The Sun Never Sets In Spain

Chapter 171: Genoa neutral country

On the second day of the meeting, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not want to continue to struggle with the Genoa issue, and chose to back down:

Genoa is independent as a neutral country, and other countries are not allowed to deploy troops and warships on it, nor can the French and Austrian parties launch attacks on the other through Genoa.

This plan can be regarded as one of the most pertinent solutions. Whether Genoa falls to Austria-Hungary or France, it will pose a deep threat to the other side.

And now, unlike in the past, nearly half of Italy belongs to the Austro-Hungarian sphere of influence, so they cannot be cautious.

Duke Grammon immediately agreed that France had no idea other than self-protection at this time, otherwise it would not refuse to expand to Sardinia before.

He is content to be able to guarantee Genoa's neutrality.

Fao and Austria reached an agreement, but the Genoa matter is not over yet.

This agreement is only valid for France and Austria. It does not mean that Genoa has become a permanent neutral country like Switzerland. This requires a new meeting to discuss, at least to draw on countries such as Britain and Russia.

And also need to seek the opinions of Genoese natives.

But this is a formality, and it is unlikely that there will be opponents.

Seeing that the discussion between the two sides was over, Alfonso was a little disappointed. Yesterday, Fao refused to give in to each other. He originally expected Spain to pick up a leak.

After all, Spain and Genoa do not border and pose no threat to France and Austria.

He had mentioned it to Emperor Franz while watching the horse racing.

But the two countries obviously did not want Spain to continue to expand, and reached an agreement quickly, without giving Alfonso a chance to intervene.

At this time, the Kingdom of Sardinia only had a land area of ​​27,000 square kilometers and a population of about 4 million.

Judging from various data, the current kingdom of Sardinia and Belgium are about the same strength, a little weaker, but not much weaker.

In fact, Habsburg is not very satisfied with this result.

In Habsburg's vision, Italy should be completely disbanded, with as many states as possible and hostile to each other.

Such an Italy will no longer be unified, and will no longer be a threat to them.

But after being severely weakened, the Kingdom of Sardinia still possesses overwhelming strength in the face of other small states in Italy.

This is really disturbing.

But the Kingdom of Sardinia was incapable of being dismantled at this time. If you forcibly draw a line on the map, such an artificial division would be difficult to maintain for a long time.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire had to give up.

The last thing to be solved is the Naples problem.

Naples in a broad sense has become one, and the royalist and the Republicans are fighting each other.

The guardian of the king is naturally Alfonso's cousin, the two former kings of Sicily.

Cousin Francesco II's strength mainly came from the support of the former two Sicilian nobles and the Bourbon family.

Just relying on fundraising alone, Francesco has raised nearly 700,000 pounds, which is a rare sight of Bourbon unity.

Among them, 300,000 came from Alfonso's side. Of course, it was not mainly donated by him. He only gave 30,000 meaning, and the main funder was Isabella.

No way, who let her eldest daughter marry the two Sicilian royal families.

When the daughter and son-in-law came to "cry out" and asked to save her father-in-law, Queen Isabella had to postpone her plan to build a holiday villa on the banks of the Henares River and hand over most of the cash in hand. To the other side.

Alfonso does not support her mother's behavior, but Isabella herself is a rich woman, and now she has gradually reduced the number of times she takes money from the royal family, and she can't control Alfonso with her own money.

In short, the conservative forces in Southern Italy are quite deep-rooted, not to mention that Francesco II is still compromising with various liberals and discussing the possibility of a constitutional monarchy in Naples.

From this point of view, he has the greatest possibility of unifying Naples.

Opposite him, the Republicans are spontaneous organizations of the people, which are much weaker than Francesco in terms of funds and strength, but they win in favor of others, and the combat effectiveness of freedom fighters is stronger than that of mercenaries.

The final outcome is hard to say.

Regarding this kind of chaos, Habsburg said that he would “wait for the situation to become clear, and then deal with it”, which is regarded as retaining his right to interfere in Naples.

But now most of the sites in Naples only have hungry people waiting to be fed. There is no industry, no money, and no food.

If you manage it, you must pay a lot first, and Habsburg is not here to help the poor.

So the only thing to be discussed at this meeting was the Abruzzo region, which was once the northernmost part of the two kingdoms of Sicily.

It can be regarded as a territory between Southern Italy and Zhongyi, it is located in a corner, and it has not been affected by too much war.

Regarding how to deal with this small site, Emperor Franz didn't have much to say. Austria had already eaten the big head and just brought some soup to the rest of the people to drink.

Everyone knows the emperor's attitude, so as soon as Boist raised this issue, the small states of Austria-Hungary began to speak, hoping to incorporate it into their own kingdom, or at least get some benefits from it.

One of the most active representatives of the non-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom is none other than the representative.

The Kingdom of Croatia is part of the crown of St. Stephen of Hungary, that is to say, at least in the system of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it belongs to Hungary.

It is easy to understand that the Croatian representative is so active, because the two sides are indeed very close to each other, which can be regarded as facing each other across the Adriatic Sea.

The closer is naturally, the Kingdom of Dalmatia is closer, but the kingdom lacks strength, it is good to manage yourself, and lack of interest in Abruzzo.

The components of the Austro-Hungarian Empire expand outside the framework of the empire, which has never happened before.

During the Austrian Empire, the newly laid territory would become a new administrative division.

If Croatia can do it, it will be the first time.

After the Croatian representative had finished speaking, everyone felt that Spain would stand up and express different opinions.

But Alfonso had his own consideration and didn't speak for a while. Not only that, he also stopped Andrew who wanted to speak.

"Why not? Abruzzo borders the Papal States on a large scale. As long as we get here, we will have an access to the Adriatic Sea.

Genoa did not hand it to us, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire should compensate for it. "

Andrew whispered to Alfonso.

For this reason, they, Spanish representatives, also prepared a whole set of plans and rhetoric, but Alfonso went to see the horse race and did not participate.

This was suddenly stopped, which inevitably made him feel puzzled.

"What are we going to do with the Adriatic Sea?" Alfonso said silently:

"Commercial ones can be stopped anywhere, and we don't need military ones. Are you going to have a naval battle in the Adriatic Sea and Austria-Hungary?

If you want to block Austria-Hungary, why not do it outside the Otranto Strait. "

"What's more," Alfonso shook his head: "The Papal State is not our puppet state. Although our two countries have no tariffs, the church's decision is not something Spain can intervene at will. What good is it for us to help it expand its territory."

"It's better to use this to demand economic benefits from Hungary. Hungary's tariffs are all autonomous, and the trade value of the entire Trans-Letania is not small."

Alfonso did not rush to say "we don't want it anymore" after explaining it. Instead, he applied for adjournment and asked Andrew to communicate with Croatian and Hungarian representatives in private.

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