Start 1861: I Just Inherited the Dutch Throne

Kingdom of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, inside the Royal Palace of the Netherlands.

"William, Napoleon III must know about our series of sanctions against France. Will this trigger the French Empire to retaliate against us? I am worried that the southern part of the Netherlands will be turbulent in the face of French dissatisfaction."

Queen Alexandra's face was full of worry. Recently, the Netherlands has come to the forefront of Europe with the judgment of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Everyone knows that this time the Netherlands does not seem to be afraid of France's wrath.

This puzzled many people, and even Queen Alexandra was worried about it.

No, she was just waiting for William IV to come back from the weekly Privy Council meeting. Taking advantage of her free time, she expressed her worries.

William IV continued to tease his eldest son, Prince Albert, along the lines of the future first heir of the King of the Netherlands. Although he was only over 1 year old, his face was already open and he was extremely handsome. Obviously, in Europe in the future, Female members of the royal family of various countries will be very popular, William IV thought.

Seeing that my wife was pregnant with her second child again after more than a year, the worry was evident on her face.

William IV said comfortingly: "Don't worry, why have you gone back after seeing something I'm not sure about?"

The latter shook his head.

Alexandra thought about it, and she really searched the past of William IV. It really didn't happen. Even when she was a child, especially when she thought about the time when her husband went directly to Denmark and almost snatched away Mr. Andersen, she still had a deep memory. Although it was the first time I came into contact with William.

After that, Alexandra, who had followed him over the years, seemed to have witnessed William IV's almost inexhaustible growth history.

Now, the Netherlands has borrowed its strength to dare to resist the French Empire, the European hegemony, and even proactively imposed sanctions on the French Empire. This is so confident and "daring", which makes Alexandra I am very proud of my husband.

In fact, William IV had already begun planning with Prime Minister Tolbeck's Privy Council when he was preparing to weaken the French Empire.

It started in the middle of 1866.

Since this time, Dutch embassies in various countries around the world have already begun to carry out various foreshadowing actions, and finally began to put interests first, and finally gradually promoted the spread of the influence of the three major international organizations established by the Netherlands, and William IV even more The idea is triggered by having the smallest number of members of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Those who use disadvantage as an advantage and want to become famous in one battle use France as an example to scare other monkeys.

Completely establish the influence of the Netherlands and establish the international status of the Netherlands.

Many people may ask, how can the Netherlands guarantee itself when countries like Italy, Portugal, and Spain are also included?

When William IV faced such questions from these cabinet members in the Privy Council, he told them the answer directly.

Because the Netherlands has already made arrangements to win over the countries in South America, and has also brought in the Commonwealth of America as mutual allies, such as Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, etc., the total number of votes is even far more than half. As long as some exchanges of interests are added, the dominance of the Netherlands The status was naturally established.

As long as the Far East develops in the future, the Netherlands' international status will gradually be achieved. At that time, it will be another way of operating.

These are first-hand preparations.

Second hand, in fact, the Dutch cabinet has been communicating with the Tories recently, which can even be traced back to more than a year ago. William IV understood the change of positions between the Tories and the Whigs in history, so he began to command The Dutch cabinet had secret contacts with the Tories, and even provided a lot of dark information about the Whig Party to help Disraeli be elected. In the end, the two parties actually began to ease their relations, and even helped Disraeli this time to establish This established the cooperative relationship between the two parties, which established the beginning of cooperation for the British-Dutch cabinet relationship in the next four years.

After the Tories came to power, Disraeli and Tolbeck began to make their first attempt at new cooperation with the goal of France.

This can also be regarded as opening up another cooperation model between the Netherlands and the UK.

As far as William IV knew, everything was going well so far, and he secretly thought: The British side should start.

On April 5, 1867, the French Empire launched an attack on Cambodia in the Far East. This attack was more violent than before. On the 8th, under the French Empire's 30,000 strong troops, they quickly captured the forests in the northeast. Monoron, Longfa, Crown Prince Chulalongkorn and the soldiers of the Kingdom of Siam resisted vigorously, but in the end they were unable to defend the two cities.

Because France actually sent French troops from Pleiku and Bon Me Thuot in China to raid from the east. They were caught off guard and the Kingdom of Siam's army suffered heavy losses.

Finally, under the leadership of Crown Prince Chulalongkorn, they retreated westward to Stung Treng.

The defeat of the Kingdom of Siam was expected by European countries. If they could defeat the French Empire, a European power, one-on-one, then they would have no need to sanction France.

On April 7, 1867, major newspapers in the British Empire published a new transcript of Disraeli's interview. It reported that Disraeli said that Britain had made three requests to the French government to withdraw from the Kingdom of Siam, but all of them failed. Rejected by Napoleon III and the Olivis government, Britain, as one of the important partners of the Kingdom of Siam, said that he fully agreed with the ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

He believed that the French Empire's actions not only violated morality, but also violated international law and harmed Britain's economic and strategic interests in the Far East.

Therefore, he said that the British Empire Cabinet Government is evaluating whether to follow the ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague and impose the same sanctions on the French Empire.

Does Britain follow members of the International Court of Justice in The Hague to sanction the French Empire?

This shocked all the countries in the world, and they all looked in the direction of the British Isles in disbelief.

You must know that Britain itself is the biggest thief that invades other countries, but now some thieves are shouting to catch the thief. It is funny, ridiculing, and very ridiculous.

However, from a strategic perspective, this is a major event that needs to be taken very seriously, because it means that the UK is no longer acting alone, but is willing to cooperate with the members of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, known as the club of small and medium-sized countries. Other countries have begun to speculate.

Seeing the potential of this organization, does the UK want to join this organization?

This made other powerful countries such as the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire immediately anxious.

However, the Kingdom of Prussia, the Tsarist Russian Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had vague positions, and they did not express any intention to join. Although most countries responded, they were not significant and chose to observe.

On the contrary, the Ottoman Empire was used to seeing the strong and the weak, and the French Empire seemed to have aroused public outrage. Remembering that France was the second largest power that supported them during the Crimean War in 1853, this time in the Anglo-Austro-Russian War in the Balkans, they made the wrong choice. Tsarist Russia declared war to support them, so it was dissatisfied with France. The balance of support naturally turned towards France, which was sanctioned by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, to show its anger.

The Ottoman Empire felt the same way about France's invasion of the Kingdom of Siam, and therefore sympathized with the Kingdom of Siam. In the end, the Ottoman Empire followed the British and announced that it would also evaluate sanctions against France.

This suddenly caused tension in the Mediterranean.