Greece’s Roman Road

In view of Greece's own coal predicament, Constantine previously suggested to Costebro that the Athens shipyard develop a kerosene co-firing boiler, preferably a heavy oil boiler, to change Greece's current dilemma that all thermal coal is imported from the United Kingdom.

However, Costebro shied away from the past on the grounds that Greece had no oil, and heavy oil still needed to be imported, so there was no need to mess around.

Due to the increasingly busy shipping business, the tonnage of ships held by the Greek Congolese Corporation increased rapidly. Later, it simply invested in the Athens Shipyard and became the largest shareholder of the shipyard.

Heavy oil, a by-product of petroleum refining, can be used as fuel for ships, which is why Constantine so eagerly pulled the Nobel family into the Greek oil company.

"I will inform the Athens shipyard and ask them to immediately cooperate with the University of Athens to improve the boiler to adapt to heavy oil as fuel," Costebro said.

"If Greece could have some hard coal mines, it wouldn't be so frustrating," lamented Costebro.

The fact is that there are so many ghosts. Greece is rich in lignite resources, but there is no hard coal, all of which are immature and lean coals.

So far, Greece's industrial development plan has been going smoothly, but coal has become a hidden worry for Greece.

At present, several industrial countries in the world are not resource-poor countries. On the contrary, each country that has completed industrialization is not bad in some hardware resources.

The so-called European developed countries are all resource-poor countries and need to import a large amount of raw materials. The formation of this view is actually a matter of time and space, after World War II.

If the time is adjusted forward to the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century, this view does not hold true.

Like the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom itself is very rich in coal and iron resources, especially coal mines, which can supply large amounts of coal to European countries.

The Industrial Revolution took place in Britain, which seems to be a coincidence, but it is inevitable.

The first industrial revolution was the steam engine revolution. Coal and iron are enough. What else is needed?

The German industry has been able to develop rapidly, and the coal mines in the Ruhr area have also played a major role.

The quality of Ruhr coal is almost all above the level of hard coal, with reserves reaching tens of billions of tons, making it a world-class coal mine.

Coupled with the iron mines of Alsace and Lorraine, the unified Germany is also complete with coal and iron, and its industrial development has been advancing rapidly.

Before the Second Industrial Revolution, when electricity and the internal combustion engine revolution played an important role in social production, European countries like Britain, France and Germany were not really resource-poor countries.

After all, even in the second industrial revolution, coal can still be used for thermal power generation.

The traditional industrial countries in Europe need to import raw materials from overseas on a large scale. In fact, in the original time and space, in the middle and late World War I, oil became more and more important.

Western Europe really has no oil reserves! (The North Sea Oilfield was later)

Speaking of which, from the perspective of industrial development, Italy is in the same situation as Greece.

Almost all coal and iron ore needs to be imported. In terms of coal mines, Italy may not be as good as Greece. At any rate, Greece still has good lignite reserves, which can be used to generate electricity.

Of course, compared to Greece, Italy also has its own advantages.

The Po River Plain in northern Italy may not be comparable to all the arable land in Greece combined.

"Anyway, there is Italy in a situation similar to ours," Costerbloom joked.

Why does Italy give the impression that it fears the British like a tiger? Even when joining Germany's Allies, it has to make a special statement that once the enemy of the Allies includes Britain, Italy has discretionary power.

Perhaps a clue can be seen from the coal imports from Italy.

Like Greece, Italy is heavily dependent on Britain for coal.

"By the way, when it comes to railways, I recently heard news that the Germans are planning to build the triple-B railway," Little Nobel said suddenly.

The oil products of the Nobel family also have their own customers in Germany, and naturally there are news channels.

"Three-b railway?" Carl asked suspiciously.

Seeing Karl's question, everyone realized that Karl is a German.

"The planned railway runs from Berlin to Baghdad via Byzantium. The first letter of the Latin alphabet of the three major cities is the letter B, so it is called the triple-b railway," Little Nobel explained.

"Because after the completion of this railway, Baku's oil can be easily transported to countries along the railway, such as Bulgaria, Serbia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany, so we oil traders are very concerned about it."

In order to transport Baku's oil, the Russians specially built a railway from Baku to Batumi. From Batumi's port, Baku's oil can be shipped to all parts of the world after being loaded on ships.

If this railway can be repaired, Baku's oil does not need to pass through the Bosphorus Strait at all, and can be loaded directly from the Black Sea coast to Europe.

Moreover, along this railway line, many areas where Baku kerosene could not be sold due to inconvenient transportation and high transportation costs in the past have now opened their doors.

This is indeed good news for the Nobel family, who do oil business in Baku.

"I heard that recently, the German Emperor Wilhelm II will come to Constantinople to visit the Ottoman Empire and meet with the Sultan specifically on the Baghdad railway issue."

Since the last Hio War, at the London meeting, the Germans helped the Ottomans to regain the important port city on the Aegean coast - Thessaloniki from Greece by negotiation, the relationship between the two countries, Further development.

Constantine once speculated that the reason why the Germans were so enthusiastic ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ was that the Germans had made some kind of py deal with the Ottomans.

This railway may be good news for the Nobel family, but it is indeed a terrible thing for Greece.

After Greece and the Ottomans signed the London Agreement, the Ottomans were forced to cancel the trade discrimination policy. Soon, Greece, with its geographical advantage, made the Ottomans once again become the largest market for Greek goods.

Once the Baghdad railway built by the Germans is really successful, it is conceivable that along this railway, German goods will flood in, squeezing Greece's market share.

After all, the reason why the Germans are so enthusiastic with the Ottomans, and they did not build such a railway at a high cost, originally had the consideration of selling German goods to the Ottomans, and at the same time purchasing ores and other agricultural and animal husbandry products from the Ottomans.

Greek industrial products, after losing their cost advantage, will definitely not be able to compete with German products. At present, a considerable part of Greece's domestic production machinery is itself purchased from Germans.

This is only on an economic level.

With the help of the Germans, the Ottomans built large-scale railways in the country and controlled their own territory, just like the Russians built the Trans-Siberian Railway at all costs. If it is successful, I am afraid that for Greece, from a political and military perspective Consider it even worse.

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