Chapter 320: The Two-Faced French Government

When the Senegal colony reported the news back to the French mainland, the French government found itself with a massive headache regarding how to handle this incident.

Come to think of it, this was a case of the French government lifting a rock only to drop it on its own feet. If they hadn't taken the initiative to provoke the Spanish, Spain would never have dispatched troops to retaliate against France.

Faced with Spain's retaliatory provocations, the French government could hardly retaliate in turn, could it? If they truly did that, the Spanish and French governments would fall into a death spiral of endless retaliation, leaving everyone with nothing to do but spend their days plotting retaliatory acts against one another.

The French government, considering itself quite rational, certainly did not want to see things develop in such a direction. There was simply no need for this back-and-forth retaliation; the French government's initial goal had only been to intimidate Spain so they wouldn't be so unscrupulous when sabotaging them from the shadows.

As it stood, the French government's intimidation had no effect whatsoever; instead, Spain acted as if daring them to strike, carrying out retaliatory actions of the same nature against France without any restraint.

Before the hot-headed Spanish government, the French government truly found itself unable to reason. Even if France's comprehensive strength was greater, it did not mean France was willing to see a war break out with Spain.

As the saying goes, the hot-headed fear the reckless, and the reckless fear those who have nothing to lose. In this incident, the tough stance displayed by the Spanish government did indeed give France a certain degree of apprehension.

June 24, 1885, French Cabinet meeting.

The new French Prime Minister, Henri Brisson, wore a look of irritation as he cast an inquiring gaze toward the many ministers of the French cabinet: "Let us hear your thoughts, gentlemen. How should we respond to Spain's retaliatory behavior? Should we continue to retaliate, or should we find an opportunity to shake hands and make peace with Spain?"

Henri Brisson's question left the cabinet officials silent, and the meeting room became quiet and still.

Everyone was no fool; they knew this incident was quite thorny and difficult to handle. If their own proposal caused the country to suffer losses or even triggered a war between France and Spain, wouldn't they become the greatest sinner of all?

At a moment when no one could make up their mind, remaining silent was the best way to respond. As the saying goes, do more and err more, do less and err less, do nothing and err not. As long as one did not put forward their own views during the meeting, there was no need to worry about being made a scapegoat afterward.

As the new French Prime Minister, Henri Brisson did not have much experience in handling such diplomatic incidents. He had hoped to get some suggestions or ideas from the other cabinet ministers, but he had not expected the meeting room to be so quiet that one could almost hear a pin drop.

In truth, this could not be blamed on the cabinet ministers. If it had been the previous Prime Minister with a clear attitude, they might have been able to offer suggestions based on the Prime Minister's ideas.

But this newly appointed Prime Minister had not yet expressed a clear viewpoint, so how could they speak freely at such a moment? Wouldn't that just be handing the Prime Minister a perfect opportunity to shift the blame?

Even if one's own ideas aligned with the Prime Minister's, it was definitely not a good thing. If the idea had any positive effect, the credit would basically go to the Prime Minister. But if things headed in an unfavorable direction after following such an idea, whoever first proposed it would certainly have to bear the greatest responsibility.

Although the Prime Minister would also bear a certain degree of responsibility, the Prime Minister could choose to resign in disgrace. As long as it did not involve major crimes like treason, the Prime Minister could still run for the next term after stepping down.

In other words, these cabinet ministers could very well end their political careers because of their own proposals, but the Prime Minister, in all likelihood, would not.

No one wanted to be the scapegoat, which was the reason for the silence in the meeting room.

Seeing that no one was willing to speak up, Henri Brisson had no choice but to call names to force these officials to answer his question.

"Minister Freycinet, you tell us how we should handle this incident. Does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have any response preparations for this incident, or any opinions on how to handle it?" Henri Brisson cast his gaze first toward the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet, Charles de Freycinet.

