My Italian

In a more private room at the State Department in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay is secretly meeting with a guest.

The Secretary of State Hay took office in October, mainly because the former Secretary of State William Rufus Day was mainly born in law and not proficient in foreign affairs, so the former ambassador to the United Kingdom took over.

The newly appointed Secretary of State Hay has performed well after taking over. He tried to ensure that the interests of the United States did not suffer too much loss during the Paris peace talks, so the next negotiation with Italy about the purchase of the ship was still the one who took the lead.

"Ambassador Dagerty, my country is very sincere this time. Could you please see our country's offer?"

With that said, the new secretary of state handed a quotation to Ambassador Dagerty.

For Ambassador Dagerty, this negotiation with the United States is an opportunity for him. As we all know, the importance of diplomatic ambassadors depends on the status of the country where they are stationed and the relationship with the country.

Take Italy as an example, the ambassador to Germany and the ambassador to the UK are definitely the two highest-ranked ambassadors in the diplomatic system, followed by Austrian, French, and Russian ambassadors to the three countries, in the second echelon, followed by Qing, the United States, and Japan. The three countries are in the third echelon, and the rest are the ambassadors of other countries.

And Italy and the United States have had little overlap in recent years, so for Dagerty, the purchase of the US ship is an opportunity for him, an opportunity for the Roman princes to see their own capabilities, for which he must do his best. to go.

After taking the quotation from Secretary Hay, Dagerty frowned.

"His Excellency, this quotation from your country does not show enough sincerity at all. I don't have to send it back to Rome at all. I can tell you now that it will not be accepted by Rome at all. The price is too low. All the new ships in our country are purchased, and we need to consider the many risks and other hidden costs that our country bears for this purpose.”

Ambassador Dagerty has the confidence to say this, because this quotation is really not enough. In this quotation, the United States has set a high price of US$5.5 million for each of the three Genoa-class battleships in Italy. As for the Garibaldi-class, it has set a price of US$7.2 million. The price given by the United States is the price opened on the basis of 10% of the foreign sales price in Italy.

In addition to these six warships, the United States also paid for the full set of drawings for these two warships, with a total price of $42 million.

Even the U.S. government, with its deep pockets, is struggling to come up with so much money at once, which is almost 60% of the U.S. Navy’s military spending.

As for why the U.S. government is willing to pay such a high price to buy and package Italian warships, in addition to being forced by the form, there is also the willingness of the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy, which has just played against the navies of the West and Italy, which operate Italian warships, has a very high evaluation of the Italian warships, and believes that the failure of this battle is due to the performance of its own warships.

Their own battleships, Indiana-class, are garbage, and various problems occur frequently in naval battles, so they have lost three against two and lost a lot. As for the Pennsylvania-class patrol, let alone Garibaldi, the world's first patrol, the shoes are not worthy. In naval battles, both firepower output and protection are far from each other. This gap makes the heroic U.S. Navy fight. The officers and soldiers scolded the mother angrily.

Furthermore, the U.S. Navy officers and men also distrusted the three Illinois-class battleships still under construction in their own shipyards, saying that they were just modified versions of the Indiana-class, and that the **** modifications were still rubbish.

Therefore, the US government must also consider the needs of its own naval officers and soldiers.

However, the goodwill of the U.S. government could not be understood by Ambassador Dagerty. He also took out a quotation and said it. "His Excellency Secretary of State Haiyi, this is our country's quotation for the sale of warships. Please take a look at it."

Hay took over the Italian quotation, which is much higher than the quotation given by the US government. First of all, the price of the six warships is about 20% higher than that given by the US. For example, the Genoa-class battleship was directly priced at $6.5 million, while the Garibaldi-class cruiser was as high as $8.4 million, and the total price was pushed up to $54 million.

The gap of $12 million made Secretary of State Hay's brows furrowed. "Ambassador Daggerty, your country's offer is too high, and the gap is too big."

"How can it be considered high?"

As soon as he heard that Secretary Hay didn't directly say that he couldn't afford it, Dagerty knew there was a drama and immediately defended it. "Your country needs to understand the difficulties of our country, first of all in the sale of warships, if our country..."

In Ambassador Dagerty's presentation, how much risk is Italy willing to take on the sale of the six warships by the United States. First of all, the Italian Navy will have a window of at least two years for its main battleships. At this time, if a country whose naval strength is not much different from Italy declares war on Italy, then after the lack of main battleships, it is impossible for Italy to win. In addition, the officers and soldiers of the Italian Navy for these six warships are already familiar with the warships, and if the United States buys these six warships, it will waste the energy and funds that the Italian Navy has already paid for this.

