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The Fox of France - Chapter 476
🕑 Added 2024-04-07 03:19:38 +0000 UTCChapter 476: Siege
Strictly speaking, against defenses riddled with bombproof shelters, barbed wire, and trenches, relying solely on cannons cannot fully solve the problem. Moreover, in an era without synthetic ammonia, both propellants and explosives derived from saltpeter or nitrate, whose production was quite limited. Even with the Panama Railway operational, allowing for the import of large quantities of saltpeter from Chile, the consumption of saltpeter was significant, and not mainly for military purposes, but for agriculture.
Indeed, the primary use of these nitrate mines was as fertilizer, to boost agricultural yields. Historically, in France, Napoleon's most steadfast and solid support came from the farmers in the French countryside. Interestingly, today, the enthusiasm of French farmers for political participation significantly exceeds that of urban residents.
During the era of the Great Revolution, urban residents in France were more actively involved in politics. However, during Napoleon's era, due to land grants to veterans and the organization of veterans' associations, the organization level of farmers increased. Today's veterans' associations have become a monopolistic syndicate in terms of economics—enterprises within the syndicate cannot independently sell products or purchase raw materials. They must be managed centrally by the head office, thus engaging in fierce competition for market share and raw material allocation. Although these syndicates maintain independence in production and legally, they lose independence in commerce.
The various raw material procurement and product outputs in France's countryside are almost exclusively conducted through veterans' associations. This has given the organization significant economic and political influence. With a single command from the association, the entire French countryside would stand in support of Napoleon.
Of course, support is never without cost. Every gift bestowed by fate comes with a price marked in the shadows. The reason the veterans' associations support Napoleon is not solely because many of its members are Napoleon's old subordinates—a factor, but not a decisive one. The most decisive factor is that Napoleon's policies represent and safeguard their interests.
Napoleon abolished agricultural taxes. Theoretically, while agricultural taxes still exist, a series of exemptions effectively nullified them. Moreover, Napoleon's methods of unifying electric irrigation and opening foreign markets have brought considerable profits. Thus, the countryside has always been supportive of Napoleon.
However, the situation in the cities is somewhat different. Urban population mobility is relatively high, and many people in the cities are so-called "honorary French" or "prospective French." As Mencius said, a person only has reliable political attitudes when they have reliable property. Therefore, urban support for Napoleon is weaker than in the countryside.
A political trick is never to betray your base. Often, the fluctuating part of the force seems particularly critical, making politicians prone to the illusion, or for so-called electoral interests, that the base will always stand by me, as if "I abuse the base a thousand times, and the base treats me as first love." Then, sacrificing the base to please the so-called "centrists" is utterly foolish and overly optimistic. Even "King of Understanding" knows not to do so.
However, historically, there have been many such fools. For example, the later "KM," who rolled all the way to the Isle of the Dead, still made such mistakes, always trying to be the "president of all the people." Then the centrists realized they could never become KM's base, lest they be baked by them; and the base also realized they were being treated as buns by KM. As a result, not only did the centrists not stay, but the base ran away, ending up in a languishing state as we see today.
Napoleon was no fool, and neither were Joseph or Lucien. So Napoleon often publicly stated, "No matter how poor, do not impoverish agriculture; no matter how tough, do not make farmers suffer."
And he did as he said. For example, the nitrates dragged back from South America by shiploads, most of which were turned into ammonium nitrate explosives—ah, wrong, ammonium nitrate fertilizer—spread by farmers into their wheat fields. Thus, French wheat yields are high, costs are low, and they are popular in the market, causing Ukraine, with Europe's most fertile chernozem, to face famine again. Of course, this is the affair of the free market and the Russian government, definitely not France's responsibility.
The main reason for the recurrence of famine in Ukraine is that some Russians are too eager for quick success. After the relationship between France and Britain tensed, the British, traditionally, sent diplomats to try to ally with Russia against France. However, the Russians believed that Russia and Britain alone were insufficient to confront France and its array of vassal states in Europe unless the British could bring Austria, Prussia, and Spain into the alliance. Otherwise, Russia would not join such an alliance.
The Russians did not ally with the British for the British to benefit from the fire,
but this does not mean the Russians had no other plans. If French actions against Britain triggered a frenzy to partition Britain, then Russia, being further away, seemed unlikely to share the spoils. However, if France and other European countries' attention was drawn to Britain, then taking the opportunity to bully Turkey in the south seemed a very good choice.
However, although the Turks were no longer as strong as before, defeating them still required a lot of effort. After all, a skinny camel is bigger than a horse, and this is a vast empire.
Moreover, in recent years, the Turks trained new armies and purchased various weapons, especially those retired by the French, many of which were picked up by the Turks.
