Chapter 174: Disappearing Nation

  Chapter 171 – Vanishing Peoples

Constantinople

The Russian representative, Alexander Maimeshkov, who had lost face at the negotiating table, soon got it back, only by somewhat unsavory means.

On April 2, 1851, Mareshkov visited the Sultan and, in a very overbearing tone, ordered the Sultan’s government to dismiss the pro-British and French foreign minister, Fouad, and replace him with the pro-Russian Rifaat.

Brute force often proved to be the most direct and effective, and under pressure from the Russians, the Sudanese government compromised.

Mareshkov told the world in practical terms who was in charge in the Near East. The politicians of various countries lost their collective voice, facing a player who does not play by the rules will give anyone a headache.

Britain and France, who had been slapped in the face, naturally would not be willing to lose, but in the Near East, there was no way for their two countries to compare their voice with that of the Russians, and it was even lower than that of Austria.

Not waiting for them to take action, Mareshkov again submitted a diplomatic note to the Sultan’s government, accusing the Sultan’s government of unjust treatment of the Orthodox Church, and requesting the two countries to sign an agreement that the Russian government would manage the Orthodox Christians, and that the Ottoman government would not be allowed to intervene in the affairs of the Orthodox Church.

The unjust treatment was inevitable, and in fact the Sudanese government had already relaxed its religious policy in this era in an attempt to eliminate religious conflicts in the country.

Unfortunately, this kind of contradiction has been going on since the establishment of the Ottoman Empire. It could not be resolved by a single government decree, and the Russians’ intervention made the situation even more chaotic.

…… (omit 10,000 words for specific religious issues)

The Russians’ demands had touched the bottom line of the Ottoman Empire. To agree to this condition would have meant handing over more than a third of the population to the Russians for administration.

Britain and France also could not tolerate the Russians expanding their sphere of influence so much, and by this time the British had realized that war was inevitable.

London

After the negotiations in Constantinople, the British government was considering what to do in the coming Russo-Turkish War.

Foreign Secretary Palmerston thought for a moment and said, “Your Excellency, Prime Minister, in order to suppress the ambitions of the Russians, it is not enough to draw in the French, we must have the support of Austria.

If necessary, we can organize a European coalition and join forces to contain the Russians’ ambitions.”

John Russell shook his head and said, “Mr. Palmerston, the issue of organizing a coalition army is put aside for the time being, we all know that things are not that simple.

On the issue of Russia, European countries have different attitudes, and many of them don’t have the cutting edge, wanting them to come together to fight the Russians is almost impossible.

You’d better talk about how to bring Austria on board, if we can bring them over, and combine the efforts of the three countries, we’ll be able to suppress the Russians in the Near East.”

Palmerston analyzed, “The intelligence coming back from Constantinople indicates that the Russians and Austria have reached a compromise, the exact terms of which we are still unclear.

The Russians have now recognized Austria’s sphere of influence in the Balkans, and in return Austria has supported the Russians’ ambitions against the Ottoman Empire.

This compromise does not mean that the conflict between the two countries over the Balkans no longer exists, but is only temporarily suppressed by common interests.

With the Russians’ appetite, even if the two countries had reached an agreement, they would still end up breaking up because of conflicting interests. It is impossible for the Austrian government to be unaware of these problems.

That old fox Metternich would side with the Russians this time and signaled a change in the Austrian government’s national policy.

It seems that the collapse of the Vienna system has hit the Austrians so hard that they are now no longer in the luxury of a European balance. In this respect, we have lost an ally in terms of continental policy.

We all know that being neighbors with the Russians, we have to stay awake at all times, a nap can mean danger, and now the Austrian government is ready to wreak havoc.

The carving up of the Balkans is only the surface reason. It’s more still that the Austrian government feels threatened and doesn’t want to continue the responsibility of keeping the Russians at bay.

It wants to stall the Russians by provoking a Russo-Turkish war to buy time for development at home, and expansion in the Balkans is only incidental.”

By this time, the London government regretted letting the Vienna system collapse. After the collapse of the Vienna system, they could indeed get away with the restriction of meddling in European affairs, but the result was not good.

Starting from supporting the Kingdom of Sardinia to the current crisis in the Near East, the London government had hardly achieved any decent results in diplomacy.

Now the situation in Europe has become more intricate and complex, involving a great deal of their energy. On the contrary, it is not as good as the Vienna system era, the European continent is balanced and stable, they can rest assured that they can boldly expand their power overseas.

