Chapter 517 Naval Arms Limitation Treaty

As time entered October 1919, the flu that had disappeared seemed to be popular again.

Of course, compared with the second epidemic, which was more lethal, this epidemic was not so serious. Many people's symptoms were just a serious cold, which was not life-threatening in most cases.

With Arthur's order, various departments in Australasia responded urgently to deal with the flu virus that returned.

Although the mortality rate of the third round of flu was not high according to data from Europe and the United States, the Australasia government was also on high alert and did not take it lightly or slack off.

In any case, the damage to the national economy and society caused by the American flu was huge, and the damage to the lives and safety of the people was also huge.

Since the third round of flu began to spread in Europe and the United States in early October, in just a few days, it has caused hundreds of thousands of people to be infected and thousands of people to die, which has once again made European newspapers and media exclaim that the wolf is coming.

This flu has been completely identified as the American flu. If there is anyone who is most reluctant to see the flu continue to spread, it should be the Americans.

Apart from anything else, the name of the American flu is enough to make Americans tremble with fear in the flu.

When reporting on this flu, newspapers and media in almost all countries have continuously mentioned the name of the American flu, and attempted to blame the casualties caused by the flu on the United States.

Even some good European media have been promoting the conspiracy theory that the United States is spreading the flu again, making the Americans, who were originally afraid to be high-profile in the international community, completely become turtles, fearing that the World Alliance will blame themselves again.

Unfortunately, such things are not something that Americans can avoid if they want to.

If the second spread is famous for its high mortality rate, then the third spread is famous for its high infection rate.

Areas that were not affected by the second round of flu spread, such as some remote and closed islands and sparsely populated mountainous areas, have basically seen more or less cases.

If it is a more developed area, it is okay, because of the improvement of medical facilities, the actual mortality rate is generally maintained below 5%, and can even be reduced to about 2%.

But those areas where treatment is not well developed, such as some islands in the Pacific and some indigenous tribes, can only suffer from the ravages of influenza.

The Dutch East Indies was severely affected again. In less than half a month, the number of infections exceeded one million, and the number of deaths exceeded 200,000.

Those Dutch people who used to walk on the streets arrogantly now huddled in the city and dared not go out at all.

They were afraid that the influenza spread among the indigenous people would infect themselves, which also made the Dutch East Indies government issue a relatively strict restriction decree, prohibiting any indigenous people from approaching the cities of the Dutch East Indies and expelling all the indigenous people in the existing cities.

Many indigenous tribes even died in groups, which also reduced the number of indigenous people in Southeast Asia.

The indigenous people of Sulawesi Island controlled by Australasia also had influenza transmission. In order to solve this hidden danger, Arthur decided to expel some of the indigenous people to the Dutch East Indies to reduce the more serious crises such as plague that might be caused by the large-scale death of indigenous people.

These natives have no concept of civilization and hygiene. In the best case, they bury the dead on the spot. In the worst case, they don't care about it. They either wait for the wild beasts in the forest to eat the corpses, or wait for the power of nature to let the corpses decay and decay naturally.

Sulawesi has a population of about 5 million natives, and more than 1.5 million natives have been recruited to work in Australasia.

Among them, there are as many as 800,000 natives working in mines, and these people are also free labor in the mines.

The remaining 3.5 million natives are almost all on the list of expulsion from Australasia.

But with the development of the country, the manpower of the natives has become less and less important, and sooner or later they will all be expelled from the land of Australasia.

However, the action of expelling the natives is slow. It will take at least ten years to expel all 5 million natives, or even longer.

The spread of influenza naturally affected the United States and the Philippines controlled by the United States.

In a short period of time, influenza caused hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to be infected and thousands of people died.

But there is also a good thing for the Philippines, that is, it can deepen the hatred between the Philippines and the United States, and further arouse the dissatisfaction of the Filipino people with the United States.

There is no way, who let the name of the flu be the American flu? The American flu caused such heavy casualties in the Philippines, who else can the Philippines turn to if not the United States?

Although the Philippines' actions were temporarily terminated due to the impact of the flu. However, the recruitment of troops by the three major local forces in the Philippines did not stagnate at all. On the contrary, because of the dissatisfaction of the Filipino people with the United States, more people were willing to join the team to resist the United States.

At the end of October 1919, the British, who had been silent for a while, finally planned to take action.

The British put forward three proposals in the new meeting of the World League. The first one, like the previous one, was a proposal to reduce the German reparations.

The second one was to limit the size of the navies of various countries in the world to prevent unnecessary naval arms races like before World War I.

As for the third proposal, the United States was required to explain the spread of the third round of flu and make certain compensation.

No matter how high the mortality rate of influenza is, the damage to the economies of countries around the world is quite serious.

Seeing the spread of the third round of influenza intensifying, the Americans have not said anything so far, and the British will not let them go.

For the British, if they have such an opportunity to suppress their competitors in a fair and just way, they will not miss it.

At present, the most important competitors of the British are France and the United States. Before France fully recovers, the threat level is not as great as that of the United States.

The main reason why the British proposed to limit the number of naval armaments in various countries in the world is to limit the Americans.

The French did not have much time to build a navy at this time. The current competitor of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is actually the American navy.

In terms of the current naval scale and comprehensive strength of various countries, the British Empire is still the world's first, the United States is the second, and France is the third.

After that, Australasia, Italy, Russia, and the island countries ranked fourth to seventh.

As for the eighth in the world, no one cares, and it has opened a relatively large gap with the top seven.

The comprehensive naval strength of Australasia is already ranked fourth in the world. In fact, it can also be seen how the status and strength of countries in the world have changed dramatically after the end of World War I.

In terms of the navy, Australasia is far from being a rival of the British Empire. Only France and the United States have the strength and capital to compete with the British.

