The sky over the Strait of Gibraltar is covered with clouds, just like the expression on the face of General Waliberg, the top commander of the British army in Gibraltar. Gibraltar is not a city. There are even more British troops stationed in Gibraltar than local residents. Therefore, the British government is not like later generations.
A governor is usually established in Gibraltar.
However, as the commander of the British garrison in Gibraltar, General Waliberg was undoubtedly the most powerful person in Gibraltar, but this power was greatly reduced after the approach of the Franco-Spanish combined fleet.
From the tallest building in Gibraltar where Walliberg is located, he can have an unobstructed view of most of the Strait of Gibraltar.
On the Strait of Gibraltar, it is the British Royal Navy fleet that is close to Gibraltar. The twenty warships of the fleet are arranged in a zigzag pattern, and it is the French-Spanish Combined Fleet that is confronting the British Navy. It is obvious that behind the British fleet,
On both sides were dozens of warships from the Franco-Spanish combined fleet.
This confrontation has lasted for several days, and in the north of Gibraltar, the flag of the Spanish army can be vaguely seen. As time goes by, Walliberg's heart has become clouded.
The British garrison in Gibraltar has shifted to a state of combat readiness. On the north side of the fortress, British soldiers clenched their weapons and stared nervously at the northern land.
Before the North American War, although the British Empire stretched across the world, the strength of the British Army was not even comparable to that of the second-rate European countries. Fortunately, the North American War woke up the old men in the British government, and thanks to the expansion of the North American War, the British in Gibraltar
The garrison has increased from the original 800 to the current 5,000.
However, large-scale military expansion has also brought about a disadvantage, that is, the British army generally lacks combat experience. Although the British and French struggles for world hegemony have made some British troops undergo the baptism of war, most of these troops with combat experience are deployed in the West Indies.
As well as the North American continent, the five thousand troops on Gibraltar had no combat experience at all, which made Walliberg quite anxious.
Although the Spanish army was not much better than the British, looking at the faint flag in the distance, Waliberg understood that the Spanish army in the north had several times its own strength.
Just when Waliberg was extremely worried, the British government was launching emergency negotiations with the Portuguese.
The Portuguese were an ally of the British, and both Portugal and Spain were on the Iberian Peninsula. The quarrel between the two countries could even be traced back hundreds of years. Therefore, the British hoped that the Portuguese could send troops to help the British contain the Spanish.
However, the British request was not approved by the Portuguese government for the first time. The Portuguese had already seen the power of the French-Spanish combined fleet. After all, the French fleet went from the offshore waters of Portugal to the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, and had more than 30 ships.
The French fleet of battleships almost equaled the total number of Portuguese warships deployed on the mainland.
Like the British, Portugal is also a colonial power. The Portuguese even have a longer colonial history than the British. In Asia and the New World, Portugal also has a large number of colonies that need to be defended. Therefore, the Portuguese navy also focuses on
Overseas colonies.
As for the army, Portugal only had less than 20,000 troops in mainland Portugal, which made Portugal feel somewhat unable to cope with the British request to contain the Spanish.
Not to mention anything else, Spain already has hundreds of thousands of troops after military expansion. Among these troops, in addition to the 30,000 troops heading to Gibraltar, there are nearly 50,000 troops deployed on the Portuguese border! Once Portugal helps the British, then
These 50,000 Spanish troops will definitely immediately march westward towards Lisbon.
Portugal only has an army of more than 20,000 people. Facing the Spanish army, they can only hold on. Once a war breaks out, it can be seen that the Portuguese mainland will definitely become a battlefield. This is what the Portuguese government does not want to see.
Of course, this does not mean that the Portuguese army does not have the confidence to defend its enemies outside the country, but the fact is that Portugal’s border is long and narrow, and it can be said that there are loopholes everywhere. Unless Portugal first declares war on Spain and sends troops to invade Spain, otherwise
, the war will definitely start on Portuguese soil.
Although the Portuguese's hesitation annoyed the British, the British had no other choice but to persuade them. The British claimed that as long as Portugal dispatched its navy to help the British fleet in Gibraltar against the French-Spanish combined fleet, the British would
The army was dispatched to help the Portuguese resist a possible Spanish attack.
Despite the British promise, the Portuguese government was still uneasy and even worried about British troops setting foot on Portuguese territory. The Portuguese government was still very unhappy.
