Chapter 169 Suppression

The primary objective of the United States in joining the armistice negotiations was to safeguard its core interests, and to achieve this goal, it first had to compel other nations to acknowledge its status as a major power.

Simply put, only by becoming a world power could the vital interests of the United States be secured.

This was a war among the great powers; therefore, once the conflict concluded, it was the great powers that would dictate the distribution of spoils, granting a voice solely to the strong.

Weak and small nations not only lacked a voice but were destined to be at the mercy of others.

For instance, following France's declaration of surrender, Luxembourg and Belgium became the ultimate victims. Under the ceasefire agreement reached between Germany and France, not only was Luxembourg to be annexed into the German Second Empire as a free state, but Belgium was also relegated to the status of a third-tier nation under imperial protection. As another example, following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Austria had already become a free state under the German Second Empire in the capacity of a member of the German Federation.

The problem, however, was that the United States was a member of the Allied Powers and, by extension, belonged to the defeated side.

Precisely for this reason, ever since the negotiations commenced, the United States consistently maintained that it was not a defeated nation. Instead, it claimed to have entered into armistice negotiations with the Axis powers solely for the sake of global peace. Consequently, the United States argued that its standing in the negotiations was superior to that of Britain and France, and that it should be placed on an equal footing with the German Second Empire.

Obviously, this demand was grossly excessive.

During the initial two months, the United States and the German Second Empire remained deadlocked. The German Second Empire steadfastly maintained that the United States belonged to the vanquished camp, deserving at best a status slightly higher than that of Britain and France, and that it was out of the question to stand on equal terms with the Empire—let alone secure benefits at the negotiating table that it had failed to win on the battlefield.

However, the party that first began to buckle under the strain was not the United States, but the German Second Empire.

Although Britain and France had surrendered, and German troops occupied the entirety of France, Britain's overseas territories and even the British homeland itself remained outside German control. This gave rise to a severe consequence: following the armistice, the restoration of domestic order within the Empire proceeded at an agonizingly slow pace.

This, in turn, sparked grave discontent among the imperial populace.

It must be remembered that the Empire was the victor, the triumphant champion of this grand war. Yet, after defeating Britain and France, the living conditions of the imperial citizens had failed to improve, meaning they had reaped no visible benefits. To mention nothing else, by the end of June, the Empire's grain supply had yet to return to normal.

Britain and France faced parallel problems.

Britain required little elaboration; under the Empire's blockade, it could only secure food through strict rationing, leaving the vast majority of Britons living on the verge of starvation.

France's plight was somewhat more severe.

Although France was the largest grain producer in Western Europe, following its surrender, forty percent of its grain had to be shipped to the German Second Empire, leaving the remainder insufficient to feed all French citizens. Curiously, prior to its defeat, France had never implemented a strict food rationing system; paradoxically, it was only after its defeat—in order to use grain to pay for war reparations—that a comprehensive rationing system was put into place.

One might say the entire European continent was plunged into a state of hunger.

Conversely, the United States suffered from no such predicament. Throughout the Great War, the United States had remained a resource exporter and the largest supplier of grain. Although the defeat of Britain and France inflicted certain shocks upon the American economy—such as causing many farmers to scale back their cultivation acreage in 1917—the United States faced no shortages of food supply, and the lives of the overwhelming majority of Americans remained unaffected.

To drag the negotiations out would clearly disadvantage the German Second Empire.

By early August, the German Second Empire finally made concessions, acknowledging that the United States was not a defeated nation, though it still refused to grant the United States the treatment of a victorious power at the negotiating table.

Fortunately, the United States was equally anxious to reap its war dividends.

As previously mentioned, due to the defeat of Britain and France, American grain prices had plummeted catastrophically. Nearly half of the American farmers, having taken out loans to expand their cultivation acreage over the preceding two years, now faced the imminent threat of bankruptcy. As for major American financial institutions, they were likewise plunging into severe difficulties on account of the economic recession.

One might say that Europe's post-war reconstruction would serve as the primary engine for America's economic recovery.

This necessitated rapid progress at the negotiating table and the prompt lifting of the state of war, thereby compelling the United States to make concessions of its own during the talks.

On August 8, the United States and the German Second Empire reached a preliminary agreement. Once the Empire recognized that the United States was not a defeated nation and granted it a status far superior to that of Britain and France, the United States in turn promised to cease pursuing parity with the German Second Empire, asking only to participate in the negotiations as a principal member of the Allied bloc.

Only then were the major obstacles threatening the negotiations finally removed.

Yet, this did not mean that other problems had ceased to exist.

As the German Second Empire and the United States engaged in consultations, the party finding itself in the most awkward predicament was not Britain and France, but rather Japan—a nation that had signed an alliance treaty with Britain yet remained perpetually vacillating.

In truth, by this point in time, Japan was not even a belligerent nation.

Although Japan had severed its alliance with Britain at the beginning of June and promptly declared war on Britain, the British had already surrendered to the German Second Empire prior to that juncture. As a result, when Japan requested to join the Axis bloc, its bid was rejected by the German Second Empire.

As a non-member state of the bloc, Japan naturally lacked the qualifications to join the negotiations.

Clearly, this infuriated the Japanese authorities.

At the end of July, Japan dispatched its fleet to the Bohai Gulf, ostensibly to deal with the remnants of British and French forces in China, but in reality to bolster the Northeast warlord Zhang Zuolin—hoping to enable Zhang to force his way through the Shanhaiguan Pass, drive Wu Tiesheng's troops out of Beijing, and prop up a pro-Japanese central regime.

