Exhausting the Enemy's Every Resource

The Duke of Broglie had always felt that utterly routing the enemy was the best way to solve a problem. But he wisely chose to remain silent, for past experience had proved countless times that whenever his opinion differed from the Regent's, he had best revise his thinking immediately. Otherwise, he was certain to be the one in the wrong.

Joseph continued, "As the Chief of Staff said, occupying Berlin or Vienna is entirely within our country's capabilities. But what comes afterward?

"Do we keep marching toward Königsberg and Hungary?

"Beyond those lie Silesia, Transylvania, Serbia, and Wallachia."

Königsberg lay at Prussia's easternmost edge, reaching deep into the central Baltic Sea, not far from Russia.

Transylvania, meanwhile, was a mountainous region in eastern Hungary, covering over a hundred thousand square kilometers.

Pursuing the enemy to those places would almost mean following in Napoleon's footsteps all those years ago.

Joseph looked around at the officers. "Yes, even fighting in those places, we could defeat the enemy, but we would inevitably pay an enormous price. And that is precisely what the British want.

"On the other hand, the prospect of their countries' near destruction would awaken national consciousness within Prussia and Austria, making them more united. We would ultimately find ourselves caught in a war of attrition on an even greater scale."

He drew a deep breath and raised his voice. "If we want to eliminate the major threats on the European Continent once and for all, and secure France's surroundings for at least a century, we must make full use of this opportunity to exhaust all of Prussia's and Austria's war resources, and even their potential to wage war, utterly shattering their will to fight as nations.

"Decades from now, even if their national strength recovers and they assemble armies again,