The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1218: On Stage (Part )

London, England.

The British government had long been aware of the Warsaw Uprising, but Prime Minister Earl Derby was not optimistic about it. He did not want to provoke the Russians at this time because Britain already had enough troubles.

The domestic financial crisis, industrial depression, railway cooling, the spreading and incurable potato blight, the Irish, the Chartists, and the unemployment of workers were enough to overwhelm him.

Recently, potato blight has spread to Scotland. This time, local officials and the media still want to use the same rhetoric they used against the Irish, describing the natural disaster as a punishment for lazy and immoral people.

But the Scots are not the Irish. The former's spirit of resistance is much stronger than the latter's, and Scotland has armed forces.

The British government was naturally willing to speak nicely to this brother with a knife in his hand. It first fired some officials and journalists who spoke nonsense, and then began to increase its support for the Scottish region.

This time, the British government did not set up workhouses or false work-for-relief, but directly distributed money and food, which calmed the anger of the Scots.

But doing so also comes at a price, and the price is that the already heavily indebted British government has now been further exacerbated.

So Earl Derby really didn't want to get into big trouble with Poland, and if possible he didn't even want to know the news.

However, other high-ranking British officials did not think so. They felt that Russia's encroachment on the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia had seriously affected the interests of the British Empire, so they had to respond.

The turmoil caused by the Tsar's request for the Poles to convert was a perfect opportunity. Britain's support for Poland easily reminded people of the great Greek War of Independence.

That was one of the few wars in which Britain appeared in a glorious and righteous image. The British sacrificed their lives for the liberation of the Greeks. They were called "Philhellenes", a word derived from Greek, meaning "Friends of Greece".

But in fact, this term did not refer only to the British at that time, but also included the French, Germans, Spanish and all those who came to help Greece, but they could not withstand the propaganda offensive of the British government and the great reputation of Lord Byron.

Although Britain portrayed its support for the Greek War of Independence as a righteous fight to protect injustice, in fact, behind it were countless dirty deals and irreconcilable conflicts of interest.

For example, Britain never thought of destroying the Ottoman Empire's naval power, and the glorious victory in the Battle of Navarino was entirely the product of the operational error of the British commander Edward Codrington.

In fact, Edward Codrington's mission was to weaken the Russians as much as possible while maintaining the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean.

However, as fate would have it, the Ottomans' brutal killing of the envoys angered the coalition forces, and under the leadership of the Russians, they won the naval battle in a reckless wave.

Edward Codrington suffered greatly in the days that followed. He had to explain his actions again and again, and eventually died in pain.

In fact, the British did not care whether the Poles were independent or converted. What they cared about was to let the Russians know that the interests of the British Empire could not be violated.

Prime Minister Lord Derby thought his colleagues were stupid. They were in a critical situation at home, so why did they bother to care about other people's affairs?

He did not want to be involved in this war. As Prime Minister, he had great power and generally no one could force him to be involved in this war.

But unfortunately, there was a very special man in this era, that was Palmerston, "His Majesty the King" of the British Empire in the 19th century.

As soon as the news of Prince Albert's departure from the center reached India, Palmerston rushed back without stopping. After drifting on the sea for several months, he learned about such a big event as soon as he got off the ship. How could he not interfere?

As soon as Palmerston learned of this, he hired a cargo ship loaded with weapons produced by the Arsenal Arsenal and sailed to the Baltic Sea, and contacted the Polish Restorationists.

As soon as the Russian-Polish insurgents succeeded, cargo ships loaded with munitions docked at the shore.

At this point, Earl Derby's neutrality plan completely failed, and Palmerston tied Britain and Poland together with just one ship of munitions.

After learning that he could not get off the pirate ship, Earl Derby was very angry. He felt that his colleagues were a bunch of fools and hegemonists who had completely forgotten the traditional policy of continental balance of power.

However, no one cared about the Prime Minister's anger, and those who supported the war did not even pretend to be angry. They directly sent warships to escort the ships under the banner of "maintaining free trade".

Although the British Royal Navy has just suffered a defeat, no country dares to underestimate their reputation. The strength of the British Royal Navy can easily crush Sweden and Russia, the two hegemons of the Baltic Sea.

At that time, Libawa did not belong to Russian Poland, but the Polish uprising was not limited to being carried out within the scope of Russian Poland designated by Russia.

Libawa was once part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and there are also a large number of Poles living here. Moreover, compared with the Russians' strict defense of the Polish Governorate, their supervision of the Baltic Governorate can only be described as leaky.

British cargo ships loaded with arms docked at the port unscrupulously, unloading shiploads of weapons and ammunition, and taking away boxes of gold, silver and antiques.

However, the entire Russian Navy did not have the courage to intercept them. They could only report that the sea was still frozen and they could not sail.

(Libawa was the largest port in northern Russian Poland at that time, and it was the year-round ice-free port that the Russians had longed for.)
The Russians' weak performance made the British more unscrupulous, and the latter not only continued to export weapons to Poland, but even organized a volunteer army.

British newspapers were full of applause, and Palmerston even openly declared in Parliament that this action would make Britain great again.

Compared with the British's unremitting efforts, the French seem to be making much noise but little results.

Although the French government expressed its support for Poland in a previous joint statement with the British government, the French suddenly kept a low profile when the Polish uprising actually occurred.

They said nothing about support, sent no warships into the Baltic, or delivered any supplies to the Poles.

The French government strictly ordered French ships to enter the Baltic Sea and even sent a letter to the Russian government to clarify that it had nothing to do with the matter.

In fact, this is easy to understand. Napoleon III had just come to power, and more importantly, the government of the Second French Republic at that time was just a makeshift team.

Napoleon III lacked a solid foundation and the Party of Order was divided internally, so the two sides were evenly matched opponents.

He understood that the most important thing at this time was not to achieve success, but to avoid making mistakes.

This was Napoleon III's intention when he gave the qualification of representative of the victorious nations at the Vienna Peace Conference to the Order Party. After all, doing less means fewer mistakes, and doing nothing means no mistakes.

In addition to problems within the government and considerations of his own political career, the domestic situation in France did not allow him to worry about other countries.