Rise of Australia

Chapter 434 Sydney Peace Talks
When France and Germany started another fierce exchange of fire in the Verdun area, in distant Australasia, the peace talks between the Netherlands and Australasia also officially started.

Since December 12 last year, the Netherlands and Australasia have entered a temporary state of peace.

The two sides conducted military management of the areas they occupied, and the time for peace talks was set on February 2, more than a month later.

In fact, this is also easy to understand. Although the Netherlands is also a monarchy, the power of the Dutch monarch has been greatly weakened decades ago. The current Dutch monarch, Queen Wilhelmina, has very little power, and the power of the government has been reduced. Party manipulation.

The Dutch government needs time not only to reach a consensus, but also to come to Australasia in person to participate in the peace talks.

The location of the peace talks was placed in Sydney. The goal of Australasia is very clear, which is to win the peace talks at home.

February 1916, 2, Sydney, Australasia.

The peace talks between the Netherlands and Australasia have officially started. The Dutch Foreign Minister Vitor, the foreign ambassador to Australasia Renaud and a series of government officials participated in the peace talks.

And Australasia also sent a luxurious lineup of Minister of Foreign Affairs Daze, Minister of Defense Raul and some officials.

At present, the entire Dutch East Indies is basically occupied by Australasia. How to divide the land of the Dutch East Indies is also the most important issue in this peace talk.

Foreign Minister Daze first put forward the request of Australasia, using the Sulawesi Sea, Makassar Strait, and Bali Sea as the dividing line to divide the entire Dutch East India from north to south.

The islands of Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan in the west are administered by the Dutch East Indies, while the islands of New Guinea, Sulawesi and its affiliated islands in the east are ruled by Australasia.

In addition to this, Australasia claims Bali, the Kangean Islands and all the islands in between Sumatra and Kalimantan.

These islands can bring Australasia extremely close to the Strait of Malacca, and at the same time can be a nail in the Dutch East Indies, controlling the entire Dutch East Indies through the Java Sea, the middle sea between Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java. .

It can be seen from the map that the three islands are distributed in a triangular shape, and the Java Sea and many islands are in the middle.

If these islands can be used to control the entire Java Sea, it will control the traffic between the three islands of the Dutch East Indies in a disguised form.

In fact, this is already the result of careful consideration by the Australasian government.The three core territories of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java are still reserved for the Rat East India. These three islands together have nearly 3000 million indigenous people, which is also a blessing in misfortune for the Dutch government.

At the same time, after the territorial scope of the Dutch East Indies was streamlined, the Dutch could better control these three islands and create higher value for the Netherlands itself.

And Australasia was able to expand its sphere of influence again through the newly acquired territories, and gained the entire island of New Guinea and Sulawesi.

Including these subsidiary islands, they are basically livable land, rich in water resources, and their strategic position is also very important.

Moreover, the total indigenous population of some of the occupied lands is only about 1000 million. It is not too troublesome whether to continue to use or expel them.

In addition to territorial demands, Australasia also demanded at least £[-] million in reparations and a treaty for the Dutch East Indies to open ports to Australasia.

Although it does not intend to annex so many territories at one time, it is still necessary to grasp the Dutch East Indies as much as possible and expand the sphere of influence of Australasia to Southeast Asia and the Strait of Malacca.

Needless to say, the importance of the Strait of Malacca is an important part of the route connecting East Asia and South Asia, and even Europe to East Asia.

When oil resources from the Persian Gulf were transported to East Asia in later generations, they generally went through the Strait of Malacca.

Therefore, the Strait of Malacca is also known as the East Asian oil valve and the East Asian maritime lifeline.

This strait is the closest passage from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and it is also the only way for East Asia to Europe.

However, the British also regarded the Strait of Malacca as very important, and even set up the Straits Settlement to manage these ports and nearby colonies for the three more important ports nearby.

If you want to obtain the Straits Settlements from the British, you must be at a time when the British Empire is extremely critical.

