Chapter 409: Anglo-Japanese Alliance

At the same time that Spain was holding a secret launch ceremony for the Dreadnought battleship, the world situation was also undergoing huge changes.

In January 1902, in order to check and balance the powerful Russia, Britain chose to ally with Japan in East Asia to prevent Russia's influence from continuing to expand in the Far East.

The reason for the alliance between Britain and Japan was very simple, which was to treat Japan as the first line of defense against Russia's expansion in the Far East and use them to drag down the Russians.

At this time, although Japan had undergone reforms, it had not achieved great results in terms of industry. After all, Japan itself was an island country, and its own mineral resources were very scarce, which could not support the construction of modern industry at all.

If they wanted to develop industry, they had to obtain support from European great powers; on one hand, they had to obtain corresponding technology, and on the other hand, they needed to import a large amount of coal and iron ore from colonies controlled by European great powers, so that they could support the development of industry.

It was precisely because of this reason that Japan at this time became Britain's loyal little brother. It was true that Britain wanted to use Japan to fight against Russia, but Japan also wanted to use Britain's support to obtain more land in the East Asia region, especially the mineral resources that it was most scarce of.

Just from this point, the interests of Russia and Japan were in conflict. Even without the British hint, Japan and Russia would sooner or later move towards opposite sides.

Not to mention that at this time, with the support of the British, Japan was already preparing for war against Russia. This was a quite extreme nation, and they did not mind betting the national destiny for the development of their own country, even if the enemy was a powerful European great power.

For the Russians at this time, they were relatively dissatisfied with the alliance between Britain and Japan. Everyone could see that Britain's choice to ally with Japan was to target Russia, but Russia had no way to deal with this.

After all, Russia had no reason to stop the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and other countries, including Russia's own ally France, also wanted to see Russia's interests in the Far East damaged.

Countries like Germany were willing to see Russia's Far Eastern interests damaged because they wanted to weaken this huge empire of Russia.

And for France, the French did not want their ally to focus too much on the Far East region. The reason for the alliance between France and Russia was to let Russia attract a part of Germany's military strength and work with Russia to pinch Germany from the east and west.

But if Russia deployed too many troops to the Far East region, the German troops that could be drawn in the Eastern Europe region would become limited. Under these circumstances, the Germans would definitely deploy more troops to the border with France, and the ones who would suffer at that time would become the French.

Therefore, for the sake of their own interests, the French wished that Russia's expansion in the Far East region would fail, and then obediently return their focus to the situation in Europe.

Under these circumstances, Russia had almost no helpers to shout for itself. However, the Russians did not feel that the small Japan could defeat themselves; after all, they were one of the powerful European hegemons, possessing over 2000 square kilometers of land and a population of over 100 million, and their industry was also in the forefront of Europe. How could a small Japan be the opponent of Russia?

When Gao Da learned of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and the conflict between Russia and Japan, Gao Da understood that the war between Japan and Russia was about to break out.

This war not only let European countries see Russia's weakness but also let Japan, a country that had only reformed for a few decades, jump to become a great power.

Of course, this great power had a lot of water content and, like the United States, was a relatively deformed great power.

Except for Japan and the United States, other European great powers were all countries that possessed powerful industry and economy and possessed excellent military strength.

Although the United States only possessed powerful industry and economy, if they wanted to expand their army, they could still easily pull up an army of over 1 million people plus a navy that ranked in the top four in the world.

And Japan, although it defeated Russia in history, that was only a part of Russia's military strength and the Far East fleet, just a small part of Russia's military strength.

If it was said that military strength could barely be counted as a great power, then Japan's industrial level could be said to be a mess.

In 1900, when the steel production of European countries was generally as high as millions or even millions of tons, Japan's steel production was only a pitiful 2,000 tons.

One had to know that Italy, which was already at the bottom among all great powers, had a relatively good annual steel production of 118,000 tons. What could Japan's pitiful 2,000 tons of steel production do? It could only be used to build a warship with a tonnage of no more than 3,000 tons, or build a few dozen kilometers of railway.

Under these circumstances, let alone Russia looking down on Japan, Gao Da was very contemptuous of Japan now.

If it were not for Britain's support, it would not be so easy for Japan to want to win the war against Russia. Even if it could win the war, the subsequent retaliation from Russia would instantly drag down this country that only relied on military strength to establish itself.

For Gao Da, the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War did not count for anything.

What was important was the development of Russia's domestic situation after the Russo-Japanese War, and the impact of the development of Russia's situation on the European situation.

Britain stood on the opposite side of Russia through the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and Germany also stood on the opposite side of Russia. But this did not mean that Britain and Germany would form an alliance, because since the beginning of the 20th century, Germany had been vigorously developing its navy, and the comprehensive strength ranking of the navy was also constantly improving.

Under these circumstances, it was impossible for Britain not to have misgivings about Germany. It was just that the scale of France's navy was still far larger than Germany's, coupled with the conflict with Russia, which made Britain have a slight tendency to lean towards Germany.

But the essence of Britain's founding was maritime hegemony, and this point was not allowed to be provoked by any country. As long as Germany wanted to continue to develop its navy, Britain and Germany would sooner or later fall out.

For Gao Da, there were many choices at present.

Either directly accelerate the evolution of Russia's domestic situation, let Russia directly withdraw from the dispute of the European situation, and then join hands with Germany to defeat Britain and France.

France was surrounded by Spain and Germany; as long as France was defeated, a Britain could not stir up any waves.

Not to mention that Spain had already taken the lead in dreadnoughts; as long as a few more dreadnoughts were built in the next few years, and then combined with Germany's naval strength, the naval war with Britain would not necessarily fail.

Doing so had a great possibility of winning the world war, but the disadvantage was that Germany, which defeated Britain and France, would become the only hegemon in Europe. If Spain wanted to check and balance Germany, it could only try its best to preserve France or support the changed Russia.

There was another way, which was to unite with France and Russia to directly force Britain to Germany's side, and then explode the navy with France to check and balance Britain.

On the premise of saving Russia as much as possible, the military strength between France, Russia, and Spain versus Britain, Germany, and Austria would reach a balance. Doing so required Spain to pay more troops to help France resist Germany, and also to build a navy to fight a decisive battle with the British Navy.

If it could achieve victory in the war, Spain would not only be able to recover Gibraltar and annex Portugal but also not have to worry about other hegemons in the European continent threatening itself.

After all, although France and Russia were victorious countries, their great war with Germany would cause them heavy losses. Britain and Germany, as defeated countries, would be lucky enough to keep most of their territory, so naturally, they could no longer threaten Spain's status.

The first plan was obviously more stable, but the second plan could allow Spain to obtain more benefits.

It was not that Gao Da looked down on France, but let any country face the joint siege of Germany and Spain, and this country could only face the outcome of a miserable defeat.

The strength of the German Army did not need to be mentioned; this was the undisputed world's number one army. Although Spain's army was not as famous as Germany's, when European countries ranked their armies, they would unanimously place Spain's army in the fourth position in the world.

Why was it the fourth in the world? In the eyes of European countries, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish Army might be inferior to the German Army, but it could still compete with the French Army.

The reason why the French Army could rank second in the world was that their army possessed a huge scale while possessing powerful combat effectiveness.

The Russian Army ranked third in the world, and the only reason was that Russia possessed a large amount of manpower. Human wave tactics were tactics that were completely unsolvable at present, and one could only consume Russia's manpower through continuous killing, killing until Russia could no longer bear the casualties. ===== CHAPTER 410 =====