Chapter 1071: Thorn in the Back

  Chapter 1050 – Pierced Back
Regardless of whether or not we can find out who is behind this, there are always days to go by. After a few scapegoats were disposed of, the “Hoden tragedy” was considered to be over on the surface.

Social beatings do not only lead to maturity, but they can also lead to paranoia. This was the case for Nicholas II, who had lost his trust in the bureaucrats after the delay in finding out the results of the Hödön tragedy.

That was fine, there were plenty of emperors who didn’t trust bureaucrats. In a sense, distrust of the integrity of the bureaucracy is a necessary ingredient for the success of a monarch.

The trouble was that Nicholas II was unable to restrain himself and revealed his true inner thoughts before he had found an adequate replacement.

In this respect, Nicholas II was similar to Chongzhen. When one trusts a person, one trusts unconditionally; once one realizes that one has been deceived, one goes to the other extreme.

As it turns out, bureaucratic groups are not to be messed with. Going directly against the Tsar, no one was willing to be the outlier. But to give the Tsar a hard time elsewhere, everyone was still familiar with it.

In the next few days, news of demands for autonomy, opening up parliaments, and liberalizing elections …… everywhere appeared like snowflakes on Nicholas II’s desk.

……

Paris, Command of the Russian Army in France.

Admiral Oginets hung up the phone with a frown, again pressing for supplies. He was about to be driven crazy by logistics in recent times.

As the person directly responsible for the Russian army looting the place and causing the situation in France to go out of control, Admiral Auchinets was now in the guilt phase.

In order to make up for his faults as soon as possible, Admiral Auchinets has been acting extraordinarily hard when it comes to suppressing the French resistance.

“Generate a reminder to the country, when will our supplies arrive?”

This is also the tradition of the Russian Empire now, supplies do not rush not to arrive. No matter whether the front line is not in combat, anyway, can not affect the bureaucrats to make money.

In order to foam as many supplies as possible, the Russian Army Logistics Department has always had the principle of “a penny saved is a penny, and a day delayed is a day,” in this regard the bureaucrats have shown an unparalleled talent.

“Commander, in the last week we have sent seven telegrams to the Ministry of Logistics and the Ministry of War.

With the exception of one reply from the War Ministry, which was told to wait, the rest of the telegrams have all dropped like a stone and are now unheard of.

Combined with the previous news, I’m afraid there’s been another change in the country that we don’t know about. Until we know exactly what’s going on, it’s really not a good time for us to get involved.”

The valet warned.

Under normal circumstances to press for supplies, no matter when they could be shipped, the Ministry of Logistics was going to give a call back.

Thinking that it was so negative now, not even replying to a telegram, there were only two explanations: either the telegraph operator was derelict in his duties, or there had been a change of heart within the government.

Admiral Auchinets nodded and said helplessly: ”Send another telegram to hurry up, with a harsher tone.

Tell them that they will be held responsible for any delay in the arrival of supplies that leads to the failure of military operations at the front.

Also, notify the officers above division level to come over for a meeting in the evening.”

The country was in political turmoil, and problems with supplies to the front line were completely unwarranted.

If it was a strong general, he would still be able to mess with the domestic bureaucrats, and if he couldn’t solve the problem, he would complain to the Tsar.

Unfortunately, Admiral Oginets, a minor nobleman, was obviously not strong enough to offend the bureaucrats in the logistics department.

Yet again, the logistical problems had to be solved. Fortunately, the Vienna government sponsored enough potatoes, or Admiral Auchinets would not even have had time to think about countermeasures.

Just because the Russians had taken over the “rich” region of Paris, they did not have to worry about food and drink. This was true in the past, but now everything is different.

Unlike Germany in the original time and space, after the end of the Continental War, the anti-French alliance did not ask the French government for industrial and commercial products to offset the debt, naturally will not help them to restore industrial production.

Although the Bourbon dynasty after the entry of the king, for the restoration of production efforts, but the domestic market and the collapse of France, obviously does not have the basis for the development of industry.

Undoubtedly, in the 19th century, there was no third choice in Europe, except for agriculture and industry, which could accommodate a large number of employed people.

If the employment problem could not be solved, the economy naturally could not do well. The once affluent Paris area was now a large slum.

