Chapter 411: Secretly Making a Difference
Chapter 401 The Dark Side
The underbelly of the Russian Empire came through when Alexander II decided to flip the table. The government’s finances began to improve as soon as the anti-Semitic campaign began.
The Tsarist government, initially targeting only Jewish capitalists, soon spread to the entire Jewish community, and there was a wave of universal anti-Semitism in Russia.
The government introduced laws restricting where Jews could live, prohibiting them from buying land, practicing agriculture, and forbidding them to serve in the postal service, the railroad, the army, etc. ……
Well-informed Jewish capitalists ran for cover, and the general Jewish population became scapegoats, bearing the hostility of the entire community on their behalf.
The actions of the Tsarist government ignited the spark of the anti-Semitic movement in Europe. Anti-Semitism became a hot topic in society, with the potential to catch fire.
As a witness to history, Franz chose to look on with a cold shoulder. The saying that the poor must be hated is perhaps too one-sided, but it is not wrong when applied to the Jews.
“Greed” is the original sin, and Jewish capital is unscrupulous for the sake of profit, which eventually leads to trouble. In order to protect themselves, these people did not hesitate to bring disaster on the whole nation.
Yes, Jewish capital is also behind the rapid expansion of the anti-Semitic movement in Russia. No surprise there, that’s how high the capitalists’ temperament is when it comes to profit.
If there were no compatriots to distract the outside world, then the Czarist government would have been on the lookout for a thousand or so of them, and it would have been God’s blessing to have saved their little lives, not to mention the transfer of capital.
Even if you run abroad to the same uneasy, on their group of fat sheep eyeing too many people. Only by muddying the water, their own interests can be protected.
Their plan proved successful, and from the end of 1865 until the summer of 1866, more than 300,000 Jews fled throughout the Russian Empire.
It was not easy to find these fat sheep in the midst of a sea of people. It was much safer than fleeing alone.
None of this had anything to do with Franz. He wasn’t planning to make a fortune anyway. With Austria’s immigration conditions, not many of these people will be able to stay, so why make trouble?
For a multi-ethnic country like Austria, there were serious pitfalls in any extreme ethnic policy. That is why the Austrian anti-Semitic movement is just a folkloric slogan, and is strictly forbidden by the government.
Even if he had to kill a pig, Franz would not be so unpalatable as the Czarist government. There are so many capitalist rotten things in this era, it is almost a check, within the rules can be within the rules to kill them off seven or eight.
Well, he conceded that Alexander II was right, the Russian bureaucrats couldn’t really do such a tall order, it would be more practical to flip the table.
Franz asked with concern, “How much money does Karl estimate the Russians will be able to get this time?”
For the Russian Empire, the amount of money the Tsarist government had, the amount of strength they were able to exert. So to judge the strength of the Russians, it was enough to look directly at the Tsar’s wallet.
Finance Minister Karl thought for a moment and said, “The tsarist government will be able to harvest about 600 to 800 million rubles in cash, and about 1.5 to 1.8 billion rubles in stocks and marketable securities, and there should be a bit more in other kinds of industries.
However, many of these industries, which are difficult to realize in a short period of time, the actual value of which is difficult to estimate, the preliminary judgment is that this part of the assets will not be less than 2 billion rubles.”
Franz nodded, the Jews’ family was indeed rich, it was not surprising that they had so many assets. If they calculated per capita wealth, they were definitely the richest people in the world.
Franz smiled and said, “So, the Russians’ financial crisis is solved, and there is still affluence?”
Those who knew Franz knew that once this expression appeared, this was definitely another calculation.
Finance Minister Karl thought for a moment and said, “Your Majesty, this is only a theoretical figure. Considering the actual situation of the Russian bureaucracy, how much money will end up in the treasury is still an unknown.
Still, the Tsar’s government will experience a period of financial affluence and will have no problem supporting this war.”
