Start 1861: I Just Inherited the Dutch Throne

"The signing of the Prussian-Austrian Treaty, although in the short term, prevented Prussia and Austria from going to war over the disputes over Schleswig and Holstein.

However, it caused dissatisfaction among the middle powers within the German Confederation such as the Kingdom of Bavaria, the Kingdom of Hanover, and the Kingdom of Saxony, as well as Baden, Württemberg, Hesse-Gasser, Hesse-Darmsch, and other member states of the German Confederation.

As for Meulenberg, Oldenburg, and other states in North Germany that supported Prussia, even the three cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck, surprisingly, did not oppose Prussia's attack on the Netherlands. Erstein's rule, chose to continue to support Prussia's position in the North German Confederation.

This caused Austria to enter a period of disorder in its alliance relations compared with Prussia. "

Viscount Palmerston looked at Queen Victoria with great concern.

"If this continues, Prussia will become a dominant force within the German Confederation, while the Austrian Empire will become a lonely country. It seems that although the Saxony and Hannover Alliance has become a third-party force with the strength to resist the two major powers, but"

Viscount Palmerston said: "No matter how you look at it, it feels a bit unreliable?"

Queen Victoria nodded and sighed: "Of course, except for a few allies of Prussia, more than 90% of this third party were originally Austria's original allies within the German Confederation.

Now with a small Schleswig, Austria has offended all these allies, and now it has become a bare commander."

The Queen turned her eyes and expressed the concerns of Viscount Palmerston, "The Viscount is afraid that Prussia will take the opportunity to harvest Austria's influence within the German Confederation, win over other countries, and completely replace Austria's leader in the German state." status?"

Viscount Palmerston paused and said with alarming worry: "I'm afraid that Prussia will send troops with force."

The queen couldn't help but feel happy and said nonchalantly: "How is it possible? Are you overthinking it? Prussia will take the opportunity to send troops to those Austrian allies?"

"No, I mean Prussia will send troops to Austria"

What!

The Queen stared in disbelief at the over 80-year-old face of Viscount Palmerston.

The latter had no doubt of the calmness of his judgment.

Just when the Queen wanted to discuss with Viscount Palmerston how to face this "hypothesis".

The chief guard of the palace hurriedly walked into the queen's office, but the telegram in his hand was trembling.

The two couldn't help but cast their eyes on it.

The captain of the guard stood beside the two men with sharp knives, "Your Majesty, there has just been news from North America. President Lincoln of North America has issued an order. Since the United Kingdom sent troops to support the Southern Confederacy, this violated the bottom line of the Northern Confederacy and caused dissatisfaction with the entire Northern Confederacy. In order to retaliate, The UK and the North will take a series of retaliatory measures by detaining and plundering British ships passing through the coastline of the Northern Commonwealth, and will not allow British ships to dock at all ports in the Northern Commonwealth from now on."

Snapped!

The expressions of Queen Victoria and Viscount Palmerston changed drastically.

"Lincoln actually gave such an order? Isn't she afraid of the powerful revenge of the British Empire?"

After Queen Victoria was down for a moment, her face was extremely gloomy and she said sarcastically.

Viscount Palmerston always felt that something was wrong, and his mind kept running, but he just couldn't find the problem.

"No matter what, the Lincoln government must be condemned first," Viscount Palmerston put aside his doubts and asked the Queen directly for instructions.

The latter approved this approach.

May 1, 1865.

The Commonwealth of America announced a coastal embargo on the United Kingdom and completed legislation in Congress to prohibit all British goods from entering and exiting the Commonwealth.

At the same time, in order to sanction Britain's many provocative actions in helping the Confederacy, the North also sanctioned all British companies with economic and arms transactions with the South.

Internally, federal legislation prohibits everyone within the country from conducting economic and military transactions with the British. Violators will face serious legal consequences.

On May 2, domestic demonstrations continued throughout the British Empire, and many people threatened to demand that the British government sever diplomatic relations with the Lincoln government in North America and declare war.

Entrepreneurs are worried because the federal industrial products market is very important to the UK, accounting for almost 10% of the UK.

Now that Britain and the Lincoln government are falling out, the European continent is once again hostile to Britain, and their industries are developing again. Therefore, there is not much desire to buy British industrial products, so it is not good for these companies that have been knocked out of the market by the northern United States. , very likely to go bankrupt.

Even this amount is calculated in millions of pounds.

These companies are naturally not philanthropists and have no market, so their corporate factories naturally need to downsize.

Therefore, in London, large companies made the decision to lay off employees, which accounted for 10% of the industrial products sold to the North American Federation. In a short period of time, more than 480,000 employees were laid off.

This puts the British government under tremendous pressure.

And these 300,000 people, together with surrounding business operations and their families, have almost affected the daily lives of more than 2 million people.

Therefore, when Britain declared war on the Northern Commonwealth, nearly two million people also expressed their hope that the two countries would reconcile, reach an agreement, and return life to the calm melody of the past as soon as possible.

As a result, there began to be a lot of body language between the two parties on major streets in the UK. At the same time, in major courts, there were scenes of accusations and counter-accusations for this purpose.

This made Viscount Palmerston's cabinet very embarrassed.

Britain's plight stunned rulers around the world.

The United Kingdom, currently the most powerful country in the world, was actually divided by its former colonies and was even divided by the Commonwealth of America in the north. It was only because of their first move that they caused such a large-scale chaos in the country. This is because they The most powerful country in my mind?

Even the Empress Dowager Ci of the Qing Empire in the Far East, who had just left the curtain to take charge of politics, Zuo Zongtang, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, etc., looked at all this in disbelief.

They seemed not to believe that the British Empire, which had made the Qing Dynasty lose face, was so fragile, so they had other thoughts. In particular, they have the idea of ​​​​befriending the American Federation in North America. After all, they can make the powerful Britain do this. In their opinion, the strength of the American Federation should not be weak.

At least in their opinion, it should not be weaker than the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which is currently developing capital in the Qing Dynasty and is attacking the city. After all, they have never heard of the Netherlands engaging in such a head-on confrontation with the United Kingdom, and the American Federation was completed.

Doesn’t this prove that the American Federation is stronger?

However, as soon as the leaders of the Qing Dynasty had this idea, they were stopped by the news that the British government had declared war on the American Federation. They shook their heads and said: "The American Federation is indeed the only country that founded the country." A country less than a century old is still too young.

The Netherlands still follows the golden mean and makes money in a low-key manner. "

On May 5, 1865, the cabinet government of Viscount Palmerston announced that Britain formally declared war on the federal government and would send warships to attack the maritime trade of the federal government.

At the same time, 30,000 troops will be sent to eastern Virginia to help the Confederates there retake the capital Richmond.