The proposal to reduce German loans was shelved again. The resurgence of influenza is bound to cause the economies of various countries to suffer losses again. Under such circumstances, it is almost impossible to reduce the proportion of German reparations.

The third proposal of the British, requiring the Americans to explain and further compensate, was approved and supported by most of the members of the World Alliance.

The World Alliance had done such a thing a year ago.

At that time, the Americans retreated quickly and also assumed a compensation of up to 20 billion US dollars, which made the member states of the World Alliance a small profit and saved the huge losses caused during the influenza period.

Obviously, the major member states of the World Alliance still want to repeat the old tricks and let the Americans bear the losses in the influenza for themselves.

The proposal to limit the number of naval armaments of various countries was quite polarized in the meeting and talks of the World Alliance.

Most small and medium-sized countries remain indifferent to this. After all, even if the number and tonnage of warships are not restricted, they will not build those super-large warships, let alone compete with superpowers like Britain, because it is not only a waste of money and labor, but also a huge financial pressure that they cannot bear.

You know, the cost of warships does not end when they are built. Putting aside the cost of a warship, the fuel cost required for the operation of the warship, the salary of naval soldiers, and the cost of maintenance and maintenance of some equipment, including the use and consumption of various weapons, and the daily expenses of the entire navy, it adds up to a very huge number.

A super battleship has about hundreds to thousands of soldiers, and the annual cost of various miscellaneous expenses is as high as tens of thousands of pounds.

Whenever a warship has some problems in operation, the maintenance cost is enough to give a small and medium-sized country a headache, not to mention maintaining a large fleet, which is something that some powers cannot do.

The only country that does not agree to limit naval armaments, or is a little defensive about it, is France.

Although the French industry and economy suffered considerable losses, France is not short of money at present. After all, the reparations from Germany and the United States have turned France's finances from deficit to profit, and it is easy to build a large army.

If a treaty on limiting naval armaments is reached, the disadvantages will definitely outweigh the advantages for a country like France.

However, after receiving some of Germany's warships, the gap between the second and third countries, the United States and France, has widened.

The fleet deployed by the United Kingdom in its homeland alone is enough to give the French a headache, not to mention the Indian Ocean Fleet deployed in India and the Far East Fleet in East Asia.

The Royal Navy, with the three fleets combined, has no problem fighting against the navies of the United States and France. This kind of naval oppression is huge.

The French are more curious that in order to reach such a treaty to limit naval armaments, it is necessary to restrict all the countries that have signed the treaty.

This is not a good thing for the British Empire either. After all, the British will have to build warships according to the treaty in the future. It is almost impossible to maintain the huge advantage over the United States and France.

If the British do something about the treaty, it is impossible. After all, the United States and France are not vegetarians. At most, everyone will tear up the treaty and not recognize the agreement.

In this way, the proposal put forward by the British may shoot themselves in the foot. What is their intention?

The British also understand which countries this naval arms limitation treaty is aimed at. Therefore, they deliberately skipped the countries that do not have the ability to build battleships independently and only required to sign a treaty with countries that have the ability to build battleships independently.

In the whole world, there are only a few countries that can independently build the most advanced dreadnoughts.

To be honest, as long as the treaty proposed by the British is fair, basically no country will refuse this treaty.

At least Arthur would not refuse. After all, Australasia had no intention of challenging the British naval hegemony in a short period of time, and naturally would not be stupid enough to initiate a naval arms race.

However, it is not easy to propose a completely fair restriction agreement. The restrictions on the naval tonnage of the major powers must be kept within the range that the major powers can accept, otherwise no one will willingly sign this treaty, and even if they are signed, they will not be willing to implement it.

But the problem is that the situation of each country is very different, and the restrictions on each country should also be different.

For example, the current United States, in theory, is the world's number one in industry and economy, but its current naval strength is only second, and there is still a huge gap with the British Empire.

If the size of the US navy is restricted, what data to refer to and what restrictions to impose are things that the British have to consider.

Britain is not as good as the United States in industry and economy. Doesn't this mean that the restrictions on the British should be higher, and the Americans should build a larger navy?

But the problem is that the purpose of the British proposing this naval restriction agreement is definitely to restrict the navies of other countries, and doing so will run counter to the purpose of the British.

Arthur also received the news, but he was not in a hurry.

How to sign this agreement is a headache for the British. It was the British who proposed it and wanted to sign the agreement. Other countries did not want to sign this agreement, at least they would not take the initiative to be fooled by the British.

After many meetings of the World Alliance and private meetings of the major powers, a preliminary agreement was finally reached, which was the basis for defining the scale and proportion of the navies of various countries in the naval restriction agreement.

Industry and economy are an inevitable link in determining whether a country is strong or not. Therefore, in this naval restriction agreement, a very important link in determining the basis for the scale and proportion of the navies of various countries is the actual industrial and economic conditions of each country.

It takes a long time to investigate the actual industrial and economic conditions of various countries. Coupled with the current impact of influenza, it is probably impossible to achieve it within one or two years.

This also means that the signing of this naval restriction agreement will have to wait at least two years.

In addition to the industrial and economic scale of each country, the existing naval scale is also a major reference factor. After all, the British industry and economy are not the world's first, but the naval scale is the world's first.

What is different from history is that the international status and influence of Americans have changed greatly.

According to Arthur's estimation, the naval share of Americans should not be as large as in history, and there will be a certain gap with the British, ranking second or third in the world.

In the end, the naval ratio of each country should follow the situation of Britain>USA≥France>Australasia>Russia≥Italy≥Island Countries, but the actual share and ratio will depend on the actual data of the survey of each country at that time.

I'm lazy today, just one update, two updates tomorrow