Having said that, Dagerty continued. "So the sale of this batch of warships cannot be compared with those sold by our country before, because it will disrupt the deployment and plans of our navy, and the price of this cannot be paid by our country."

However, despite the hype of Ambassador Dagerty, the Secretary of State Hay is also a diplomat. It was impossible to agree to Dagerty's request like this, and after a wrangling conversation, Ambassador Dagerty left.

Both of them knew that this time, they just reported the price to each other to see the gap between the two.

After Ambassador Dagerty left, Secretary of State Hay left the room and went to the next room without taking two steps.

There are quite a few people in this room, including President McKinley, Secretary of the Navy Lewis, Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage, Presidential Advisor Roosevelt and others.

That's right, this Roosevelt is the former Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, who is quite tenacious in political vitality like an undead strongman. His previous performances made President McKinley admire him very much, so he became a consultant.

"Everyone has heard my conversation with the Italian ambassador just now. This Italian is asking a very high price, so it's not easy to talk about."

Hay took a glass of water from Roosevelt's advisor, took a sip, and spoke to those present.

"I heard Italy's request, and the $54 million price is really too high."

"I don't think there is much to talk about. At most, the price of 50 million US dollars is the limit." Haye interrupted at this time.

Treasury Secretary Lyman Gage turned his head to the silent Navy Secretary Lewis Road. "Can't your navy reduce the number of purchases, for example, only buy two battleships, two for patrolling, this can save at least 1,400 US dollars, such a large amount of money can do a lot of things."

The Secretary of the Treasury's words attracted everyone's attention to the Secretary of the Navy, and even the President looked at him.

In the face of everyone's attention, Minister Lewis immediately defended. "Everyone, as I said before, the Navy needs at least six warships to protect our country's interests from being harmed. Since our own warships are not highly rated among naval officers and men, we must buy six warships at this time. And Italy has exactly six, and four are ready to use, which is very important. Knowing that we are facing the Japanese battleship in Hawaii are six protected cruisers, which are absolutely disadvantaged in the balance of power, and we need these battleships to be able to Immediately expand our sea power."

The Roosevelt adviser, who loved the Navy, added shortly after Secretary Lewis's words fell.

"Everyone, we bought six Italian warships mainly to express our country's tough attitude and to show our strength. In Hawaii, our country is facing off against Japan, and in Panama, the negotiation between our country and the French on the canal is very unsatisfactory, and France's attitude towards our country is in Before the war with Spain it was completely two attitudes.

And the negotiations with the British have come to a standstill. From these signs, we can see that our country has fallen into a shrinking state in foreign affairs and cannot expand its own interests for the United States. This is because we underestimated the difficulty of the war with Spain. And this underestimation needs more energy and money to make up for it, otherwise the destined United States of America will be caught in a diplomatic quagmire and unable to move. "

In Roosevelt's remarks, the sequelae of the United States' defeat in the war are all revealed at once. Obviously, in Roosevelt's view, the United States should not be entangled in the issue of money at present, but should give priority to expressing its attitude. Yes, attitude is the most important thing. Even if the war is lost, the United States should express its attitude. It doesn't matter if we lose, we fix it and start over.

From Roosevelt's point of view, this is the manifestation of the American spirit~www.wuxiamtl.com~ Let all countries know that it doesn't matter if you beat me once, what matters is that I can continue to fight with you by relying on my unique conditions in North America, once If you can't do it twice, if you can't do it twice, you can do it three times. It was with this confidence that many sages in the early days of the founding of the country were able to lead the United States of America formed by thirteen states to transform into one of the world powers spanning two oceans in less than a hundred years.

"Roosevelt is right. We must speak out. We cannot be intimidated by a setback. The United States of America will not be intimidated by difficulties. It should face difficulties bravely."

President McKinley, who participated in the Civil War, interjected at this time, and his words were the final decision on the purchase of the ship.

"Well, I will talk to the Italian ambassador." Secretary of State Hay also took up the topic.

"Very good, but we need to negotiate some prices. The U.S. government is not rich enough to satisfy the appetite of the poor."

President McKinley made a rare one-liner.

Well, negotiations on the US ship purchase appear to be imperative, depending on how much the Secretary of State can negotiate.