War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

"Metternich! You lack of foresight! Is Belgrade so easy to get? Who gave you the right to sign such a stupid treaty!"

Although Count Korolaf was a Croatian, he had no interest in the suffering of his countrymen.

Count Korolav is a big Germanist. He is now more worried that Russia will take targeted measures after Austria obtains Belgrade and Bosnia.

He felt that he would be able to bring down Metternich this time, but what he didn't know was that his words had offended the Austrian Imperial Government all over.

In fact, just as Count Korolaf feared, although the Tsar ostensibly agreed to the deal, he still contacted Prussia.

William IV was certainly willing to accept the Tsar's support. Although the Tsar once tricked Prussia during a food crisis and even indirectly caused the death of William III, under the strong pressure of Austria, an evil neighbor, Frederick William IV was in urgent need of allies.

On the other hand, as long as Britain and France do not continue to oppose Russia's hegemony in the Strait, Russia does not need to maintain its alliance with Austria.

After all, what the Austrians took away was the land of the Slavs. As the emperor of the Third Rome, sooner or later, all Slavic lands would be recovered.

Nicholas I's ambition was never just hegemony of the Black Sea.

Nicholas I nominally wanted to regain Constantinople and fulfill the nearly 500-year dream of the Third Roman Empire, but in fact he wanted the entire Balkans and all the land bordering Russia.

When Alexander I was still on the throne, Nicholas once proposed a "Slavic Plan", which aimed to establish a Slavic empire from the Elbe River to the Near East, from the Adriatic Sea to the Arctic Ocean, but it was rejected because it was too crazy. .

Now that Nicholas I had become Tsar, no one could veto his proposals.

In order to realize the West Slav plan, under the instruction of the Tsar, experts in St. Petersburg and Moscow cooperated with the Special Section 3 to prepare a pamphlet and disseminate it everywhere.

They advocated the establishment of a Pan-Slavic alliance to confront Europe. Under the pretext of liberating various Slavic brothers and protecting Orthodox Christians from persecution, Russia brainwashed the people of the Balkans.

This booklet has six core contents.

First, all Slavs must be "liberated" and the areas in which they live must be merged with Russia.

Second, this alliance must include Constantinople, along with its surrounding Sea of ​​Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Adriatic.

Third, Constantinople would serve as the third capital of the alliance.

Fourth, the Pan-Slavic Alliance must be loyal to the Tsar, who was the leader of the alliance, and the other kingdoms were ruled by monarchs chosen by the Tsar.

Fifth, the alliance will include eight kingdoms: Tsarist Russia, Kingdom of Bohemia-Moravia-Slovakia, Kingdom of Serbia-Croatia-Slovenia, Kingdom of Bulgaria, Kingdom of Romania, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Greece , Kingdom of Constantinople.

Sixth, Poland, Albania, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine should be directly subordinate to Russia.

Although this plan seemed absurd at the time, Russia never gave up on realizing it in the hundreds of years after it was proposed.

Corresponding to the West Slavic Plan, there is also the East Slavic Plan, but it involves some areas and is not discussed in this book.

In order to realize the glory and dream of the Romanov family, there must be a war between Russia and Austria.

Moldova and Wallachia, the two Danube principalities, were already Russian protectorates at this time and were blocked by the Carpathian Mountains, so the Tsar did not think that Austria would attack these two areas.

Therefore, Austria has only one eastward direction, and since Belgrade, the key to the Balkans, has fallen into its hands, Serbia has become the last barrier to prevent the Austrian Empire from encroaching on the Balkans.

Russia will naturally provide it with military training and sell it advanced weapons and technology, but it is still a bit naive to rely on Serbia alone to block Austria.

Therefore, Russia must strongly support Prussia and make it an important force to contain Austria.

Although the Austrians used their actions and words to tell the world that their focus was on the Italian Peninsula, the Tsar would not believe this. He only believed in his own judgment.

The short-lived alliance between Russia and Austria was nothing more than a deal reached between Russia, which wanted to dominate the straits, and Austria, which wanted to seize Belgrade.

Historically, Russia's "military assistance" to the Ottomans in 1833 actually turned the Black Sea into a Russian lake.

In the secret terms of the Russian-Turkish Alliance Treaty, the Ottoman Empire recognized that the Black Sea Strait was open to Russian warships, and for the benefit of Russia, it blocked the Dardanelles Strait and prohibited the fleets of any other country from entering the Black Sea Strait at any time and under any pretext.

Coupled with the misguidance of Neserlov, a pro-British faction, Russia always believed that they had the possibility of peace and joint hegemony with Britain, and Austria was their biggest enemy.

In this life, with the intervention of Franz, Britain was unable to get Russia to give up the "Russian-Turkish Alliance", so Russia still maintained its hegemony in the Black Sea and control of the Straits.

This made the Russians take it for granted that the British were no longer their main threat in the Near East, but Austria, a traditional land power like them, was.

As a result, they began to defend Austria strictly, but the British, who had not achieved their goal, were not satisfied. Expelling the French forces only achieved half of their goal.

What the British want is hegemony in the Near East. Neither France nor Russia can remain. Historically, attacking Austria was just a convenient move.

Now that the Egyptian navy has been destroyed, it is only a matter of time before it surrenders. The French influence in the Near East has basically been reduced to zero. The only one left that can compete with Britain for hegemony in the Near East is Russia.

As for the so-called Russian-Turkish alliance, it is nothing more than a piece of waste paper that can be discarded at any time.

I'm afraid the only ones who believe that this paper pact will work are the Russians themselves.

Historically, under Palmerston's skillful operation, he used the London Conference to successfully formulate the Straits Convention, which abolished the Russian privileges in the Bosporus and Dardanelles.

Instead, the Black Sea Strait was placed under the supervision of the international community, which directly ruined the Russians' efforts for nearly a century, and also left a lot of controversial issues, which eventually became one of the triggers of the Crimean War. .

Although Canning, the temporary foreign secretary, was not as radical as Palmerston, he was well aware of the Russian threat after having worked in the Ottoman Empire for a long time.

If Britain wants to maintain its position as the world's maritime hegemon, it must not allow Russia to break out of the Black Sea. But the top priority is to force Egypt to surrender. As for unilateral sanctions on Russia, it is impossible. The best way is to convene another meeting of the five countries to discuss how to deal with Russia.