Expedition to Europe

When Liu Shuangxi accidentally captured the big fish, Crown Prince William, Army Minister Lyautey was being questioned by members of the National Assembly.

Although Lyautey was responsible to the French Prime Minister, when the National Assembly needed Lyautey to explain something, Lyautey had the obligation to cooperate.

After the war began, in order to prevent being surrounded by the Germans, the French government left Paris, which was too close to the front line, and went to the small town of Bordeaux. Therefore, Lyautey had to go to Bordeaux to accept the questioning of the National Assembly.

In France, questioning is divided into oral questioning and written questioning.

Because it is wartime now, Lyautey can actually choose to accept written questioning because of his status as Minister of the Army, but after receiving Qin Zhiyuan's telegram, Lyautey chose to go to the parliament hall in Bordeaux to accept face-to-face questioning by members of the parliament.

This questioning was initiated by the current member of parliament, Donahue. Surprisingly, several people who participated in the questioning with Donahue were members of the opposition Democratic Republican Party. It is not a good phenomenon that they are mixed with the Republicans in the Socialist Party.

At the same time, French Prime Minister Paul Painleve also attended the inquiry.

I almost forgot one thing. The current French Prime Minister is not called Prime Minister, but Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The term Prime Minister will not be used until the Fifth Republic forty years later.

In fact, no matter what he is called, Paul Painleve is exercising the functions of Prime Minister.

As Prime Minister, Paul Painleve seems to support Lyautey's work, but in fact it is not the case. Lyautey was not appointed by Paul Painleve as Minister of the Army, but by former Prime Minister Aristide Briand. Paul Painleve may not be very satisfied with Lyautey, but because he has not found any handle on Lyautey for the time being, he will tolerate Lyautey to continue to stay in this position.

Looking at what Paul Painleve meant today, it seems that he is here to find a handle. If Paul Painleve can get what he wants, then the best result for Lyautey is to resign voluntarily.

Lyautey did not want to resign, otherwise he would not have come to Bordeaux. Like almost all soldiers, Lyautey hated politics and politicians. If it were not for the fact that the Germans still occupied French land, Lyautey would definitely not have been hypocritical with these people, even Clemenceau.

Bordeaux's City Hall is far inferior to the National Assembly Hall in Paris in terms of scale and facilities. It looks like an ordinary court.

This is understandable. Compared with Paris, which has become an international metropolis, Bordeaux is just a small city and cannot ask for too much. Anyway, it was just temporarily borrowed during a special period, so it was used. It was just a pity for Lyautey. The small grid he had to stand in when being questioned was really not much bigger than a pigeon cage.

Lyautey was quite conscious. Looking at the posture of the parliamentarians in the hall who were ready for battle, he carried his bag leisurely, walked to his seat, and closed the fence door of the small grid.

It really looked more and more like a court.

"Mr. Minister of the Army, please explain the proportion of material distribution during your tenure as Minister of the Army, as well as your personal relationship with General Qin Zhiyuan of the Foreign Legion, and please explain whether your relationship will affect the distribution of materials." Donahue took the lead.

"Mr. Minister of the Army, during your term, your subordinates showed collective unconscious behavior. Please explain your role in it." Someone followed suit. This congressman, Mr. Lyaute, had never seen him before.

"Mr. Minister of the Army, I heard that General Qin Zhiyuan of the Foreign Legion used some appalling means to quell the rebellion in Corsica. Please explain whether the military was involved." Someone continued to ask questions. Mr. Lyaute, this congressman, looked familiar, but unfortunately he couldn't call out his name.

"Mr. Minister of the Army..."

The questions were thrown one after another, and it seemed that they wanted to drown Lyaute. But Lyaute felt that it was really noisy. More than a dozen people were talking almost at the same time, and as a result, Lyaute didn't hear anything clearly.

This is the characteristic of the French National Assembly. When discussing politics, if there are two parties debating, then what you say is not important at all, as long as your voice is loud enough so that others can't hear what the other party is saying.

This is the biggest drawback of democracy. They may argue for a month or even two months over a small issue like whether to replace the Paris street lights, but they can't come to any conclusion. While the parliamentarians are arguing, the Paris street lights have been replaced by the impatient Parisians who spontaneously raised money.

"Please don't worry, I can't answer all the questions at once." Lyaute responded without raising his head.

After Lyaute entered the small grid, he didn't stop the parliamentarians from shouting. He just opened the folder he brought, took out the prepared documents, smiled at the top one, and then put it at the bottom of the stack of documents.

That was the victory report Qin Zhiyuan sent to Lyaute.

"Okay, please answer the first question first, Mr. Minister..." Donahue repeated his question again.

"Regarding this issue, the decision-making power is not mine. The distribution of materials is uniformly distributed by the General Staff and the Logistics Department, and the War Committee is also involved. The approximate proportion is evenly distributed. If there is a bias, it does exist. For example, some troops are fighting on the front line, so they will get supplies in time. If some troops are far away from the battlefield, they will be in a secondary position when distributing materials. As for my personal relationship with General Qin Zhiyuan, it is not suitable to discuss in this public occasion. If our personal relationship affects the distribution of materials, it is pure nonsense." Leo Tai pushed it cleanly.

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Donahue remained silent when Lyothe spoke, with a hint of sarcasm and sneer on his lips. When Lyothe finished speaking, Donahue immediately jumped up and retorted: "You are lying! If, as you said, you did not participate in the distribution of materials, why did you give the tanks originally intended to equip the American troops to the Chinese in the Foreign Legion?"

"The Americans are in Orleans, far away from the battlefield. What do they need tanks for? And the Chinese are fighting the Germans on the front line for the safety of Paris. If you don't give them enough weapons, can you still sit there and exercise your rights as a member of parliament?" Lyothe was confident.

"Aha, that means you admit it! Well, now you have to explain what benefits the Chinese gave you?" Donahue also knew how to turn things around. He ignored Lyothe's question and continued to ask questions along the lines of Lyothe.

Politicians are strange creatures. They don't ask right or wrong, they only ask about positions. If the positions are consistent, then no matter what they do, it is right. If the positions are inconsistent, then no matter what they do, it is wrong.

Sure enough, just after Donahue raised the question, almost all the congressmen looked at Lyaute with strange eyes. For them, it didn't matter who was on the front line to hold off the Germans, as long as someone was there to hold them off. What the congressmen cared about was to confirm the relationship between Lyaute and Qin Zhiyuan and then do something with this relationship.

After figuring this out, Lyaute suddenly felt extremely discouraged. Lyaute really didn't understand what happened to the French Republic to which he swore allegiance, and why these bigwigs who could determine the direction of the Republic became like this.