Start 1861: I just inherited the Dutch throne

Chapter 847 The Netherlands and Germany fell in love to the point of killing each other
He established a position of great power and cautiously made concessions bit by bit to comfort and reassure his opponents, thereby eliminating their hostility.

What impressed William IV most deeply was what Bismarck said in the House of Commons: "You can do anything with a bayonet, but you cannot become one of them with a bayonet."

Time travel 23 years into the past.The reason why William IV was careful not to launch expansion in Europe, especially when he did not launch an invasion of the eastern territories such as the Kingdom of Hanover and other surrounding principalities when Prussia was still Prussia, was because he was worried about Bismarck's counterattack.

He even often thought about how Bismarck's Prussia would react if the Netherlands proposed to Prussia a joint invasion of these German confederacies.

William IV discovered with a wry smile that if he really did that, the final result would be more than 50% chance that the Netherlands would become the target of Prussia's invasion.

So he chose to sit back and watch Prussia grow.Even when Denmark was invaded by Prussia, it only roped in France and others to check and balance the other side. It used Britain's firm belief in maritime hegemony to prevent Prussia from occupying Denmark and then controlling the Oresund Strait between it and Sweden, and completely controlling the gateway to the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

He was right. Although Denmark lost Schleswig and Holstein in the end, it retained the rest of its homeland.

And he also used this plan to bargain with Bismarck and get the support of Prussia, and finally let his father Wilhelm II, who had retreated to the second line, become Duke of the Duchy of Luxembourg.

In 1863, King Otto I of the Kingdom of Greece always used officials from his mother country, the Kingdom of Bavaria, which made the Greeks resentful and was dismissed. He pushed his father to take the opportunity to become the successor of Otto I, who had just been expelled from the Kingdom of Greece, from the Netherlands. The King and the Duke of Luxembourg were also crowned King of Greece.

It can be said that this was the biggest gain for the first time that he and Bismarck used each other.

Afterwards, the three countries of Prussia, Holland and France tacitly agreed to jointly occupy colonies in Africa, and William IV acted as an intermediary to lobby Bismarck, giving them enough weight when facing the European overlord France.In the end, the Netherlands succeeded and reaped huge benefits.

This was the second lowest cooperation with Bismarck.

The third is the rivalry between the two and the British. Faced with the powerful Viscount Palmerston who has dominated British politics for 30 years and came to power in Europe by splitting Belgium with the Netherlands, the cooperation between the Netherlands and Bismarck finally allowed the British to become the most famous person in Europe. The old man in the political arena did not die until 1866, and Britain was suppressed and unable to suppress the rise of the Netherlands and Germany.

This was the third time that William IV had tacit cooperation with Bismarck.

The Netherlands has gained the opportunity to rise, and Germany has received the support of the Netherlands. For the first time in the European structure, it has received support from countries such as Sweden, Greece, the Netherlands, and Russia. It is no longer the lonely diplomatic wolf in the past.

It can be said that the support of the Netherlands allowed Prussia to drive away Austria and the German Confederation, allowing Prussia to unify and obtain a better external environment.

Vice versa, the same is true for the Netherlands.

The third cooperation between the two laid the foundation for the rise of the two countries, especially the Netherlands, which accelerated its layout in the Far East and established a stable European Netherlands. It was at a critical moment, and nothing unexpected could happen at this time.

The fourth cooperation was in 1870, when Prussia, which had unified the German Confederation, competed with France for hegemony on land in Central and Western Europe. The Netherlands suddenly lent Prussia the southern border of the Principality of Luxembourg, which borders France, and France suddenly reacted. However, when it came, it quickly occupied several key borders in eastern France, which ultimately accelerated the capture of French Napoleon III and the occupation of Paris by Prussia.

The Netherlands received the German Empire's Bahrain Islands and Qatar Peninsula.At the same time, the Netherlands also received a large number of refugees caused by the German-French war. In those two years alone, the Netherlands received more than 50 German and French refugees. Among them, the southern principalities that did not like Prussian rule such as the Kingdom of Bavaria and Württemberg and Badenburg have become the largest sources of immigrants to the Netherlands.

Prussia began to absorb a large number of talents from the two principalities in 1867. For example, the initial talents of the world-famous Daimler and Mercedes-Benz cars in the Netherlands were all from the above two principalities at that time. migrant.

Many celebrities even immigrated to the United States during this period in their previous lives. But in the end, with the emergence of the Netherlands in the Far East, with good publicity, the idea that the Netherlands and Australia were more suitable for this than the United States was widely spread, so the Netherlands shared the share of skilled immigrants and The number of elite immigrants to the United States.

It even accounts for the majority, or the United States is just a transit point for Europeans to immigrate to the Netherlands.

Therefore, the fourth cooperation with Bismarck allowed the Netherlands to successfully complete all preparations for moving the capital from Amsterdam, the Dutch mainland in Europe, to Melbourne, the Australian continent in the Far East, and it was even better than expected.

Therefore, when the capital was moved to Melbourne in 1871, the Australian mainland in the Far East had long been associated with desolation. Although not to mention blooming, the big cities there such as Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Bruce Ban, etc. The trend has long been for cities that are already densely populated.

The four cooperations with Bismarck were almost carried out in one round every three years.

They all obtain it through cooperation, and after absorbing the nutrients, they wait for opportunities to absorb other nutrients from Europe and even the world.

However, he and Bismarck often had the same vision, but there were also huge differences, and that was on the American issue.

Prussia tried to build the power of Prussia and later the German Empire within the United States, and came to power to control the United States, a newly emerging country with diverse ethnic groups.

However, the Dutch have deep-rooted influence in the United States. As a conservative, they will naturally not give up the power they have gained, so the two countries have naturally fought against each other many times using the Commonwealth of America as a platform.

From the cooperation in the Civil War during President Lincoln's time to defeat the British-supported Southern Confederate States of America, to the subsequent confrontation between Germans and Dutch in the Lincoln administration, and even Lincoln's assassination, the Germans were suppressed, and the Dutch President Andrew was stable Governing with a strong posture.

This all shows that the Dutch have the upper hand in America.However, because of this, Bismarck worked hard on the moderate president Stephen after Andrew, which repeatedly caused the resurgence of Germans and began to launch a new round of challenges to the Netherlands.

Currently, American politics is in a battle between Germans, Dutch and Irish.

This is also where Bismarck and he have been silently fighting each other for more than ten years.

Thinking of this, William IV sighed: "Unfortunately, both the Netherlands and Germany have grown up. Europe cannot trap Germany. Bismarck's expansion outside Europe will eventually have to be faced by the Netherlands. Bismarck may have anticipated this. Let the day come.”

William IV suddenly felt something in his heart and said bitterly: "Perhaps Queen Victoria had already expected such a day."

(End of this chapter)