Judging from the current situation, the opportunity to obtain the Straits Settlements is not now, it will have to wait until World War II decades later.

However, it is necessary to plan in advance at present, and it can also expand the sphere of influence of Australasia and block the resource channels for the development of island countries.

You must know that the island country is a country that is extremely short of resources.The population size of this country is not small, and even far exceeds that of some great powers.

However, because the land area of ​​the island country is not large, and it is composed of a large number of islands, it is not rich in mineral resources.

Whether it is a variety of mineral resources or oil, which has become increasingly important, most of the needs of island countries are imported, and they are imported from East Asia and even overseas regions.

If you can control the Strait of Malacca, and wait until the island country and Australasia turn against each other, Australasia can cut off the resource trade between the island country and Europe or other regions through the Strait of Malacca.

The waters from Southeast Asia to Antarctica will all be controlled by Australasia. If the islanders want to communicate with the outside world, they can only pass through the more distant Pacific Ocean.

In this way, not only the time required for the route will be greatly increased, but also the cost of imported materials will also increase a lot.

Australasia can easily achieve what Arthur planned to contain the development of the enemy.

Although the Dutch understand that the situation in the Dutch East Indies is over, this does not prevent the Dutch from bargaining wildly in the peace talks in an attempt to retain Sulawesi and the islands in the Java Sea.

But Australasia's ambitions cannot be stopped by a small Netherlands. The Dutch army cannot stop Australasia's actions on the battlefield, and it is even more hopeless in terms of peace talks.

The peace talks were deadlocked for three or four days, but Australasia's view was firm that all the territories requested must be obtained, but the reparations could be reduced from 7000 million pounds to [-] million pounds.

Seeing that there was no room for recovering the loss in terms of territory, the two important representatives of the Netherlands could only agree to Australasia's request very painfully after looking at each other.

There is no way, agreeing to the request is already the best result for the Netherlands.

If you agree to the request, the Netherlands can at least keep Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java, the three big islands. With Java, it is equivalent to the fact that the Netherlands also owns more than half of the Dutch East Indies.

But if you don't agree to Australasia's request, not only other lands are still within Australasia's control, but even these three important islands are currently occupied by Australasians.

Nothing or half, no matter how stupid the Dutch are, they know how to choose.

Of course, nominally, the Netherlands does still control Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Java, but the Java Sea in the middle of these three islands is about to fall under the control of Australasia.

This also means that the rule of the Dutch in these three islands will depend on the face of the Australasians.

If Australasia agrees, the Netherlands will be in charge of the colony.If Australasia disagrees, there is no need for a war, but the three islands need to be blocked separately, and the Dutch East Indies colony will surrender without a fight.

After the land was negotiated, the two sides went through half a month of negotiations on the price and the specific agreement.

Finally, on February 1916, 2, Australasia and the Netherlands formally signed peace talks to end the war.

Because the peace treaty was signed in Sydney, this treaty was also publicly declared by the Netherlands and Australasia as the "Treaty of Sydney".

The Treaty of Sydney stipulated that the Dutch government and the Dutch East Indies colony ceded to Australasia all islands except Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Java, and that Australasia had the right to use the Dutch East Indies. All ports in India.

The colonial government of the Dutch East Indies shall not carry out any propaganda against the rule of Australasia within the scope of its jurisdiction, nor shall it do any acts that endanger the rule of Australasia.

Australasia has the right of first purchase of all Dutch East Indies resources, and Australasia's exports of goods in the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands shall not be hindered in any way.

Then in terms of funds, the Netherlands has paid a total of 5625 million pounds in compensation to Australasia, which will be paid in 15 years, with an annual payment of 375 million pounds.

Once a delay occurs, the daily interest is 1% of the delayed compensation.

This also means that even if the compensation is only deferred for one year, the daily interest will be as high as 3.75 pounds, which is definitely not a small sum.

