Chapter 259: Chapter 8, Suez Canal
Plans can never keep up with changes, and the Vienna Government’s main objective was to create conflict, to use military threat to coerce the Egyptian Government into signing a treaty.

After all, the Sinai Peninsula was not of significant importance; its sole purpose was to act as a buffer between the Vienna Government and the Ottoman Empire, with the local native tribes simultaneously acknowledging the leadership of both governments.

As a result, conflict was indeed created, but the approach was overly aggressive, and the locals ended up being occupied. The Egyptians did not take any extreme actions but simply protested.

If he could have it his way, Franz would have preferred the Egyptians to carelessly attack, because that would have made the subsequent steps much easier, since fighting Egypt alone put no pressure on him.

Clearly, the Egyptian Government was not foolish enough to rush in recklessly; instead, they sent envoys to make their case. At this point, military threats were no longer appropriate.

Franz always paid attention to appearances, creating an excuse for a confrontation already represented a new low for him, and his conscience was very troubled.

Now that they had occupied what was considered a city by the locals, it would be too much to further trouble them.

As for the causes and consequences of the incident, the Egyptian Government did not care. Regardless of who was at fault, all the involved parties were dead, and with them the debts. Now, it was just a matter of the Austrians withdrawing without demanding any compensation.

Franz asked with a headache, “What do you think we should do about this issue?”

He admitted he wasn’t ruthless enough, thus he was unable to act so dominantly. If possible, he much preferred to resolve issues peacefully.

Regrettably, Austria’s influence in Egypt was not strong enough to compete with that of England and France, hence they were forced into this desperate measure, seeking a breakthrough in the Sinai Peninsula.

Metternich answered calmly, “Your Majesty, the Sinai Peninsula itself is not of great value. Our occupation is primarily to seize the initiative so we can be involved when the Suez Canal starts getting excavated.

Since the Egyptian Government wants to negotiate, let’s just negotiate with them. Worst case, we’ll spend money to buy these areas, which are essentially worthless sand anyway.

Currently, England and France are unaware of our intentions. Even if they intervene, it’s only because they’re worried we’ll continue expanding our influence into Egypt, affecting their interests.

We simply assure them we have no further ambitions to expand into Egypt. As for the Sinai Peninsula issue, even major powers need to maintain face!”

Although the approach was somewhat excessive, it was indeed very typical of the great powers. Right or wrong, when it came to overseas colonization, everyone acted dominantly.

The Vienna Government was willing to symbolically spend some money, which would give the Egyptian Government a way to save face. If the Egyptian Government doesn’t agree, then we’ll just stay put and see what they can do about it.

Will they fight a war with Austria over a worthless desert in the Sinai Peninsula? It’s doubtful that the Egyptian Government has the audacity; if they lose and forfeit their wealth, they’ll just be waiting to be carved up!

Don’t be fooled by the Egyptian Government’s preparations for modernization, which seem to suggest the notion of a wealthy and powerful nation. In reality, after losing the last war to the Ottoman Empire, they became aware of their actual strength.

Prime Minister Felix reminded, “The French have already obtained the rights to excavate the Suez Canal. Could this be an obstacle?”

Metternich explained, “Don’t worry. Our intention to strike at the Sinai Peninsula is not to occupy the whole area but simply to gain a foothold.

The Suez Canal has not yet started construction, and whether it will be navigable in the future is still unknown; we are just making early preparations.”

“As far as I know, the British were strongly opposed to the digging of the Suez Canal. They have a superior geographical location, being able to enter the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope, without the need for this grand canal.”

In this era, the British attitude towards the Suez Canal was indeed indifferent, and many believed that the opening of the canal would weaken their maritime trade advantage.

After all, in terms of distance, the opening of the Suez Canal benefited Mediterranean countries the most. For countries like France, Austria, and Spain, the journey to the Indian Ocean became much shorter.

The countries who originally had the shortest routes, suddenly found themselves farther away than their competitors. This undoubtedly meant that British goods would incur higher maritime shipping costs than those of their competitors, diminishing their market competitiveness.

Whether it’s needless worry or not, such a sense of crisis is never wrong. It is precisely this sense of crisis that has brought the Great Britain Empire to where it is today.

