Chapter 183

On December 25, 1863, the last monarch of the Oldenburg branch of Denmark, Frederick VII, passed away at the Danish Royal Palace. Can't survive 1863.

And as his father-in-law Christian IX succeeded the king of Denmark, the Schleswig and Holstein dispute between Denmark and Prussia became the first battle of Bismarck's planned Prussian attack on the German Empire. Ring, William IV has some headaches for this.

Fortunately, there are still a few months left, and now because of the relationship between the Netherlands and Denmark, I would have scruples to come to Bismarck.

January 2, 1864.

Dutch Prime Minister Tolbeck held a press conference, expressing his sadness about the riots around Lake Victoria and his heartfelt feelings for the Tutsi.

To this end, he chose to say that in order to prevent such a tragic incident from happening again and to check and balance the escalation of hatred between the two ethnic groups, the Netherlands said that the three places will be re-planned, Burundi will become the gathering place of the Tutsi, and Rwanda will be the Hu Tu family gathering place.

As for Uganda, the Netherlands will mobilize 1 million people from the indigenous peoples of the East Indies to come to Uganda and become a new nation apart from the two.

However, the three places are combined to form a new province. The name is called Ulub Province. The Governor's Palace is located in Kampala, a port city along Lake Victoria in Uganda.

Many people have a lot of speculation about the significance of this move by the Netherlands.

But what is clear to everyone is that at this time, Lake Victoria has been re-divided with the three places, and the Netherlands has been completely ruled. At the same time, the three places have become a province, but they have been checked and balanced against each other. Between the West and Hutu, because of this incident, there is no real possibility of reconciliation between the two, which will be a handle for the Netherlands to make the two obedient. The addition of the natives of the Dutch East Indies was the Dutch plan to kill two birds with one stone.

One is to reduce the population ratio between East Indian Dutch and local indigenous people. If one million people migrate here, the proportion of East Indian Dutch will quickly reach 30%.

Second, with the arrival of East Indian indigenous people in Uganda, the ecological balance of the ethnic groups here will be broken, and countries will have doubts that East India will love Yunowei even more. In the name of the checks and balances on the surrounding ethnic groups, it is more dependent on the Netherlands.

After these two moves, the Netherlands has firmly grasped the fault zone between the borders of Tanzania in East Africa, Kenya and Congo in West Africa, and completely stabilized the rule of this Dutch colony.

It also threatened the surrounding races.

With the first batch of 10,000 people in the Dutch East Indies native to the Netherlands on January 20, they reached Kampala directly through the repaired road in Kenya, and the pace has been even faster since then.

By the way, with the increase of immigration in the Netherlands for a few years, the Dutch government has restored an old super industry in the country, that is, the transportation industry of the sea coachman.

The Netherlands currently transports more than 1,000 transport ships of various sizes to and from the Far East, forming a transportation industry in which people and goods are separated. Amsterdam has thus become the largest seaport in Europe after London.

Although the size of Jakarta, the largest seaport in the Far East, the Dutch East India, is much smaller, it currently ranks first in the Far East. There are dozens of ships entering and leaving here every day. The number of immigrants has increased, and there are hundreds of them.

The native transport ships immigrated the native Dutch to the islands of Australia and New Guinea, and then along with the transport ships to the East Indies, loaded the natives across the Indian Ocean to Kenya and Tanzania.

Afterwards, it will go north to the Suez Canal and return to the mainland via the Mediterranean Sea, or go south to the Cape of Good Hope and return to the mainland from the Atlantic Ocean to the north.

These two routes are vital to the Netherlands.

On January 5, 1864, when William IV brought his wife, Queen Alexandra of the Netherlands to the Royal Palace of Denmark for the enthronement ceremony of Christian IX, a piece of news made the whole audience look weird. look at him.

Because on this day, the African side brought a piece of bad news for the Netherlands.

The Angola garrison, a Portuguese colony in Africa, even attacked the Congo and the estuary port of Banana, and then went north to occupy Cabinda, the largest port city of the Netherlands in the South Atlantic.

When the news came back, Portugal was attacking the Atlantic port city of Pointe Noire in North Congo.

William IV's face was very gloomy when he heard the news.

He also expressed his dissatisfaction directly to Portuguese Prime Minister Barreto, who came to the ceremony on behalf of King Louis I of Portugal, and demanded that Grape immediately withdraw from all the territory of the Congo and make compensation for the 3,000 Dutch casualties who lost their lives in the re-invasion. The Netherlands reserves the right to counterattack.

