Chapter 465: Winning Over and Drawing In
The three-nation negotiations quickly reached a deadlock. The French demanded the annexation of the Italian region, while Austria proposed annexing the German Confederation—neither was acceptable to the British.
That would be tantamount to unleashing two great empires at once. Although France and Austria were already great empires, the British still had no wish to see either continue growing stronger.
If France and Austria both achieved their respective strategic objectives, Britain's position as world hegemon would be shaken.
It had to be known that neither France nor Austria had ever formally acknowledged Britain's hegemonic status. Within both nations, there had always been voices calling for a challenge to British naval supremacy.
This was no longer twenty years ago, when Britain's industrial output alone exceeded that of all Europe combined. The absolute gap in national strength had made the British the hegemon.
Yet as everyone completed their Industrial Revolution, that gap gradually narrowed. Relying on its advantage in manpower, Austria's annual industrial output was now nearly on par with Britain's.
The French were not far behind Britain either. Once they annexed the Italian region, in another three to five years, France's total industrial output would likely surpass Britain's.
That was the advantage of having a vast homeland and a large population. Per capita, they still could not compare—but there were simply too many people!
Austria's domestic population had already reached 69.76 million and would cross the seventy-million mark within the year; once France annexed the Italian region, its total population would exceed fifty-four million.
Meanwhile, the British Isles had a total population of barely over thirty-two million. Their birth rate stood at around 3.5%, far higher than France's, yet lower than Austria's.
The disparity could not be seen in the short term, but as time