Chapter 320

When the Senegal colony reported the news to the French mainland, the French government also felt very headache about how to deal with this incident.

Speaking of which, this is also the French government lifting a rock to hit its own feet. If they did not actively provoke the Spanish, Spain could not have dispatched troops to provocatively retaliate against France.

Facing Spain's retaliatory provocation, the French government couldn't possibly continue to retaliate, right? If they really did this, then the Spanish and French governments would fall into a vicious cycle of constant retaliation, and everyone would have nothing to do; they would just plan retaliatory behavior against each other all day long.

The French government, which considers itself very rational, certainly does not want to see things develop in such a direction. There is no need for such retaliation back and forth; the French government's purpose at the beginning was just to deter Spain so that they would not be so unscrupulous when making trouble in secret.

At present, it seems that the French government's deterrence has no effect; Spain, on the contrary, has a look of "if you have the ability, hit me," unscrupulously carrying out retaliatory actions of the same nature against France.

In front of the Spanish government, this greenhorn, the French government really has reason that cannot be explained clearly. Even if France's comprehensive strength is stronger, it does not mean that France is willing to break out a war with Spain.

As the saying goes, the tough are afraid of the horizontal, and the horizontal are afraid of those who don't want their lives. In this incident, the tough attitude shown by the Spanish government indeed made France have a certain fear.

June 24, 1885, French cabinet meeting.

The new French Prime Minister, Henri Brisson, with a look of irritation on his face, looked at the many ministers of the French cabinet with inquiring eyes: "Let's all talk about it, everyone. 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 made the cabinet officials all silent, and the meeting scene also became silent and quiet.

Everyone is not stupid; they know that this incident is quite tricky and not easy to handle at all. If the country suffered losses because of their own proposal, or even triggered a war between France and Spain, wouldn't they become the biggest sinner?

At such a moment when no one can make up their mind, keeping silent is the best way to respond. As the saying goes, do more and make more mistakes, do less and make fewer mistakes, do nothing and make no mistakes. As long as you don't put forward your own point of view in the meeting, you don't have to worry about being blamed afterwards.

As the new French Prime Minister, Henri Brisson does not have much experience in dealing with similar diplomatic events. He wanted to get some suggestions or ideas from other cabinet ministers, but he didn't expect the meeting room to be so quiet at this time, as if he could hear the sound of a needle falling on the ground.

In fact, this cannot be blamed on the ministers of the cabinet. If it were the previous prime minister with a clear attitude, they could also give their suggestions based on the prime minister's ideas.

But this newly appointed prime minister has not yet revealed a relatively clear point of view, so they can't talk freely at such a moment, right? Isn't that a good opportunity to give the prime minister a chance to shift the blame?

Even if their ideas are consistent with the prime minister, it is definitely not a good thing. If the idea has any effect, the credit is basically the prime minister's. But if it goes in an unfavorable direction according to such ideas, anyone who first puts forward this idea will definitely have to bear the greatest responsibility.

Although the prime minister will also bear certain responsibilities, the prime minister can choose to resign for his faults. As long as it does not involve major responsibilities such as treason, the prime minister can still continue to run for the next prime minister after stepping down.

In other words, these cabinet ministers are very likely to end their political careers because of their own proposals, but the prime minister is unlikely to do so.

No one is willing to become a scapegoat, which is also the reason why the meeting room is silent.

Seeing that no one is willing to speak, Henri Brisson can only choose to name names to force these officials to answer his questions.

"Minister Freycinet, you come and tell us how we should deal with this incident. Does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have any response preparations for this incident, and do you have any handling opinions on this incident?" Henri Brisson first looked at the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charles de Freycinet, in the cabinet.

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

Henri Brisson was not angry when he heard this, and continued to say with a smile: "Then talk about your personal ideas; anyway, the views of the Minister of Foreign Affairs can also represent the entire diplomatic department."

Facing the Prime Minister's repeated inquiries, Charles de Freycinet could only bite the bullet and state his point of view: "Your Excellency Prime Minister, I think that with the current European situation, it is not suitable to continue to stalemate with Spain.

Continuing to stalemate has no benefits for us, only disadvantages; on the contrary, it will allow countries like Germany that are against us to find opportunities to fall into the trap.

It is better to shake hands and make peace with Spain, and at the same time delineate the scope of each other's development in Africa to avoid further conflicts with Spain.

When we find a powerful ally, it will not be too late to settle accounts with countries like Spain and Germany. Before that, in order to avoid being more excessively diplomatically isolated by Germany, I think a certain concession is also very necessary.

Spain is also just bluffing; they absolutely dare not break out a war with us. After this diplomatic incident ends, it is impossible for Spain to continue to be against us.

In this way, we have enough time and energy to develop African colonies and join the partition of African land.

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

The point of view of Minister Charles de Freycinet is actually the opinion of other officials in the French cabinet government. It is not that they are timid, mainly because France's current diplomatic environment is relatively poor, and its relations with the two major powers around it, Britain and Germany, are not good, and there is no strong aid to help France support the diplomatic environment.

Blindly starting a dispute with Spain is not a good thing for France, which is basically what all French officials can see clearly.

The problem is, not everyone can so simply make concessions to Spain. After all, Spain is only a second-rate great power, and France is the more powerful first-rate great power.

If one wants to talk about concessions, it should be Spain making concessions to France. How did it become France, this more powerful country, making concessions?

In fact, like the ministers of the French cabinet, French Prime Minister Henri Brisson also has similar ideas of making concessions.

