Chapter 790 German-Italian Agreement

Like the previous Cromwell tank factory, the production line of the T series tanks was separated from the Royal Military Factory and the First Tank Factory of Australasia was established.

The separated First Tank Factory, as an extremely important tank military factory at present, is naturally controlled by the royal family and the government.

After consultation with the government, the First Tank Factory will change from the original royal holding to a joint venture between the royal family and the government.

Of course, the government is also very sincere. The royal consortium used the information and production lines of various series of tanks to invest in the shares, accounting for 75% of the total shares of the First Tank Factory.

The government invested 25 million Australian dollars, plus provided the site of the tank factory, including the improvement of the entire tank factory, accounting for 25% of the shares.

Arthur encouraged the government's investment. After all, if the royal consortium controls too many enterprises alone, it will inevitably make the future government dissatisfied.

Even if Arthur can stabilize the government during his reign, including the next monarch William, who can guarantee that the next monarch can stabilize the government?

Appropriately let the government participate, while retaining the royal consortium's control over these enterprises. This is what Arthur will plan next.

A perfect monarchy system should be that the monarch and the government are in common interests, the royal family and the government's finances can make money together, and everyone can achieve a win-win situation.

The government is rich and the monarch is poor, and all the actions of the monarch must be controlled by the government. After all, money is omnipotent, including the expansion of the army, etc., which are inseparable from the money in hand.

And the rich monarch and poor government will also lead to the birth of many problems. The saying that there are all kinds of birds in the forest is still very reasonable. The royal family is too rich and the government is too poor, which will inevitably make some extremists in the government envy or even jealous of the royal family, thus generating a mentality of opposing the royal family.

Of course, the separation of the First Tank Factory from the Royal Military Factory cannot be completed in a short time.

At least before the First Tank Factory is fully built and the tank production line is fully laid, the production of tanks will still be carried out at the Royal Military Factory.

After all, the relocation of the First Tank Factory is important, but the Ministry of Defense's demand for tanks is more important.

Nothing is more important than improving a country's military strength. After all, military strength determines the security of a country, especially in this era of the survival of the fittest.

But then again, no matter in which era, the order between countries is always the survival of the fittest.

Although several powerful countries may unite to make rules, as long as any of them becomes stronger and stronger to fight against the rest, the rules will be trampled on at will.

Just as the tanks of the Royal Arsenal gradually entered production, Arthur suddenly received bad news from Europe, that is, two like-minded countries, Germany and Italy, are gradually getting closer.

To be honest, this news was a little beyond Arthur's expectations. Because in the original history, although the two countries finally formed an alliance, the relationship in the years before that was not as smooth as imagined.

But think about it carefully, this world is very different from history. First of all, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not broken up into many countries.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was only divided into the Austrian Empire and the Hungarian Republic, especially the Austrian Empire, which is still considered a low-level power.

This also means that whether it is Italy or Germany, it is undoubtedly difficult to invade the land of the Austrian Empire alone.

Germany's current military strength is less than half of Austria's (national army), and the poor combat effectiveness of the Italian army is unlikely to be a match for the Austrian Empire.

In this case, it is possible for the two countries that originally had conflicts over the Austrian issue to come together because of a common enemy.

This is like Britain and France. The conflicts between the two countries are naturally needless to say. But in front of the unified enemy Germany, Britain and France can still form an alliance and unite to defeat the powerful enemy.

However, the approach of Germany and Italy also represents a bad news, that is, the situation in Europe is likely to become more chaotic because of the movements of these two countries.

Because from the perspective of the neighbors of these two countries, their alliance may not only target the Austrian Empire, but also France.

France is also a neighbor of these two countries, and its current relations with Germany and Italy are not very good.

It can be expected that once these two countries form an alliance, not only will the Austrian Empire be frightened, but even the French will be on guard against what these two neighbors will do.

After all, one of these two countries is Germany, which has a precedent, and the other is Italy, which now has the word expansion almost written on its forehead. It is impossible for the French not to be on guard.

Especially Germany, as the biggest enemy of the French in the early 20th century, the French will definitely be on guard, and even directly regard Germany as France's biggest competitor, even though Germany's current military strength is still limited.

However, according to the current situation of the French fearing war, the French are most likely to find an ally to fight against Germany and Italy together, and the most likely ally is the Austrian Empire, which is also suffering from the harm of Germany and Italy.

In other words, France and the Austrian Empire actually got closer after World War I. It's just that the approach at that time was mostly economic.

French capital adheres to its consistent principles and lends a large amount of money to Austria after the defeat in World War I, turning its enemy in the war into a friendly country.

