Greece’s Roman Road

The day after the banquet, Constantine came to the Prime Minister's Palace at the invitation of Greek Prime Minister Trikupis.

After arriving at the Prime Minister's Office, Constantine, who was well acquainted, walked straight to the Prime Minister's Office.

Trikupis saw Constantine and invited him warmly, and the two sat down around the table.

"His Royal Highness, the reason why I invited you here is because I heard that the banquet at Tatoi Palace was very successful yesterday?"

Trikupis said.

"Yes, the Greek-Egyptian businessman you introduced, Mr. Cantoriotis, is willing to invest in the cotton textile industry in Greece," Constantine said happily.

"I and some friends from the business community decided to build an industrial zone between Athens and the port of Piraeus, which requires your cooperation, and the power plant will also be in this industrial zone, of course, including the future of steel plants, but also to leave enough space”

When Trikupis heard this, he was overjoyed: "Then it's really right to invite you today. I have decided to start the infrastructure construction work in Greece."

"Mainly building railways and roads"

"And the Collins Canal"

Constantine had mixed emotions when he heard about Trikupis' huge infrastructure construction plan.

Trikupis was regarded as the first person who could be called a statesman after the independence of Greece. It was under his influence that the Greek parliament gradually emerged from a state of disintegration into the rudiment of the modern party system.

During his tenure, he made a lot of achievements in the economic and political fields.

It's just that his big infrastructure plan also brought huge troubles to Greece.

Railways, highways and canals, in a country with many mountains like Greece, the current Greek finances are simply impossible to bear. It goes without saying that these construction funds come from foreign borrowings.

Trikupis hopes that through such a large-scale infrastructure construction, to improve the traffic conditions in Greece, it can promote the rapid development of the Greek economy and reduce the distance between Greece and European countries.

You must know that loans in this era have high interest rates, and they are all conditional loans.

For example, when Greece borrows money from the UK, the Greek government has no access to the money at all. The money is just transferred from one account in a UK bank to another account. The money must be used to buy British goods, such as railroad construction. Railroad tracks and train locomotives, and then the Greek government took on a huge debt.

However, the Greek economy did not develop as Trikupis had expected.

The Greek government was overwhelmed by high loan interest rates, and the Greeks' attempt to find a way out economically failed.

For a modern country, there are only two ways to develop. Either open a way out economically or open a breakthrough militarily. There is no other way to go.

After Trikupis fell for the last time in 1896, the Greek idea of ​​developing the economy had been proven and failed.

So the idea of ​​opening a gap in the economy was shattered.

Instead, they owe a huge amount of foreign debt.

After that, the Greeks were left with only two choices, either to accept the arrangement of fate, to be a small European country with peace of mind, to survive and be content with the status quo.

Or a military adventure.

This is also an important reason for the war between the Greeks and the Ottoman Turks in the original time and space in 1897.

The Greeks with great ideals chose to take risks.

As it turned out, the Greeks failed again.

In this conflict, the Turks not only had almost double the advantage in the number of troops and technical weapons, but also the quality of officers was higher than that of Greece.

German officers directly trained Turkish officers.

The result was obvious. In the 30-day war, the Greek army was completely defeated.

In the original time and space, it was precisely because of this failure that Constantine, the chief military officer, was directly deprived of all military duties by the Greek government.

This is almost equivalent to kicking the royal family out of the army.

Although after the failure of this conflict, Greece benefited from the intervention of European powers, but only ceded a few border cities to the Turks and survived.

However, the whole country of Greece, from top to bottom, fell into a state of bewilderment after the ideal was shattered.

Everyone lost confidence in this country.

The military adventure failed, and the economic construction owed a huge debt.

It was from this time that the number of immigrants who originally migrated to the Americas sporadically, especially the Greeks to the United States, soared.

Once a country loses its confidence, what will happen?

The resentment of dissatisfaction with the entire country raged everywhere.

It was also after this that the Greek army opened Pandora's Box - a military coup and interference in politics.

The faith of the soldiers was shattered.

In the past, soldiers had ideals. Joining the army was to protect the family and the country and realize great ideals.

But now the country has no future, and the army thinks it's all about politicians' random command.

The wealthy businessmen immigrated, and the poor people sighed that they were exploited by high taxes.

Because the government has no money to repay the foreign debt, it can only declare bankruptcy.

Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy and other countries have formed a financial supervision committee to ensure the Greek government's fiscal revenue, first of all to repay its foreign debt.

This further deepened the stigma of the Greeks.

The whole country is in a state of shattering.

This state of decadence lasted until the First Balkan War in 1912~www.novelmt.com~ The Greeks who stood on the victorious side gained a lot, and this negative emotion subsided.

It can be said that all of this is inextricably related to Trikupis, the Greek Prime Minister, who is known as the first politician in modern Greece.

When Constantine heard Trikupis's construction plan, he had mixed feelings in his heart.

It is precisely because of the series of bad consequences caused by Trikupis's plan that Constantine can't be bothered.

"Collins Canal?" Constantine couldn't help feeling agitated when he heard the name.

"Mr. Prime Minister, do you really think that Collins needs to build a canal?" Constantine quickly questioned.

The so-called Collins Canal is a canal that connects the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea.

Since the Peloponnesian Peninsula protrudes to the southwest, the connection between the rest of the Athens region of Greece is only a few kilometers away at its narrowest point.

Ships from the Adriatic Sea had to bypass the Peloponnese when sailing towards the Aegean Sea, with a voyage of more than 300 kilometers.

Naturally, an idea arose - to build a canal connecting the Aegean and Adriatic seas, which would greatly save time for ships to and fro.

Originally sandwiched between the Peloponnesian Peninsula and the Greek Peninsula, the long and narrow Corinthian Gulf has also changed from the original semi-closed bay (can only enter and exit from the direction of the Adriatic Sea) into a connected Bay, which will benefit the development of cities on both sides of Corinthia Bay.

The capital Athens and the largest port in Greece, the port of Piraeus, can also benefit a lot from this canal.

Because ships departing from the port of Piraeus can go directly through the canal without going around the Peloponnese.

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