Greece’s Roman Road - Chapter 277

“Greek-Roman Road (!

That being the case, it means that these soldiers from Congo can indeed be useful.

“The Albanian Legion has been reduced from the current 150,000 to 100,000, and the Macedonian Legion has been reduced from the current 250,000 Greek soldiers to 110,000, and the 150,000 Congolese soldiers are all repatriated to the Congo.” Mayinur communicated his disarmament plan to the many Greek officers in the back of the room.

“In this case, the total strength of the Greek mainland is 210,000 people, which is enough to guard the national defense and security of Greece.”

Many Greek officers in the conference room discussed with each other when they heard that the Chief of General Staff advocated such a big disarmament move.

“Of course, the current establishment of the Greek army will not be reduced, and the number of each division will still be retained. That is to say, the main goal of this disarmament is to reduce the number of ordinary soldiers, whether it is senior officers or middle and low-level officers, they will all It is reserved so that when war comes, soldiers can be filled into the existing army at any time to quickly form combat effectiveness.”

The move also eased resistance among military officers over disarmament.

Middle and low-level officers are basically professional soldiers, and many of them even graduated from army schools, which means that once these people enter the society, they have no survival skills. start.

In addition, experienced, shrewd and capable mid- and low-level officers are the guarantee of an army’s combat effectiveness. No matter how sophisticated tactics are conceived by senior officers, these mid- and low-level officers are ultimately required to be responsible for implementing them in place, otherwise it will be just talk on paper.

“As for the number of troops, it can be more streamlined. After this war, the pressure on North Macedonia has been greatly reduced. There is absolutely no need to maintain 100,000 troops, 80,000 troops are enough,” Constantine interjected.

“Because the Thrace region is bordered by Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, the situation is more complicated, and because it has recently been occupied, it really needs more garrisoned troops, just according to the 110,000 people said by the Chief of General Staff Emmanuel.”

After this war, Greece’s territory has been greatly expanded, reaching nearly 190,000 square kilometers of territory.

The total population of Greece is only 7 million people, which also includes more than 300,000 Albanians, Slavs, and msl in Greece.

In other words, for Greece now, the most important thing is to increase the domestic population and actively develop the territory of Macedonia.

And Macedonia has a lot of arable land, which needs people to go to reclaim wasteland.

Since the independence of Greece, the lack of arable land has always been a shortcoming of the Greek kingdom. The population of Greece has been growing slowly, and the lack of fertile arable land in Greece is the main reason.

And now Macedonia, especially Aegean Macedonia and Western Thrace, has a lot of arable land.

Whether it was in the Eastern Roman Empire or the Ottoman Empire, it was a densely populated place and the most prosperous place in the entire empire.

However, after entering the nineteenth century, due to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Macedonia and Thrace fell into a long-term war, resulting in a sharp decline in the population and barren arable land.

Now that Greece has obtained these places after **** battles, it is natural to develop these places as soon as possible.

Secondly, Greece’s severe financial problems also make the Greek government have to significantly reduce military spending next.

The Greek army kept a large number of soldiers in the barracks, which contradicted these problems.

“His Royal Highness, His Excellency the Chief of Staff, what about the placement of these retired soldiers?” Manujanaski asked with concern.

In this war against Bulgaria, as the commander of the Macedonian Legion, Manu Giannaski led the soldiers to fight in Macedonia. Naturally, he was concerned about the problems of these soldiers after they retired.

“As for the retirement allowances and casualty pensions for soldiers, our staff of the General Staff are also working on them,” Emanuel said.

In fact, Greece’s financial funds are extremely scarce now, and they can’t come up with too much funds for a while. The government is still trying to find ways to give these retired soldiers and casualties.

“On the issue of retirement allowances for soldiers and pensions for casualties, the Bulgarian government has already allocated the first war reparations of 80 million drachmas,” Prime Minister Venizelos said.