Of course, France also has a purpose in winning over Austria through loans. Previously, it wanted to use Austria to distract Russia's attention and achieve its ambition of becoming the hegemon of Europe.

Now it wants to unite Austria to fight against the alliance between Germany and Italy and avoid the possibility of war with Germany and Italy.

In fact, this is also the mainstream thought of most European countries in this era. Having witnessed the cruelty of World War I, especially the battlefield of Verdun, which was a meat grinder with millions of casualties, no country wants to face such a war again.

It is precisely because of this idea that the famous appeasement policy in history has occurred.

This world has Arthur and Australasia, and the appeasement policy as serious as in history is basically impossible.

What's more, the Austrian Empire still exists. Whether it is Germany or Italy, even if they unite, it is impossible to completely annex the entire Austrian Empire.

Even if Britain and France are unwilling to see the battlefield, they are destined not to sit idly by and watch Germany and Italy directly annex the entire Austrian Empire.

This is equivalent to integrating three powers into two, one of which is Germany, which was once the second largest power in the world and has great potential.

Let alone Germany annexing the entire Austrian Empire, even if Italy annexed the Austrian Empire, Britain and France would not want to see it.

Not to mention, the potential of Italy and the Austrian Empire can barely become a superpower.

The premise is that Italy can master the discourse power of the entire country, integrate Austria's industrial strength, and reach out to the entire Balkan Peninsula.

In this way, a hegemon of the Mediterranean and a superpower in southern Europe was born. But this power is located in the Mediterranean and is close to Constantinople, so it is not so easy to be born.

In fact, theoretically speaking, there will be basically no powers in the Balkans. In addition to the extremely fatal Constantinople issue, the powers around the Balkan Peninsula will not allow new powers to be born in this region.

Before the outbreak of World War I, the Balkans were mainly competed by Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the outbreak of World War I, the Balkans were in chaos, and more powers participated in it, all of which had a certain influence on the Balkans.

Under such circumstances, any country that wants to become stronger must resolve the covetousness of the major powers, and it is impossible to rise.

This is equivalent to grabbing food from the bowls of several powers. It is basically difficult to do unless it is stronger than these powers.

What Arthur did not expect was that Germany and Italy were very fast in their proposals for a union, so fast that it was beyond Arthur's imagination.

The news that Germany and Italy were gradually getting closer came in mid-November, and on Christmas Eve, that is, in mid-to-late December, the news that Germany and Italy had signed a relevant agreement broke out.

Although Arthur did not know what the agreement between Germany and Italy was, the union of the two countries at this time was not good news for all countries.

It was also shortly after the news that Germany and Italy signed a relevant agreement broke out that Arthur urgently convened a cabinet meeting to discuss the response plan after Germany and Italy got closer.

Although Australasia is far away in Oceania, it is very concerned about the situation in Europe. Moreover, as one of the great powers, the situation in Europe is also very important to Australasia, and it also determines whether Australasia can make further progress.

"Is there any specific news about the agreement signed by Germany and Italy?" At the meeting, Arthur frowned and looked at Defense Minister Thomas.

After more than 30 years of updates, the intelligence system of Australasia has changed from the original three intelligence agencies to three intelligence systems.

And the current three intelligence systems are more complicated, and two of them are in Arthur's hands.

The three intelligence systems are:

The Royal Security Intelligence Agency, which is only loyal to the royal family and is responsible for handling private affairs for the royal family;

The National Security Agency, which is loyal to the royal family and the government and is responsible for collecting domestic intelligence for the country.

The Military Intelligence Agency, which is loyal to the royal family and the country and is responsible for collecting military intelligence and conducting counter-espionage work.

To put it simply, the National Security Agency is an organization that supervises domestic officials and collects domestic intelligence.

The Military Intelligence Agency is an organization that conducts foreign intelligence espionage and prevents other powers from infiltrating spies.

The Royal Security Intelligence Service, which is exclusively for the royal family, is a comprehensive intelligence organization, but it only serves the royal family and is more mysterious.

Arthur asked Defense Secretary Thomas for his purpose, and he wanted to see if Thomas had any first-hand intelligence from the Military Intelligence Service.

After all, although all intelligence agencies are loyal to the royal family, except for the Royal Security Intelligence Service, the intelligence of the other two intelligence organizations will be submitted to the government first, and then to the royal family.

After all, there must be a first come first served between the royal family and the government in various work. For the sake of future monarchs, we must also focus on the government's emotions.

3200 words first update, please vote for the monthly ticket, please support!