From the beginning of the defeat of France, in addition to the outbreak of the refugee wave period, the population of the Paris area short-term growth, the rest of the time are in a continuous loss.

This has been exacerbated by the strikes of the Carlos government. Almost every day, thousands of people can be seen dragging their families out of this desperate land.

With the locals unable to survive and forced to run away, it was a fool’s errand to try to raise hundreds of thousands of Russian troops on the spot.

“Yes, Your Excellency the Commander.”

After saying that, the valet turned around and was about to leave when Admiral Oginets suddenly spoke up and called out, “Wait a minute.”

“There’s no need to rush, there’s more than likely a major change in the country, I’m afraid we won’t be able to attend to us for a while.

Directly send a telegram to the Allied Command, detailing the predicament we are facing and requesting material assistance.”

Frankly speaking, but where there were other options, Admiral Auchinets would not have taken this step.

While Allied Command was nominally the superior of the Russian forces in France, the institution had degenerated into an exchange and liaison agency long before the end of the war against France.

Though still possessing nominal jurisdiction, it was only a political necessity. In essence, the Russian Army has long been operating outside of Allied Command.

With this nominal jurisdiction, the Russians could indeed turn to Allied Command for help. The government in Vienna would certainly not sit idly by out of a need to suppress France.

But there is no free lunch in this world, once the Allied Command’s money and food, the Russian army in France again want to maintain the current independent status is impossible.

If it only involves the issue of independent military command of these hundreds of thousands of Russian troops on the front line, then the poor tsarist government, I guess it would have been sold to the Vienna government.

The big deal is to be a mercenary, history is not without precedent, as long as the price is in place, the tsarist government will not mind.

The problem is that once the Allied Command intervened, the issue became complicated. Since the Allied Command got the command of the Russian army, shouldn’t the command of the other national garrisons be transferred as well?
There was no need to doubt that without the Russian Empire as a prick leading the way, it would be impossible for the other Antifa Allied member states to reject Vienna’s will.

Although Admiral Auchinets was not a professional politician, since he had managed to climb up to his current position, he certainly would not be a political naïf.

With his personal political sense, he knew that once he let the Allied Command take control of real power, the consequences would be very serious.

It was not true that Russia and Austria were allies, but it did not mean that the Russian Empire was also an ally of the Holy Roman Empire.

To an ordinary person, it would seem that the Vienna government was in charge anyway, and that there was little difference, but Admiral Auchinets knew that there was a fundamental difference.

Once the Austrian Empire was powerful, but the difference in strength between it and the Russian Empire was not too great, and the two countries could naturally be good allies.

However, it was different now. Although deep down he didn’t want to admit it, Admiral Auchinets also knew that the gap between the strength of Russia and Shinra had been completely widened.

Whether the difference is “twice”, or “three times”, or more?

No one could give an answer to this question. In short, the Russian Empire was indeed lagging behind.

As an old-school empire, Russia naturally did not want to be reduced to a little brother of Shinra. As far as Admiral Oginets knew, secretly the Tsarist government had made no small effort to get rid of Shinra’s economic control.

Right now he sent the command of the Russian army in France over, politically that is definitely a big defeat, and in the future will inevitably be worn small shoes.

Knowing this, Admiral Oginets still had no choice. Domestic bureaucrats are dragging their feet, and if they don’t find a backer, how can they fight the battle behind them?
You should know that he is now a guilty man, the battlefield win is good; if the battle is lost, the court martial is absolutely to go on a journey.

Admiral Oginets in the country’s foundation is not solid enough, the promotion of his Marshal Ivanov has seen God, high-level help in the speech are not, on the court martial is absolutely cold.

For Oginets personally, it was obviously more secure to move closer to the Allied Command. By virtue of the Russian Empire’s position in the alliance, coupled with this political stand, he will be able to salvage at the very least the position of Deputy Commander of the Allied Forces.

With this talisman in place, he would be the highest-ranking officer of the Russian Empire in the Allied Command, and as long as the Tsarist government wanted to maintain its voice in the Allied Forces, it would have to pinch its nose and admit it.

As for settling scores, the most that could happen was that he would have to be benched when he returned home. It can’t be much more than that, or the tsarist government will be slapping itself in the face.

