Chapter 760: Revolutionary Wave
Chapter 743 – Revolutionary Wave
With the departure of a ship, the Prussian Kingdom’s hundreds of years of collected praises down the bottom, was emptied by Franz in a quiet and unnoticed manner.
No, this should have nothing to do with Prussia anymore. It was now Russian territory, and the close cooperation between Russia and Austria was entirely to each his own.
The Czarist government eliminated hidden dangers and stabilized the local situation; Austria increased the population of the subject peoples, and both sides were winners.
The Russian-Austrian relationship has become more harmonious as a result of this, and as a testimony to the friendship between Russia and Austria, the two governments have recently reached an agreement on the deferment of loan payments for two years.
It is purely friendly in nature and has no political strings attached. Since the agreement was reached, trade between the two countries along the Baltic Sea has flourished.
Affected by this Russian-Austrian trade boom, Austria engaged in international shipping business companies to take the lead out of the economic crisis, every day a large number of ships shuttle between the Baltic Sea and the Austrian colonies.
They were followed by agricultural and consumer goods companies, which were brought back from the brink of bankruptcy by the rise in consumption driven by emigration.
The price was that the Austrian National Bank, one after another, issued tens of millions of guilders to immigrants for housing loans, artificially creating a consumer market.
……
A gunshot in Lyon shattered the tranquility of the European continent. Since the Revolution of 1848, a wave of revolutions has once again been ignited in Europe.
France was naturally the hardest hit, from Paris to Rome everywhere was filled with revolutionary leaflets and slogans, similar to the small advertisements on telephone poles in later times.
“Putting out the fire” became the most important task of the French government, the police and the army had no time to take a vacation, everyone was busy all the time.
The revolutionary groups in all European countries responded to the revolutionary wave.
On February 11, 1882, an uprising broke out in Madrid, the capital of Spain;
On February 13, 1882, a dockworkers’ uprising broke out in Antwerp, Belgium’s largest port and heavy industrial city;
On February 13, 1882, an uprising of coal miners broke out in Luxembourg;
On February 21, 1882, a peasant uprising broke out in Switzerland;
On March 1, 1882, a textile workers’ revolt broke out in London;
On March 7, 1882, an independence movement broke out in the Irish region;
On March 12, 1882, a bourgeois revolution broke out in Portugal;
on March 17, 1882, an anti-Russian uprising broke out in the Polish region;
……
In less than two months, hundreds of revolutions, large and small, have broken out on the European continent, and strike movements have taken place in more than half of the industrial cities.
It is as if overnight, Europe has returned to the era of the Revolution.
Watching other people’s bad luck is a happy mood, but when it comes to their own turn, it’s like sitting on pins and needles.
As the leader of the capitalist world, Austria was not left alone.
In the past two months, the Austrian government has extinguished the Milan textile workers riots, the Venice independence movement, the Saxon copper mine riots, dozens of cases of revolutionaries.
Franz who watched it was scared to death, he never thought that there were so many rebellious parties under his rule.
There is no doubt that more than eighty percent of this group of revolutionaries were supported by hostile forces outside the country, and two-thirds of them were the handiwork of the British.
Franz is pleased that in this wave of revolution, Vienna performance is very stable, not only no way to revolution, even the strike did not happen.
At this time, Franz somewhat understand why later European countries to de-industrialization.
Normal times are fine, once suffered an economic crisis, the manufacturing industry was hit too hard.
Especially labor-intensive industries, that is a disaster.
Products can not be sold, enterprises have to lay off employees to survive, it is difficult to find new jobs in the economic crisis, workers also need to survive, the contradiction arises.
Although other industries will also be affected, but because the number of employees is relatively small, and not as concentrated as large factories, the outbreak of the crisis is also scattered around.
Theoretically, a colonial empire like Austria could have avoided the outbreak of revolution as long as no one messed with it.
Unemployed people had no jobs at home, but could be housed in overseas colonies. Usually, people don’t go to extremes as long as they have options.
Thinking about this, Franz hated John Bull with a passion. In order to take revenge on the British, Franz decided at the first opportunity to increase his support for the Irish Independence Organization, the British Revolutionary Party.
In a sense, this wave of revolution that spread throughout Europe was also the result of several big rogues stabbing each other.
Prime Minister Felix: “Your Majesty, we have just received news that about five thousand people in the Silesian refugee camps have launched a protest, demanding that the government intervene in the Russian atrocities and rescue the oppressed ……”
Without waiting for Felix to finish his sentence, Franz angrily dropped the cup in his hand. “Protest”, since when do criminals have the right to protest?
No problem, it’s okay to legally define criminals as illegal aliens that the refugee camps take in.
Because of the sheer number of people involved, the Vienna government didn’t directly define everyone as criminals, but only disciplined the leaders.
The protest, no doubt, challenged Franz’s bottom line. Russian atrocities, protesting to the Austrian government, isn’t that bullshit?
Austria is not the international police, why should it interfere in other people’s internal affairs. If you really want to point fingers, you’ll be killed sooner or later.
The Vienna government has already resettled most of them one by one, but there are still more than 200,000 people stranded in the camps, waiting to be resettled.
Franz sneered, ”Repatriate all those who participated in the protests, all of them back to the Russian Empire, and give them to Alexander III to plant potatoes.
All those responsible are removed from their positions and held accountable. Send an investigation team to investigate the circumstances of the incident closely, I don’t believe this was spontaneous by the refugees.”
The refugee camps were militarized, but the protests were still able to break out, if there was no malfeasance on the part of the administrators, Franz would not believe it.
To put it bluntly, the managers were unwilling, what happened in the outside world, the people inside the refugee camp could not receive the news.
These people were not idle, Franz also built a fence on the border. Not for any reason, but mainly to find something for the refugees to do, so as not to be idle and cause trouble.
But the trouble came, even after all the precautions. For the sake of long-term security, Franz had to make an example of them.
Repatriation to the Russian Empire was the greatest punishment. The Tsarist government would not welcome them. They would be lucky to go to Siberia to plant potatoes.
Prime Minister Felix suggested, “Your Majesty, repatriating these troublesome refugees is not a big problem, the trouble is the growing wave of revolutions in Europe.
Although most of the riots initiated by the revolutionaries ended in failure and were not as powerful as in 1848, the harm caused by these frequent riots should not be underestimated.
For the sake of peace and stability in the European world, it is necessary for us to convene another international conference to unite the governments of various countries and work together to curb the spread of revolutionary ideas.”
These days there is no government that is not afraid of “revolution”, due to the limitations of productivity, all the countries in the world, the grassroots people are having a hard time.
“When times are tough, there is a will for revolution, and when the ground for revolution exists, those with vested interests naturally panic.
It may seem that these revolutions happened in isolation, but in fact, more than 90 percent of these revolutions had nothing to do with international forces.
Perhaps people did not directly plan the rebellion, but supporting revolutionary organizations, spreading revolutionary ideas, and giving shelter to revolutionaries, all of these were done by the big hooligans.
Of course, the smaller countries were also involved. Only the range of action was a bit smaller, mainly doing ideological export.
After the 1848 Revolution, the European countries learned their lessons and settled down for a while, not realizing that they were now resurgent.
On this issue, Franz is not qualified to accuse others, similar things Austria did not do less.
At least in the British and French civil unrest, all have a part of the credit of the Vienna government. Without Austria’s participation, the European continent would not be so lively.
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(End of chapter)