His predecessor, the previous more radical French Prime Minister Jules Ferry, indeed possessed higher prestige in France; after all, the public would definitely like a tougher ruler, not a cowardly ruler who only knows how to retreat.

But Jules Ferry's end is already obvious. Although he served as French Prime Minister for many times, Jules Ferry did not finish any of his terms.

More than a month ago, former French Prime Minister Jules Ferry resigned for his faults because of unfavorable operations in Asia, which is also the reason why Henri Brisson became the new French Prime Minister.

Speaking of which, the reason why the French army fought unfavorably also has a lot to do with Spain.

Originally, the French army's attack was very smooth, and both the navy and the army achieved certain results.

But with the advancement of the war, the Asian side also firmed up its will to fight. Not to mention completely defeating the French, at least the Asian side did not want to see its territory suffer invasion.

Countries like Vietnam can be abandoned if they should be abandoned, but the territory further north should still be defended if it should be defended.

Just at this time, Spain reached an arms trade agreement with the Asian side. A large number of Spanish standard long guns were transported to Asia, becoming powerful weapons to resist the French attack.

After all, the French army is fighting across thousands of miles, and logistics supply has always been a relatively big problem.

Britain still has large colonies like India and Egypt as transit stations, and can also provide important material supplements for the Asian side. But France? In Asia, except for Vietnam, there are no other large-scale colonies.

This is also the reason why the French army did not achieve complete success; they were finally forced to give up the attack north of Vietnam under the tenacious resistance of the Asian army.

The final result is that although the French won the war, in fact, Asia did not suffer much loss.

What the French gained was only Vietnam and Cambodia; such a situation is similar to the previous Tunisia war. France invested a lot of manpower, material resources, and financial resources in the two wars, but the final results were not satisfactory.

Even more embarrassing is that the person who planned these two wars was French Prime Minister Jules Ferry, which also made Jules Ferry forced to resign and say goodbye to his prime minister seat before he could realize his colonial plan.

"Does anyone else have any opinions and suggestions?" Although the idea stated by Minister Charles de Freycinet was not much different from his own inner thoughts, Henri Brisson still wanted to seek more people's opinions to deal with this incident in a more appropriate way.

Seeing that everyone was silent, Prime Minister Brisson nodded and issued his own orders: "Then let's do it this way, try to avoid further conflicts with Spain. In addition, we need to pursue the culprit who triggered this incident. Who exactly gave the order to let the fleet go to the Spanish colonial port to provoke?

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

Although they were silent when discussing solutions just now, in the link of shifting the blame, the ministers of the French cabinet were still very interested in participating.

Because it was the navy that was dispatched, investigating the culprit is actually quite simple. Because this fleet belongs to the colony, apart from the military, only the local colonial department can mobilize this army.

But in fact, France's colonies should not actively provoke Spanish colonies.

Although the two countries have a large strength gap on the mainland, it is really hard to say who is strong and who is weak in the colonies of the two countries.

France's Congo colony also has a huge area, with an area of more than 400,000 square kilometers, which is one of France's largest colonies in Africa.

But the area and scale of Spanish colonies are by no means inferior. The Congo territory, this special existence, doesn't need to be mentioned for the time being; in terms of land area and population, it can form a crushing advantage over France's Congo colony.

Spain's Guinea colony, after several mergers, has also become a super-large colony with a huge area. This is also the station for the Spanish African fleet; unless the French colony's brain is drawn, it is impossible to actively dispatch the navy to provoke Spain.

Looking at it this way, the only one that can dispatch the navy to provoke Spain is the military.

Compared with colonies and other government departments, the military is the most difficult to deal with. Even if the military actively sent people to provoke Spain, the French government would not dare to be too harsh on the military.

After all, the government's tool for reasoning is legal provisions, and the military's tool for reasoning is rifles and cannons.

With everyone's discussion and shifting the blame, the culprit who commanded the fleet to provoke Spain was soon narrowed down to the scope of the military.

Although the culprit has been determined, Prime Minister Henri Brisson does not intend to be too harsh on the military. He has not been prime minister for a long time; if he takes a knife to the military just after taking office, I am afraid it will very likely cause a riot in the military.

"Ahem." Henri Brisson coughed lightly to cover up the embarrassment in his heart, and then said: "Okay, finding out the culprit is a matter to be considered later. What needs to be done at present is to avoid further conflicts with Spain as much as possible.

In addition, it is time to start preparing for further expansion in Africa. Compared with the small dispute with Spain, what is more important at present is how to obtain more African territory and expand our colonial scope."

Although making a certain concession to Spain is not a big deal, under the circumstances that this incident has attracted the attention of many countries and people, France's concession will definitely lose face.

How to make up for it? The best way is to open up territory in Africa rapidly and divert the attention of domestic people.

As for the ideas of European people outside of France, that is not something the French government considers.

And the ideas of the people of these countries have no influence on France. As long as the French people still trust the French government, the French government can operate stably.

Since they want to make concessions, the French government naturally cannot stupidly hold a press conference to announce that it will no longer pursue this matter.

On the surface, the French government makes a posture of being willing to accompany, but secretly it contacts the Spanish ambassador to France, expressing the attitude that the French government is willing to resolve this dispute.

The posture on the surface is for the French to see; after all, they cannot be too cowardly to let the French down. The contact with the Spanish ambassador in secret is what the French government really needs to do. Only by contacting the Spanish government and reaching a compromise can this incident be resolved most perfectly.

(End of chapter)