Chapter 747 Exhausted
The impact of this world war has just begun. It is foreseeable that because of this war, countries participating in the war who have the conditions will withdraw capital from overseas and return to their own countries for reconstruction. This is of course a bad thing for backward countries. Without the injection of foreign capital, the speed of development will slow down.
But for the United States, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Before the war, the slogan of the United States was "open door, equal benefits". But after the war? The slogan can remain unchanged, but there can be some changes in actions.
Especially in the Americas, the United States has this geographical advantage. Before, it was nothing more than the powerful imperialist powers in Europe that made the United States very uncomfortable. After the withdrawal of these European capitals, the capital of the United States can completely fill the vacancy in the market. Although the war has not yet ended, all this is foreseeable.
In addition to the Morgan family in the intangible field, the other domestic companies that have achieved success in globalization are the Rockefeller family, which has monopolized oil hegemony. As for the United Company, its success in going overseas depends on the circumstances. The American Philippines does not count. In British colonies other than British India, such as Canada, Australia, and South Africa, it is relatively successful.
The second batch has some influence in Latin America, but did not have an advantage in the competition with European capital before the war. Now, facing the backdrop of the possible withdrawal of European capital, the United Company will definitely have an advantage in its operations in Latin America. In this regard, Sheffield can help the Boston Consortium.
It was precisely because of this consideration that Adams III readily agreed to the cartel agreement proposed by Sheffield.
The slave owner stayed in Boston for a while, visited the Boston consortium's industry, and asked Lowell, "Is Joseph Kennedy the latest upstart in Boston?"
"If he wasn't the son-in-law of the mayor of Boston, it wouldn't have been so easy for him to develop." Lowell said with a smile, "He has indeed developed well in recent years, and Adams thinks highly of him."
"Whether the mayor is the mayor or not is all due to external reasons. It is not shameful to have such external help. Even the Adams family has gained its current momentum because of the emergence of father and son presidents." Sheffield laughed and said, "I think the Kennedy family may be a powerful existence in the future. The only worry is that this new family does not know how to build good relations with other companies. I hope everyone can coexist peacefully, otherwise Boston may be affected."
As long as it does not involve life and death, the monopoly capitalists are certainly unwilling to go against the president. But the fate of the Kennedy family shows that the monopoly capitalists in the United States will kill people.
If it weren't for the intricate connections with major domestic companies, the Boston consortium might have been cleared out.
Similar things have happened before. When most people feel that their interests have been harmed, the situation is not completely unchangeable, such as the fate of the Kuhn-Loeb Consortium.
Before World War II, the Kuhn-Loeb consortium was only slightly inferior to Morgan and Rockefeller. After the end of the world war, the Kuhn-Loeb consortium had disappeared from the list of top consortiums.
The Kuhn-Loeb consortium mainly invested in the railway industry and was once known as the "Railway Kingdom". The consortium's main financial institution was Kuhn-Loeb. Founded by German-born Jewish immigrants Kuhn and Loeb, it was a bank engaged in credit and underwriting securities business. In the early days, it mainly operated securities investments in the United States for German capital.
Later, it invested in railroads and competed with Morgan for control of railroads. Before World War II, this consortium controlled 25 major railroad companies, including the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, and jointly controlled several other railroad companies, including the Union Pacific Railroad Company, with other consortiums.
After Vanderbilt and Morgan, there was another king of the railway system. As for the reason for its disappearance, Sheffield thought it was probably because of its strong German background, and the second was because of its Jewish identity.
During World War II, the United States was worried about the German background, and secondly, the Jews. The United States was not a country controlled by Jews as rumored. The Jews were just the role of the butlers, not the real masters. It was okay to make money, but it was not okay to make rules.
If it weren't for the Boston consortium, which has many old families with complex networks of people, it is estimated that after Kennedy's incident, they would have simply followed the route of the Kuhn-Loeb consortium and disappeared from the national economic map.
"President Wilson's ambition after the war may not be so easy to achieve, but in America, we can still work hard. Before disruptive new industries emerge, the current domestic market structure is unlikely to change. It all depends on who can occupy more foreign markets." Sheffield said as he walked, "I know that money cannot be earned by one person. Although I have been working towards this goal, I also hope to have some friends around me when I go overseas."
"There are a lot of companies in the South around you, right?" Lowell smiled and shook his head. "They are even more obedient."
