Chapter 90: Hope

  Chapter 90 Hope

Flooding Budapest is not a big deal at all if it’s in the latter days, at least Franz has seen the news of flooding Budapest a few times.

However, if artificially dammed the upper Danube and borrowed the power of the water to attack Budapest, then the consequences would be serious. Budapest was finished, but so were the farmlands and cities downstream.

If the local Hungarian population were all supporters of the revolutionaries, then it is a no-brainer that the Austrian army would have already done so.

However, now the supporters of the Habsburg dynasty, obviously more than the supporters of the Hungarian republican government, if the flooding of the city, it will become a kill the enemy eight hundred to lose a thousand.

Franz’s idea of Kossuth is not known, heard the news of the possible flooding of the city, he knew that Budapest can not be defended.

Transposition, if he stood in the position of the Vienna government, even if the consequences are more serious, the price to pay, will choose to extinguish the Republic of Hungary, this is the perspective of the politicians.

“No, General Henrik Dembinski. Politicians have much less integrity than you think, and what can’t the corrupt Austrian government do?

The displacement of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian people is no big deal in the eyes of the Austrians!” Kossuth said seriously

At least in his mind, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Hungarians were chips that could be given up, and if the final victory could be achieved, this sacrifice would be acceptable if it was several times greater.

This can be seen in the suppression of the labor and peasant movement by the republican government. Since the establishment of the Hungarian Republic in 1848, more people have been killed in the suppression of the labor-peasant movement than have been killed in the Kingdom of Hungary in the last ten years.

This is almost a common denominator of bourgeois governments in this era. On the one hand they cry for freedom and the emancipation of the productive forces, and on the other hand they raise the butcher’s knife against the working people.

“Mr. Kosut, if the enemy is going to flood Budapest, all we are doing is useless, the power of the individual is small in the face of a monstrous flood.

I suggest that you prepare your back roads at once now, and preserve as much of the fire of the revolution as you can to carry on this sacred cause.” Henrik Dembinski frowned and said

That’s been the experience of the Poles for a long time now, no matter what kind of setbacks they’ve experienced, the fire of the revolution has always been able to be preserved. Of course the wave that was pitted against them by the Soviets counted them unlucky to have met a ruthless character.

“Want us not to take the initiative, let’s focus on killing a bloody road, lest we involve the people in the city and follow them to suffer from the war!” Pedro couldn’t help but propose

As a hot-blooded young man, he couldn’t give in to the ruthlessness of letting the entire city’s population follow along with him, but unfortunately, he couldn’t say anything about these issues.

Kosut shook his head and said, “Taking the initiative is undoubtedly striking a stone with an egg, right now the enemy is hoping that we will take the initiative to send us to the door.

Even if the enemy wants to flood Budapest, it will have to be after the attack has been thwarted, and the Vienna government is unlikely to make up its mind immediately, so this is our opportunity.

The war in Venice has reached a critical point, the Austrians are still fighting the Italian states, and if our allies win the battle, then the situation will change.

The rotten Austrian government, which does not have the courage to fight on, will then have the enemy internally burned and externally trapped, and we will then ask the French to mediate, and the cause of the revolution will be successful!”

Apparently, having failed for so long, Kossuth no longer believed that the Hungarians could accomplish national independence on their own, but instead pinned their hopes on the intervention of international powers.

Henrik Dembinski warned, “Mr. Kosut, from a military point of view, I have to remind you that the Italian states have very little hope of winning this war.

Of the four Italian states, the only one that is committing its forces to a bloody battle with Austria is the Kingdom of Sardinia, and they do not have the strength to support Hungary, even if they were lucky enough to capture Venice.”

The Italian regional allies were unreliable, and the French were even more unreliable; they were still having a revolution themselves, and they wanted to intervene in the Hungarian revolution?

“No, we still have allies. The Habsburgs’ sworn enemy, the Ottoman Empire, has just completed its institutional reforms, and we can still ask them to intervene in this war!” Kosut said fiercely

He had already made up his mind, the big deal was to cede Transylvania to the Ottoman Empire, as long as Hungary could become independent, paying a part of the price was also acceptable.

Since 1792, the Ottoman Empire had been carrying out reforms, from the initial military reforms, to the introduction of technology, to economic reforms, and finally political reforms.

In this era it seems that the Ottoman Empire was still progressive, they followed the system of European countries to reform, although they had not yet achieved the goal of a rich and powerful country.

“No, the Ottoman Empire and Hungary have a hundred-year blood feud, cooperating with them is undoubtedly like inviting the wolf into the house!” Petőfi hastily objected

Turning over Hungary’s history books, the battles with the Ottoman Empire took up nearly half of the content, both sides have been in a deadly struggle for hundreds of years, and now cooperating with the Ottoman Empire is completely like asking a tiger for its skin.

Moreover, the hatred accumulated by the people is not something they can control, and religious beliefs are a hurdle that can not be crossed, if you let the Hungarian soldiers and the Ottoman army to join forces, it is estimated that the battle has not yet begun, but the first infighting.

Kossuth was resolute: “For the cause of the revolution, there is nothing that cannot be sacrificed. It is true that the Ottoman Empire is our enemy, but on the question of dealing with Austria, our position is the same.

As long as Hungary can gain its independence, we can wait for the future to solve all other problems. By then the British, the French and even the whole of Europe will be our allies!”

……

Plans are always faster than change, and just as Kossuth was preparing to unite with the Ottoman Empire, another change occurred on the Venice battlefield.

The term “three-minute fever” aptly describes the Italians, whose fighting spirit had been sapped by days of consecutive battles.

The Battle of Trento, the key point of the battlefield, was the center of attention. Marshal Badoglio ordered Trento to be captured in three days, but three days passed and three more days went by, and Trento was still Austria’s Trento.

The artillery had arrived at the front line, still no use. Even during this period, Marshal Badolio sent another division of reinforcements, still no progress.

After the officers and soldiers exchanged some life-saving tips, the casualty rate of the Sardinian Kingdom’s army dropped drastically, and the number of casualties every day was controlled within three digits.

Originally, it should be a good thing that the number of casualties decreased, but the problem was that the decrease in casualties was based on the premise that the soldiers were “actively avoiding war”, which was not good.

(End of chapter)