Chapter 210 Russia’s Dreadnought Ambition

The celebration banquet went very smoothly, and Arthur also made more friends from European royal families, including nobles from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bulgarian nobles.

Coincidentally, the Bulgarian royal family also comes from members of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family, and its Prince Ferdinand I is also distantly related to Arthur's grandmother Queen Victoria.

Ferdinand I was a writer, botanist, entomologist and philatelist. Also because of his fragile and eccentric character, he was killed by his father's cousin, Queen Victoria, when he was chosen as Prince of Bulgaria. Criticism: "He is completely unfit, fragile, eccentric and effeminate. Such a person is unfit to be the ruler of a country and the invitation to become Prince of Bulgaria should be stopped immediately."

In fact, Queen Victoria was not the only one who questioned Ferdinand. At that time, many European royal families doubted whether he could become a qualified ruler.

But what all his critics didn't expect was that Ferdinand I achieved great success during the first twenty years of his reign.

Of course, Ferdinand I actually became the ruler of Bulgaria for only more than twenty years.

After suffering a disastrous defeat in World War I, Ferdinand I was

He was ordered to abdicate and went into exile in Austria.

Ferdinand I is also considered a long-lived monarch. He lived until 1948, and the Bulgarian monarchy only lasted until 1946.

Of course, in addition to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria, Arthur also established a good relationship with the Kingdom of Sweden, mainly because of Arthur's sister, Princess Margery.

The historical Princess Margery married Prince Oscar Frederik Wilhelm Olav Gustaf Adolf of Sweden in 1905, who was the future King Gustaf VI of Sweden.

Although the development of history is different now, fate still brings the two people together.

Sweden proposed a marriage request to Australasia and Princess Louise. After long consideration, Princess Louise also agreed to Sweden's marriage request.

Arthur had no objection to this. Sweden remained neutral in both world wars and remained a monarchy until later generations.

Although the Swedish king lost all rights after World War II, he was just a symbol of the country.

But this end is definitely much better than that of most European monarchies. Even Gustavus VI himself lived to be nearly ninety-one years old, which is definitely a good death.

Although Gustav would have to wait until more than 40 years to become the king of Sweden, at least he could successfully ascend the throne and become a king loved by the Swedish people.

After confirming the marriage with Sweden, the government and Princess Louise took care of the rest.

Arthur paid little attention to this, but he also prepared a generous dowry and used state regulations to prepare Margaery for her marriage.

Arthur has only one request, that is, Margaery must live a good life in Sweden, which can be regarded as fulfilling her responsibility as a younger brother.

After the banquet, the nobles and officials of most countries chose to return to their respective countries the next day.

Most of them are high-level people with high status and power in their respective countries, and therefore cannot leave their posts for too long.

Of course, not everyone left in such a hurry. Including Crown Prince William and Grand Duke Sergei, as well as Saburo Endo of the island country, chose to stay.

The purpose of the islanders is simple. They want to continue exploring resource trade with Australasia and order a dreadnought to enhance the strength of the island's combined fleet.

These demands may seem ordinary, but the main problem is that the island nation has no money right now. The last Russo-Japanese War did not achieve many strategic goals for the island country, but instead invested a lot of money.

They are currently only relying on loans from the United Kingdom and the United States to survive, and their domestic dreadnought plan will not even wait until one or two years later.

This also led to the island country's various plans being carried out on credit, and they even wanted Arthur to advance funds for them until they obtained more international loans.

Arthur smiled at this and directly ended the negotiation with the island country.

Arthur would not be stupid enough to advance funds for the island country to maintain trade between the two countries.

After reaching deeper cooperation with Russia, cooperation with island countries has become dispensable.

What's more, the arms market and economy of the island country are basically controlled by the British Empire and the United States, and most of the island country's weapons, equipment and warships also come from the British Empire.

Under such circumstances, if Australasia wanted to compete with the British Empire in the island country's market, the result would basically be failure.

Moreover, Russia has internal and external troubles, and the Russians cannot threaten Australasia. But island countries are different. The basic base of island countries is in East Asia. After they develop, they can even threaten Australia and New Zealand.

This has happened before in history, and Arthur had to guard against it.