On the one hand, the army is a weapon of the country, but on the other hand, it is the source of disaster. Although various countries in the modern era vigorously improve military discipline, there has never been an army that can avoid disturbing civilians in war. War is very difficult for the residents of the warring areas.
It was a disaster, a disaster in which one was shot while lying down and died without knowing how.
Moreover, Portugal once suffered an epic disaster. That was in 1755, a magnitude 9 earthquake occurred in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. After the earthquake, tsunamis and fires followed and razed the entire Lisbon to the ground.
Tens of thousands of people were killed or injured in the disaster, hundreds of thousands of victims were displaced, half of Portugal needed to be rebuilt, and the entire country was devastated. Although thirty-five years have passed, Portugal's economy has not even recovered to what it was before the disaster.
level.
All this made the Portuguese government hesitant to support the British against Spain.
Seeing that the Portuguese might refuse to join their own camp, the British gritted their teeth and offered to help Portugal seize Spanish colonies in South America. This condition can be said to be quite tempting, as the land in South America was basically occupied by the Portuguese and Spanish.
After the partition, Brazil was a colony of the Portuguese, while the other colonies in South America belonged to Spain.
And once the British conditions are fulfilled, it means that Portugal will occupy 90% of the land in South America as its own colony!
Portugal has once been glorious. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the emergence of a group of navigators such as Vasco da Gama and Magellan made Portugal embark on the road to a world power. However, at the end of the 16th century, due to royal marriages, Portugal
Once occupied by Spain, it was not freed from Spanish rule until the mid-17th century.
During this period, the Portuguese colonies were divided up by the Dutch and the British at the same time, causing Portugal to become a third-rate country in Europe after regaining its independent status. Then a large number of Portuguese people went to Brazil, which also caused the Portuguese economy to collapse until 1709.
The situation improved after John IV banned Portuguese immigration.
But like every great country that has ever been glorious, the Portuguese have never given up their dream of rejuvenation, and the conditions provided by the United Kingdom will undoubtedly help the Portuguese realize their dream of rejuvenation.
Just as Portugal was engaged in a new round of quarrels over whether to agree to British demands, the Brandenburg Military Academy in Prussia was decorated with lights.
November 10th was the day when the cadets of the Brandenburg Military Academy left the military academy for internship in the army.
At the Brandenburg Military Academy, William adopted the same model as later schools. Although the schooling period is three years, every student will go to the army for internship after spending two and a half years in the academy. This
The internship period is exactly half a year.
The college conducts exams in February every year and holds an entrance ceremony in May. The graduation ceremony will be held after the entrance ceremony. At that time, each graduate will leave the college and take up their official positions with the blessings of all the students in the college.
This half-year internship not only allows the students to integrate into the big family of the Prussian Army, but also allows these students who have accepted military theory to experience the real army through their own practice. Of course, those students who apply for the academy from the army
Let's talk about it separately.
As the size of the Prussian army expanded, the desire for qualified and knowledgeable grassroots officers also gradually increased. With William's special approval, the enrollment quota for the Brandenburg Military Academy reached 1,300 in 1789.
In nine years, the Brandenburg Military Academy trained nearly 10,000 grassroots cadres for the Prussian army, and apart from hundreds of them for various reasons, the rest of the trainees joined the Prussian army. Among them, more than a thousand
People were sent to North America to join Bruneck's command. In addition to some of the remaining trainees joining the local garrison, most of them entered the kingdom's regular army and royal guard.
At the internship ceremony of the 1988 class of cadets, William was invited by the Military Academy to attend the internship ceremony.
When the Brandenburg Military Academy was first founded, Marshal Zieten, a veteran of the Kingdom, served as the dean. After the death of Marshal Zieten, Dessau became the dean of the academy. However, now that Dessau is out of Denmark, the Brandenburg Military Academy
The president of the college is Morpheus.
Morpheus served as Dessau's deputy when the military academy was first established, and was appointed deputy dean of the academy after becoming dean of the military academy in Dessau.
After Dessau left Denmark, Morpheus was undoubtedly the most suitable successor.
After nine years of development, the Brandenburg Military Academy has a total of nine departments: tactical command department, infantry department, cavalry department, artillery department, logistics department, administrative department, naval command department, naval management department, and intelligence department. This year it will
There are one thousand trainees who will enter the army for internship.
Among these nine departments, the tactical command department has the largest number of students, followed by the cavalry department, and the intelligence department has the smallest number of students.