Chapter 137 Military Nobles

Due to the outstanding contribution of the indigenous soldiers of the Congo, Constantine felt sad when he saw the wounded indigenous soldiers with white bandages on their bodies, either on crutches or on stretchers, struggling to board the ship bound for the Congo. Feeling compassion, he wrote a letter specifically asking Banning, the governor of the Congo, to treat the injured indigenous soldiers kindly.

The content is as follows: The soldiers of the Kingdom of Congo, governed by His Excellency Governor Banning, defended the dignity of their monarch, His Majesty Constantine, fought bravely for their monarch, and won the commendation of the monarch.

Thousands of people are suffering from maiming and maiming, and I would be sincerely gratified if these poor soldiers could be treated justly and generously.

Constantine

This letter will be given to Banning, asking him to find a job within his ability for these soldiers who were disabled while fighting on the battlefield, instead of being discarded in an unnoticed place like lemons that have been squeezed out of their juice. corner.

It's not that Constantine was hypocritical, this move was out of consideration for future wars.

Greece is a broken place, located in the powder keg of Europe - the Balkan Peninsula. How many wars will it face in the future?

After a certain period of training, these Congolese soldiers are very cost-effective when used as infantry.

In contrast, Greece has a sparse population. After the Foundation popularized compulsory education, almost all Greek school-age children have received a complete primary school education. Using such soldiers to fight for the money with illiterate cannon fodder from other countries has no technical content. Constantine always felt a little disadvantaged due to the different types of troops.

During this war, the literacy rate among Greek native soldiers reached 78%, far exceeding the 30% of the Ottoman Empire.

Such soldiers can play a greater role in economic production, although a unit composed of high-quality soldiers has a higher combat level.

In order to save manpower, it is a good method to use Congolese soldiers into the army.

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After signing the controversial Treaty of London, Greek Prime Minister Trikoupis was criticized by members of Parliament for being too weak, succumbing to the Ottomans, and depriving Greece of the most unsatisfactory results of the war at high cost. One piece was returned to Osman, an act that is open to question.

There are also complaints from the public about this result - the trigger of this incident, Crete did not clearly achieve merger with Greece, but was handed over to international supervision.

In most people's minds, the cost of this war was high and the goods received were few.

Trikupis, who was under great pressure and at an advanced age, formally submitted his resignation to King George.

Standing next to King George in the meeting hall of the Royal Palace in Syntagma Square, Constantine was very surprised to see the Prime Minister's resolute attitude.

"Prime Minister Trikupis, are they exerting too much pressure?" King George asked.

Trikupis shook his head, with a look of reminiscence on his face: "Your Majesty, from being a newspaper reporter to entering politics as a member of parliament, I have been in politics for more than 30 years. If I want to talk about political achievements, I am afraid they are still in the last few years. , with the cooperation of Crown Prince Constantine, a series of policies implemented in Greece accelerated the development of Greek industrialization."

"Otherwise, Greece would never have won this victory anyway," Trikoupis said with emotion.

"After signing the London Treaty, I feel extremely happy for some reason. It seems that the hard work spent over 30 years has finally been rewarded."

"When dealing with those trivial official documents, I have no motivation." Standing in front of the king's desk, Trikupis said calmly.

"Now, if I delay, I will only delay Greece's national affairs."

After seeing Trikupis's resolute attitude, King George had no choice but to approve his resignation.

To be fair, during his tenure as prime minister, Trikoupis reorganized finances, built railways and roads, developed industry, built Greece's army and navy, and expanded public education (Greece has some government-established schools, independent of the Royal Foundation) , the action is not small.

However, the cost of his policy measures was very high. Almost all of them were completed by borrowing, and the financial expenditure was too huge. Historically, Greece had a financial bankruptcy in 1892, and he had an unshirkable responsibility.

In the later years of his administration, the shortcomings of this model were already very obvious.

A considerable part of the Greek fiscal revenue every year is used to repay interest to foreign creditors.

If Constantine had not relied on diplomatic means to obtain management rights for the Congo colony for Greece, allowing Greece to obtain additional sources of funds, Greece might still be unable to escape the fate of bankruptcy in the history of the original time and space.

After Trikoupis resigned, the Greek parliament eventually elected Alexandros Chaimiis as Prime Minister of Greece.

As soon as Pu took office, the new prime minister faced a thorny problem. Crown Prince Constantine submitted a list of canonizations to the Parliament and the King.

The royal family announced that it would ennoble several officers who performed outstandingly in the 1896 war and laid the foundation for the victory of the Greek army as nobles to encourage the Greek army to fight bravely.

This was the first time in Greece that nobility had been ennobled.

Due to the special history of Greece, there are no aristocratic families with a long history in mainland Greece.

So far, all the nobles in Greece were limited to the king's family and nothing more.

This led to the fact that although Greece was a kingdom, its domestic social form was more like a republic, especially after the Greek constitution was approved by King George. Except for the interference in internal affairs when the Greek state management was not on the right track in the early stage, it relaxed government affairs and almost all of them were handed over to the prime minister elected by the parliament.

After Greece's independence, there have been no wars in Greece in recent years, and naturally no one will be awarded a title for military merit.

Although the number of people to be awarded titles is not large, it still caused heated discussions in Greek society.

The list drafted by Constantine includes:

Banning and Brute, both of whom opened up and managed the Congo colony for Greece. This time, the Congolese native army became an important force for Greece to defeat the Ottoman Empire, and the two made great contributions.

During the war, Manugianaschi led the Greek First Division and firmly held Thessaloniki despite the absolute advantage of the enemy twice as much as himself, creating conditions for the main force of the Greek Army to annihilate the enemy Macedonian Corps. The victory of the Greek army was due to his great contribution.

During the war, Captain Kontoriotis commanded the Greek Navy to raid the enemy's weakly defended city of Thessaloniki, successfully breaking the stalemate of the war and effectively controlling the sea power of the Aegean Sea, with outstanding achievements.

This list has caused a strong reaction in the Greek Parliament.

As for the feudal system with a long history, whether the aristocracy system should be "restored" has become the focus of debate as we are about to enter the 20th century.