Chapter 208: ”Divine Luo Faction” in Action

  Chapter 204 ”The Shinra Faction” in Action

The opening of the Vienna-Salzburg Railway on December 4, 1852 did not cause a sensation, except for the fact that the news was published in the newspapers.

In recent times, Austria has opened a bit more railroads, and apart from the initial surprise, by now the Austrian public has gotten used to it.

The most affected or the railroad company, invested so much money, finally able to see the money back, directly reflected in the stock market, the railroad operation fire, stimulate the stock rose again.

As for the strategic value of the railroad, this is really not many people to pay attention to, even if the railroad transportation is again convenient, can be compared with the Danube?

Franz is naturally happy to do so, the idea of German unity has been fired, now it is time to start the next step of the plan.

Franz joked, “Prime Minister, your visit to the German states this time, but it is a big task, if you can convince everyone to rebuild the Holy Roman Empire, then we will earn a lot.”

Convincing everyone to agree to rebuild the Holy Roman Empire, unless it was Austria putting a bayonet to their necks, otherwise everyone was having a good little life, why would they need to find a boss for themselves to be in charge of?

Times are different now, nationalism has awakened in the German region, and even if the state governments are more liberal, the emergence of a central government hurts their interests.

In this period, even the looser empire, the constitution is rare, the national government’s autonomy is drastically weakened is inevitable.

Independent and autonomous diplomatic powers were not to be thought of, currency unification was inevitable, tariffs would certainly be abolished, and these three items alone meant that the central government was no longer an empty shell.

With these things in place, Franz could responsibly say that using political means he could control most of the smaller states.

If he was a bit more shameless and provoked a foreign war, he could also get the command of the armies of the states using the pretext of war.

That’s what the Americans did, by getting command of the states’ armies during the war, increasing central government authority, and eventually turning the loose confederation into a unified nation.

Prime Minister Felix laughed, ”Your Majesty, this joke is not funny at all. If if I was able to convince them, then what’s the point of having an army?”

Franz’s butterfly effect worked again, and Felix Schwarzenberg, who was supposed to have died in an accident on April 5 of this year, is still alive and well.

Change the prime minister naturally does not exist, Felix’s political ability is still very good, presided over the cabinet work that is also easy, Franz is not Chongzhen Emperor, do not like nothing to toss.

Felix very much understand what to do on this trip, persuade the states to rebuild the Holy Roman Empire is simply a front, the real purpose is to create a pretext for war.

Only after the failure of peaceful unification efforts, the Austrian government launched a unification war, in order to obtain the support of the people.

No, it should be the unification of the South German region by force, plus the Central German region at most, any more will be choked to death, the Kingdom of Prussia is not so easy to deal with.

Of course, the slogan was the unification of Germany, otherwise the nationalists would not have bought it, and without their support, the war would not have been easy to fight.

Franz said in a serious manner, “It doesn’t matter, there are so many German states, one is counted as one, I don’t believe that there are so many small states, there is not a single stupid one.”

This is not Franz said nonsense, history Prussians have succeeded in fooling a few small states to help them to wave the flag, and then swallowed these states directly after the end of the matter.

On the contrary, the fierce resistance of the South German states retained a great deal of power, due to the fear of the intervention of the Great Powers, after the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussians did not dare to continue the civil war, and had to compromise with the South German regional states.

“Your Majesty, I am going to start with Prussia which is the most difficult one, anyway, among the German states except us is the Kingdom of Prussia which has the greatest voice, as long as they oppose the voice will also be created.

Only then, I’m afraid that the pressure on diplomacy will increase greatly, none of the European countries want to see the unification of the German region.” Prime Minister Felix said

Metternich said, “Prime Minister, the diplomatic problems can be solved well, we use the negotiation means to solve the problem of German unification, it is expected that many people will treat it as a joke, now we have to do is to make this plan – more like a joke a little bit.

As long as we let them see that all the German states are against our proposal, the pressure we have to face is actually not much greater.”

The crowd laughed; it was true that the states were opposed to the unification of the German region. But if Austria just shouted slogans and didn’t take any real action, they had no interest in interfering.

