Chapter 105: Planting and Framing

  Chapter 105: Planted and Framed

By mid-May, there were widespread food shortages in Budapest, and the high price of food had raided the last of the wealth from the pockets of the populace.

In order to stabilize order, the Republican government had to start a food rationing system.

By this time in Budapest, vegetables and fruits had become luxuries, and meat products had been withdrawn from the tables of the common people, and had become the exclusive preserve of the nobility.

The only thing the government could provide was the most basic five hundred grams of black bread per person per day, plus three hundred grams of potatoes and two hundred grams of corn.

With such a small amount of supplies, the bureaucrats in the government were still profiting from it, and shortages were just a routine operation.

The black bread with leaves, wood chips and other impurities, potatoes that have sprouted and changed color, and colorful corn are also some of the worst things that can kill a person with a bad digestive system.

Only can’t think, no can’t do, Republican government officials of the temperament, can be said to be the model of the capitalist world.

The food crunch in Budapest was limited to the lower classes, for the ruling class there was no shortage of food, and even though the enemy had already hit the door, their feasts likewise did not stop.

Even they began to plunder the wealth of the middle class and petty bourgeoisie through the underground black market. The price of food has been speculated to the skies, with a piece of black bread without additives costing an equal weight of silver coins.

An ordinary residential house in the city of Budapest could be purchased for only fifty kilograms of bread at this time; even in the busy stores, the price was at most a few hundred kilograms of bread.

In the corners of the city, street girls are everywhere, just need a piece of black bread, or a potato, can get their services.

In order to reduce food consumption, since June, the revolutionary government has been expelling the city’s old, sick and disabled from the city, and Lt. General Julius has accepted this group of refugees with a smile and made a proper placement.

Franz is attached importance to propaganda, Austrian major media reporters were invited over, they waved their cameras to take pictures from all angles, these are important evidence to expose the crimes of the revolutionaries.

Now, without the government’s help, looking at these thin-faced war refugees, and listening to them complain about the atrocities of the Hungarian republican government, the “righteous” media, all vying for the first to scold the unscrupulous Hungarian revolutionary government.

The famous Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, this time also mixed into the ranks of journalists, the more you know let him more hurt.

Not only him, many literati ran over, including some of the supporters of the revolutionaries, the scene in front of them, so that everyone directly to the revolutionaries dead.

The pen of the literati is murderous and bloodless, and under the joint efforts of everyone, this Hungarian revolution was redefined.

Trapped in Budapest, Kossuth and the others, still do not know that their reputation is rotten, tens of thousands of people submitted a petition to the emperor, hoping that the emperor can give them justice.

Franz, of course, went along with it and accepted the people’s petition, making it clear that there would be a public trial for all the rebels and inviting the victimized populace to serve as a jury, which would vote on the final sentence.

Anyone with a discerning eye knew that this was the Austrian government’s way of decimating the revolutionaries.

How could this group of victims, who now wanted to devour the revolutionaries alive, be merciful to them?

The end result will surely be a killing of heads. It is still a trial in the name of the people, and even if more people are killed, the Austrian government cannot be blamed.

Of course, this is limited to one time, the future Austria is bound to be a state of law, it is impossible to be so capricious again.

Before the Revolution Hungary and Austria were governed separately, and many of the laws of the two places were different; Hungarian laws were anachronistic, and Austrian laws had not been practiced there, so Franz could exploit the loophole and give the power of sentencing to the people.

……

Watching the revolutionary fires everywhere being extinguished, and the only ally, the Kingdom of Sardinia, being hanged single-handedly by Austria, this time the revolutionaries were also thinking about the way back.

The Austrian army suddenly stopped attacking Budapest, which surprised the revolutionaries, and the first thing that Kossuth thought of was an inside job.

The Habsburgs never lacked supporters in Hungary, and there were likewise royalists in the city of Budapest, in addition to the aristocrats and capitalists who wanted to re-engage in speculation, and they were by no means in the minority.

Once these people were mobilized, Budapest would change hands in an instant.

The Revolutionary Party was so shallowly rooted and divided into different groups that until 1847 the largest revolutionary groups numbered no more than three digits.

The Revolutionary Party, which expanded a hundred-fold after the outbreak of the Revolution, was mostly a skin of the Revolutionary Party, but in reality the Revolutionary Party had no binding power over them at all.

The aftermath of the rapid expansion of the army broke out, there was no tight revolutionary organization, no unified political platform, most people were just a hot head, or acquaintances recommended embarrassed to refuse, and became members of the revolutionary party.

No one wanted to die, and the revolutionaries were no exception. While the Austrian army did not rush to attack, the internal contradictions of the Hungarian republican government were intensifying.

A series of failures down, Kossuth, the prestige of the Führer has fallen to a critical point, the opposition can not tolerate him, even his direct subordinates, also began to doubt his ability.

The Hungarian National Self-Defense Forces expanded too quickly, mixing in with the triads, and Kossuth did not restrain them, and finally this rabble ignited strife.

On June 8, a company of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), under the order of Kossuth, stormed into Count Istvan’s house, labeled him a counter-revolutionary, and executed dozens of people including the count on the spot, ransacked the property, and then brought all the young women back to the barracks for sexual pleasures.

The matter is very big, Count Istvan is not an ordinary aristocrat, by later generations of Hungarians honored as: Hungary’s greatest man, such a person can also be killed casually?

You know, since the establishment of the Republic of Hungary, internal conflicts, Kossuth also personally asked Count Istvan to mediate, and now actually executed for counter-revolutionary crimes?

On June 9, at the Hungarian government meeting, the opposition led by Schemil directly attacked.

“Mr. Kossuth, may I ask who authorized you to convict Count Istvan? And on what basis did you execute a great nobleman? And what is the explanation for the atrocities that took place in the Count’s house?”

Kosut’s heart was crumbling inside, in all conscience, when did he order the execution of Count Istvan?

But it had already happened, the National Guard had done it under his banner, the company commander in question was now nowhere to be found, there was no way to restore the truth of the matter.

“This matter has nothing to do with me, I never gave such an order!” Kosut denied it flatly

(End of chapter)