In this regard, the Vienna system also accomplished the British Empire’s supremacy.

The Minister of State asked doubtfully, “Mr. Palmerston, according to your judgment, it will be impossible for us to pull Austria together?”

The Austrian Empire has always been on top of the front line of resistance to Russia, and it is surprising that the two countries have not become enemies, the diplomatic ability of the Habsburgs is evident.

Such a confrontation is obviously not conducive to Austria’s development and growth. The government’s energy was being drained by its neighbors, so where was the ability to develop itself?

Before the collapse of the Vienna system, the Austrian government had turned to the British for help, asking the London government for money to maintain the system, which was rejected by the government of the day.

The advice given by the British was to let the Austrian Government carry out social reforms, and when the social reforms were completed, there would be money.

As it turned out, the completion of the social reforms did reverse the financial difficulties. However, the Austrian Government was no longer interested in the Vienna system.

Their own labor for the balance of Europe and efforts, and the system under the biggest beneficiary, but on the side of the muffled wealth, put in anyone’s heart will not be balanced.

Palmerston thought about it and then replied, “It depends on the Russians, if they can make the Austrian government feel threatened, then we can pull Austria together.”

Historically, too, Austria fell back neither because of the lure of British and French interests nor the conflict of interests in the Danube Valley between Russia and Austria, but most crucially because of the perceived threat of the Russians.

For the sake of its own strategic security, it is normal to turn its back on its allies. Even if he had been Franz, he would have chosen to fight the Russians when they showed too much strength to threaten Austria’s existence.

The Russians, too, would have stabbed Austria in the back if it had been too powerful and able to threaten them, as usual.

……

Since the passage of the bill to expand the army, there was a rush to enlist in Austria. The lure of land was huge, especially after the meritorious men of the last war got land and became role models.

The soldiers who had joined the army in the previous war had been lucky enough to have the wind in their sails from the beginning to the end of the war, and they had not been able to experience the cruelty of war. Even if there was cruelty, it was for the enemy.

This time, the expansion of the army in preparation for the war was close to directly saying that they would fight the Ottoman Empire. If it was two hundred years ago, to attack the Ottoman Empire, everyone’s first reaction would definitely be fear, now everyone’s eyes were left with the war effort.

Who let the Ottoman Empire decline? Austria and Russia joined forces and still couldn’t beat the Ottomans?

The risk is not great and the reward is great, so naturally people are attracted to it.

Not to mention the general public, even the nobles are trying to find ways to enter the army to serve, doomed to win the war, everyone wants to go in to fish for war credit.

This kind of opportunity is not easy to come across, missing this opportunity, the next foreign war, there is no telling when it will be.

In front of the conscription point, there was already a long line. The idea of “taking credit on the horse” was very popular in Europe.

In this era, if you wanted to make a name for yourself, making military achievements on the battlefield was the best shortcut. Especially for the lower class, it was almost the only way to the upper class.

Many reserve officers and soldiers also shone in the last war, and in the opinion of many people, even if they couldn’t enter the regular army, entering the reserves was a good choice.

The status of Austrian soldiers is very high, even if they are reservists, they are all very respected.

A young officer looked at the long line, sighed and said, “There are a lot of people here today, it seems that there is still a possibility of raising our recruitment standards.”

A middle-aged officer next to him glared at him in dissatisfaction and spoke, “Wellston, you should stop emoting there and hurry up to organize the test for me.

Remember this time, those who know Austrian will be prioritized for admission, lest I have to give them training after arriving at the army.”

“Yes, Major!” Welston replied immediately

Austria hadn’t introduced an explicit language exclusion bill, but the government, the military, corporations, and other organizations, everyone tacitly prioritized the admission of those who could speak Austrian.

In the folk vernacular, it was, “You damn well don’t even know the common language, do you want me to match you up with an interpreter?”

This is the most realistic problem, the language barrier, communication is unchanged, after the birth of society, the first problem to find a job.

Even nationalists have to accept this social reality. Without learning Austrian, it was already difficult to find a job.

Want to be taken care of? Sorry, but in Austria the employing organization is free to choose what it wants and the government is not allowed to intervene.

After three years of promotion, the Austrian language is not universally spoken, but most people in the cities have a good command of the language.

This scene can now be seen in many places in Austria. In order to do this, the Austrian government has also spent a lot of money.

Especially when it just started to promote it, it was resisted by many nationalists. Unfortunately, they were unlucky enough to coincide with the Revolution, and those who made trouble were harmonized.

