Chapter 278: The Tunisia Dispute

The dispute between Falanxi and Italy over Tunisia ultimately returned to the negotiating table. French Prime Minister Ferry never imagined that the Italians would actually withstand French pressure and secretly send troops to seize a portion of Tunisian territory.

Although Falanxi occupied the majority of Tunisia's land, judging by the terrain of the occupied areas, the Italians were not necessarily at a disadvantage.

The regions occupied by Italy—Kairouan, Sousse, and Sfax—were all coastal plains with immense development value.

Although the southern land occupied by Italy featured mountainous and desert terrain, the area near the coast also possessed the vast Jifara Plain.

Conversely, while the Tunisian region occupied by Falanxi accounted for nearly 70% of the entire country, the Tunisian Mountains occupied a significant portion of that area.

To the south, there were also the Chott el Djerid salt marshes and parts of the desert; the land that could actually be reclaimed for farming or grazing was, in reality, not much different in area from the arable and grazing land in the Italian-occupied territory.

One must know that Falanxi was the one who initiated the war. Compared to Italy, Falanxi's investment in this war was greater, yet it had not gained much advantage; this point alone was enough to make the French public doubt Prime Minister Ferry's competence.

"Mr. Prime Minister, the Spanish Ambassador has once again expressed Spain's willingness to act as a neutral mediator in our colonial conflict with Italy in Tunisia. They hope we can send representatives to Ma Deli to participate in peace negotiations to ensure that we do not break out into further conflict with Italy." Foreign Minister Gambetta pushed the door open and reported respectfully to Ferry.

Gambetta and Ferry belonged to the same party, which also meant that on the Tunisia incident, their goals were identical.

Ferry stared blankly at the Tunisian operational plan map hanging in the Prime Minister's office for a moment before turning around, his gaze fixed on Foreign Minister Gambetta, and replied: "Mr. Minister, who do you think we should send to participate in this peace conference?"

"Mr. Prime Minister, this peace negotiation is extremely important, and a diplomatic ambassador cannot make proper decisions. If you do not intend to appear in person, I am willing to represent Falanxi in negotiations with Italy," Foreign Minister Gambetta said, word for word.

Ferry nodded; the Foreign Minister was indeed a relatively suitable choice. Compared to an ordinary diplomatic ambassador, the Foreign Minister possessed greater authority and could also reflect the importance placed on this peace negotiation.

Compared to the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister's status was not quite as high, avoiding Falanxi lowering its own standing.

After all, a role like Prime Minister was equivalent to the Prime Ministers of Spain and Italy. Given that Italy had not dispatched its Prime Minister for negotiations, Falanxi naturally had no need to dispatch its Prime Minister either.

Rashly attending such a meeting would not only fail to gain Prime Minister Ferry any say in the conference, but would instead lower his status and cause him to be looked down upon.

"Then you shall represent Falanxi at this meeting. Minister Gambetta, this conference must at least ensure that the land Falanxi has already occupied remains French, and it would be best if we could reclaim more than half of the land occupied by the Italians.

Tunisia is an important link in our colonial expansion plan; our colonial plan must absolutely not encounter problems here in Tunisia." Ferry made his decision, his gaze fixed on Gambetta.

"As you command, Mr. Prime Minister." Gambetta nodded, accepting this rather arduous task.

At the same time, the Italian government was also determining its own representatives for the peace talks.

It is worth mentioning that the Italian government also chose its Foreign Minister as the representative to attend the peace conference, which perhaps is a tacit understanding shared by European nations.

As for Spain, because of its status as a neutral mediator, the conference would be presided over by Prime Minister Canovas himself.

After all, as the host, if they were to send a Foreign Minister to receive the representatives of the two countries, it would inevitably seem a bit too shabby.

The conference would be held in Ma Deli. In addition to discussing the situation in Tunisia, it would also explore Spain, Falanxi, and Italy's colonization of North Africa to avoid such colonial conflicts between the three countries in the future.

After Spain invited the two countries to participate in peace negotiations, within a few days, the representatives of both countries arrived successively in the Spanish capital, Ma Deli.

Upon arriving in Ma Deli, French Foreign Minister Gambetta did not have any particular emotions. Although Ma Deli had become quite prosperous after more than a decade of development, compared to the French capital, Paris, Ma Deli was still somewhat inferior.

