Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 549 The Isolated America
After learning that the Allied Powers had decisively refused to negotiate peace with Germany, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who were in actual control of Germany, knew that it was no longer possible to end the war easily.

Clearly, the Allied Powers wanted to take a larger share of the spoils from Germany, rather than ending the war at a minimal cost, as Britain had.

If they were purely politicians, Hindenburg and Ludendorff would certainly have sought solutions on the diplomatic front, paying a significant price to secure peace.

Both men were from military backgrounds and had their own ideals and ambitions. For Hindenburg and Ludendorff, it was absolutely unacceptable to grovel to the Allies for peace; they preferred to find opportunities for Germany's survival on the battlefield.

The Allied Powers, led by Spain and France, had anticipated Germany's final counterattack. With British troops refusing to aid Germany, Germany alone could no longer stir up much trouble on the European continent.

At this point, the Allied forces have gained the upper hand on both the Western Front and the Balkans. Even if the German army launches a counterattack regardless of casualties, it will be impossible to change the course of the war.

On the contrary, the situation on the Eastern Front, where things are unpredictable, could potentially lead to new developments if Germany were to launch a desperate attack on Russia.

However, these changes do not pose a significant threat to the Entente Powers. After all, Russia is no longer important to the Entente Powers, and the Entente Powers would rather Russia be in more chaos.

With Britain openly engaging in peace negotiations with the Allied Powers, newspapers and media outlets across Europe generally favored the Allied victory in the world war within the coming months.

Some newspapers and media outlets have even begun speculating about the price Britain will pay in the peace negotiations. Many Europeans are quite interested in this, as it concerns the future of Europe and the fate of Britain, which has dominated Europe for decades and is hailed as the strongest empire since Napoleon.

The British public was also closely watching the peace talks between the government and the Allied Powers. Although the British people knew that victory in this war was impossible, they would still be dissatisfied if the government made too many concessions to the Allies in the peace negotiations.

Even the people of the Allied Powers were paying close attention to these peace negotiations. Although the Allied Powers were destined to gain some benefits from the peace negotiations, with multiple countries sharing the pie, the people of each country naturally hoped that their own country could get a larger share.

The peace talks, which have attracted attention from all over Europe and even the world, officially began in Madrid, the capital of Spain.

According to the agreement between Spain and France, peace talks with Britain will be held in Madrid, the Spanish capital, while peace talks with Germany will be held in Paris, the French capital.

The French are eager to hold peace talks with Germany in Paris, hoping to avenge the humiliation Germany inflicted on France after the Franco-Prussian War.

The French still remember the humiliation inflicted by Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm I was crowned Emperor of Germany at the Palace of Versailles in France, and since then, Germany has always been superior to France.

France hoped to hold peace talks with Germany in Paris, with the aim of humiliating Germany in Paris and regaining Alsace and Lorraine, which had been seized by Germany.

Because the establishment of the German Empire represented a humiliation for France, the French government even hoped to dissolve the German Empire and restore Germany to its former state status as a separate German region.

Such a proposal is undeniably vicious, and it also reveals just how deep the hatred for the French people was when the German Emperor was crowned at Versailles.

Since the peace negotiations with Britain were being held in Madrid, Spain, as the host country, naturally had a certain advantage.

Furthermore, Spain was the most powerful country in the Allied Powers. Therefore, after the peace negotiations began, the Allied Powers contacted Spain, hoping to gain its support in the peace negotiations and secure greater benefits for themselves.

Even if most of the Allied powers failed to acquire British territory, receiving additional war reparations would still be a good thing.

The good news is that, although each of the Allied Powers wanted to secure more benefits for themselves, the intervention of Spain and France prevented conflicts from arising among them.

Carlo did not pay much attention to the peace negotiations with Britain, after all, the Irish War of Independence had ended, and no matter how much Britain argued, it could not change the situation in Ireland.

The peace negotiations lasted for nearly half a month. If Britain had not reached a compromise with the Allied powers such as Spain, France, and Italy in advance, the peace negotiations would probably have lasted several times longer.

Apart from the three major Allied powers, most other Allied countries were only concerned with Britain's share of war reparations.

It is worth mentioning that during these peace negotiations, the Russian provisional government also sent diplomatic representatives, hoping to obtain a large sum of war reparations from Britain to solve its domestic economic problems.

