Chapter 890: Grain Grab
The tense international situation had not only driven up prices, but also affected international trade. Nearly every country's trade volume was declining.
France and Austria, especially, stood at the heart of the storm and suffered the most severe losses. Companies engaged in international trade between France and Austria were all rushing to collect outstanding payments. They no longer accepted orders; all transactions had to be paid in cash.
There was no helping it. No one knew when war would break out. Once they became belligerent nations, no one could expect the other side to pay up.
Contracts were worthless here. War's destructive power was terrifying. Even if one side won, the other might have no money to pay the remaining balance; if it lost, that was even worse. Winners had never paid losers.
That was true of nations, and the same was true of companies. A single armistice treaty could wipe away every debt from before.
So what if foreign trade declined? With a continental European war on the verge of breaking out, the capitalists had long been rubbing their fists and palms, eager to make a fortune from the nation's calamity. They did not care about such trifling profits from foreign trade.
At the Palace of Versailles, ever since the decision to implement the Central European Strategy, Napoleon IV had remained under intense strain.
Confidence was confidence, but the lessons of Napoleon's defeat remained a shadow he could not shake from his mind.
Napoleon IV asked expectantly, "How far has the diplomatic work progressed? How many countries have accepted our goodwill?"
Napoleon IV had placed no hopes on recruiting allies. Such an obvious case of seeking a tiger's skin was something no European country would do.
Nor did France possess enough benefits to buy everyone