Even though Ma Deli had built trams and installed a large number of streetlights, making it the world's first city that never sleeps.

But Falanxi had also followed up with projects regarding trams and streetlights after this, and these were already commonplace for Gambetta.

But for the Italian Foreign Minister, everything seen in Ma Deli was so fresh.

Italy was of course involved in electricity, but Italy's finances were not as extravagant as those of Britain, Falanxi, or Germany.

This also led to Italy never building a city that never sleeps similar to Ma Deli; Italy's capital Rome, the Austro-Hungarian Empire's capital Vienna, and the Tsarist Russian Empire's capital Saint Petersburg were collectively known as Europe's three "dark cities."

Of course, this title was a humorous comment from the European media, and the reason was precisely the slow pace of electricity development in these three countries.

Italy had of course participated in Spain's tram expo, but due to financial constraints, even the capital, Rome, could not achieve large-scale power supply.

The only places truly qualified to use electricity were the Royal Palace and government office buildings; besides that, only those well-established factories would cooperate with Italian power companies to build power stations around their own factories.

Yes, if Italian factories wanted to connect to the power grid, they could only choose to fund the construction of power stations themselves.

As for the reason, it was of course that the Italian government had no money to build large power stations. Current power transmission had various problems; generally, power transmission would not cross cities, and even over longer distances, there would be massive losses.

The power from one power station could only supply cities within a range of a few kilometers; for areas further away to use electricity, they would either have to pay a greater price or pool funds to build a new power station.

Precisely because of this, the electricity usage situation in Italian cities was arguably terrible. Only a few cities in the north had a few power stations, and all cities south of Rome did not even have a single one.

"It is truly remarkable; Ma Deli has undergone earth-shaking changes in the past ten years of development, and these changes are exactly what the current Italy needs." The Italian Foreign Minister, experiencing the changes in Ma Deli for the first day, could not help but exclaim while communicating with the Italian Ambassador to Spain.

The Italian Ambassador to Spain nodded upon hearing this; he had been serving as the diplomatic ambassador to Spain for several years and could be said to have personally witnessed the changes in Ma Deli.

Before Gao Da became the King of Spain, Ma Deli was also a large European city with a population of over 400,000.

But at that time, Ma Deli was slightly backward compared to the capitals of other great powers; there were only a few factories in the suburbs, but both the number and scale of the factories were far behind those of other great power cities.

Looking at Ma Deli now, apart from the fact that the city scale was not as large as the capitals of Britain, Falanxi, and Germany due to population, it was already comparable to the capitals of Austria and Italy.

Between Austria's capital Vienna and Italy's capital Rome, which city was not more famous than Spain's capital Ma Deli?

Italy's capital, Rome, had already become a capital during the Roman Empire and had been the most important city in the Italian region for over 2,000 years.

The history of Vienna becoming a capital could also be traced back to the Duchy of Austria; ever since the Habsburg family controlled the Holy Roman Empire's throne, Vienna had also been the capital of the Holy Roman Empire.

Conversely, Ma Deli had only been the capital of Spain for a little over 300 years. Coupled with the surrounding mountainous woodland and the fact that it was not near a plain, Ma Deli's development had always been severely restricted.

Although there was still a certain gap in population, Ma Deli was no longer inferior to Rome and Vienna in terms of urban infrastructure and industry.

As an Italian, the Italian Foreign Minister felt envious of Spain.

One must know that the current King of Spain, Gao Da I, was a Duke of Italy and the youngest son of the King of Italy just over a decade ago.

It was a pity that such a brilliant monarch ultimately became the King of Spain, and Spain, under Gao Da's leadership, had once again become a powerful European great power, with a comprehensive strength even stronger than the current Italy.

Although he felt very emotional about Spain's development, the Italian diplomatic representative did not have much time for such reflections.

Because for Italy, the upcoming negotiations with Falanxi would become extremely important. As long as Italy could hold onto the land it had occupied, Italy would not become the losing party in this Tunisian colonial competition.

On the second day after the representatives of both sides arrived in Ma Deli, the peace negotiations between Falanxi and Italy officially began.

At the peace negotiations, Prime Minister Canovas, as the Spanish representative, attended first and emphasized the importance of peace negotiations for peace, and expressed the hope that both Falanxi and Italy could put forward their own demands based on the goal of achieving peace.