Heisbet Von, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Cabinet Government of the Netherlands, held a press conference for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Amsterdam.

"We have expressed great concern for Portugal's sneak attack. For this reason, we have sent a letter of protest to Lisbon. We do not understand what the purpose of the Portuguese government is, but the Kingdom of the Netherlands has responded to all attacks. Prepare"

When asked if the Netherlands was about to fight back,

Hesbet Feng said firmly: "Also in the face of the unexpected attack on the Kingdom of the Netherlands, we will use all means to safeguard all our interests, including the safety of life and property. To the attackers, we will not Bringing it to justice will not quell the anger of the Dutch people."

When asked what exactly the Netherlands is going to do.

Hesbet Feng said, "Let's wait and see."

When the press conference of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs ended, European countries came out even more.

Among them, Denmark is the most dissatisfied. After all, when King Christian IX first ascended the throne, Portugal came out. Obviously, it is to give William IV a blow, but don't forget, this William IV is Son-in-law of the new king.

"We call on Portugal to withdraw from the Dutch Congo as soon as possible, and at the same time call on the two countries to sit down and negotiate well and resolve disputes peacefully"

The Russian Empire also stood up and endorsed the Netherlands.

Asking Portugal not to provoke the Netherlands is a dangerous move.

Although the United Kingdom wanted to watch a good show, it still pretended to express its concern and asked the two countries to start direct dialogue to reduce tensions.

However, as the country involved, Portugal, it expressed that Portugal is positioned as a recovery for this action.

"Both sides of the Congo River, as early as the 16th century, have been the place where our Portuguese overseas development has been made. Although Portugal has been neglected in these years, this is something that all European countries know, but the Netherlands has taken advantage of Portugal's unpreparedness. , secretly landed last year and claimed that the area became a Dutch colony. This is a very ridiculous thing for Portugal, and we do not recognize the Dutch dominance in the Congo."

With the statement of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the outright denial that Congo is the territory of the Netherlands, the conflict between the Netherlands and Portugal will be more violent, which is what everyone is guessing.

Many people disagree with the historical facts mentioned by Portugal. If they say this, then almost all European countries have no qualifications to form countries, because the Netherlands was once ruled by Spain, and France was not spared. Even the coastal areas of Prussia are still Sweden, etc., the Principality of Finland in Tsarist Russia is also Swedish.

According to Portugal, these places can be overturned.

However, Portugal's statement was supported by the Kingdom of Italy and the Brazilian Empire, and even Austria made no objection.

This made European countries obviously realize that the selfishness of European countries has formed a situation of forming gangs.

And Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, and even Tsarist Russia all sided with the Netherlands.

France and Spain are neutral.

The UK looks like a good show.

The Netherlands is naturally unwilling to be bullied and not fighting back.

January 17, 1864.

The Dutch Ministry of Defense announced that it will send 30,000 troops on the mainland and send a fleet south to support Congo.

But less than 8 hours after the Dutch Ministry of Defense announced the news, the Portuguese Ministry of Defense also announced that it would deal with the Netherlands, and Portugal also sent 20,000 troops to land in Cabinda.

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At the same time a fleet will be sent to fight the Dutch fleet there.

What shocked European countries even more was that the Brazilian Empire, Pedro II, announced that Brazil would send 10,000 soldiers to Luanda, Angola, to support Portugal's actions.

Brazil actually followed Portugal and declared war on the Netherlands in disguise?

This is something that European countries have never imagined. South America has always been a colony of European countries, and now with Brazil's actions, it makes people feel it. This original colony actually rebelled to the point of engulfing Europe.

However, the Netherlands is not frightened by this.

On January 20, 1864, the Dutch Ministry of Defense announced that, in view of Brazil's unfriendly behavior, the Netherlands would deploy an additional 3,000 troops in Dutch Guiana.

And sell 50,000 Dutch firearms and 500 cannons to Argentina, which is friendly with the Netherlands.

On 23, 1864, the Dutch Ministry of Defense agreed to Venezuela's request to sell 20,000 Dutch firearms and 100 cannons to Venezuela.

Although the United States, which has always demanded the major European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Americas with the Monroe Doctrine, this time both the Confederate States of the United States in the south and the United States of America in the north chose to remain silent.

Because it was Brazil's provocation this time, the United States could not make an overreaction to the Netherlands. On the contrary, both the North and the South did not want to confront the Netherlands, especially the North. The Dutch in the United States even began to ask the United States of the United States to send Brazil to Brazil. Pressure on Brazil to withdraw from Portugal's provocative actions.