Chapter 356: Jumping into the Pit
Chapter 346: Jumping into the Pit
On April 15, 1863, the Kingdom of Sardinia passed a referendum to elect Napoleon III as king, kicking off the French annexation of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Undoubtedly, this referendum could not be universal, and those who were eligible to vote were socialites who supported France.
More than six hundred representatives of the Kingdom of Sardinia unanimously elected Napoleon III as king. Magnifying this number of votes ten thousand times, and rounding it up, it was the entire Sardinian population that elected Napoleon III as king.
Prior to this, all those involved in the regicide had completed their trials, dead, imprisoned, and wanted for running away.
In short, it was the common will of all monarchies that regicides must go to hell.
As for the truth of the matter is no longer important, the traces have been dealt with by the French, want to overturn the case that is impossible.
Those who were able to escape from prison were smart enough to cooperate with the French at the first opportunity.
To put it bluntly, we all know that the so-called suspect was originally a fallacy. Those who were really involved either ran away or were executed.
Now that the French want to annex the Kingdom of Sardinia, they are bound to remove dissenters, but there must be a reason for this, so they can’t just kill people, right? A good way to do this is to use the opportunity to fabricate wrongful convictions.
Now that the delegations of various countries had left the Kingdom of Sardinia, in the case of the French being the dominant power, all things were of course up to them.
After the results of the referendum came out, the international community was naturally in an uproar. The countries acquiesced to France’s annexation of the Kingdom of Sardinia, but it didn’t mean that everyone would support their annexation of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
In terms of public opinion, the French were still being scolded. There were also a lot of international people calling out: be wary of French expansion to avoid a second European war.
The Italians, who were the victims, even organized a petition group to seek help from European countries, hoping to use international pressure to force the French to give up their annexation of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
As one of the major European countries, the government of Vienna also received the petition. After reading the petition submitted by the Italians, Franz had to admit that the writing was very touching, but unfortunately it was of no use.
Franz sneered and said: ”Tell them that we regret this incident, but this matter is really the Sardinian government’s own trouble.
Anyone has to be responsible for their own actions, and when the Sardinian government supports extremist organizations, they should consider the possible backlash.
In the aftermath of the crime, the Sardinian people also sided with the extremist organizations and covered the escape of the murderers, and now it is time for the Sardinian people to pay for it.”
In a way, France’s annexation of the Kingdom of Sardinia is also a good thing.
From now on, the biggest enemy of the Italian nationalists will not be Austria, but ambitious France.
The annexation of the Kingdom of Sardinia was just the beginning; once Pandora’s Box was opened, it could never be put back.
Stimulated by the successful annexation of the Kingdom of Sardinia, the French radicals were sure to become so inflamed that they could no longer be suppressed by a single Napoleon III.
The arrogant French have always had a dream of world domination.
Without this stimulus, Napoleon III could barely hold down the fort, but now he was waiting to be pushed onto the chariot by the nationalists!
Prime Minister Felix proposed, “Your Majesty, should we support the Italians and let them cause trouble for the French before they get carried away?”
Apparently, the French had drifted after annexing the Kingdom of Sardinia and had become somewhat oblivious, as if they were the hegemon of the world.
This kind of thing, when Prime Minister Felix saw it, his heart was naturally very nasty and wanted to teach them a lesson.
Franz smiled faintly and said: ”There is no need, the Italian nationalists are equally our enemies, now let the French clean up after them well.
Since the French have drifted, let them drift a little longer. Now the hegemony on the European continent is the Russians, and the hegemony of the sea is the British, and since neither Britain nor Russia is coming out of the woodwork, what are we going to make a fuss about?”
Now that Britain and Russia have jointly divided the world’s hegemony, France and Austria are the next level of challengers, because everyone’s strength is too close to each other, France and Austria will naturally not be willing to subordinate.
Franz was not prepared to launch a challenge because the chances of winning were simply too low and the benefits were not lucrative enough.
The sea had the most oil, but unfortunately Austria could not compete with the British and had to bide its time. On land, the benefits were not high, and there were too many countries on the European continent, so it was easy to be dragged along with the Russians as the whole body was affected.
The French also encountered the same situation, and even more troublesome. The world’s second is not good, especially the land and naval forces are the second, innately attracted the boss’s hate value.
Add the word “Napoleon”, no one dares to ignore. Napoleon III inherited Napoleon’s legacy, and naturally inherited his legacy of hatred.
Even if he kept a low profile, but now he is so arrogant, it is very easy to cause a backlash from all countries, especially the old generation who have experienced the war against France has not yet died out.
Prime Minister Felix objected, ”Your Majesty, I’m afraid this won’t work. The current Austria can’t hide even if they want to, I’m afraid.