“Secondly, since there are so many soldiers who need to return to society, and there are more than 100,000 soldiers ready to retire at a time, the government’s finances will suddenly be under financial pressure. It is better to exchange part of the retirement allowances of these soldiers for Macedonia and Thrace. The land in Sri Lanka, anyway, the government will sell the land ownership here to the people in the future.”

“Soldiers are eager to get land, and the country has acquired a lot of new wasteland, and at the same time, it can relieve the government’s financial pressure, and kill three birds with one stone,” said the finance minister.

Hearing the government’s policy, Khushite sighed secretly, lamenting that the population of Greece was going to flow into agriculture in large numbers again.

The living pressure of farmers is low. Compared with being a worker in a factory, being a proletarian, more Greeks are more willing to be a farmer with land.

Benefiting from the rapid development of Greek agricultural cooperatives, the living standards of farmers in Greece do not need to be poor as workers. Although their income is not as good as that of workers, they can be self-sufficient in food and have less pressure in their lives. Therefore, they become a farmer who owns land and experience the tranquility and leisure. Pastoral life, for many Greeks, is an attractive career.

Greece has a small population, and now a large number of people will flow into agriculture, which will inevitably lead to a shortage of industrial workers in Greece, which will increase the cost of industrial development in Greece.

“Moreover, in order to encourage the enthusiasm of the people to reclaim wasteland, the government will increase the grain import tax in Greece to prevent more cheap foreign grains from flooding into the Greek market and protect the interests of Greek farmers,” Venizelos said.

Now the staple food used by the Greek people, such as wheat, is the grain grown by the farmers in the countryside, or potatoes, or wheat; but in the towns, it is generally from Russia or the United States.

The original purpose of this policy was to rapidly increase the population while reducing the cost of developing industry in Greece.

Affected by this, most of Greece’s already barren land is planted with cash crops.

Grapes, olives, citrus and other crops do not have high requirements for the quality of the land, and can be grown even on hills.

Now that the Venizelos government wants to increase the import tariff of agricultural products, it will naturally lead to a decrease in the import of cheap wheat from abroad and an increase in the price of grain in Greece. In a short period of time, under the stimulation of monetary interests, the farmers in Greece will increase the amount of grain planted .

Of course, considering that the situation in Europe is getting more and more severe today, once a war breaks out in Europe, the price of food in the international market will skyrocket. If at that time, the main food in Greece still needs to be imported in large quantities, and a food crisis in Greece is likely to occur. Forced to buy high-priced food.

From this point of view, Constantine is still very much in favor of Venizelos’ move to increase the import tariffs on food.

It is time to start increasing domestic food production in Greece.

“It’s also good news for those soldiers who are territorial-to-land, and in any case, they will get a good income from farming.”

･･･

After the discussion on the disarmament of the army, the Greek military and political leaders who participated in the meeting left one after another, while Constantine stayed and continued to discuss state affairs with Prime Minister Venizelos.

“Mr. Prime Minister, the population in Greece is now tense, and now the government has to encourage the reclamation of wasteland, and at the same time increase food production. In a short period of time, the situation of population tension in Greece will intensify, because in the next period of time, the domestic Agriculture will attract more people,” Constantine told Venizelos.

“But it’s not good news for Greece’s industrial development”

After all, it’s hard to imagine a country with a lot of power if the majority of its population is engaged in agriculture.

At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, various countries were trying to promote the development of industry and commerce.

“What do you mean?” Venizelos couldn’t understand what Constantine meant.

“I intend to fully implement industrialization in the agricultural field and improve the efficiency of agricultural production in Greece, which will not only promote the rapid development of Greek agriculture, but also reduce the number of people that agriculture absorbs,” Constantine stated his intention.

The time is now 1913, and there is not much time left for Greek agriculture. Constantine also felt a little anxious about the slow development of Greek agriculture.

Venizelos considered the suggestion of Crown Prince Constantine and thought carefully.