This move immediately provoked a tremendous international uproar.

On August 1, the Kaiser issued an imperial decree ordering the High Seas Fleet to enter a combat-ready state, while tasking Feng Chengqian with reorganizing a Far Eastern Fleet based upon the High Seas Fleet.

Immediately thereafter, the Kaiser instructed Ludendorff to assemble a Far Eastern Army Corps.

Evidently, the Kaiser was profoundly incensed by Japan's reckless actions, prompting him to project the posture of deploying military forces to the Far East.

On August 5, the very day the Far Eastern Fleet was established, the Japanese authorities finally realized that clashing with the German Second Empire at this juncture was tantamount to suicide.

It must be understood that the Imperial Navy possessed over twenty capital ships, whereas the Japanese Navy possessed fewer than ten.

More importantly, the Shandong Peninsula had remained firmly under imperial control, and the first batch of weaponry dispatched by the Empire had already arrived, leaving Wu Tiesheng with sufficient military strength to contend with Zhang Zuolin. Even more fatally, at this critical juncture, Zhang Zuolin had no intention of marching through the pass to fight a decisive battle against Wu Tiesheng; instead, he entered into secret negotiations with him.

Finding themselves caught in a dilemma where they could neither advance nor dismount, the Japanese authorities immediately reversed course.

On August 7, the Japanese Prime Minister sent a diplomatic note to the Imperial Chancellor, declaring that Japan harbored no ambitions whatsoever in the Far East and fully respected all of the Empire's interests in the region.

On that very day, the Japanese fleet departed the Bohai Gulf.

Regrettably, the actions of the Japanese authorities were still a step too slow.

Just four hours before the diplomatic note arrived, the Far Eastern Fleet—consisting of two *Bayern*-class battleships, three *Derfflinger*-class battlecruisers, and twelve light cruisers—departed Wilhelmshaven under the command of Admiral Spee, embarking on its voyage to Qingdao.

Accompanying them was a convoy transporting the second batch of auxiliary weaponry.

On August 8, the Empire's Far Eastern Army Corps, comprising four German divisions, also set out. However, this force did not embark by ship directly from Wilhelmshaven to the Far East; instead, it traveled by rail to the Persian Gulf region and then boarded transport vessels. By doing so, it would be able to rendezvous with the Imperial Far Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean.

Toward the United States, the Empire could exercise forbearance.

Yet toward Japan, which had cast covetous eyes upon the Shandong Peninsula during the Great War, the Empire neither needed nor had any reason to show restraint.

Precisely for this reason, the Empire consistently adopted a high-pressure policy regarding the Japanese question.

Naturally, this was also connected to Feng Chengqian.

The Kaiser was well aware that Feng Chengqian would inevitably return to his homeland; therefore, in the Kaiser's estimation, the China of the future would serve as a natural ally to the German Second Empire. After occupying the Korean Peninsula, Japan had extended its reach into China's northeastern region, harboring grand ambitions against China itself.

Under such circumstances, the Kaiser had no reason whatsoever to be polite to Japan. Simply put, the tougher the Empire's stance on Japan, the firmer the foundation for a future alliance with China would be. Although present-day China was not only impoverished and backward, but also fractured and torn apart by rival warlords, who could guarantee that twenty or thirty years down the line, China would not rise to become a powerful nation? Let us not forget that just a few decades prior, Japan—likewise poor and weak—had transformed itself through the Meiji Restoration into the most powerful nation in the Far East.

Clearly, the Kaiser had no need to offend Feng Chengqian on account of Japan.

To win over Feng Chengqian, the Kaiser felt all the more compelled to deliberately suppress Japan.

Fortunately, Japan had not yet amounted to a formidable force.

With Japan suppressed and the United States won over, the armistice negotiations officially commenced.

In reality, the negotiations did not proceed with great difficulty, as the precedent with France had already been set.

Following France's defeat, the Empire did not impose excessive unequal clauses upon it; instead, motivated by the domestic security of the Empire, it merely resolved certain historically lingering issues and placed restrictions on the size and equipment systems of the French military, particularly the French Army. For instance, France was permitted to retain a standing army of only two hundred thousand men, was forbidden from possessing heavy artillery and other heavy weaponry, and was restricted to a maximum of twenty thousand heavy machine guns. In other respects, the Empire exerted virtually no deliberate oppression upon France. For example, the Empire did not compel France to pay war reparations, requiring only that forty percent of its domestic grain production prior to the war's end be used to offset the expenses incurred by the imperial troops occupying France.

On September 9, the armistice negotiations concluded.

In dealing with Britain, the Empire adopted a similar stance: restricting only British military armaments and compelling Britain to open up a portion of its colonies, while refraining from forcing Britain to pay war reparations.

Since the United States was not a defeated nation, the question of paying war reparations did not arise at all.

Naturally, this arrangement left Britain with the capacity to service the foreign debts it had incurred during the war.

Evidently, this also aligned with the economic interests and demands of the United States.

The problem, however, was that this was by no means the most crucial point.

The true focal point lay precisely in the restriction of armaments, with the crux of the matter being the limitation of naval armaments. In a sense, this grand war had been touched off by the Anglo-German naval arms race. Although everyone was well aware that the war had not truly ended—since the United States and Germany had yet to settle their rivalry—at the negotiating table, both sides emphasized the importance of curbing the arms race and safeguarding world peace, thereby touching upon the most vital issue of all.

How should the naval arms race be restricted?