Start 1861: I Just Inherited the Dutch Throne

On April 8, 1867, with the attention of all countries in the world, King Carl XV of Sweden and King Christian IX of Denmark visited the Netherlands, and later coordinated their positions with King William IV of the Netherlands.

The three kings directly announced at a subsequent press conference that the three countries agreed to take the lead in imposing sanctions on the French Empire in Amsterdam, making it clear that the industrial products of the French Empire would not be allowed to enter the territories under the jurisdiction of the three countries unless France promised not to impose sanctions on the Kingdom of Siam. Invasion, otherwise the three countries will continue to maintain sanctions against the French Empire.

"We are all civilized countries. Therefore, we do not allow our partners to be invaded by other countries. Although our influence on the French Empire is limited and we cannot control or count the territory of France, we can do what we can to , such as having the right to consume independently, to influence sanctions on those who we think are the perpetrators of bad things.

Therefore, we have jurisdiction within our own borders, not elsewhere. Of course, I also call on other countries to join us and express their position in safeguarding their respective rights and interests to prevent similar incidents from happening again."

These are the exact words said by Dutch Foreign Minister Hesbert when he introduced the positions of the three countries.

On April 10th, the respective Houses of Representatives of the three countries passed the Sanctions Act against the French Empire. It was officially in the form of legislation and came into effect immediately after the document was passed. In other words, the three countries began to formally impose sanctions on the French Empire on April 10th. .

Originally, people thought that the previous statements of various countries were more of a formal performance, but now it is discovered that many high-level officials in Paris think so. After all, the French Empire has a population of more than 30 million, which is a huge country. In the market, who will give up easily.

However, these countries have now reached the stage of legislation, which shows that this time it is not just for fun, but for real. Now, bankers and people with strong capital in the French Empire were suddenly panicked. Because this would be the biggest loss for them, for this reason, it became the consensus of many of them to start putting pressure on Napoleon III and the Olivier cabinet government at the Palace of Versailles.

However, Napoleon III has ruled the French Empire for more than ten years and his position has already been stable. Therefore, he can still withstand the pressure of these people in the country. However, it is just stable. If it takes too long and no solution is found, Napoleon III needs to face Yes, there is no guarantee that it can continue.

After all, to put it bluntly, these people are actually his supporters. If he loses them, his dynasty will collapse. Therefore, Napoleon III began to panic, so he urged the armies in the Far East to fight quickly and prepare for a quick victory in the short term. End the war, and then negotiate with other countries as a winner to gain perhaps more benefits.

However, in the face of the provocation of the Netherlands, Napoleon III naturally would not let the Netherlands live in peace easily. Therefore, on the side of northern France close to the Netherlands, France held a massive military exercise with more than 10,000 people to threaten the Netherlands. , hinting at France's anger towards the Netherlands.

Naturally not to be outdone, the Netherlands also conducted exercises in the south. At the same time, Denmark and Sweden also participated in the exercises. The two countries also sent teams of more than 500 people to participate, unified under the command of the Netherlands. As a result, the French Empire discovered that now What they faced was no longer just the Netherlands, but three countries that needed to be faced.

The Netherlands was not in the eyes of the arrogant Napoleon III, but if you add Denmark, a powerful navy, and Sweden, a powerful army, this made Napoleon III look embarrassed and afraid.

The combined navies of the two countries are more powerful than the French Empire. Needless to say, the Swedish army has been against the Tsarist Russian Empire for hundreds of years and can withstand the test.

The Dutch war in Africa was successful in defeating the United Kingdom and Portugal. That only happened in recent years. The French military evaluated this by itself and finally found that the Netherlands' combat power was no weaker than France's. Even in terms of military equipment, More luxurious than France.

Therefore, the French Empire gave up the idea of ​​military oppression, and Napoleon III prepared to send diplomatic envoys to implement a tolerant policy towards the three countries, asking the three countries to lift sanctions or even delay sanctions to buy more time for the war in the Far East. In other words, the legendary policy of appeasement.

However, the three Dutch countries did not give any face to it. They bluntly stated that this had been passed by the House of Representatives and represented the public opinion of all countries and was difficult to violate. They also called on the French Empire to immediately change its practices in the Far East and improve the sentiments of the people of the three countries towards France's changes.

Co-author, does this require the French Empire to please the citizens of the three countries in order to lift those sanctions?

How could the arrogant Napoleon III and the arrogant French government accept this? They categorically recalled the envoys from the three countries and no longer expected the three countries to make changes.

Prepare to retaliate against the three countries for humiliating the French Empire today.

Denmark and Sweden, the Netherlands' close allies, had a positive attitude and followed the Netherlands' lead in taking a tough stance against the French Empire.

This is as expected by everyone. The Third World is just three small and medium-sized countries in Europe. In fact, in the eyes of big powers, it is only a regional influence. This is just a disgusting thing for the French Empire. No one thinks that this can change the French Empire. manner.

Sure enough, after the French Empire came into contact with the Three Kingdoms, the French Empire actually expressed its dissatisfaction with the Three Kingdoms and remained unchanged in the Far East. Obviously, France was obviously not afraid of the impact of sanctions from the Three Kingdoms.

In other words, Napoleon III chose to ignore the sanctions imposed by the three countries.

The Palace of Versailles even criticized the Kingdom of the Netherlands as a vanguard against France.

In fact, this is indeed the case. Since the outbreak of the French Far East Invasion War, the Netherlands has begun to express dissatisfaction with the French Empire many times.

The most direct one is the sale of hundreds of thousands of pounds of advanced weapons to the Kingdom of Siam.

This made the French Empire only have to face opponents with inferior weapons, and instantly became a group of powerful enemies with weapons similar to them, causing the French Empire to suffer huge casualties.

This originally made France dissatisfied. Now the sanctions bill that took the lead in concocting has once again stabbed the French Empire. This naturally made the French even more dissatisfied. Therefore, the Netherlands became the object of hostility of the French Empire.

However, the Netherlands does not seem to care. Even the Tolbeck cabinet government, after taking the lead with the Kingdom of Denmark and the Kingdom of Sweden, also proposed to other allies of the Netherlands to join the scope of sanctions to further test the pressure on the French Empire.