Greece to roman road

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

After arriving at the Prime Minister's Office, Constantine, who was familiar with the roads, walked straight towards the Prime Minister's Office.

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

"Your Highness, the reason why I invited you here is because I heard that yesterday's banquet at Tatoy Palace was particularly successful?"

Trikupis said.

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

"Some friends from the industrial and commercial circles and I have decided to build an industrial zone between Athens and the port of Piraeus. This requires your cooperation. The power plant will also be in this industrial zone, and of course, in the future. Steel plants must also leave enough space.”

Trikoupis was overjoyed when he heard this: "Then I am right to invite you today. I have decided to start promoting infrastructure construction in Greece."

"Mainly building railways and roads"

"And the Collins Canal"

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

Trikoupis was the first person who could be called a politician after the independence of Greece. It was under his influence that the Greek Parliament gradually emerged from a state of disunity and the prototype of a modern party system emerged.

During his tenure, he made many achievements in the economic and political fields.

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

Railways, roads and canals are simply unaffordable for the current Greek finances in a mountainous country like Greece. It goes without saying that these construction funds come from foreign loans.

Trikoupis hopes that improving Greece's transportation conditions through such large-scale infrastructure construction will 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 are 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 the British bank to another. The money must be used to purchase British goods, such as railway construction. tracks and train locomotives, and then the Greek government was saddled with a huge debt.

However, Greece's economy failed to develop as Trikoupis had originally expected.

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

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

After Trikoupis stepped down for the last time in 1896, the Greeks' idea of ​​economic development had proven to be a failure.

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

Instead, it owed huge foreign debts.

After this, the Greeks had only two choices left, either to accept their fate and settle down as a small European country, living in an ignoble way and settling for the status quo.

Or a military adventure.

This is also an important reason why, in the original time and space, the war broke out between the Greeks and the Ottoman Turks in 1897.

The Greeks, who had great ideals, chose to take the risk.

The result was clear: the Greeks failed again.

In this conflict, the Turks not only had almost twice the advantage in terms of army numbers and technical weapons, but the quality of their officers was also higher than that of Greece.

German officers trained Turkish officers directly.

The result is obvious. In the 30 days of war, the Greek army was completely defeated.

In the original time and space, it was precisely because of this failure that Constantine, as the main military officer, was directly stripped 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 and only ceded a few border cities to the Turks and survived.

However, the entire country of Greece, top and bottom, has fallen into a state of confusion and confusion after its ideals were shattered.

Everyone has lost confidence in this country.

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

It was from this time that immigration to the Americas, especially from Greece, surged in sporadic numbers.

What will happen once a country loses confidence?

Resentment against the entire country was rampant.

It was also after this that the Greek military opened Pandora's box of military coups and political interference.

The soldier's faith was shattered.

In the past, soldiers had ideals and joined the army to protect their families and country and realize their great ideals.

But now the country has no future. The army believes that this is all the random orders of politicians.

Rich businessmen immigrated, and people without money sighed and were exploited by high taxes.

Because the government had no money to repay its foreign debt, it had no choice but to declare bankruptcy.

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

This deepened the Greeks' sense of shame.

The entire country is in a state of disarray.

This state of decadence lasted until the First Balkan War in 1912. The Greeks on the victorious side gained a lot, and this negative sentiment subsided.

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

Constantine had mixed feelings when he heard about Trikupis's construction plan.

It was precisely because of the series of bad consequences caused by Tricupis' plan that Constantine could not help but care.

"Collins Canal?" Constantine couldn't help but feel excited when he heard the name.

"Mr. Prime Minister, do you really think 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 Peloponnese Peninsula protrudes to the southwest, the connection point with the rest of Athens, Greece, is only a few kilometers away at its narrowest point.

Ships coming from the Adriatic Sea have to go around the Peloponnese Peninsula when sailing towards the Aegean Sea, a distance of more than 300 kilometers.

Naturally, an idea arose - to build a canal to connect the Aegean and Adriatic seas, which would greatly save time for ships traveling between them.

Originally sandwiched between the Peloponnese Peninsula and the Greek Peninsula, the long and narrow Corinthian Gulf has also transformed from a semi-enclosed bay (accessible only from the direction of the Adriatic Sea) into a connected bay. Bay, which will be beneficial to urban development on both sides of the Corinthian Gulf.

The capital city of Athens and Greece's largest port, Piraeus, also benefit greatly from the canal.

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