Chapter 23: Real Junior Officers

  Chapter 23 The Real Junior Officer

Through a series of personnel transfers, Franz had practically taken control of the Royal Guard, and Archduke Louis didn’t know whether he really didn’t understand or was pretending to be confused, and didn’t react to anything anyway.

Franz felt that it was more likely that he was pretending to be confused, the Royal Guard was small in number, only one regiment of troops, but it was tasked with the role of defending the royal family.

The actual control of this force, has always been in the hands of the Vienna court, Archduke Louis, the nominal commander-in-chief, but also dare not engage in big moves in this.

Franz training Royal Guards, in fact, also obtained the Vienna court acquiescence, before the action, he also got the uncle Ferdinand I’s warrant.

The Habsburg family has been preparing for his regency, if nothing unexpected happens, three years later he will become a member of the Regency Council, honed a few years later, the Regency Council will be dissolved, into the era of the Crown Prince Regency.

Ferdinand I is not willing to power aside, but unfortunately he suffers from epilepsy, on average, more than 20 times a day, can not deal with political affairs, support Franz regency is one of his measures.

Well, Franz admitted that he was by fooling, this eldest uncle’s sanity is often offline, often happen some ridiculous things, but extraordinarily important to the foundation of the Habsburg family, occasionally also produce a victim of paranoia.

This created opportunities for Franz, and Ferdinand I often had amazing things to say, and whatever he found useful became written documents.

In other words, it meant that Franz now had a lot of holy writs in his hands, and whether they had any legal effect or not depended on the actual situation.

If he took them out now, the Regency Council would most likely veto them, but when necessary, he could also directly issue these orders without going through the Regency Council, turning them into established facts.

Although the Austrian government was actually held by the Regency Council, no one had declared Ferdinand I incapable of governing, and the Emperor’s orders were still valid.

The news of the January Revolution soon spread over the continent of Europe, and when the news reached Vienna it was received with a mere surprise, and was treated as if nothing had happened.

But when the news reached Paris, something changed.

After Guizot, the leader of the Conservative Party from 1840 to 1848, was elected prime minister, he allowed capitalists to enter government departments and abused his power to grant commercial contracts indiscriminately to curry favor with financial groups.

Corruption and bribery became the norm in the government, and with all the scandals, the people gradually lost confidence in the government.

By now the only supporters of the July dynasty were bankers, exchange brokers, railroad kings, mine owners, forest owners, and landowners.

From 1847, when the economic crisis spread to France, there were hunger riots all over the country, and the Austrian Labor Protection Act ignited the strike movement of the workers.

Against this background, news of the January Revolution came through, and the already revolutionary Parisian population was naturally affected; the foundation for the revolution was already in place, and now all that was missing was a spark.

However, the decadent July dynasty turned a deaf ear to all this. The banqueting movement initiated by the bourgeoisie was stopped by the government, and the event, originally scheduled for January 19, 1848, was postponed to February 22nd.

Looking at the intelligence in his hands, Franz was relieved that history had not changed because of his butterfly effect, and the advantage of foresight could still be utilized.

However, his walk with the military generals, more frequent, including sitting on the side of the governor, Franz also maintains correspondence with them.

Inadvertently, Franz also revealed his concern about the situation in the country, incidentally mentioned the January Revolution in Sicily, and boldly made a prediction that the European continent will cause a chain reaction.

Whether or not it can cause them to pay attention, Franz can only listen to the fate of God and do his best. He couldn’t just say that a revolution was going to break out in Austria too, could he?

If he said this, he would be treated as a madman, if not astonished.

Considering the current situation of the Habsburg family, Franz felt that the latter situation was more likely to occur.

Now Franz gave full play to the nature of a military enthusiast, inspecting the training situation of the army around Vienna, the more he saw, the more disappointed he was.

“Albrecht, do you have any ideas on how to improve the fighting strength of the soldiers in the short term, I’m talking about the city defense army!” Franz asked cautiously

“Franz, this is very simple, as long as you are able to get rid of the muddleheaded noble officers here and promote together capable people to serve as officers, the fighting strength of the city defense army can be increased immediately!” Albrecht Friedrich Rudolf said thoughtfully

Franz said helplessly, “Albrecht, this joke is not funny at all, if I can make them get lost, there is no need to talk nonsense with you here!

I mean, is it possible to get them together and train them so they can be of some use in a pinch?”

That’s right, Franz did have high hopes for the city defense army, these nobles normally seemed to be a cancer affecting the army’s combat power, but not in extraordinary times.

Other than that, at least in terms of loyalty, they were still reassuring. Once the Vienna Revolution broke out, using them to suppress the rebellion would be more reliable than using civilian officers.

The only unfortunate thing was that their ability didn’t seem to be reassuring, even if it was to suppress a bunch of rabble, Franz was skeptical.

“Why don’t you come, I’ll let you have this position as the commander of the city’s defense force, I can’t do anything with them anyway!” Albrecht said indifferently

Franz thought about it and said, “I’ll come if I want to, they’re all a bunch of losers anyway, even if they can’t be trained, the situation won’t get any worse. However, you’d better keep the commander of the city defense army for yourself, I still need your support for the things behind?”

“Franz, what are you going to do? There are quite a few noble officers in the city defense army who are mucking around and are involved in a wide range of things, you can’t mess around!” Albrecht said with some concern

“Albrecht, do you see me as someone who messes around?” Franz asked rhetorically

Albrecht shook his head, Franz still left a very good impression on everyone.

Franz continued, “It’s time for me to enter the army to serve, turn around and I’ll apply, for the next three months, I’ll stay in the city defense army to serve.

You can throw over the bunch of officers who are overly mixed up and undergo military training with me, of course, those who are over 28 years old, and those who are titled in the army will be counted.”

He finally remembered that he was thirteen and already a colonel in the Austrian Army. If you do not remove this part of the people, it is possible that the aristocrats will give him a “children’s corps” out, the Austrian army has not weaned the myth of the level of “juvenile officers”.

(End of chapter)