"Take McHale to buy minerals? Latin America seems to be a competitor of McHale. In terms of manufacturing, my partners in the South can't help me much." Sheffield pointed out the conflict between Southern enterprises and the Latin American market. "I can't interfere too much in their personal choices. We all have a long-term friendship. I can remind them, but I can't regard myself as their father, right?"
When going overseas to raise funds, the slave owners would certainly leave a share for their southern partners, but that would be all they could do.
Just the day before, he had received a call back from Gail, asking if Sheffield was joking. Because of the economic prosperity caused by the war, Puerto Rico had received a huge increase in domestic tourists, and now the slave owners wanted to close it to the outside world?
Sheffield thought about it and realized that he was preparing to make a fortune by taking advantage of the spread of the flu, but he asked Gail to prevent the virus from spreading to Puerto Rico. This was a bit too hypocritical.
The invisible enemy was still spreading, had crossed the trenches, and through the fighting of soldiers on both sides, the taking of prisoners, it was no longer a difficulty belonging to the Allies alone.
Sheffield has been analyzing the direction of the war from a hardware perspective, believing that Germany's domestic accumulation is enough to keep the war going for a year, but he forgets that the virus does not recognize people. The reserves of military supplies are sufficient, and the factories have enough raw materials, but workers are needed to go to work and produce. The virus is not only aimed at soldiers participating in the war, but also affects men, women, young and old equally.
The battles on the front lines would kill two million Allied troops on the Western Front, but the virus could kill hundreds of millions of citizens. The virus outbreak weakens the overall strength of the country, and the army cannot be immune.
Even in the war reports of the German General Staff, there were descriptions of soldiers in various units who were unable to fight due to infected diseases. This was definitely bad news for the German army that was launching the offensive.
In May, June and July, the Allied forces launched large-scale offensives one after another. Now the German vanguard has begun to break through in the direction of Champagne. The sad place four years ago, the Marne River, is in sight. Soissons, a strategic location only 37 kilometers away from Paris, has been reoccupied. In just four months, the German army broke through from four directions and the main force advanced 65 kilometers. The Allied soldiers suffered heavy casualties, with losses reaching nearly 700,000.
Compared with the situation in Paris, the situation of the British Expeditionary Force was actually even worse. The main purpose of the Battle of the Emperor was to force the British Expeditionary Force to go to the sea. After the Battle of the Somme, the British Expeditionary Force had a trend of replacing France on the Western Front. In the later active offensive, the British Expeditionary Force was even more proactive than the French.
Although the British Expeditionary Force had more than half the number of positions as the French, it became the main choice for the German attack. Hundreds of tanks were destroyed, especially in the coastal positions, which was like the situation of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in the Dardanelles landing. If the American Expeditionary Force had not arrived to stabilize the position, it would not be impossible for the Allied forces to drive it into the sea.
What will happen if a new force is added, if only 200,000 soldiers are added, if only an army group is launched on a large-scale offensive?
There were no soldiers left. Over the past three months, the virus had spread to every country in Europe. Although the participating countries blocked the news, from the reports in Spain and people's perceptions, everyone knew that a pandemic had swept across Europe.
Hospitals in all countries were overcrowded, and the congestion in hospitals everywhere even exceeded that of the wounded and sick who were transported to hospitals during the war, whether from Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary or Italy.
In northern Italian cities, countless Italian citizens took to the streets, hoping that the kingdom would withdraw from the war, let the soldiers return home, and focus the country's strength on fighting the pandemic.
There was a conflict between the marching citizens and the city's military and police. The suppression by the military and police did not work, but instead intensified the citizens' anger. The citizens went on strike and stopped entering the battlefield to produce weapons for the war. On the French-Italian border, the soldiers on the front line were tired of the war, just like the scene before the collapse of Imperial Russia. There were no soldiers in the trenches, and many soldiers lay on the positions, ignoring the reprimands and scoldings of the officers.
Through neutral Spain, the Kingdom of Italy had secretly negotiated with France for relatively good armistice conditions. At the same time, Italy quickly seized Austro-Hungarian warships and merchant ships in its ports.
The French were originally reluctant to let the Italians go, but the British, who were the main targets of the emperor's offensive, persuaded the French to let the Italians go and focus their main attention on the Germans. Dividing up Germany was more important than directly attacking Italy, which had poor combat effectiveness.
(End of this chapter)
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