Subsequently, it was the turn of the French and Italian diplomatic representatives to put forward their demands and argue.

If the Italian side wanted to divide Tunisia according to the areas actually occupied, then the French diplomatic representative's demand was for Italy to withdraw from the Tunisian region, or at least give up half of the land currently occupied.

But the French proposal would certainly not be accepted by Italy. The land occupied by Italy accounted for less than one-third of Tunisia's total land; if they were to give up half of that, wouldn't it mean that most of the benefits would be taken by the French?

What was the goal of the Italians going through so much trouble to occupy these two pieces of land, if not to snatch a piece of meat from the French's mouth and place themselves in an invincible position?

Because both sides stood by their own demands and refused to back down, the first day of peace negotiations fell into a stalemate with no progress whatsoever.

French Foreign Minister Gambetta returned to his residence expressionless and instructed the French Ambassador to report the current progress of the peace talks to the home country.

In fact, before participating in the Ma Deli peace negotiation conference, Falanxi had also thought about inviting other countries to participate as neutral parties, or simply setting up another table and ignoring Spain's request.

From Spain's diplomatic attitude in this competition, it could be seen that Spain was firmly standing on Italy's side.

Falanxi naturally understood the logic behind this, which was also the reason why Falanxi wanted to invite other neutral countries to join this negotiation.

If only Spain were allowed to act as the intermediary, at the critical moment, Spain would certainly still lean toward Italy.

What was even more fatal was that because only Falanxi and Italy were participating in the negotiations, this also meant that Falanxi would face pressure from both Italy and Spain from the very beginning.

But unfortunately, Falanxi invited many European great powers, including Germany, and all countries expressed no interest in this peace negotiation.

The reasons for Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russia refusing were simple: they were too far away from North Africa, so there was naturally no need to offend Italy and Spain for the sake of Falanxi.

And the reason for Britain's refusal was also simple: Britain preferred to see conflict erupt between Falanxi, Italy, and Spain.

In fact, Britain's purpose in swapping the three West African colonies was precisely to cause conflict between Spain and Falanxi.

Right now, it was clearly a great opportunity; how could the British destroy their own carefully laid plans?

As for whether Falanxi would collapse under the immense pressure of facing the Three Emperors' Alliance and the Italian-Spanish Alliance, the British also had their own solutions.

First, the combined strength of the Italian-Spanish Alliance was not as great as Germany or Russia in the Three Emperors' Alliance; although it was pressure for Falanxi, it was not fatal.

Secondly, the British were already trying their best to dismantle the Three Emperors' Alliance. In the eyes of the British, the threat from Russia was relatively large, Falanxi was second, and Germany was third.

The British had always wanted to extract Russia from the Three Emperors' Alliance, while simultaneously destroying the relationship between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia as much as possible, thereby pushing Germany to the opposite side of Russia as well.

In this way, the European continent would reach a situation of four major military groups confronting each other. Germany and Austria confronting Russia, Italy and Spain confronting Falanxi; these two countries fighting alone were exactly the two major heart-troubles for Britain.

With Russia and Falanxi being held back, the British could expand recklessly in Africa and the Middle East, which was the best situation for the British.

Precisely because of this, even though the British "shit-stirrer" nature made them very concerned about the situation in Tunisia, they ultimately refused Falanxi's invitation and stated they would not interfere in the situation in Tunisia.

This also led to Falanxi having to go it alone; even knowing that Spain would stand on Italy's side at the critical moment, Falanxi had no choice but to participate in this peace negotiation.

Because if they did not participate in the peace negotiations, Falanxi would only have to accept the reality of Italy occupying a portion of Tunisian land.

As for using force to expel the Italian army, this was something the French government had never considered. Although Italy was not strong, it was still a great power and not so easily defeated.

Coupled with Italy having Spain's help, Falanxi would very likely face the pressure of fighting on two fronts. Once Falanxi fell into a long-term war, the Germans would certainly not remain indifferent.

If they were to make a mess of things and end up with Falanxi taking on the whole of Europe, that would be a huge problem. No matter how ambitious Ferry was, he would not be bold enough to ignore Falanxi's current diplomatic predicament.

If they could avoid starting a war, they would; at least until Falanxi broke through Germany's diplomatic isolation policy, Falanxi could not afford to offend Italy and Spain to the death.

(End of chapter)