The annual compensation of 375 million pounds may not seem like much, but it is also equivalent to a super dreadnought.Even if it is only used for the expansion of the navy, it is enough to build the Australasian navy into a top three navy in the world in the past 15 years.

And this compensation is definitely not much for the current Netherlands.The more than 3000 million natives of the three islands alone can bring in millions of pounds to the Dutch government every year, which is still an extremely conservative estimate.

If these natives are squeezed desperately, the value that these natives can play will be even higher.

Among other things, the Dutch government's annual income in the Dutch East Indies definitely exceeds this indemnity. Even after paying the indemnity, they also have a lot of funds to build their country.

After the signing of the Sydney contract, all the terms were quickly implemented.

According to the negotiations between the Dutch and Australasian governments, the Australasian army will formally withdraw from March 3, completely withdraw from Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java, and return these three large islands to the Netherlands East Indian colonial government rule.

After the contract was made public, it caused cheers in Australasia.

Under Arthur's vigorous training, Australasians still have a high degree of national pride and national identity, and the expansion of the national territory is also a good thing for all Australasians.

What's more, there is an indemnity of more than 5000 million pounds. Australasians proudly believe that Arthur has properly used this indemnity to build Australasia stronger and make the lives of all Australasians become more secure.

Beginning in March 1916, there were many celebrations held across Australasia to celebrate the signing of the Sydney Treaty.

Australasia can be described as a sea of ​​cheers, but the situation in Europe, tens of thousands of kilometers away, is not so good at this time.

Fighting in the Verdun area resumed tension by the end of the month.

The Germans had to continue to organize a large-scale offensive in Verdun in order to hold back the French and minimize the number of British and French soldiers who launched a battle in the Somme area.

In order to allow the Germans to withdraw their troops from the Verdun area and Eastern Europe, and also to prevent France from losing this important fortress, and to strengthen the French people's belief in fighting Germany, Britain and France also decided to launch a large-scale battle in the Verdun area to fight back. German attack.

Although the starting points of Britain, France and Germany are different, their purpose is the same, that is to gain an advantage in the Verdun area, preferably to defeat the enemy or repel the enemy.

Under the thinking of both sides, Germany launched another fierce attack on the west bank of the Maas River, trying to seize important strongholds on the west bank as soon as possible, so as to make a breakthrough in this battle.

Of course, the offensive is not limited to the West Bank.The Germans also launched an offensive on the east coast, and Douaumont and Fergus were still the main targets of the east coast offensive.

After entering March, the German army quickly organized assault forces to conduct assaults on the east and west banks.

The French army also put up desperate resistance, trying to stall the German attack.

Because the French General Staff has strengthened the strength and firepower of the defensive areas, the defenses in various areas of Verdun are still very stable in a short period of time. This can also see the counter-charge of the French army in many areas. Recaptured many positions occupied by the Germans.

The French and German armies fought a very long tug-of-war in the Verdun area, and any position was a target for the two armies to fight for.

According to the records of the armies of both sides, when it is exaggerated, the positions have to go through more than ten battles in one day, the flags on the positions have been replaced more than ten times, and the number of soldiers who died on the positions is even more.

Even after the soldiers of a certain side occupied the position, they just finished planting the flag and wanted to deploy the defense, but the enemy who organized the counterattack repulsed back, and the position fell back into the enemy's hands again.

This kind of tug-of-war was staged in multiple fortresses and positions in the Verdun area. Conquering a position required the sacrifice of hundreds of soldiers, and defending a position also required the sacrifice of many soldiers.

For some highlands and forts, the French army even paid a maximum of 2 casualties in one day.

However, the casualties of 2 people are not many compared with the total casualties of the war so far, but if calculated according to the casualties of 2 people in a single day, the casualties in a year will be as high as more than 700 million people, which is enough to see How exaggerated is this number of casualties.

　For today's chapter, I didn't come back until after ten o'clock, and I was in a hurry to finish the manuscript.Two updates tomorrow!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)