"Was it worth taking a gamble?"
It would have been a lie to say Napoleon III felt no stirrings in his heart. After all, if he truly desired nothing, he would never have become president in the first place.
Alexander Colonna Walewski shook his head.
"The risks of entering the war are too great. The British may hold the advantage for now, but the United States is simply too vast. If the Americans truly refuse to surrender, as they claim, then there is no telling how long this war will last.
"France cannot withstand such attrition, and the situation we face does not support such a course either."
Napoleon III had lost count of how many times he had heard words like these.
"But if we do nothing, the situation will not change either."
"But if we act, France may be finished. We are surrounded by enemies, and every one of them has their eyes on us.
"The moment we expose a weakness, they will pounce like hyenas that have caught the scent of blood."
Louis Napoleon could only close his eyes helplessly. In truth, most of France's neighboring enemies were beneath contempt; only the Austrian Empire, that great adversary, could not be ignored.
Before the Austrian Empire made its move, any action by the French Second Empire could become the spark of its destruction.
In fact, according to the estimates of Napoleon III and Walewski, the Austrian Empire was certain to act amid this great tide.
Heaven did not disappoint those with a purpose. The Austrian Empire had finally made a move days ago, except that this move would change nothing.
The Austrian Empire had obtained the West Indies without shedding a drop of blood. It still retained powerful mobile forces, more than enough to deal with France's next