Chapter 48 Return to Australia

October 24, 1900, was the first day after Queen Victoria's death.

As early as yesterday afternoon, after the Queen stopped breathing, someone was responsible for collecting Queen Victoria's body and transporting it back to the UK for burial.

Although Queen Victoria wanted to stay in the Isle of Wight the most during her lifetime, as the monarch of the British Empire and the queen respected and worshipped by all British people, Queen Victoria's body will eventually be buried in the Royal Cemetery in the UK.

The transportation of the body is very difficult. It takes at least half a month to sail from the Isle of Wight to the UK. If the time for replenishment along the way is added, the time may become longer.

In order to transport Queen Victoria to the UK as soon as possible, Crown Prince Edward ordered the accompanying battleship Renown to be responsible for the transportation operation.

As one of the fastest warships in the Royal Navy, the battleship Renown can shorten the journey from the UK to New Zealand to just over 20 days at the fastest.

While the UK is busy transporting Queen Victoria's body, the royal families and senior officials of other countries have no reason to stay on the Isle of Wight.

Everyone said goodbye to each other and boarded the warship to return to their own country.

Among these people, the only one who had some friendship with Arthur was William II. Before leaving, William II specially called Arthur to another place, and the two chatted for a while.

William II was very surprised by Queen Victoria's care and love for Arthur. Originally, when Queen Victoria was dying last night, William II wanted to stay with his grandmother and brush up the British people's favorability.

But unexpectedly, it was because of Arthur that he, the emperor, did not get close to Queen Victoria last night.

However, William II did not mind this, but only reiterated the cooperation treaty between Germany and Australia.

After all, anyone with a discerning eye can see that after Queen Victoria handed over British New Guinea and New Zealand to Arthur, Australia will become the most powerful country in the southern hemisphere, with no rivals in the South Pacific and the East Indian Ocean.

The British Empire, the only country that could compete with Australia, also made Edward, who was about to become king, agree to a non-aggression treaty at the request of Queen Victoria, and also promised to protect Australia as an independent country for ten years.

In ten years, if Australia had the dual support of the British Empire and Germany, it would definitely be able to completely absorb the power of British New Guinea and New Zealand. In addition to Australia's mainland, even the British Empire would have no way to deal with this behemoth created by itself.

However, William II was still happy to see this happen. After all, Germany had basically no interests in this area, except for a piece of German New Guinea.

But in fact, whether it was British New Guinea or German New Guinea, the population was not large, and even the entire New Guinea had just reached more than 1.4 million.

In William II's mind, if German New Guinea could be used in exchange for the integrated and powerful Australia's support for Germany in World War I, it would definitely be acceptable.

If Australia before integration could only harass the French colonies in the rear, then Australia after integration will have the ability to threaten French colonies in future wars, and even the annexation of some remote areas will not be a problem.

Take French New Caledonia for example, which is very close to the Australian mainland. If a conflict breaks out between Australia and France, can France hold on to this area?

You know, the logistical costs brought by distance are tens of times, and the logistical costs required by France to hold on to this area may far exceed the value of this area.

Therefore, William II's intention to win over Arthur is more obvious, and he even promised to arrange support for Australian industry after he returned to speed up the pace of cooperation between Germany and Australia.

The reason why William II was so anxious was that before Queen Victoria died, she specifically instructed the British Empire to provide at least 5 million pounds of support to Australia every year within ten years and not to cut off the source of immigrants.

This would make Australia, which had already broken away from Britain, closer to Britain, which was not in the interests of William II.

In order to win over Arthur, William II decided to start the plan of German immigration to Australia. As long as most of the Australian population are Germans, wouldn't Australia's policy be subtly biased towards Germany?

Arthur didn't know what William II was thinking, but even if he knew, he would only smile.

If you want to change Australia's population structure, then at least Germany must immigrate at least 4 million people to Australia.

Such a huge number, let alone ten years, I'm afraid Germany can't do it in twenty years like Australia does.

And in these twenty years, Australia can attract millions or even tens of millions of immigrants from all over Europe and even the world, and it is even more impossible to change the entire immigration structure.

There is only one way to make most Australians of German descent, that is, Australia only introduces immigrants from Germany in a short period of time.

But Arthur is not stupid. Although the German population has a higher literacy rate and generally receives more cultural education.

But after all, an immigrant country like Australia must ensure the advantages and proportions of the main ethnic group.

Although Arthur is willing to accept immigrants from other countries, that can only be done when the proportion of Australians, led by the British, remains above 50% of the total population of Australia.

Immigration countries need diversity, but only one is needed in terms of discourse power. In order to prevent many problems from arising from future immigrants, the proportion of the main ethnic group can only be increased.

After bidding farewell to William II, Arthur also boarded a warship to Australia.

However, unlike when he came, Arthur was no longer accompanied by Prince Edward, but had a full 2,000 Royal Guards and hundreds of followers.

Needless to say, the Royal Guards are the elite troops of the British Army. With the ones Arthur originally had, the size of the Guards will reach 4,000, and Arthur's position will be more stable.

Queen Victoria's gift of these followers to Arthur was not without intention. After all, Arthur was an outsider in Australia. Although he had successfully grasped power and gained the support of most Australians, some things still had to be guarded against.

In addition, Arthur had lost all his power in Britain. In theory, it was still very difficult for Arthur to recruit more loyal followers.

After all, no one can guarantee the loyalty of the newly recruited followers. People's hearts are separated from their stomachs.

But these followers of Queen Victoria are different. Most of them have served the British royal family since childhood and are extremely loyal to Queen Victoria.

After Queen Victoria gave these followers to Arthur, the object of their loyalty became Arthur.

These people are much more loyal than the followers that Arthur recruited with great effort in Australia, and they are more experienced in serving people and being subordinates.

Second update, please support. I wrote more, please support!