in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles.

Instead, the Black Sea Straits were placed under the supervision of the international community, which directly ruined the Russians' efforts for nearly a hundred years, and also left a lot of controversial issues, which eventually became one of the fuses of the Crimean War.

Although Canning, acting foreign secretary, was not as radical as Palmerston, he had worked in the Ottoman Empire for a long time and was well aware of the threat posed by Russia.

If Britain wanted to maintain its position as the world's maritime hegemon, it must not allow Russia to break out of the Black Sea. But the most urgent task was to force Egypt to surrender. As for unilateral sanctions against Russia, it was impossible. The best way was to convene the Five-Power Conference again to discuss how to deal with Russia.