Chapter 80: Changing Winds and Clouds
Chapter 80 The Changing Winds and Clouds
After the victory of the bourgeois revolution, the situation in Europe did not change for the better, but worsened.
The capitalists, who had just turned over to be the masters, had not yet stabilized the kingdom and exposed their greedy nature.
The newly established bourgeois governments, instead of honoring their previous promises, intensified their oppression of the underclass.
Where there was oppression, there was resistance, and the labor and peasant movement began to flourish.
In Lombardy, Marshal Radkis levied a large amount of food before his evacuation, and after the Kingdom of Sardinia occupied the area, the city of Milan was short of food in order to raise food, and borrowed some of the food from the local people in case of emergency.
It is not difficult to borrow again when you have borrowed and returned.
Unfortunately, the Sardinian Kingdom seemed to have forgotten about the matter of borrowing food from the people, which triggered the dissatisfaction of the local people.
This was just as well, as only a few people were borrowed food anyway. Next, in order to raise funds for the war, the Kingdom of Sardinia started to collect war taxes again.
After the bureaucrats increased the amount of war tax, the amount of war tax has long exceeded the affordability of the grassroots.
On April 21, 1848, the peasants of Brienza, who could not afford the high taxes, revolted, and the revolt soon spread to Salerno, Calabria and other regions.
The insurgents occupied the noble estates, seized the granaries, distributed the food to the common people, burned the IOUs, the documents and, in some cases, even divided the land.
The practices of the peasant insurgents frightened the capitalists and nobles. The Lombard government was the first to send troops to suppress it by force, and this uprising, which was spontaneously organized by the peasant class, was extinguished in less than a week.
The peasants’ revolt was just the beginning. After the Sardinian Kingdom occupied the city of Milan, the prices of goods began to soar wildly. Take bread as an example, from March to the beginning of May, the price soared by 74%.
Capitalists utilized this opportunity to make a fortune in the country, and the lower class was starving and had difficulty to survive, which hurt many people who supported the Sardinian Kingdom.
On April 25, organized by the Workers’ Mutual Aid Society, more than 5,000 workers in Milan took to the streets and petitioned the provisional government appointed by the Kingdom of Sardinia, demanding that the government calm prices and protect workers’ rights.
There was no perfect law for the protection of workers in this era, and the best that was available was the Labor Protection Act, and its subsidiary acts, introduced by the government in Vienna.
Not many Milanese workers were literate, let alone consider the political implications, so the representatives of the workers directly copied a part of the Austrian Labor Protection Law, added some provisions that they thought were reasonable, and submitted the petition.
The Kingdom of Sardinia, in order to draw in the local capitalists and nobles, naturally had capitalists in the provisional government, and they took advantage of this loophole at the first opportunity, arresting the workers’ representatives on the charge of Austrian spies and sending troops to suppress the march on the Wood.
On April 28th, a strike broke out in Milan, tens of thousands of workers took to the streets to fight for their rights, the provisional government ordered the National Guard to shoot at the “crowd of people who disturbed the social order”, killing more than 300 people and arresting more than 500 people.
White terror filled the city of Milan, and under the repression of the bourgeois-liberal government, the Milanese workers’ movement was at a low ebb.
……
It was not only the Kingdom of Sardinia that suppressed the workers’ and peasants’ movement, but also the bourgeois liberal governments of the southern Italian states.
In Naples the National Guard shot striking printer’s workers; in Rome the National Guard massacred people demanding bread in front of a bakery; in Palermo the National Guard turned the butcher’s knife on fellow workers in the January Revolution ……
The perversity of the bourgeois government provides the strongest support for the restoration of the feudal forces.
No matter how much they brag about how progressive capitalism is over feudalism, the underclass finds the capitalist regimes even more odious than the feudal aristocracy.
The monarchical aristocratic group also seized this opportunity to launch a counter-attack, the most representative of which was the Austrian counter-revolutionary group led by Franz, which had already suppressed most of the revolutions within Austria.
In the Italian region, Pius IX of Rome, feared that he would lose his throne if Italy was united, and feared that he would lose the support of the Catholics if he went to war with Austria.
Through the efforts of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, Pius IX issued a Manifesto on April 29, 1848, setting off a counterattack.
On May 15, King Ferdinand II of Naples demanded that the deputies take a constitutional oath of allegiance, which was opposed by the bourgeois deputies.
That night, Ferdinand II mobilized his troops into the city and raised the butcher’s knife against the bourgeois parliament.
In the Kingdom of Prussia, the Junker nobility, resigned to defeat, was plotting a counterattack, and King Frederick William III was still in a false and serpentine relationship with the bourgeois government.
France.
As the source of the European revolutions, it was naturally the most lively place.
Constitutional elections were held in France on April 23, with a landslide victory for the bourgeois republicans and the exclusion of the working class from the core of power.
The rise to power of the right-wing forces in France sparked discontent among the working class.
On April 26, the French workers staged failed armed uprisings in Lyon, Limoges and other cities. Workers’ leader Blanqui issued an affirmation denouncing the government’s betrayal of the revolution and declared that he would carry the revolution to the end.
Class conflict had risen to become the main contradiction in France and the working class and the bourgeoisie parted ways.
During the same period, the royalists were not idle and immovably put their hands into the army.
If the French royalists had not split into three and held each other back, there would have been nothing left for the bourgeoisie now.
……
Vienna.
Looking at the intelligence gathered in his hands, Franz breathed a sigh of relief that history hadn’t changed drastically, and that his butterfly effect hadn’t completely changed the world.
An uprising had broken out in Lombardy, which meant that the popular base of the Kingdom of Sardinia in the region was pulled up to the same level as Austria, and there was no need to worry about getting caught up in a people’s war.
Venice.
“Marshal, the enemy is out!” Major General Victor said in Marshal Radetzky’s ear
“Well, since the enemy is already here, there’s no need to hide it. Order the Sixth Division to teach the Tuscan army that has ventured out a lesson first, and order the Ninth Division to fight off the Papal States army that has crossed the river!” Marshal Radetzky ordered coldly
Introducing the Sardinian Kingdom’s army into Venice was already very difficult, Radetzky didn’t expect to defeat the enemy by scheming.
“Your Excellency Marshal, I heard that King Charles Albert is going to personally visit the frontline, if he intervenes in the command, our chance will come!” Edelman suggested
“There’s no need for that, we can just set up a direct battle with the enemy in the Mantua region, they don’t have a choice.
Engaging in the Venice region, the Sardinian Kingdom’s transportation costs are twice as high as ours, you can calculate how many supplies they would have to transport every day to keep the front line supplied.” Marshal Radetzky said calmly
(End of chapter)