Can’t tell the Austrians to shut up, everyone is playing politics, they are all aware of the slogans of the politicians, just listen to them.

Even for the sake of this drama to be a bit more realistic, a few years ago the Austrian cabinet started role-playing, and all of Europe knows the political positions of these cabinet ministers.

Prime Minister Felix played is the peace and unification faction, or the reconstruction of Shinra faction. The supporter of the Cabinet is the Minister of Finance, Karl, and the two of them constitute the leaders of the Austrian “Shinra faction”.

At the same time, they are also the leaders of the “Shinra faction” in the German region. At present, at least more than thirty-five percent of the Germans support, or agree with, their political concepts.

Metternich played the role of the opposition, which was his consistent political position and was known throughout Europe.

Otherwise, when the Vienna system was established, Austria should have chosen the Kingdom of Bavaria instead of the economically rich region of Lombardy.

The Archduke Louis, in the cabinet, was a supporter of Metternich. They declared with a clear flag that the unification of the German region was impossible, on the grounds that the states had been independent for a long time and that no European country would tolerate German unification.

For this reason, the two were often scolded by German nationalists.

Because of the support of public opinion, the “Shinra Faction” led by Chancellor Felix was now dominant in the Austrian government.

At this time, Felix came out to advocate the “rebuilding of the Holy Roman Empire”, there is no problem.

After Christmas, Félix set out on his journey with the joy of the people.

In the eyes of the German nationalists, this was a crucial step towards unification.

As the boss of the German Confederation, the Austrian government had begun to work for unification, and this was a turning point in history.

Regardless of the outcome of the negotiations, in any case, Felix was greeted by crowds everywhere as he made his way through.

It wasn’t the “Shinra” brand that was popular, in fact, many people didn’t feel the same way about the disbanded Shinra Empire.

But they want to unify the German region, and do not want a war, so the “re-establishment of the Holy Roman Empire” is the best choice, there is no other choice.

The “Theologians” became the mainstream of German nationalism only because the people wanted the German region to be united peacefully, and they were called the “Peaceful Unificationists”.

Unfortunately, these people were not able to dominate the German region, and the masters of the various states had to consider their own interests first and foremost.

……

Berlin

Although Frederick William IV supported the unification movement, it was only a political necessity and did not mean that he was willing to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of German unification.

The unification of Germany, which the Kingdom of Prussia had been pursuing to the exclusion of Austria, could not be achieved, and it was worthless to them.

Historically, Frederick William IV, centering on the “League of Three Kings”, tried to use the Erfurt Union Parliament to exclude Austria.

This was also the political idea of Little Germany, and the reason for the exclusion of Austria was very simple: the German Empire, which was united with Austria, was too large for the European countries to tolerate.

Of course this was only one of the reasons, there were many more, e.g.: too many other nationalities within Austria would destroy the purity of the German nation ……

Chancellor Joseph von Radowitz said seriously, “The Austrians’ ambitions have been exposed, and combined with the current international situation, it is very likely that they have gained the support of the Russians.

I’m afraid that the Russian-Austrian secret pact that we’ve been speculating about is Austria supporting the Russians to annex the Ottoman Empire in exchange for the Russians’ support for them to rebuild the Holy Roman Empire.

I have to say that the Austrians were ruthless enough to do what they dared to do with the tiger. Now they picked a good time, Britain, France and the Russians had declared war and were held back a lot of energy.

If they were to intervene in the German region, they would have to let the Russians annex the Ottoman Empire. Napoleon III might prioritize intervening in Central Europe, but the government in London would certainly hesitate.

If the Austrian government can unite the German region by diplomatic means, even if only in name, the French will not dare to act rashly.”

The Russians annexed the Ottoman Empire, the French lost only their interests in the Near East and Egypt, and in the Mediterranean the French navy could still suppress the Russians.

Not so the British, who lost more than just interests in the Mediterranean. In the words of Palmerston: if we can’t keep the Russians in the Balkans, then we’ll have to keep them in the Indus Valley.

