Chapter 382 Luxembourg Agreement

The Luxembourg Agreement is as follows:

1. The Kingdom of Belgium is downgraded to the Grand Duchy of Belgium.

2. Belgium returns the Flemish region to the Netherlands.

3. Belgium returns Western Luxembourg to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

4. The Grand Duchy of Belgium is protected by France.

5. The provinces of Namur and Liege, which originally belonged to Belgium, are merged into the Duchy of Liege, with the Austrian emperor serving as the duke.

Although the British delegation refused to sign the contract, it did not affect the mood of the representatives of other participating countries. After the signing ceremony, a grand ball was held at the Grand Duke of Luxembourg's residence.

Britain's diplomatic failure this time did not affect Palmerston's mood to hunt for beauties at the ball. However, the Whig Party was not so good. This incident directly led to the fall of Viscount Melbourne's cabinet and the return of the Tory Party.

This was not the first time Robert Peel came to power, but due to his extremely poor personal relationship with the Queen, he and his party experienced several serious ups and downs.

Fortunately, the confident Whigs were too confident this time. Domestic businessmen paid too much for the beautiful post-war benefits painted by these politicians. If they did not personally start a war, Britain would probably fall into the Great Depression of 1837 again.

(As mentioned earlier in the book, the London stock market crashed due to the US real estate crisis.)

But the location and the target became two major problems that troubled the new cabinet. France, the German Confederation or Russia? Obviously, without reliable allies, it is difficult to face these powerful and difficult enemies alone.

America may be a good choice, because the two sides have always had territorial disputes on the border between Oregon and the United States and Canada.

However, as a cotton raw material supplier to Britain, rashly going to war with it will affect the interests of many local businessmen, which is really a loss.

Unfortunately, before the British were still struggling to find a breakthrough, the economic crisis broke out.

The blind mass production of factories caused a surplus of products. Those merchants and capitalists who suffered losses naturally tried to sell their goods at low prices, which indirectly led to a sharp drop in profits in many industries.

It is an unchanging truth that if the goods are not profitable, the factory will lay off workers. Since the workers are unemployed, the capacity of market consumption will be greatly reduced.

This vicious cycle is not the first time for Britain; according to convention, it will be experienced almost every five to ten years.

Prussian Kingdom, Berlin

This joint operation in the lowlands made Prussian officers deeply appreciate the horror of railway transportation.

Assuming that the enemy is not France but Austria, the latter's soldiers and supplies will be continuously transported to any point on the Prussian-Austrian border through the inner line, and it is not uncommon for them to directly attack Berlin.

In order to avoid being robbed, Frederick William IV, under the instigation of a group of Junker officers, moved the railway station not far from the center of Berlin out of the city, and surrounded it with bunkers and roadblocks, as if it was a posture of strict defense.

Of course, compared with Prussia, which has a relatively wide territory, the small countries in the German Confederation have no way to find a gourd scoop. Some kings with serious persecution paranoia even want to dismantle their own railways to feel at ease.

They are afraid that one day, groups of troops from Prussia, Austria and other states will come directly to their door without a word, and then they can only welcome them with a white flag.

After hearing that the Prussians moved the railway station in the center of their capital ten kilometers north, the states within the German Confederation started a vigorous renovation project for the railway station in their capital in the following days.

However, several small states with limited financial resources and military forces chose to lie down. After all, it is better to make money honestly than to have the ability to protect themselves, right?

Of course, the decision of the governments of the states brought great inconvenience to their citizens, because the latter had to walk a few more kilometers to reach the new station, but it also unexpectedly brought another industry into fashion - public carriages.

Simply put, the public carriage can be regarded as the current public bus; it is different from the modern taxi, which is expensive and has a common phenomenon of overcharging passengers. Unlike the vulnerable groups imagined by modern people, almost every driver carries light weapons such as pistols or daggers, because they often have to face homeless people and wild animals that stray into the city; in the early urbanization of the 18th and 19th centuries, the probability of encounters between people and wild animals cannot be ignored.

As early as 1662 in history, the famous French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal tried to operate a public carriage. He obtained the authorization of Louis XIV to establish a public carriage company responsible for the operation of five routes.

This great scientist set several rules for the public transportation industry across the ages, and people are still following them today, more than 300 years later.

1. The route taken by the vehicle from one station to another is fixed.

2. Regardless of the use of the carriage, even if it is empty, the vehicle must depart at the "specified time".

3. Each passenger only needs to buy a ticket for himself, and the fare remains unchanged.

The remaining two have changed with the development of the times.

4. The route of the "Paris Ring Line" is divided into several sections, and you need to pay once for each section.

(A section refers to a large section of road, including several stations, which means transfer here.)

5. In order to avoid shady transactions and waste of exchange time, gold is not allowed to be used to pay for tickets.

Pascal's public carriage business was a huge success in the early stages and did solve part of the traffic congestion problem in Paris.

But there is no lack of examples of bad money driving out good money in history, and France could have led the trend of the times.

Just as they beheaded Lavoisier, one of the greatest scientists in human history during the French Revolution, Pascal and his company offended the horse and carriage companies and the so-called powerful class by giving civilians the opportunity to ride in carriages like nobles.

Members of the Paris Parliament and nobles insisted on highlighting their privileges and advocated prohibiting "soldiers, attendants, slaves and other lower-class attendants" from enjoying the same treatment as the upper class.

Since then, public carriages in Paris have lost a large part of their customer base, and the reduction in passenger flow has forced them to continue operating by raising fares.

This move went against the original intention of its founder, making this public transportation tool increasingly unpopular. In the end, Pascal's public carriage disappeared around 1677.

It was not until after 1828 that Paris and London, the two largest cities in Europe, had to publicly seek a good solution from society in order to solve the increasingly serious problem of urban traffic congestion.

Pascal's plan 200 years ago was proposed again, and the public carriage returned to people's vision.

However, at this time, in the German Confederation, including Berlin, Munich and Dresden, public transportation still relied on walking and renting carriages. Vienna, the second largest city in Europe after Paris and London, was not included.

In a sense, this war promoted the development of public transportation in Germany. Although the public carriage as a means of transportation was already an outdated product in Franz's eyes, there was really no other alternative in a short time.

However, it was not difficult to make Austrian carriages more competitive. After all, rubber tires were obviously much more advanced than the wooden tires commonly seen in the streets and alleys.

At present, solid rubber tires are still expensive high-end products, and only nobles from various countries can afford them. It was not difficult for Franz and his scientific team to develop pneumatic tires.

With the current industrial strength of the empire, it is still easy to produce pneumatic rubber tires.

However, in order to minimize waste and dominate the market, Franz proposed the creation of the world's first pneumatic rubber tire company, Michelin.

That's right! Follow the French and leave them with nowhere to go!

(Michelin is a French brand.)