The news that the British had proposed negotiations reached Vienna, and Franz approved it at once. The losses on the battlefield might not have been great, but they burned through money!
Since Cape Town could not be taken, continuing the war would only waste time. Looking at the intelligence from the front, Franz could only sigh helplessly.
The British Empire's sheer extravagance in this era was beyond ordinary imagination. They could throw millions of Pound Sterling into the war without blinking. As far as the eye could see, there were dense defensive fortifications—how was anyone supposed to fight that?
The original plan for taking Cape Town had been rendered utterly ineffective by the British and their rich-man tactics.
Though the British appeared to be at a disadvantage, they had in fact flaunted their strength before the world once again. The total funds Britain had poured into this South African War would likely surpass a hundred million.
With financial strength like that, no country in the world besides Britain could possibly endure it. If Franz had been in their place, he would have backed down long ago. When you had no money, your ambition shrank accordingly.
Even though Vienna Government held the upper hand on the battlefield, the price it had paid was no less steep. By this point in the war, more than forty million Divine Shield had already been poured into it.
Franz summed up why Cape Town had not been captured. It was not because the soldiers lacked fighting strength, nor because the commanders at the front were incompetent. The main reason was simply that they lacked money and could not afford to be so lavish.
Otherwise, they could have transported seven or eight hundred, even a thousand heavy guns at any cost, fired off a million tons