Hearing the Prime Minister's inquiry, Minister Freycinet stood up abruptly and stammered: "This... the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to convene a meeting to discuss how to respond to Spain's step-by-step pressure; at present, there is no definitive response plan."

Henri Brisson was not angry upon hearing this; he continued with a smile: "Then speak your personal thoughts; in any case, the views of the Foreign Minister can represent the entire diplomatic department."

Faced with the Prime Minister's persistent questioning, Charles de Freycinet could only bite the bullet and state his views: "Mr. Prime Minister, I believe that given the current European situation, it is not suitable to continue this stalemate with Spain.

Continuing the stalemate brings us no benefits, only harm; instead, it will allow countries like Germany that oppose us to find an opportunity to kick us while we are down.

It would be better to shake hands and make peace with Spain now, while simultaneously demarcating our respective spheres for developing Africa to avoid further conflict with Spain.

Once we find a powerful ally, it will not be too late to settle scores with countries like Spain and Germany. Before then, to avoid suffering even more excessive diplomatic isolation from Germany, I believe a certain degree of concession is quite necessary.

Spain is merely bluffing; they would absolutely not dare to break out into a war with us. After this diplomatic incident ends, it is impossible for Spain to continue to oppose us.

In this way, we will have enough time and energy to develop our African colonies and join in the partition of African lands.

Our enemy, Germany, has already gained many benefits from the partition of Africa. If we continue to be mired in this dispute with Spain, Germany will gain even more land in Africa, and the land we can divide will naturally be even less."

Minister Charles de Freycinet's view was, in fact, the opinion of the other officials in the French cabinet government. It was not that they were cowardly, but mainly because France's current diplomatic environment was quite poor, with bad relations with the two major powers surrounding it, Britain and Germany, and no strong aid to help France support its diplomatic environment.

Blindly starting a dispute with Spain was not a good thing for France, which was something basically all French officials could see clearly.

The problem was that not everyone could concede to Spain so readily. After all, Spain was only a second-rate power, while France was the more powerful first-rate power.

If there was to be a concession, it should be Spain conceding to France. How did it become France, the more powerful country, that was doing the conceding?

In fact, like the various officials in the French cabinet, French Prime Minister Henri Brisson had similar thoughts of concession.

His predecessor, the previous, more radical French Prime Minister Jules Ferry, did indeed possess higher prestige within France; after all, the public would certainly prefer a tougher ruler rather than a cowardly one who only knew how to concede.

But Ferry's fate was already obvious. Although he had held the high position of French Prime Minister multiple times, Ferry had not finished a single term.

More than a month ago, former French Prime Minister Jules Ferry resigned in disgrace due to unfavorable combat in Asia, which was also the reason Henri Brisson became the new French Prime Minister.

Come to think of it, the reason the French military performed poorly in battle had a lot to do with Spain as well.

Originally, the French military's offensive had been very smooth, and both the navy and the army had achieved certain results.

But as the war progressed, the Asian side also solidified its will to fight. Not to mention completely defeating the French, at the very least, the Asian side was unwilling to see its own territory suffer invasion.

Vassal states like Vietnam could be abandoned if necessary, but territory further north had to be defended.

Just at this time, Spain reached an arms trade agreement with the Asian side. A large number of Spanish-standard rifles were transported to Asia, becoming powerful weapons for resisting the French offensive.

After all, the French military was fighting across ten thousand miles, and logistical supply was always a relatively large difficulty.

Britain had large colonies like India and Egypt as transit points, which could also provide important material replenishment for the Asian side. But France? Aside from Vietnam, it had no other large-scale colonies in Asia.

This was also the reason the French military did not achieve complete success; they were ultimately forced to abandon the offensive north of Vietnam under the tenacious resistance of the Asian military.

The final result was that although the French won this war, in reality, Asia did not suffer too great a loss.

What the French gained was only Vietnam and Cambodia; this situation was similar to the previous Tunisia war. France had invested a large amount of manpower, material, and financial resources in both wars, but the final results achieved were not satisfactory.