“Industrialization of agricultural production? I’ve never heard of this term, please advise His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.” Facing a completely novel phrase, Venizeloston became interested and immediately asked.

Constantine carefully selected the language and began to explain to Constantine: “The industrialization of agricultural production can also be called industrial agriculture.”

“Traditional agricultural production is nothing more than concentrated on a small piece of land in one’s own hands, and both input and output exist only on that small piece of land.”

“The biggest feature of industrialization is clustering and industrialization. Once your production is clustered and large-scale, the cost that farmers need to pay will be reduced accordingly.”

“For example, farmers in agricultural cooperatives who have all their land linked together, pool all their land together to produce one crop, and then pool all their funds together to buy machinery for agricultural production, replacing manpower with machinery , and the machinery only needs to be purchased once and can be used for a long time;”

“Buy fertilizers, pesticides, seeds in large quantities, and drive down the price of purchases by purchasing quantities; uniformly hire workers to work on all land production, then pay them higher wages, and give them bonuses according to the results of their labor, although the labor cost of a single person It’s increased, but with the help of machinery they need fewer people, so there won’t be much change in labor costs.”

“So these people actually changed from farmers to workers engaged in agricultural production”

“In this way, although the initial investment will be very large, in the long run, their production cost will be much smaller. Moreover, the relatively barren land can also be cultivated in rotation, fallow, and cultivated to increase the value of the land.”

Venizelos has seen the agricultural production in Greece, and naturally he also knows the current agricultural situation in Greece.

In fact, although Greece has introduced tractors for some years, tractors are not very useful in the agricultural field of Greece.

In recent years, the annual sales of agricultural tractors produced by Greek tractor factories are only dozens of units. If it is not for government subsidies, they will continue to be distributed. At the same time, the Royal Bank of Greece, at the behest of Constantine, has been supporting low-interest loans. , has already gone bankrupt.

The reason is also very simple. Tractors are not very useful in the current Greek agricultural production.

At present, Greek agriculture is mostly engaged in the cultivation of economic crops, such as grapes, olives, citrus, cotton and other crops. According to the current mechanical technology, it is impossible to achieve industrial production.

These crops are the main production crops of Greece’s current agriculture.

After most tractors are purchased by agricultural cooperatives, they are only used for plowing, or even as transport vehicles, with extremely limited use.

But now it is different. As Greece raises the grain import tax, Greece will install wheat on a large scale, which has the purpose of tractor.

Because wheat is a relatively simple crop to plant, it can be sown and harvested with a tractor.

Venizelos also felt that Constantine’s idea was feasible.

Macedonia and Thrace have relatively fertile land and relatively flat terrain. They have always had a tradition of planting wheat. After the increase in food import tariffs in the future, it is conceivable that Macedonia and Thrace will be used for large areas of land. grow wheat.

Secondly, the tractor technology is relatively mature, and now the domestic tractor factories in Greece can produce tractors independently.

As for the fuel used by the tractors, the current annual output of the Ferry Oilfield in Greece can reach 800,000 tons. At present, the domestic consumption in Greece is only 400,000 tons, and the rest is all exported to Italy.

Moreover, as a diplomat, Venizelos can better appreciate the risks of the current situation in Europe.

With the fact that this year (1913) Germany’s economic aggregate surpassed that of the United Kingdom, UUkanshu www.uukanshu.com became the first economic power in Europe, and the smell of gunpowder between the two major European groups became stronger and stronger.

What’s more terrible is that the speed of German economic development has not declined at all, but it has become faster and faster.

On the contrary, the economic gap between Britain and France is getting wider and wider, and the decline is obvious.

Under this circumstance, the arms race of various countries is also in high spirits. The naval competition between Britain and Germany, the continuous launch of expensive super dreadnoughts, and the high military expenditure of various countries have made the governments of various countries feel heavy financial pressure.

Under this circumstance, the agricultural development of Greece should indeed speed up the pace, not slow down.

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