So, the Russians had to strengthen their military and purchase weapons and materials. They even had additional expenditures, such as developing their industry, hence buying machinery; maintaining their purchased machinery, thus hiring French engineers; training their engineers, thus spending money to study in France; establishing their universities, and so on. All these activities required money, but where would the money come from? Russian industry had made no small progress in recent years, but compared to France, it was negligible. Consumer goods had no competitiveness, and even military goods, when considering the cost and comparing it to the price of French second-hand goods, were not worth manufacturing.
Since industry could not make money, it had to rely on agriculture, that is, exporting grain. However, the problem is that the international market is now full of French grain.
In recent years, a strange phenomenon has emerged in the international market: whatever the French buy, the price goes up; whatever the French sell, the price goes down. Now, with France also preparing for war, this has led to a consequence: prices related to war are rising. To purchase these crucial items, the Russians had to export more grain, fortunately, the weather was good this year, and Ukraine had a bumper harvest. However, unfortunately, the French also had a bumper harvest this year... and to gather enough money, the Ukrainians had to go hungry...
However, although the Ukrainians were starving, the Russians finally completed the corresponding preparations. So, after France declared war on Britain, the Russians immediately began military exercises on the border between Russia and Turkey. After one day of exercises, the Russians approached the Turks, stating, "We had a soldier missing during the exercise, and we suspect he was kidnapped by your people. So, we demand to search your military camp!"
Such unreasonable and shameless demands were, of course, unequivocally rejected by the Turks. Then, the Russians bombarded the Turkish military camp, and... the war between Russia and Turkey erupted again.
Regarding this, France hoped that both sides would restrain themselves and not disrupt the rare stability and unity in Europe. However, France was also busy fighting the British and had no time to intervene for the time being. Of course, being busy does not mean they can't do business, especially now when the prices of weapons and ammunition are high.
Thus, although the French "land battleships" were equipped with numerous cannons, the ammunition was quite limited; after all, Irishmen are cheaper than cannonballs.
However, a direct assault was still not the French preference; the first step must be to demoralize the British soldiers in the city.
Generally, it's not easy to maintain morale for an enemy army under siege. But it's different if they have an escape route.
So, to demoralize the city's defenders, the best approach is to threaten their escape route first.
The 280mm cannon had a 40-caliber length, used guncotton as propellant, and had an exaggerated maximum elevation of 45 degrees, giving it a very long range. From the predetermined artillery position, it was entirely possible to directly target Dublin's port. So, the French plan was to first target the port berths with a few cannon shots. Although just one cannon could not possibly blockade the port, as long as they could strike the port, it would greatly demoralize the defenders. If they happened to sink one or two ships, that would be even better.
So, early this morning, at dawn, the French artillery position became busy.
First, observing the weather, especially the wind direction. The weather was good today, the sky clear, cloudless, with only a slight breeze at ground level, possibly stronger higher up, but still good weather for releasing observation balloons.
A huge hot air balloon rose from the French position. Then the 280mm cannon's barrel slowly rose, pointing towards the sky.
"First shot, test fire!" commanded Colonel Hill, and a 280mm shell flew out of the long barrel. The shell traced a parabola, then fell towards the port.
The shell, with a roaring sound, passed over Dublin, then plunged into Dublin's port.
Concerned about accidentally hitting the city and causing Irish casualties, this shot was fired a bit far. To be honest, the French didn't really care about the
lives of the Irish. Otherwise, they wouldn't sell cannonballs to the Russians and Turks, making them scarce.
But not caring how many Irish were killed by the British is one thing; the French would avoid killing Irish themselves if possible.
The shell fell into the sea, about four or five hundred meters off the dock. The people on the balloon communicated the landing information back to the ground with flag signals. Meanwhile, the ground artillery had already lowered the barrel, preparing to reload the shell.
The 280mm cannon's loading was at a fixed angle, so after each shot, the barrel had to be cranked back to the fixed loading angle. This, of course, significantly slowed the loading speed. But Joseph and his team developed this cannon to make a statement, so to save money, they even used a retired mode, naturally resulting in a painfully low firing rate.
After a full ten minutes, the cannon fired a second shot towards Dublin's port area. This time, the shell landed directly in the port, between two moored cargo ships.
The shell exploded underwater, and the immense water pressure immediately tore open a large hole on both sides of the two not very sturdy merchant ships. Since there were no damage control personnel on the merchant ships to handle such situations, the two ships sank rapidly. One shell sinking two ships, although not very large ones, would definitely put great pressure on the defenders.
However, the subsequent bombardments were not so lucky. After that, the 280mm cannon fired ten more shells, but these failed to achieve such significant results, with only one shell hitting a pier, breaking it in two. The other shells essentially missed any important targets.
However, as the French expected, although the port was bombarded and the losses were not particularly large, it still had a significant psychological impact on the British soldiers. Many people, especially the wealthy who remained in Dublin, were very concerned about their safety. So, these people hurriedly left Dublin, returning to England. Governor Norfolk knew that once these people left, it would make the soldiers doubt whether Britain really intended to hold this place. This naturally caused their morale to drop significantly.
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