Chapter 185: Compromise (Part 1)

Paris.
The entrance to the telegraph office was always crowded with reporters and editors from various newspapers, competing like hungry wolves for any critical news, sometimes even to the point of deadly rivalry.
Now, a group of reporters were shouting, “Damn it! Damn it!”
This was the only telegraph line connecting Saigon to Paris. Had it not been for France’s failures in the Far East, its construction would have taken much longer. But military needs now outweighed economic considerations, and the army built this undersea cable at great expense.
Yet it was this very cable that they were cursing, as signals from Saigon continued to arrive—entire volumes of the Bible.
Indeed, some newspaper correspondent in Vietnam, in an attempt to monopolize the news, kept sending the entire Bible to Paris after delivering their own reports. The rhythmic tapping from the telegraph machine drove all the reporters crazy.
What made things even worse was that this guy spared no cost—not only was the French-language line used to send the Bible, but the less-used English-language line was used as well. He must have spent tens of thousands of francs just on telegraph fees.
But everyone knew how significant the news behind such a cost must be. Some journalists even believed its value could reach 100 million francs! Just like last year’s headline about the defeat in the Shanxi campaign, which turned a third-rate, outdated newspaper into the focus of attention across France—yet no one knew what the actual news was.
It left them feeling as if they’d been scratched by a cat. They knew the French were fighting a decisive battle in Hanoi, one as crucial for the Expeditionary Force to Tokyo as Napoleon’s Waterloo. Yet previous reports had conveyed completely opposite messages.
Some reports claimed the French had achieved a complete victory, defeating tens of thousands of Black Flag troops and continuing their pursuit of Hanoi. Other reports said the French had suffered defeats, but no one could confirm which version was true.
Some reporters rushed to the Army and Navy ministries, knowing they had the biggest stake in this undersea cable. Unrestricted by just two civilian lines, they expected to get more important insider information.
But experienced journalists doubted they’d obtain much useful information. The Navy ministry would surely hand them a bland battle report, making it seem as though they had never lost—even turning their defeats in Shanxi into claims of annihilating the Black Flag troops.
The bureaucrats at the Army ministry would simply turn them away. These bureaucrats were experts at profiting from insider information and would surely use it to create turmoil in the stock market the next day.

The telegraph machine continued to decode messages, but it was obvious to everyone that the reporter in Saigon had gone mad—he kept sending pictures of the Bible. Yet many suspected he was already celebrating with champagne: “Damn lucky bastard.” Many morning papers had already produced their drafts, hoping for such sensational news, but they were clearly disappointed. At the thought of missing such a great opportunity, they felt frantic. As the war progressed, it now took only a day to send messages from Hanoi to Paris, a huge improvement from the week it took at the start of the war. But that damned guy added at least six hours to the communication time—no one knew exactly how long he spent sending those pictures of the Bible. “The printing presses have already started working—damn it!” Several editors even rushed to the telegraph office but returned disappointed. While everyone was disappointed, a few lowly reporters were celebrating with champagne in their own offices over this sensational headline: “Another Sedan! Waterloo repeated! 150,000 Republican troops destroyed in Hanoi…” Sensational headlines, sensational content. Although the Black Flag Army had achieved brilliant victories, these reporters had arbitrarily added a zero to the number of enemies killed. 150,000 Republican troops lost in a decisive battle in the East, tens of thousands of French citizens killed, a French general and several high-ranking officers captured, with the enemy forces already at the outskirts of Hanoi. That reporter in Vietnam, originally from the entertainment section, gathered together everything he knew, saw, heard, guessed, and imagined to craft this explosive piece of news. The printing presses were running at full capacity. Faced with such sensational news, the newspaper owner resolved to print as much as possible. Today’s edition of this ordinary Parisian newspaper would have five times the usual circulation. As for the cost of sending those pictures of the Bible, the newspaper would cover it double: “This is absolutely amazing!” But he underestimated the public’s craving for sensational news, and the newspapers would be in short supply. “Damn it!” Such explosive news also dealt a huge blow to the cabinet: “These damned reporters!” War is often a pivotal event in a person’s life. Just as Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are turning points in Americans’ memories, they always say “before Pearl Harbor” and “after Pearl Harbor.” For these cabinet members, their lives could also be divided into two simple halves: “before the war” and “after the war!” This wasn’t a war that determined a nation’s fate—it was just an ordinary colonial war. Yet the pressure they faced was far greater than that during the Franco-Prussian War over a decade earlier. Now every newspaper was fixated on Hanoi, and any minor setback would be exaggerated tenfold by these reporters and made known to every French citizen.

Especially after the Black Flag Army entered Cochinchina, all newspapers, in this era when the media was beginning to develop, spared no effort to attack the government. Even those newspapers that sided with the government criticized France’s actions in Annam to varying degrees. Their only argument was, “If we had deployed more troops, we wouldn’t have suffered such a defeat today.”
Of all of them, Prime Minister Ferri was under the greatest pressure. He wished he could tear up those newspapers and send all those reporters to the guillotine. But he could only vent his anger into the air. After a long time, he finally managed to calm down: “Who can tell me exactly how great our losses are?”