Chapter 285 Macedonia Development

After Robert of Rothschild Bank linked Greece's loan to the Jews in Greece, this offensive move by Rothschild Bank disgusted both Constantine and Venizelos.

At this point, Greece naturally could no longer seek to issue bonds from Jewish banks like Rothschild.

In the end, the Greek government reached a cooperation with the British Bank of Barings.

Barings Bank accepted the commission of the Greek government and issued 8 million pounds of bonds in London with an annual interest rate of 8%.

The conditions of Barings Bank were much simpler. In the subsequent basic design and construction of the Greek government, the machinery and materials required to be purchased would be purchased from the UK by Barings Bank on behalf of the Greek government.

After the funds were in place, the Greek government under Venizelos officially launched the long-planned package plan for the development of Macedonia.

First of all, in terms of transportation, the construction of transportation facilities is the basis of everything.

The transportation department of the Greek government immediately began to plan the construction of transportation facilities in Macedonia.

In terms of railways, the government plans to spend three million pounds to build a railway trunk network in Macedonia with a mileage of 1,000 kilometers.

In the railway planning of the Greek government, the Macedonian railway network will be built with Thessaloniki as the central city, and two main railways will be built, namely the Thessaloniki-Skopje Railway and the Thessaloniki-Serre-Kavala-Alexandroupolis Railway.

Among them, the Saronika-Serre railway connects North Macedonia with the coastal port of Thessaloniki, consolidating the Kingdom of Greece's control over North Macedonia, that is, the Balkan inland, and enhancing Greece's influence here.

The Saronika-Kavala-Asia railway will connect the territories along the North Aegean coast, strengthen Greece's occupation of East Macedonia and Western Thrace, and promote economic development here.

After the successful construction of the railway network planning in the Macedonian region, all parts of the Kingdom of Greece will be connected by railways. From the southernmost Peloponnese Peninsula in Greece, you can take a train to any major city in Greece without any obstacles.

By then, Thessaloniki will become the largest railway transportation hub in Greece.

The mileage of railway trunk lines in Greece will also reach 6,000 kilometers.

In addition to railways, the Greek government will also invest 1.5 million pounds to build 3,000 kilometers of roads in Macedonia to promote economic and transportation development there.

In the field of agriculture, the right to purchase land in Macedonia and Western Thrace will be fully opened to the people in Greece.

As long as you are a Greek citizen, you have the right to open up wasteland in Macedonia. As long as the area is less than two hectares, and the poor quality land such as mountains and hills is five hectares, after five years of cultivation, these lands will automatically become the private property of the reclaimers.

In order to make Macedonia the main grain producing area in Greece, the government officially provides agricultural subsidies of 30 drachmas per acre for cultivated land planted with wheat and potatoes.

At the same time, increase the price subsidy for farmers to buy tractors to encourage people to use tractors for farming.

In the industrial field, the Greek government will encourage enterprises in the Piraeus Industrial Zone to move to Thessaloniki.

The industrial zone of the Piraeus Port, close to Athens, is currently the largest industrial zone in Greece.

Due to the small area of ​​the plain near Athens and the lack of various resources, the industrial zone of Piraeus Port is highly dependent on the surrounding transportation facilities to transport industrial raw materials and commodities, which has led to the development of the industrial zone being increasingly restricted and has now reached a bottleneck.

Secondly, the Piraeus industrial zone is close to Athens and discharges a large amount of wastewater and toxic gases every day, which seriously affects the environment of Athens.

Thessaloniki is the new industrial center of Greece planned by the Greek government.

Whether it is the geographical location or the traffic conditions, Thessaloniki meets the requirements of an industrial center.

On August 11, 1913, Prime Minister Venizelos came to report to Constantine with the Macedonia development plan planned by the government department.

"Your Highness, according to the plan, it will only take two years to see the results. By then, the initial development of Macedonia will be completed."

"If the plan goes smoothly, as long as the Macedonian plan is successful, Greece will have a qualitative improvement in both agriculture and industry, and the country's comprehensive strength will rise to a new stage."

"By then, according to the government's plan, Thessaloniki will become the economic and transportation center of Greece, while Athens will simply play the role of a political center." Prime Minister Venizelos told Constantine about the bright future of Thessaloniki.

Constantine was naturally very happy to see that the Macedonian development plan could be successfully implemented.

In fact, the introduction of this plan was also stimulated by the previous Rothschild Bank incident.

The implementation of this plan will attract a large number of Greeks to settle near Thessaloniki, which will inevitably dilute the influence of the Jews there and consolidate the rule of the Greek government.

The government originally planned to sell the wasteland in Macedonia to the people and recover funds to ease the government's financial pressure. Under Robert's stimulation, Constantine and Venizelos agreed to open the wasteland in Macedonia to the Greek people for free, without even asking for money, just to quickly immigrate there and prevent the Jews in Thessaloniki from becoming bigger.

In terms of industry, a large number of Greek companies will move to Thessaloniki, and naturally a large number of workers will follow and settle there.

Moreover, there are a lot of mineral resources around Thessaloniki.

The effect of agricultural measures in attracting the public will be even better.

It can be predicted that once the news of encouraging Macedonia to open up wasteland is announced, a large number of Greeks will move to the vicinity of Macedonia to open up wasteland and expand the border in order to get free land.

There is no doubt that after the implementation of this plan, the influx of a large number of industrial and agricultural populations will greatly accelerate the speed of Greece's development of the Macedonian region.

"I don't think there is any problem. Your government can implement the Macedonian development plan as soon as possible." Constantine reviewed the planning materials on the table in detail and praised Prime Minister Venizelos.

The reason why Constantine agreed that the government should increase its efforts to promote the implementation of the Macedonian development plan as soon as possible was also due to the urgency of time. At this time, it was already 1913.

There was not much time left for Greece to develop and digest the spoils of war.

In the original time and space, the Greek government joined forces with Serbia to successfully defeat Bulgaria and take over the ownership of Thessaloniki. There was no time to develop Macedonia. It was already July 1913, and then it was 1914, and World War I broke out.

After the outbreak of World War I, the whole of Europe was drawn into the war. Even countries that did not participate in the war temporarily were trembling with fear. It was even less likely that the Greek government would pay attention to the development of the Macedonia region.