Chapter 105: Britain’s Masterstroke Of Stirring The Pot
The news that the Italians had finally declared war on Austria genuinely shocked many people within Germania.
Because from the emperor down to the ministers of various departments, including the Foreign Minister, no one had expected the Italians to be so easily swayed. Nor had they anticipated just how much blood money the Britannians had invested to pull in the Italians.
But since the Italians had declared war after all, this greatly boosted the prestige of the minority who had predicted that the Italians definitely couldn’t resist the temptation, and they were seen as “foresighted.”
Naturally, the Baria Crown Prince and Duke Rupprecht behind Lelouch were among them. Many in the Berlin political scene, including some Members of Parliament, began to view Duke Rupprecht as a royal representative with “enlightened foresight potential.”
This also gave Lelouch himself another small boost in fame.
But to fully understand the ins and outs of the whole affair, one must look back at the recent shady maneuvers by the Britannians.
……
Rewind the timeline by more than half a month, back to the end of March 1915.
Shift the view temporarily to Rome, thousands of miles to the south.
Arthur Balfour, Count Balfour, the British Foreign Minister, had finally achieved some breakthrough results after two months of shuttling around stirring trouble.
This day was when Britain and Italy signed the “spoils secret agreement.”
This Lord Belfort was a famous old con artist and also a member of the Anglican Church.
In Earth’s history, that Lord Belfort was most famous for signing a bunch of agreements dividing up other countries’ territories, such as the Balfour Declaration, where he arbitrarily drew a bunch of borders in the Middle East, causing a century of chaos there.
This timeline’s Belfort certainly differed in details from Earth’s, but his nature was the same.
After many days of prior negotiations, the formal content of this secret agreement was as follows:
“The Britannian Empire is willing to enter into a secret agreement with the Kingdom of Italy: promising to gift Malta to the Kingdom of Italy. And to hand over in batches the strongholds such as Mussus and Mechini within Egypt, as well as Matruh Port, to the Kingdom of Italy.
The Kingdom of Italy promises to declare war on El Alamein and the Ottoman, and to fully capture the Slovenia Region and Albania.
Once the aforementioned territories are successfully captured, the Entente Powers promise that the Kingdom of Italy may permanently and legally possess the said lands, treating them as Italian homeland.
The aforementioned condition of gifting Malta will be immediately fulfilled from the day the Italians declare war on the two Austrias.
The remaining conditions of gifting Mussus, Mechini, Matruh Port, etc., will be delivered progressively based on the actual progress of the Kingdom of Italy in capturing Slovenia and Albania……
In addition, to assist the Italian Navy in besieging the Austrian Navy’s home port, Trieste Port, and crossing the Adriatic Sea to land in Albania.
The Britannians promise to support the Italian Navy with three ‘Orion-class’ battleships, Orion, Glory, and Vengeance, as well as 5 armored cruisers.
The aforementioned ships will cooperate with the Italian Navy during the aforementioned campaign. After the campaign ends and objectives are achieved, they will be gifted to the Italian Navy…”
Arthur Balfour’s idea was very cunning; although he promised many benefits and painted many big pies, he wouldn’t hand them all over at once.
The first thing handed over was just Malta, and even that was conditioned on the Italians formally declaring war.
No wonder the Italians later couldn’t keep their cool; they hadn’t even finished preparations and hastily declared war first, just to see if the Britannians would keep their word and actually hand over control of Malta.
If the Italians performed well enough, they would ultimately advance along Egypt’s North Bank to a position only about 260 kilometers from Alexandria—150 kilometers east of Matruh Port is El Alamein, with nothing but uninhabitable desert in between. Then 110 kilometers east of El Alamein is Alexandria.
The conditions the Britannians offered this time amounted to ceding Egypt all the way to the final gateway of Alexandria at El Alamein, which they would hold onto tightly, letting go of everything else. This offer was undeniably generous.
And the additional condition he mentioned of gifting naval ships to cooperate in combat was also to further sweeten the pot and lure the Italians in.
These conditions didn’t exist in Earth’s history; in Earth’s history, Britain only offered enemy lands as pie-in-the-sky promises.
But with Britain faring so miserably on the Western Front now, Italy had more doubts about allying with Britain, requiring much greater blood money to pull them in.
Fortunately, the battleships and armored cruisers promised in the secret agreement were all old vessels over 15 years old, not worth much.
The “Orion-class” were typical pre-dreadnoughts, commissioned between 1899-1902, originally designed for global deployment, so they had never been used in British homeland combat. After the World War broke out, they were all pulled into the Mediterranean Fleet.
……
After Arthur Balfour reached the secret agreement with the Italians, there was still a gap of more than half a month before the Italians formally declared war on the two Austrias.
This gap of more than half a month was not only the Italians’ own expectation, wanting to wait a bit. It was also Arthur Balfour’s expectation, because he hoped to strike while the iron was hot during this time and also secure Romania and Greece.
After leaving Rome, Belfort first landed in Greece, then prepared to go north overland through Greece to Serbia, then turn due east overland into Romania.
Because the Ottoman and Bulgaria had already joined Germania’s side and blockaded the straits, the Britannians couldn’t reach Romania by sea and had to go slowly overland around.
Greece wasn’t originally the most urgent target for the Britannians to pull in, because Greece only bordered the Ottoman and not El Alamein.
And Britain still lacked the strength to organize a Dardanelles Strait landing campaign, hadn’t reached Ottoman homeland yet, so there was no need to expose Greece’s pro-British faction too early.
But since he was already there, it wasn’t easy for a Foreign Minister like Belfort to make a trip, so he casually chatted with Greek high-level officials again to deepen relations.