What angered them most was that the Austrian government’s perverse actions not only did not stir up public anger, but the situation in the country rapidly improved.

Nowadays, Austrian is the main language in all Austrian schools, and other languages are treated almost the same as foreign languages as elective courses, and they are paid elective courses.

People are realistic. If you don’t have to take the exams for higher education, if you don’t need them to find a job, and if you have to pay extra money for your studies, then slowly and naturally people don’t pay attention to them. Nationality, independence, these key words, the same in everyone’s life fade away.

Not long ago, Franz even ordered to ban all non-Austrian books, newspapers and magazines in the country.

Many people thought that this would cause social unrest, but the reality is very much in the face. Except for some experts and scholars who are yelling, the general public is simply indifferent.

Nationalism also needs to be publicized, cut off the channels of publicity, the general public who knows what this is?

Under the government’s suppression, it soon became an underground idea. If you want to spread it, you have to look at the actual situation. Since the education system has been reformed, young students don’t play with them anymore.

After there were no middle-aged daredevils, the fighting power of these people was greatly reduced. Stand up to the government? Those who dared to do so would have gone in long ago, where would they have the chance to wave until now?

Fikwenna, a Hungarian writer, one of the representatives of Hungarian nationalism.

Only he belonged to the moderate faction, opposed to all violent revolutions, and did not follow Kossuth to independence, and even published many articles attacking the atrocities of the revolutionaries.

This non-threatening presence was naturally not purged. Recently he was very worried, more so than when the Kingdom of Hungary was split up.

For a nationalist, the loss of Hungary was acceptable because he was not repulsed by the idea of becoming an Austrian, but without Hungary’s national language and script, he could not help himself.

Just recently, the Hungarian Forward, which hosted the newspaper, was suspended. Even though the small, unimpressive newspaper had sold less than a thousand copies of each issue, it was a cause for which he had fought.

What was even harder for him to accept was that the Hungarian National School, founded by Count Istvan Széchenyi, had also included Hungarian as a paid elective and was no longer the language of instruction.

Now he had to go and fight with the school’s leaders, not to let the Count’s efforts go down the drain, and at this moment he hated the revolutionaries led by Kossuth immensely.

Had it not been for the rebellion that took place in 1848, the Kingdom of Hungary would still be the Kingdom of Hungary, and under the leadership of Count Istvan Széchenyi they could have carried out social reforms and established an ideal Hungarian society.

History has no ifs and buts, after losing their leader, they, the Hungarian reformers, became a scattered bunch and many of them were incorporated by the Austrian government.

If nothing else, it wouldn’t be long before Fikwenna would accept the goodwill of the Austrian government as well, and now he wanted to work one more time for the dream he once had.

“Amplitude Chancellor Engels, why do you want to abolish the Hungarian language?” Fikwenna questioned.

Mr. Engels explained, “Mr. Fikwenna, you should know that the Hungarian National School has relied on donations from the outside world to maintain it from the time it was established, and we only charge a small amount of tuition.

In the last two years the donations we have received have been greatly reduced, the school’s funding has fallen into a predicament, and since a year ago, the staff’s salaries have not been paid on time.

In order for the school to survive, we have to accept educational grants from the Austrian government.

According to the Austrian Ministry of Education: in all schools that receive government grants, Austrian is the only specialized language in primary and secondary education.”

Explained in this way, Amplitude Engels had already spoken to many people. The actual situation in the schools is even worse than he said.

The learning of an additional language undoubtedly takes up a great deal of study time and affects the performance of other schoolwork, and many parents propose to the schools to eliminate Hungarian.

Don’t preach so much, they only care about the college entrance exams. The chances of being able to go to university in this day and age are already low, and for the sake of the future of the next generation, many people can’t care that much anymore.

“Is there no other way?” Fikwenna asked with a frown

Amplitude Engels sighed and said, “Mr. Fikwenna, the arm can’t hold back the leg.After what happened in 1848, the Austrian government has been very wary of nationalism. In the fields of culture and education, integrated education was fully promoted.

This is a national policy set by the government, and this suppression will not end unless we can make them believe in us again, which you know is impossible.”

Rebellion, revolution? They were no strangers to these things, but it wasn’t their strong suit. Everyone had a family, so who would be willing to take the risk?

Besides, times are different nowadays, the country’s economy is growing rapidly, the social order is stable, and the people simply have no incentive to revolutionize.

(End of chapter)