……

The stabbing of backs from the front had not yet reached Nicholas II, who was at the moment busy sorting out internal problems.

In fact, the sudden intensification of the political struggle, “the tsar’s distrust” is only a trigger, the deeper reason is still because of the “reform”.

From the end of the 19th century, Russia’s industrial system was gradually improved, the gap between the rich and the poor in the country was further widened, and the domestic conflicts were aggravated day by day.

Especially after the outbreak of the European economic crisis, agricultural exports suffered a heavy blow to the Russian Empire, a large number of farmers went bankrupt, social conflicts were intensified.

In the face of these circumstances, Alexander III began to reform internally from the perspective of maintaining his rule in his later years.

Unfortunately, Alexander III met his death before the results came out, and Nicholas II, who had just succeeded to the throne, was forced to take over the burden of continuing the reforms.

No matter how the reforms were carried out, they had to hurt the interests of some people. Nicholas II’s reforms were no exception.

In a sense, Nicholas II’s previous reckoning was also one of the backlashes of the reform.

……

Putting down the document in his hand, Nicholas II asked with dissatisfaction, “Those guys from the Local Autonomy Bureau, don’t they know how to be satisfied yet?”

After Nicholas II’s accession to the throne, the liberals in the county and oblast administrations of the Bureau of Local Self-Governance hoped to gain greater autonomy in order to ease the contradictions between the tsarist system and the population.

Obviously easing the contradictions was a lie, wanting greater autonomy was the fundamental aim of these political forces.

Prime Minister Sergei Witte: “Yes, Your Majesty. The representatives of the Autonomy Bureau insist on opening up full autonomy, including parliament, elections, and legislation ……”

Without waiting for Sergei Witte to finish his sentence, Nicholas II couldn’t help but reprimand, “The people of the Local Autonomy Bureau are imagining things again, wanting to take part in the administration of the country, why don’t they go and ask God for the right to administer the Kingdom of Heaven?
I want everyone to know that the autocratic system of tsarist government is unshakeable, just like my unforgettable late father!
Even if we want to learn from the advanced systems of Europe, it is enough for us to learn from Austria, there is no need to think about things all the time.

Why don’t you open your eyes and see how Free France is now, if you want the right to administer the country and to be free?”

Obviously, with the positive and negative real-life examples in place, Nicholas II said no to the autonomous representatives of the bottom of the air even more.

Regardless of how the liberals shrugged it off, it is true that pre-defeat France was the freest country in Europe. The level of popular participation in politics was also the highest, and in many cases civil opinion was relied upon to influence government decisions.

Nay precisely because of this freedom, the chariot of France against Central Europe, and ultimately detonated the continental war, burying the bullish French Empire.

In contrast, the relatively conservative Austria became the final victor and established the Holy Roman Empire.

Of course, let the study of the Holy Roman Empire, Nicholas II is also a million won’t, Austria and God Luo is completely two concepts.

Although the Holy Roman Empire was also relatively conservative, the following states, autonomous cities and provinces all had completely independent autonomy.

The autonomy demanded by the representatives of the Autonomous Bureau was in fact a replica of the states under Shinra, except that there was one less monarch.

The states of the Holy Roman Empire are all major ethnic groups, with the same language, history, politics, and culture, and with the tradition of the state system for nearly a thousand years, they have enough centripetal force of their own.

The Russian Empire is not so good, the proportion of the main ethnic groups is only 40%, many minorities have been brutally oppressed, and do not have any feelings for the country.

Playing with unlimited autonomy would be secessionist. If the central government stays strong, it’s fine, but if it declines one day, it’s going to backfire immediately.

Starting with Nicholas I, the conditions of autonomy that were not accepted by Alexander II and Alexander III later on were naturally impossible for Nicholas II to accept.

Persuasion?

Nonexistent, there may have been some people in the crowd who had a problem with the Tsar, but absolutely no problem with their own country.

……

Foreign Minister Mikhailovich: “Your Majesty, the United States of America has sent a diplomatic note wishing to strengthen economic exchanges and cooperation with us.

The Americans are proposing to build a railroad from Central Asia to the Far East in order to promote commercial trade between the two countries.”

(End of chapter)