After landing at Piraeus Port near Athens, the first person Arthur Balfour wanted to see was, of course, King Constantine I of Greece.
Everyone knew full well that under Greece’s constitution, the power to declare war diplomatically and make peace was always in the king’s hands.
For Britain to pull in Greece, it was best to go straight to the king.
In the end, Arthur Balfour was rejected, as expected.
King Constantine refused to see him at all, citing poor health, which at least saved some face for the British.
Belfort tried every means but couldn’t change this, so he had to settle for the next best thing and held a private secret meeting with Eleftherios Venizelos, the elected Greek Prime Minister.
Venizelos was very accommodating to Belfort; he warmly received him, and the two held a long secret talk.
In the end, Venizelos privately promised Belfort that if the king refused to join Britain’s camp, he was willing, in the name of the prime minister and the people, to invite the British Army into Greece to help the people overthrow the tyrant if necessary.
With such a promise, Belfort was naturally overjoyed. In exchange, he probably offered Venizelos land in Macedonia, plus the Thrace Region.
He even promised that if they could later recover Constantinople mainly with Greek Army as the main force, then Constantinople would also be ceded as Greek territory!
Venizelos could hardly even dream of such good conditions.
Constantinople! If they got that back, Greece would restore the glory of the Byzantine era! This was really turning history back far enough.
Achieving such merit, he would be the greatest figure in Greek history books, unprecedented and unmatched, and regicide would be a trivial matter.
……
After lingering in Greece for a few days and pulling in a prime minister willing to commit regicide, Belfort’s final stop arrived in Bucharest as scheduled in early April.
In Romania, the situation Belfort faced was evidently better than in Greece.
Romania’s previous king was very pro-Germania. But the previous king died without leaving a son.
The current king was the previous king’s second nephew; he had become king because his own father and eldest brother—the previous king’s second brother and eldest nephew—refused to abandon the pro-Germania stance, facing opposition from those pro-Lusha people below, allowing this third-in-line successor to take the throne.
So the current King of Romania was bound to the pro-Lusha stance, with no choice; that was the foundation of his ascension.
Lusha and Britannia were in the same camp, so continuing to cooperate with Britain was only natural.
After a round of negotiations, Belfort finally formally signed a secret agreement:
“Romania is permitted to declare war on El Alamein after Italy declares war on El Alamein and makes progress, and at the latest must declare war after Italy gains advantage over El Alamein.
At the same time, Romania is permitted to never declare war on the Ottoman, avoiding a two-front war.
Finally, Britain formally promises that after the war, Hungary’s Transylvania Region, and all of Bulgaria’s territory except the Greek part of Thrace, will be entirely ceded to Romania.”
In other words, under this treaty, if the Entente Powers win, Bulgaria would be completely annihilated and cease to exist, with all its territory thoroughly divided between Greece to the south and Romania to the north, not leaving an inch.
However, if it were just such conditions, Romania might not dare to take the risk.
So Britain also promised Romania a batch of weapons, equipment, and armaments.
Due to the straits being blockaded by the Ottoman, unable to transport by sea, this batch of supplies and arms was also transported overland through Greece via Seville to Romania.
The transportation losses and costs along the way would be enormous.
The Romanian side’s condition was at least modern equipment for 10 divisions to join the war.
Belfort had no choice but to grit his teeth and promise 200,000 Lee-Enfield Rifles, 1,200 Vickers Heavy Machine Guns, 200 million bullets, 120 18-pounder cannons, 60,000 3-inch artillery shells, 40 60-pounder cannons, 20,000 5-inch artillery shells, plus 600 trucks, in exchange for Romania finally joining the war.
This number gave slightly more rifles than for 10 divisions, but the cannons were scaled back, only a third of the British Army’s own scale, plus some trucks and other supplies.
And to transport these supplies, they first had to unload at Thessaloniki Port in Greece, then sneak along the railway from Thessaloniki to Belgrade, and finally cross the border mountains to Bucharest.
Since Belfort couldn’t convince the Greek King to publicly switch sides to help Britain, he could only use Greece’s pro-British Prime Minister Venizelos to secretly help and smuggle them through under the radar.
Venizelos wouldn’t work for Belfort for free; with such a large batch of supplies transiting, bearing the risk, he also demanded equipment for 5 divisions from Belfort to build his own private army loyal to the prime minister, so that if the king discovered it and things blew up, the prime minister would have his own army to confront the king’s.
（Note: Greece’s constitution stipulates that the king is the commander-in-chief of the army, and the army is loyal to the king. Historically, Venizelos later rebelled by raising his own new army with weapons from Britain.）
For this big deal, Britain gave away equipment for a full 15 lowest-spec Army divisions.
Among these supplies, equipment for 5 divisions was originally intended by Britain to form new armies with Indian Soldiers in South Asia. After being intercepted by the Greeks, it slowed colonial army mobilization by 5 divisions.
The other 10 divisions’ equipment required overtime extra production, consuming resources that at least meant the Navy built 50 fewer destroyers or hundreds fewer transport ships, which would inevitably have dire consequences for the Royal Navy’s submarine war against Germania.
But the Britannians had no other choice; they could only hope to desperately pull in more allies to exchange for advantage on the Eastern Front battlefield.
——
PS: Back to the protagonist’s perspective to break the deadlock tomorrow.
This chapter is a bit like a chronicle, introducing the various sides’ offers, which is unavoidable because too few people know the World War I historical background.
What shady operations Britain did must be mentioned, otherwise the plot would seem headless and tailless.