It wasn’t just the British who were skeptical about whether the Suez Canal could be navigated; within the Austrian Government, many also expressed their doubts.

No such long canal had ever been seen on the European Continent before; the total length of 190 kilometers exceeded everyone’s mental endurance.

Franz didn’t have a way to convince everyone that the Suez Canal would definitely be navigable, and even if it was, its cargo capacity would also be a test.

If only small boats could pass through, then it would be a failure all the same. For strategic reasons, Austria required the Suez Canal to at least accommodate vessels of over forty thousand tons.

Otherwise, in the Era of Dreadnoughts, the canal would be rendered useless. If at that time they wanted to continue to expand the canal, the British would surely obstruct the construction, forcing Austrian warships to navigate through the Strait of Gibraltar, thereby creating a strategic advantage.

Franz confidently stated, “You needn’t worry about the navigation issue. Historical records tell us that in the 7th century A.D., there was a grand empire in the East, the Sui Dynasty, that dug a North-South Grand Canal over 2700 kilometers long.

Even with geographical changes over time and after the re-routing, the new Grand Canal from Beijing to Hangzhou is 1797 kilometers long, and nowadays it can still normally accommodate vessels of five hundred tons.

If the people of the past were able to dig such a long canal without any machinery and purely by manpower, would our current technology not be able to build a canal less than 200 kilometers long?

Geographically speaking, the construction difficulty of the Suez Canal is far less than that of the North-South Grand Canal. What’s there to worry about?”

Prime Minister Felix exclaimed in surprise, “Your Majesty, are you certain there is such a long canal in the East?”

Franz replied with certainty, “Of course, do you think I would lie about this? The Grand Canal from Beijing to Hangzhou is still in operation, even within that decadent Manchu Qing Dynasty. You can go check the records for yourself.”

Prime Minister Felix quickly clarified, “No, I didn’t mean to doubt you.

It just seems incredible that over twelve hundred years ago, someone dug a canal over 2700 kilometers. If that’s true, it must be the greatest engineering feat in human history. That grand empire must have been incredibly powerful to complete such a colossal project.”

Franz smiled without responding. He couldn’t very well explain that because of the construction of that grand canal, which excessively exhausted the populace, the empire collapsed after only two generations, now could he?

Then wouldn’t everyone be…

Oh, there’s absolutely no need to worry. To dig the Suez Canal, it’s not necessary to conscript labor from within Austria; we just need to make sure the funds are prepared.”

It’s even possible to just provide food directly, since, aside from the technical and management staff who need to be paid salaries, the ordinary laborers can be managed just with meals.

The biggest expense—the cost of labor—was thus saved. Historically, the Suez Canal had cost 18.6 million pounds, more than double the budgeted cost.

This was mainly because the British had instigated a rebellion among the slave laborers and created public opinion pressure to condemn the practice, forcing the French to later pay wages to hire people, which caused a significant increase in construction costs.

As the price of the canal’s navigation, one hundred and twenty thousand workers were buried there.

This issue wasn’t within the consideration of the Austrian Government. Franz decisively turned a blind eye; in this era, every major project was built on human lives.

Austria’s great rail network is an example, in a short five to six years’ time, Austria’s domestic rail network jumped to the first in Europe, behind which tens of thousands of laborers also fell.

It could be said that the faster the construction speed of that era, the greater the loss of human life; efficiency was achieved at the price of lives.

London

Upon receiving news of Austria’s move on the Sinai Peninsula, the first reaction of the British Cabinet was: the Austrians want to invade Egypt, this must be stopped.

Prime Minister Granville asked in confusion, “Can someone tell me what Austrians are up to? Has the Vienna Government gone mad, wanting to go to the Sinai Peninsula to eat sand?”

On the surface, the Sinai Peninsula has no colonial value. The wealthiest parts of Egypt are in the Nile River Valley, hundreds of kilometers away from the Sinai Peninsula, with desert in between, making it unworthy even as a stepping stone.

Foreign Minister John Russell said with a smile, “It is said that this was done by an Austrian civilian colonial army, who initially wanted to cause trouble in the Egypt Area but found their own strength insufficient.”

