Chapter 36: Chapter 36 – Suppression and Negotiation

By the time the capitalists reached a consensus, Franz had arrived in Vienna with the City Defense Force.

“Albrecht, I’m counting on you!”

Franz was aware of his strengths and weaknesses; he excelled in politics or strategizing, but leading soldiers into battle was not his forte. During his two month-long stay with the City Defense Force, he had become even more certain about this shortcoming of his.

In order to be on the safe side, he chose to let Albrecht perform this task as the commander of the City Defense Force and a Lieutenant-General of Austria. Anyhow, as far as he recalled, Albrecht had been a competent general during his youth. He had fought well under Marshal Radetzky during the , but he had truly proved his mettle during the where he had decimated Prussia’s Italian allies and, thus, defended the prestige of the Austrian Empire.

Lt. General Albrecht smiled and replied, confidently, “Relax, Franz! A disorderly mob will not be able to slow down my army!”

The military affairs could be handed over to Albrecht, but the political matters had to be faced by Franz himself since others could not take the responsibility of failure.

 

***

 

“The third regiment will begin the attack with the fourth and fifth regiments on standby!”

With Lt. General Albrecht’s order, the City Defense Force began its assault.

The situation in Vienna could only be called an anarchy. The Freedom Army had split into numerous insurgent armies, large and small, who had failed to notice that the enemy was already upon them. Instead, they  were busy looting and terrorizing the citizens of Vienna.

In the beginning, they’d only attacked nobles and capitalists, but soon, commoners also came under attack. Greed had turned the revolutionaries into degenerates, and even the commander failed to restrain his troops. Once man’s animalistic nature was stimulated, especially after being oppressed and shackled for a long time, even honest men turned into beasts.

Due to the lack of strict organization and a binding force upon them, once the freed criminals and hooligans joined, the revolutionaries were quickly brought down to their level and began committing robbery, murder and arson as easily as breathing.

The citizens of Vienna who had originally sympathized with the revolution now came to deeply regret their previous decision. Not only them, even the University of Vienna, the cradle of revolutionary ideas in Austria, was not spared. In order to avoid harassment by the rebels, the university had to organize a militia formed by students to patrol and guard the campus.

Many naive students had received a wakeup call. Seeing the chaos outside, they recalled that more than 30,000 people had been guillotined in Paris, alone, during the French Revolution of 1789. Previously, they had believed that this huge number was a lie fabricated by the government to curb revolutionary ideas, but since the revolution had broken out in Vienna, they had understood the folly of their previous thoughts.

 

***

 

Franz, who was busy communicating with the nobles, had no idea about the hell he had allowed into Vienna by letting the revolution begin. Of course, even if he knew, he would still have made the same choice. The Austrian Empire had become rotten to the core, so if it was not torn down and established anew, it would be akin to suffering a painful, slow death.

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Without this revolution as an excuse to weaken the opposition and strengthen the monarchy, it would take at least a decade just for the abolition of serfdom, even which would be an incomplete reform similar to the abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire.

In addition, Franz was eagerly looking forward to the revolution in Vienna encouraging nationalistic revolutions in the Austrian-annexed states of Lombardy-Venetia and Hungary. Once these states rebelled, he would rain hellfire upon them and execute the nobles and capitalists for inciting a rebellion and confiscate their wealth.

As for the nobles and capitalists involved in the revolution in Vienna, Franz was going to spare their lives but confiscate their wealth. Without the wealth from these rich nobles and capitalists, where would he get the money to carry out national development and improve the lives of his citizens?

In fact, Austria was one of the wealthiest nations in Europe, despite having no overseas colonies. From the establishment of the Congress System at the Congress of Vienna until 1848, the economic development of Austria over the past 30 years had generally been very good, and the nation’s economic aggregate had more than doubled.

It was absolutely certain that wealth was created by society as a whole; unfortunately, all the wealth from the past 30 years of fiscal growth had fallen into the pockets of a small minority, and the commoners had not received the slightest share of the wealth which they labored to create.

As a part of the small minority which had prospered due to the flawed system, Franz could obviously not carelessly harm his fellow members of the minority, but he could take advantage of the revolution to eliminate some traitors and appease his people.

 

***

 

Hofburg Palace, Vienna.

After receiving the negotiation invitation from the capitalists, the senior nobles and the Archdukes breathed a sigh of relief. They definitely held a grudge against the capitalists, but staying alive took precedence upon revenge. No one wanted to be guillotined before they had enjoyed their lives in full.

The Emperor could not make decisions; Chancellor Metternich was the main target of the revolution, so he had already run away; the whereabouts of Count Kolowrat were also unknown. The only remaining members of the Regency Council were Archduke Louis and Archduke Franz Karl. Unsurprisingly, the burden fell on Archduke Louis since the whimsical Archduke Franz Karl was unreliable.

“The capitalists have put forward their demands. They want us to dismiss Chancellor Metternich and his cabinet, implement a constitution, hold popular-vote elections, abolish serfdom, confiscate the lands of nobles and distribute them to farmers. If we agree to all of their demands, they will help us to suppress the rebellion. They have also sent a copy of a constitution written by them.”

He did not dare to arbitrarily agree to these demands, especially the final demand. In Austria, like in any country in the world, if the land of the nobility was confiscated and distributed to the peasants for no reason, they would absolutely rise up and start a revolt, and, soon, his head would be on a pike.

The Austrian army was dominated by the nobles. According to the demands of the capitalists, nobles who had released their serfs might be allowed to keep some of their land, however, those who had not released their serfs would have all their land confiscated.

This was no different from sentencing their family to death; to confiscate their land was to sentencing them to death. Without farming their land, what would they do? Become capitalists? That was correct; the capitalists wanted to turn the nobility into capitalists, or even worse, paupers.

Forget agreeing to having their lands confiscated, the nobles wouldn’t agree to even the political demands of the capitalists. If they agreed to implement a constitution written by capitalists, their political rights would surely be even lower than those guaranteed to commoners.

They would be restricted from joining the army, entering politics, becoming a member of the parliament. These demands were complete nonsense. Of course, this was just the beginning of the negotiation: the initial offer was just to test the nobility’s bottom line.

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