Even more embarrassing was that the person who planned both wars was French Prime Minister Jules Ferry, which meant that before Ferry could realize his colonial plans, he was forced to resign and bid farewell to his Prime Minister's throne.

"Does anyone else have any opinions or suggestions?" Although the thoughts expressed by Minister Charles de Freycinet were not much different from his own inner thoughts, Henri Brisson still wanted to solicit more opinions to handle this incident in a more appropriate manner.

Seeing that no one was speaking, Prime Minister Brisson nodded and issued his own order: "Then let us do it this way: try to avoid further conflict with Spain. Additionally, we need to investigate the culprit who triggered this incident. Who exactly gave the order for the fleet to head to the Spanish colonial port to provoke them?

If I remember correctly, it seems I have never issued such an order. Where exactly did this order come from?"

Although they had been silent while discussing solutions just moments ago, when it came to shifting blame, the various ministers of the French cabinet were still very interested in participating.

Because it was the navy that was dispatched, investigating the culprit was actually quite simple. Because this fleet belonged to the colony, aside from the military, the only ones left who could mobilize this force were the local colonial departments.

But in reality, the French colony should not have taken the initiative to provoke the Spanish colony.

Although there was a large gap in strength between the French and Spanish mainlands, it was hard to say who was stronger or weaker between the two countries' colonies.

France's Congo colony was also vast in area, possessing over 400, 00 square kilometers, making it one of France's largest colonies in Africa.

But the area and scale of the Spanish colony were not inferior in the slightest. The Congo territory, that special existence, need not be mentioned; it could crush France's Congo colony in terms of land area and population.

After several mergers, Spain's Guinea colony had also become a super-large colony with an extremely vast area. This was also the station for the Spanish African fleet; unless the French colony had lost its mind, it was impossible for them to take the initiative to dispatch a navy to provoke Spain.

Looking at it this way, the only ones left who could dispatch a navy to provoke Spain were the military.

Compared to the colonies and other government departments, the military was the most difficult to handle. Even if the military had taken the initiative to send people to provoke Spain, the French government did not dare to be too harsh on the military.

After all, the government's tool for reasoning was legal statutes, while the military's tools for reasoning were rifles and cannons.

With everyone discussing and shifting blame, the culprit who commanded the fleet to provoke Spain was quickly narrowed down to the scope of the military.

Although the culprit had been identified, Prime Minister Henri Brisson did not intend to be too harsh on the military. He had not been Prime Minister for long, and if he were to take a knife to the military just after taking office, there would likely be a very high probability of causing a military mutiny.

"Ahem." Henri Brisson coughed lightly to cover up the embarrassment in his heart, then said: "Alright, finding out the culprit is a matter for later. What needs to be done now is to avoid further conflict with Spain as much as possible.

Additionally, it is time to start preparing for further expansion into Africa. Compared to the small dispute with Spain, what is more important now is how to gain more African territory and expand the scope of our colonies."

Although a certain concession to Spain was not a big deal, with many countries and the public paying attention to this incident, France's concession would certainly cause a loss of face.

How to make up for it? The best way was to rapidly expand territory in Africa and divert the attention of the domestic public.

As for the thoughts of the European public outside of France, that was not something for the French government to consider.

Moreover, the thoughts of the public in these countries had no influence on France at all; as long as the French public still trusted the French government, the French government could continue to operate steadily.

Since they were going to concede, the French government naturally could not foolishly hold a press conference to announce that it would no longer pursue the matter.

On the surface, the French government put on a posture of being happy to oblige, while in secret, it contacted the Spanish ambassador to France to express the French government's willingness to resolve this dispute.

The posture on the surface was for the French people to see; after all, they could not appear too cowardly and disappoint the French people. The contact with the Spanish ambassador in secret was what the French government truly needed to do; only by contacting the Spanish government and reaching a compromise could this incident be resolved most perfectly.

(End of chapter)