Although Russia was indeed a major contributor to the Allied Powers, Britain had little to fear about Russia, which was now divided.

Aside from agreeing to pay Russia a war indemnity, Britain was unwilling to make any other concessions, which was quite humiliating for the Russian diplomatic representatives. After all, Britain had compensated the other Allied powers with territorial concessions, while Russia, as one of the greatest contributors to the Allied cause, was only entitled to war reparations, which was clearly inconsistent with Russia's status.

But there's no other way; Russia is currently mired in civil war and still needs the support of the Allied Powers and even Britain.

For this reason alone, Russia cannot afford to turn against Britain. Fortunately, Britain's war reparations can indeed solve some of the economic problems, and the bulk of Russia's future reparations will inevitably come from Germany.

The United States is in a similar situation to Russia. Because the U.S. mainland is far from the European continent, the U.S. ambassador to Spain is participating in the peace negotiations.

Although the US ambassador argued forcefully during the peace negotiations, Britain was unwilling to make many concessions to the US. Furthermore, the US had only been a member of the Entente for a very short time; it had neither joined forces with the Entente to confront a powerful enemy nor supplied them with significant resources, making it seem more like a pawn reaping the rewards as the war neared its end.

Under such circumstances, it was difficult for the Allied Powers to have any goodwill towards the United States. When American diplomatic representatives were advocating for American interests, not many Allied Powers supported the US.

Although Spain and France expressed their support for the United States in acquiring the land, this support remained merely verbal and lacked any real sincerity.

This is because when the United States joined the Allied Powers, it reached an agreement with Spain and France. Spain and France supported the United States joining the Allied Powers on the condition that the United States would acquire Cuba and the Panama Canal through its own efforts.

Spain and France would at most provide some diplomatic support to the United States, but would not send any troops to help the United States attack Britain.

It was precisely because Spain and France did not seem to have much sincerity in helping the United States acquire territory that the other Allied powers ignored the United States' demands and showed no intention of helping the United States.

Preventing the United States from becoming too powerful in a world war was a tacit understanding between France and Spain. Even Britain shared the same understanding, given the astonishing speed of American industrial and economic expansion over the past few decades, which had rendered European countries unable to match the scale of their industries and economies.

The only country whose growth rate could barely keep up with that of the United States was Germany, which was about to be defeated in the World War. The remaining countries, whether it was Britain, France, or Spain, all lagged behind the United States in industrial and economic growth.

It is precisely for this reason that European countries have involuntarily begun to be wary of the United States. Hasn't the US government always pursued isolationism? Then let them be isolated. European countries will not see the US as an ally; at most, they will only see it as a country to be used.

Britain's swift compromise, coupled with the almost undisguised defensiveness of France and Spain, somewhat annoyed the US ambassador.

What's even more infuriating is that, despite the United States' explicit rejection of the peace agreement reached by the countries, the Allied Powers, led by Spain and France, still insisted on signing a peace agreement with Britain.

What does this mean? Doesn't it mean that the Allied Powers didn't recognize the United States' identity at all?

"This is extremely disrespectful to the United States and a betrayal of the sacrifices the United States made in the war!" The U.S. ambassador to Spain left only this sentence at the meeting before leaving the signing ceremony.

Neither Britain nor the Allied powers reacted strongly to the departure of the US ambassador.

The United States' failure to sign a peace agreement had no impact on the Allied Powers. After all, as long as the Allied Powers and Great Britain recognized it, the war between them would be over, and it would have nothing to do with the United States.

For Britain, the United States' refusal to sign a peace agreement actually gave it an opportunity to regain control of its Cuban colony.

Britain was powerless against the Allied Powers because the Allies comprised several major powers, whose armies and navies were in no way inferior to Britain's.

But the United States was ultimately alone; despite its industrial and economic strength, its military power was far inferior to that of Britain.

Although Britain's domestic industry and economy were not as large as those of the United States, its vast colonies gave it an overall strength that surpassed that of the United States.

More importantly, the British navy was spared, which gave Britain the confidence to confront the United States and regain its Cuban colony.

Aside from the unexpected incident of the US ambassador storming out, the signing of the peace agreement proceeded relatively smoothly.

Under the lens of newspapers and media from all over the world, diplomatic representatives from multiple Allied countries and the British diplomatic representative jointly signed a peace agreement, which also marked the formal end of the war between the two sides, and the world war had entered its final countdown.

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(End of this chapter)