"Gentlemen, what should we do now?" Alfonso XIII looked at his ministers. His head was throbbing. He did not want to accept the Germans' harsh terms, yet he feared that rejecting them would ignite a war. If that happened, Spain would be finished.
"Your Majesty, there are only two paths before us. Either we accept the Germans' terms, cede Gibraltar and the Balearic Islands to them, and compensate them for losses of one billion Mark. Or we reject their terms, immediately mobilize, and prepare to fight the Germans until the fish dies and the net breaks. There is no other way!" Count Romanones said. The other ministers could play dumb, but he was the Prime Minister. He could not play dumb.
Alfonso XIII could not help frowning. Neither of those paths was one he wished to choose.
"If we mobilize, can we frighten the Germans?" Alfonso XIII asked. If Germany could abandon those harsh terms after seeing Spain's determination to fight at all costs, that would be a good thing for Spain. But Alfonso XIII knew that would likely be very difficult. The gap in strength between the two sides was simply too great.
"Your Majesty, even if we mobilize, we probably cannot frighten the Germans. With our strength, we can mobilize at most several hundred thousand troops in a short time. The Germans need only dispatch one hundred thousand men to defeat us. Therefore, fighting the Germans until the fish dies and the net breaks is almost entirely impossible," the Minister of War said.
His meaning was very clear. If they wanted to fight until the fish died and the net broke, the final result would most likely be that the fish died, while the net remained intact.
The Royal Hall fell utterly silent, as though even a needle