Once the Russians were allowed to annex the Ottoman Empire, Persia was not going to be able to stop the Russians in their tracks, which meant India was in danger.

In this day and age Britain only controls India, they haven’t had a chance to swallow it in one bite yet, and if they let the Russians run out and stir things up, their most important colony might have to fly.

When faced with a dilemma, hesitation is inevitable.

After all, the reconstruction of the Holy Roman Empire is still only a loose empire, in the absence of the completion of the internal integration of the foreign expansion is not possible, there are still the French blocking the front, the short term British will not be threatened.

Frederick William IV said with a sneer, “The Austrians are thinking too well, Franz, that little brat, is probably being fooled silly!

As long as we don’t agree, it is impossible for the German region to be unified. Could it be that he really thought that the German states would be willing to be unified by the Austrians?

If it’s impossible to re-establish the Holy Roman Empire by political means, what will the Austrians do, and is it possible to use military power to unify the German region by force?”

Joseph von Radowitz shook his head and said, “Your Majesty, this is impossible. Although Austria’s military power is strong, it is impossible to unify the German region with the intervention of the Great Powers.

Once Austria employs force, we will form an alliance with the German states to fend off their attacks.

We can even deliberately let the Austrians destroy the military power of these small states, as long as we do not risk a decisive battle with them and delay until the French intervene with their troops, Austria will lose.

As long as the operation is well done, after the war is over these small states are greatly weakened and our chance to unify the German region appears instead.

It is impossible for that old fox Metternich to fail to see that Felix is bent on pursuing peaceful unification, and because of this it is impossible for the Austrian government to take any chances with them around.”

Chancellor Joseph von Radowitz was not wrong in his judgment, and this was one of the reasons why Franz did not dare to take any chances.

As long as the Prussian army did not come out to fight Austria, either by defending the city or by retreating all the way back, it would be impossible to destroy their main force in a short time.

After dragging on for a month or two, the French intervention army came over, and Prussia and France joined forces with Austria and couldn’t hold back.

If we delayed for a few more days, the British, the Spanish, and a bunch of small European countries’ intervention armies all came.

In this situation, Austria could not see any hope of victory. Gambling on the whole body, once failed that will be the end.

Can we expect the Austrian army to explode and finish off Prussia and France before the intervention armies arrive?

Big countries maintain stability, small countries make risk.

Franz familiar with history is clear, only live to the end of the victor is the real victor, rely on the reckless wave of victory of the country, the end is a tragedy.

Japan, Germany are typical of this, are the main fighting strength of the Lord, the outbreak of the sky and the air, and then by the joint efforts of all of us to beat half of the body, the harvest of the early stage of all the spit out.

On the contrary, Italy, which has been living and mingling, has been mixed up as a victorious country in both world wars, and has taken advantage of a lot of advantages.

Even the bullish French, after eating a loss, know that can lie to win, absolutely do not wave.

With so many cases of predecessors, how could Franz dare to wave? Do not look at the Austrian army after the whole training, the fighting force looks like it seems to be very strong, the problem is that it can only explode a wave ah!

Once it can not be a quick battle, the weakness of Austria’s multi-ethnic state will be exposed after a long time.

According to the current plan, it is much safer, just to do it to the areas with a good population base. Spread small, the risk is naturally small.

After it is done, internal integration can be accomplished in the shortest possible time. If the French dare to venture out, they are the aggressors and can enjoy the military morale bonus of fighting on home soil.

Frederick William IV sighed and said, ”It’s a pity, if we didn’t have these few old foxes, we could still send someone to try.

For now? It’s better to find a way to sabotage the Austrians’ plans, and it’s best not to cause the populace to turn against us yet, we can’t afford to toss our reputation around.”

The reputation of the Prussian government is not good until now, after the German states have joined hands and pitched the Prussian government a bad reputation.

Not only in the German region, even in the country, the Prussian people are not very fond of the government.

No matter how they tried to explain it, the government failed to fulfill its promises, and the people always felt that the government had cheated them out of their money. The nationalists, in particular, were very unhappy with the government’s compromises with the Russians.

(End of chapter)