“To recoup their colonial costs, they robbed a tribe on the Sinai Peninsula and occupied an abandoned city.”

Colonial Minister Wilhelm mocked, “This amateur colonial army must be brainless, and perhaps the spoils they’ve acquired aren’t even sufficient to cover the compensation for their personnel losses.

On the Sinai Peninsula, we’ve already sent people to scout, and the nomadic tribes there have nothing but camels and sheep.

These camels and sheep are not worth anything. Unless they could be taken back to sell in their home country, only their hides could be sold locally.”

“The locals are so poor they can barely survive, and the Egyptian Government has been too lazy to send people to collect taxes; yet, there are still people robbing them.”

The group burst into laughter; such incidents weren’t uncommon in the colonial efforts, with many amateur civilian colonial armies often making such mistakes.

Sheep and camels indeed are assets and can be very valuable in certain places; however, unfortunately, on the Sinai Peninsula, they are worthless because there are no buyers for such things.

At most, they might kill the animals and take their skins to sell to a furrier. The cost of transporting these animals to sell them would probably not even cover the shipping costs.

After having their laugh, Granville said, “Then let the Foreign Office keep an eye on the Vienna Government for now, and see what their next move is. We’ll decide on our course of action based on that.”

“After all, the ones with the most at stake in the Egypt Area are the French. Now that there’s an additional competitor, let them worry about it first!”

Throughout, Granville hadn’t taken the matter seriously. Overseas colonization was just a game, a game of plundering wealth, utterly unlike the situation on the European Continent.

As long as India wasn’t threatened, the London Government wouldn’t react hastily. Otherwise, just the news of colonial conflicts would be enough to drive them mad on a daily basis.

This was no joke, since entering the 19th century, on average, the London Government encountered over a hundred colonial conflicts every year.

Most of these minor conflicts were settled by the colonial officials themselves; only the escalated conflicts required their direct intervention.

If they didn’t learn to exercise restraint and resort to military force at every turn, they wouldn’t need three months to get into a fight with every colonial empire in Europe.

They paid attention to the Sinai Peninsula issue mainly out of concern that Austria might invade Egypt. Once it was confirmed to be the action of civilian forces, their interest naturally waned.

To be precise, consider the British civilian colonial teams; more impressive ones like the East India Company wiped out several countries overseas without the London Government necessarily even knowing about it.

Lesser individual organizations of colonial forces, today they might rob one area, tomorrow another, and the day after, they incur the wrath of a powerful enemy and get wiped out by them…

Such occurrences were too many to count; as long as there was profit to be made, the British Government would show up and support them. If there was no benefit, even if they were wiped out, the London Government would be too lazy to care, nor could they manage to.

Paris

Napoleon III confidently said, “The Austrians have extended their reach deep into Egypt, should we immediately cut them off?”

France’s power in the Egypt Area was not small; they just needed to incite the Egyptian Government to expel the Austrian invaders.

Of course, it’s likely that the Egyptian Government wouldn’t listen to them now. After all, they were badly scammed by the French in the last war with the Ottomans.

What was promised as assistance turned into capitulation under pressure from European countries, with the Paris Government decidedly caving in. Without their promised military equipment and aid, the Egyptian Government was quickly subdued by the Ottoman Empire.

Foreign Minister Auvergne advised, “Your Majesty, let’s negotiate first! We can mediate this conflict, and if we still can’t agree in the end, then we can take extreme measures.”

He didn’t share the confidence of Napoleon III that a simple incitement for the Egyptian Government to charge forward would resolve the issue.

If the situation got out of hand and the Vienna Government refused to concede, and they ended up beating up the Egyptian Government, would they or would they not intervene?

The French Government, having recently suffered heavy losses in a war with Russia, certainly didn’t want to fight another war with Austria. Nobody wanted to engage in such a losing proposition.

Napoleon III was only talking tough; he hadn’t really intended to take a risk. Now he was “wearing shoes,” no longer in the daring period of his youth when he was willing to gamble on everything.

The harsh reality of the Near East War had informed him that the current France was no longer the France that could dominate the European Continent.

Napoleon III nodded and said, “Then let the Foreign Office step in to mediate this conflict. As long as our interests are not harmed, that’s fine!”