Greece to roman road

In this case, it means that these soldiers from the Congo can indeed be of some use.

"The Albanian Army has been reduced from the current 150,000 soldiers to 100,000. As for the Macedonian Army, it has been reduced from the current 250,000 Greek soldiers to 110,000. All 150,000 Congolese soldiers have been repatriated to the Congo." Mainur told many Greek officers in the back of the conference room about his disarmament plan.

"In this case, the total strength of Greece's mainland troops is 210,000, which is enough to protect Greece's national defense security."

Many Greek officers in the conference room discussed among themselves when they heard that the Chief of General Staff advocated such a major disarmament move.

"Of course, the current establishment of the Greek army will not be reduced, and the numbers of each division will still be retained. In other words, the main goal of this reduction is to reduce the number of ordinary soldiers, whether they are senior officers or middle- and low-level officers. It is retained so that when war comes, soldiers can be added to the existing army establishment at any time to quickly form combat effectiveness."

This move will also ease the resistance of the military officer class to disarmament.

Mid-level and low-level officers are basically professional soldiers, and many of them even graduated from army schools. This means that once these people enter the society, they do not have any survival skills. After they leave the army, they have to start over. start.

In addition, experienced, shrewd and capable mid-level and low-level officers are the guarantee of an army's combat effectiveness. No matter how sophisticated tactics the senior officers conceive, these mid-level and low-level officers are ultimately responsible for executing them, otherwise it is just talk on paper.

"As for the number of troops, it can be streamlined. After this battle, the pressure on North Macedonia has been greatly reduced. There is no need to maintain an army of 100,000. 80,000 is enough," Constantine interjected.

"The situation in the Thrace region is relatively complicated because it borders Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, it has been recently occupied. It does require more troops. According to Chief of General Staff Emmanuel, the number is 110,000."

After this battle, Greece's territory expanded greatly, reaching a territory of nearly 190,000 square kilometers.

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

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

Moreover, Macedonia has a lot of arable land, which requires people to reclaim wasteland.

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

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

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

However, after entering the 19th century, due to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Macedonia and Thrace fell into long-term wars, resulting in a sharp decline in population and desolate cultivated land.

Now that Greece has obtained these places after a bloody battle, it is natural to develop these places as soon as possible.

Secondly, Greece's severe financial problems also require the Greek government to significantly reduce military spending.

The Greek army maintained large numbers of soldiers in military camps, contradicting these issues.

"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Your Excellency the Chief of General Staff, what about the placement of these retired soldiers?" Manujianaski asked with concern.

In this war against Bulgaria, Manugianaski, as the commander of the Macedonian Army, led the soldiers to fight in Macedonia, and was naturally concerned about the problems of these soldiers after they retired.

"As for soldiers' retirement allowances and casualty pensions, our staff at the General Staff are also formulating them," Emmanuel said.

In fact, Greece is currently extremely short of financial funds, and it cannot come up with much funds at the same time to provide these retired soldiers and wounded and wounded soldiers. The government is still thinking of ways.

"Regarding the issue of retirement allowances for soldiers and pensions for casualties, the Bulgarian government has already transferred the first war compensation of 80 million drachmas to the account," Prime Minister Venizelos said.

"Secondly, since there are so many soldiers who need to return to society, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers are preparing to retire at one 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 Macedonian and Thraean Anyway, the government will sell the land ownership here to the people in the future.”

"The soldiers are eager to get land, and the country has gained a lot of new wasteland. At the same time, it can also ease the financial pressure on the government, killing three birds with one stone," said the Finance Minister.

Upon hearing the government's policies, Constantine sighed secretly, lamenting that Greece's population would flow into agriculture in large numbers again.

The life pressure of farmers is low. Compared with being a worker in a factory and being a proletarian, more Greeks prefer to become a farmer who owns land.

Thanks to the rapid development of Greek agricultural cooperatives, the living standards of farmers in Greece are not as bad as those of workers. Although their income is not as good as that of workers, they are completely self-sufficient in food and have low life pressure. Therefore, becoming a farmer who owns land can experience tranquility and leisure. Pastoral life was an attractive career for many Greeks.

Greece originally had a small population, but now a large number of people will flow into agriculture, which will inevitably cause a shortage of industrial employment in Greece, which will increase the cost of industrial development in Greece.

"Moreover, in order to encourage people to reclaim wasteland, the government will increase Greece's food import taxes to prevent more foreign cheap food from flooding into the Greek market and protect the interests of Greek farmers," Venizelos said.

The staple food now used by the Greek people, such as wheat, is grown by farmers in the countryside, either potatoes or wheat; but in cities and towns, it is usually wheat 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 relatively barren land was planted with cash crops.

Crops such as grapes, olives, and citrus do not require high land quality and can be grown even on hills.

Now that the Venizelos government is raising import tariffs on agricultural products, it will naturally lead to a reduction in the import of cheap wheat from abroad and an increase in domestic food prices in Greece. In a short period of time, stimulated by financial interests, Greek farmers will increase the amount of food planted. .