The tentacles of the French have already penetrated deep into the south-central region of Italy, and if we don’t intervene, who knows what the overconfident French will do?”
Simply put, France and Austria have already created a conflict over their interests in the southern region of Italy, and it is only a matter of time before a conflict occurs.
Franz said calmly, “It doesn’t matter, it’s something for the future. The Kingdom of Sardinia is not that well integrated, and the French should be very peaceful on the continent in three to five years.
After three or five years, the reforms of the Tsarist government are also initially completed. With the system of the three major European powers still balanced, we can move forward with our next plan.”
It wasn’t that Franz was arrogant, the reality was this. Was the Italian region so easy to annex? Austria has been promoting national integration for so many years, the slowest progress is the Austrian Italian region.
This is a cultural problem, do not look at the Italian region scattered, seems to be a weak chicken, but in the culture of their inheritance is very perfect, not in the least compared to the French culture is weak.
Nowadays, in Lombardy and Venetia, the locals have learned German and write in German every day, but the Italian cultural tradition has not disappeared.
After more than a decade of effort, it can now only be said that the Italianized Germanic peoples have been pulled back, and the goal of integrating the Italians remains just that, a goal.
In contrast, Austria’s national integration efforts in Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, and the Balkans went much more smoothly.
Many small ethnic groups with no cultural heritage are now fully Germanized. Of course this Habsburg family’s long-term operation also has something to do with the fact that at first these populations recognized this brand.
What is the essence of national integration?
The answer is: identity!
As long as this is done, all the problems that follow are easy to deal with.
If one looks closely, one realizes that many minorities within Austria are very much like the Germans in their habits.
Some ethnic groups are even called: “Slavic-speaking Germans”. This means that, apart from the language barrier, the living habits and folk customs have been Germanized.
The main reason for this was that the noble lords came from the Germanic region and the people unconsciously followed their example, or in the age of serfdom, the noble lords ordered them to change their habits.
These special national conditions were the reason for the smooth integration of the peoples. Even if the native language still existed, this became a dialect.
Most of the people of this generation still speak the dialect, the next generation up is probably still barely able to understand, if they live in the city, it is estimated that the inheritance will almost be broken.
Even in the countryside after two or three more generations, these languages and scripts will still be broken, because there is no use in learning them. People have inertia, after the birth of society can not use the language, but also learn it for what?
In this era, life expectancy is short, marriage and childbirth are relatively early, many people have children at 17 or 18 years old, less than 40 years old will hold grandchildren, which is very favorable to the integration of nationalities.
As of now, the German language has been popularized. The current generation, which has received compulsory education since childhood, has already identified with German culture.
German was being used to communicate and write in any town in the Empire, with the exception of the Italian region, where seventy to eighty percent of Italians still used Italian to communicate in their lives outside of work.
Of course, because of the influx of other nationalities, this portion of the population that insisted on using Italian fell to six tiers of the total population of the region.
There was no way around it, as the Italian cultural heritage was not backward, and there were frequent commercial exchanges with the central Italian states, which had led to the emergence of such a situation.
In the countryside, not to mention the fact that many people have learned German, but still use Italian in their daily lives.
Had it not been for the emancipation of the serfs from the beginning and the purchase of the peasants with land, which fostered a sense of identity with Austria, the Austro-Italian region would not have been so stable now.
The same thing was not possible for the French to do because the emancipation of the serfs had already been done by the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Apart from pulling in the local powerhouses, the French government had no way to buy off the underclass in large numbers, which left room for the nationalists to maneuver.
Throughout history, the main force of every revolution has been the underclass, when have we ever seen capitalists running to the front?
Under normal circumstances, as long as the grassroots are doing well and have a high degree of acceptance of the government, then large-scale rebellions will not occur.
On the contrary, identification was Napoleon III’s biggest shortcoming, and the main reason the French people identified with him was because he had a bully uncle, not how beloved he was himself.
The Italians were a different story, they were very happy to watch the Napoleons become French royalty. But getting them to pledge allegiance to the Napoleonic family, that’s not going to work.
There was already a difference in bloodlines, not to mention the fact that they were annexed by France. If their interests were further jeopardized, they would have to rise up in rebellion.
Promoting national integration? I’m sorry, France doesn’t even have compulsory education, so how can they provide it to Sardinia in the first place?
The French people are very sensitive when it comes to their own interests. Even if the Paris government wants to promote linguistic integration, it must do so together with compulsory education in the country.
This in turn involves a series of problems, in short, the Paris government can not do it in a short period of time.
During the period of military rule, the Kingdom of Sardinia would certainly be peaceful, and once normal order was restored, it was uncertain what would happen.
(End of chapter)