The money wasn’t easy to come by, and it was fortunate that the Russian Empire was only a large feudal empire, or else the economic turmoil would have started long ago, and might have triggered an economic crisis.
Franz thought for a moment and said, “The Foreign Office assesses how likely the British plan is to succeed. Don’t expect them to beat the Russians, just consider the chances of getting the countries to mobilize.”
There was no way around it, the rich Tsarist government was not to be messed with. The Kingdom of Prussia alone, even if it wasn’t finished next year, it would die fast the year after.
The Poles could no longer be counted on, and the Prussian army would inevitably have to take on more combat duties, which meant a huge increase in soldier casualties.
Losing hundreds of thousands of troops every year would also hurt the Russians; for the Prussians, it was simply not something they could afford.
For the Prussians to hold out, they had to be given allies.
The Russians had a strong ability to pull hate and had enemies all over Eurasia. As long as all these people moved, the Czarist government could not carry on the Russo-Prussian War with all its might, and the Kingdom of Prussia was given a chance to live.
This war was a big gamble, initially the Prussians were betting that the Russians would not enter the war, the result was naturally failure, the price was the outbreak of the Russo-Prussian War.
Then European countries placed bets that the Prussians could hit Russia hard. After the Battle of East Prussia, the British saw the hope of drying up Russia and decided to increase the chips in their hands.
Now Franz was ready to place a bet too, but he was going to play off the board instead of sitting at this table.
Foreign Minister Weissenberg replied, “Your Majesty, because of the strategic position and distance traveled, we only know more about the intelligence of Sweden and Ottoman, Central Asia, Persia and the Far East have too little information to judge.
Currently, Sweden is divided into two factions internally. One faction is in favor of joining this war to reclaim and return the lost territories of that year; the other faction believes that the Russian Empire is still powerful, and it would be a disaster to venture into this war.
Due to the Battle of East Prussia, which made many people think that the Russians were nothing more than that, the main war faction in Sweden now has a slight upper hand.
If in the coming year’s fighting the Kingdom of Prussia once again won a major victory, there was an 80% chance that Sweden would enter the war.
The situation in the Ottoman Empire was similar, initially the main peace faction had the upper hand, and with the end of the Battle of East Prussia, there was a situation where the west wind overwhelmed the east wind.
The strength of the peace faction expanded dramatically, and more and more young Ottomans wanted to reclaim the Constantinople region from the Russians.
I think that as soon as there is another defeat of the Russian army, the chances of the Ottomans entering the war are very high, and the radicals at home will drag them into battle.”
These analyses are backed up by the information that anti-Russian activity in Sweden and the Ottoman Empire has intensified recently, with occasional protests and garbage thrown in front of the Russian embassy ……
Obviously, there is a British hand in this. Otherwise, the anti-Russian campaign would not have erupted so coincidentally.
The Tsarist government did not pay attention to the reaction of its two fallen neighbors and did not act in time, which led to the current situation.
Franz said cautiously, ”Then add more fire to push up the anti-Russian wave in the Ottoman Empire. Better yet, we can use this opportunity to drag the Ottomans into the war and use the Russians’ knife to create opportunities for us.
We’ve been laying out the Arabian Peninsula for so long, and now it’s time to close the net. It’s best that we can buy the ownership of these areas from the Ottoman Empire at a low price.”
Ottoman Franz never had any illusions that provoking them into a war with the Russians was not about weakening Russia, it was about borrowing the Russians’ knife to weaken them.
Fighting for intelligence not strength, civilized people like Franz, of course, as much as possible to avoid unnecessary war.
After the end of the Near Eastern War, Austria also signed the treaty, and the countries clarified the Ottoman sovereignty in the form of a treaty.
There was no sufficient reason why venturing into war would be met with hostility by the nations of Europe. Franz was not prepared to act as a rule breaker, and naturally would not break out into war with the Ottoman Empire over the Arabian Peninsula.
(End of chapter)