Of course, considering that the situation in Europe is becoming increasingly severe, once a war breaks out in Europe, food prices in the international market will skyrocket. If by that time, Greece still needs to import a large amount of its main food, a food crisis is likely to occur in Greece. Forced to buy food at high prices.

Analyzing from this point of view, Constantine still approved of Venizelos's move to increase grain import tariffs.

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

"This is also good news for those soldiers who are engaged in agriculture. No matter what, they will get good income if they engage in agriculture."

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

"Mr. Prime Minister, the population tension in Greece is now tense. Now the government is encouraging the reclamation of wasteland and increasing food production. In a short period of time, the population tension in Greece will intensify, because in the next period of time, the population in Greece will Agriculture will attract more people,” Constantine told Venizelos.

"But this is not good news for Greece's industrial development."

After all, it is difficult to imagine a country with great strength if most of its population is engaged in agriculture.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, various countries were trying to promote the development of industry and commerce.

"What do you mean?" Venizelos was a little confused about Constantine's intention.

"I plan to fully promote industrialization in the agricultural field and improve Greece's agricultural production efficiency. This will not only promote the rapid development of Greek agriculture, but also reduce the number of people absorbed by agriculture," Constantine stated his intention.

It was already 1913, and there was not much time left for Greek agriculture. Constantine also felt a little anxious about the slow development of Greek agriculture.

Venizelos considered Crown Prince Constantine's suggestion and thought about it carefully.

"Industrialization of agricultural production? I have never heard of this term. Please give me some advice, His Highness the Crown Prince." Faced with a completely novel phrase, Venizelos suddenly became interested and immediately asked.

Constantine carefully chose his words and began to explain to Constantine: "Industrialized agricultural production can also be called industrialized agriculture."

"Traditional agricultural production is nothing more than concentrated on the small piece of land in your hands, and inputs and outputs are only stored on your own small piece of land."

"The biggest feature of industrialization is clustering and industrialization. Once your production becomes clustered and large-scale, the costs farmers need to pay will be reduced accordingly."

“For example, farmers in an agricultural cooperative whose land is connected together put all their land together to produce one crop, and then pool all their funds together to purchase machinery for agricultural production, using machinery to replace labor. , and the machinery only needs to be purchased once and can be used for a long time;”

"Purchase large quantities of fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds, and use the purchase volume to lower the purchase price; uniformly hire workers to engage in the production of all land, and then give them higher wages, and give bonuses based on the results of their labor, although the labor cost per person is It’s improved, but with the help of machinery they need fewer people, so the change in labor costs won’t be that big.”

"So these people actually changed from farmers to workers engaged in agricultural production."

"Although the initial investment will be large, in the long run, their production costs will be much smaller. Moreover, relatively barren land can also use methods such as rotational cultivation, fallow, and land cultivation to increase the value of the land."

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

In fact, although tractors have been introduced to Greece for some years, tractors are not very useful in Greece's agricultural field.

In recent years, the annual sales volume of agricultural tractors produced by Greek tractor factories has been only a few dozen units. If it were not for the continuous payment of government subsidies, and at the same time, the Royal Bank of Greece, under the instruction of Constantine, has been supporting low-interest loans. , has already gone bankrupt.

The reason is also very simple. There are really not many places where tractors can be used in current Greek agricultural production.

At present, Greek agriculture is mostly engaged in the cultivation of cash crops, such as grapes, olives, citrus, cotton and other crops. According to current mechanical technology, it is simply 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 uses.

But things are different now. Since Greece has raised taxes on grain imports, Greece will install wheat on a large scale, which will allow tractors to be used.

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

Venizelos also felt that Constantine's idea was feasible.

Both Macedonia and Thrace have relatively fertile land and relatively flat terrain. They have always had a tradition of growing wheat. After the increase in food import tariffs in the future, it is conceivable that Macedonia and Thrace will use large tracts of land for Plant wheat.

Secondly, tractor technology has become relatively mature, and tractor factories in Greece can now produce tractors independently.

As for the fuel used by tractors, the current annual output of Greece's Ferri Oilfield can reach 800,000 tons. The current domestic use in Greece is only 400,000 tons, and the rest is exported to Italy.

Moreover, as a diplomat, Venizelos is more aware of the risks of today's European situation.

As Germany's economic aggregate surpassed the United Kingdom this year (1913) and became Europe's largest economic power, the smell of gunpowder between the two major European groups became increasingly intense.

What's even more terrible is that the speed of Germany's economic development has not slowed down at all, but seems to be getting faster and faster.

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

Under such circumstances, the arms race in various countries is also full of emotions. The naval race between Britain and Germany, the continuous launch of expensive super-dreadnought ships, and the high military expenditures of various countries have put heavy financial pressure on governments.

Under this circumstance, Greece's agricultural development should indeed speed up and not be slow.