After briefly concluding the exchange with the island country, Arthur accompanied Crown Prince William and Grand Duke Sergei to visit Australasia for a few days.

In the end, Crown Prince William left with satisfaction and even said he would come back at the next wedding.

Of course, Arthur has not done nothing in the past few days when traveling with Crown Prince William. At least Arthur has been subtly influencing Crown Prince William, making Germany pay more attention to the development of 305mm artillery and larger-caliber artillery, and at the same time began to vigorously develop submarines.

In fact, the development of large-caliber naval guns has attracted great attention from Germany.

There is no other reason. Currently, there are three known German dreadnought designs in the world, two of which are equipped with 305 mm main guns (the Australasian design is 305, and the one equipped is 280).

Only Germany is still satisfied with 280mm artillery and does not have more research and expectations for large-caliber artillery.

But times have changed. The Dreadnought has been completely upgraded in terms of firepower, protection and power. The 280mm cannon is enough for the previous old battleships. No one is sure whether it can cause enough damage to the newly born Dreadnought. question.

But no matter what, judging from the written data, the Nassau-class battleship developed by Germany is indeed slightly weaker than the Dreadnought battleship in terms of firepower.

Although the firepower is equivalent to the Australasian Monarch-class battleship, they just have no choice. Due to technical limitations, they can only temporarily carry a 280mm main gun.

What Arthur didn't know was that due to his own reasons, Germany had begun to focus on the development of 305 mm artillery, and had plans for a larger caliber main gun.

William II's idea was simple. Since Australasia could design a powerful battleship that exceeded the data of the Nassau-class battleship, why didn't the German Empire design a super battleship with more powerful data in all aspects?

After sending away Crown Prince William, only Grand Duke Sergei and Grand Duchess Mary remained in Australasia.

In fact, this is natural. Grand Duke Sergei will stay in Australasia to discuss the specific time and details of the wedding. At the same time, the Russian government is also trying to achieve deeper cooperation with Australasia.

In addition to the wedding, what the Russian government and Grand Duke Sergei paid more attention to was the battleship comparable to the dreadnought in the shipbuilding plan proposed by Australasia.

After Archduke Sergei learned that Australasia controlled the dreadnought technology, he sent several telegrams to contact the country, and received the approval of Nicholas II, making him fully responsible for the relationship with Australasia. order warships.

After receiving Nicholas II's approval, Grand Duke Sergei was still very excited.

The data of dreadnoughts greatly crush the old battleships. No matter which fleet in Russia is equipped with dreadnoughts, Russia's naval strength will be greatly improved.

The first thing that needs to be determined at present is whether the warship designed by Australasia has the performance of a dreadnought. The second thing is how much the warship will cost and whether Russia can carry out large-scale construction.

The selling price of old battleships is generally around one million pounds, and the highest ones rarely exceed 1.5 million pounds.

This is also the reason why Russia has a good naval strength. It can also cobble together a powerful fleet by selling everything.

But if the cost of building a dreadnought is too expensive, it will basically not be affordable by the current Russian government.

At most, you can only order one or two ships to add to the appearance of your fleet.

Grand Duke Sergei was indeed resolute enough. After obtaining the authorization from Nicholas II, he found Arthur the next day and raised his own questions.

Arthur was well prepared for Grand Duke Sergei's inquiry, so he replied with a smile: "Your Highness, please rest assured that our Sovereign-class battleship is based on the data of the British HMS Dreadnought battleship and the German Nassau-class battleship. After a long period of research, we combined the advantages of the two battleships and designed a powerful warship with combat effectiveness comparable to the Dreadnought battleship. Our battleship is definitely of the Dreadnought level, and its performance and combat effectiveness can also stand the test. "

The Russians still know about Germany's Nassau-class battleships. In fact, after the dreadnought became known to most countries, Germany's counterattack was already underway in secret.

In order to win the hearts of the Germans, and at the same time as a strong counterattack against the British Dreadnought battleship, Germany released part of the data of the Nassau-class battleship, and claimed that this is a powerful battleship whose combat effectiveness is not weaker than the Dreadnought battleship.

The Sovereign-class battleship, which combines the advantages of the Dreadnought battleship and the Nassau-class battleship, should be able to reach the level of a Dreadnought, right?

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