War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

June 20, 1836.

Isabella II was officially engaged to Louis-Philippe's youngest son, Antoine, and they were to be married when Isabella was sixteen.

The marriage of Isabella II meant that she could personally control the power of the court, so the position of Queen Regent was no longer needed.

Although Queen Regent Christiane wanted to keep her position, she had no choice but to compromise due to strong pressure from France.

The Northern Legion's anti-bandit work was very successful, but this legion was not the strongest legion sent by Queen Regent Christiana.

During the early years of the Carlist War, the Queen Regent organized several larger regiments.

However, the quality of soldiers and officers is very low. Most of the officers rely on bribery and suppression of civilians to rise to power. Their command can be described as incompetent. The soldiers are just bandits who legally rob. They burn, kill, and loot without committing any evil. For scorched earth.

This allowed the mountain people and guerrillas to unite as one and use their familiarity with the terrain to repeatedly defeat more with less.

On the contrary, when the government army is fighting smoothly, it is fine. Once it falls into a passive position, internal conflicts immediately break out. There are many internal conflicts, fights, desperate attempts, and even betraying the intelligence of one's own comrades in order to attack the opponent and stabilize oneself in the government army. status.

The Carlist guerrillas, under the command of General Suramar, once pushed the front to Bilbao.

However, due to Carlos's indiscriminate command, General Suramar was killed in battle.

At the same time, the Queen Regent's government forces finally emerged with outstanding generals such as Espartero and Count Sabir.

Espartero was born a commoner, his father was a carriage repairman.

Espartero participated in the anti-Napoleonic war at the age of fifteen. He performed bravely in the war and was promoted to captain.

After the Napoleonic Wars, he went to fight in the Spanish colonies.

His experience in South America made Espartero very familiar with guerrilla warfare.

After returning home, Espartero joined the government army, repelled guerrilla attacks many times, and successfully ambushed the Carlist leader General Surama during the Battle of Bilbao, causing the latter to be seriously injured and died.

Espartero was promoted to general based on his merits in this battle.

And now Espartero has been exceptionally promoted by the Queen Regent to Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Army, responsible for cooperating with the French army to completely eliminate the remaining Carlist forces entrenched in the Pyrenees.

Espartero was an excellent general. He had already figured out the details of the Carlists before taking action and made detailed arrangements.

The Carlist army claims to have 20,000 soldiers, but most of them are untrained farmers and herdsmen. At the same time, there are a large number of speculators and bandits among the Carlist faction, who can be bought with money.

And Carlos himself is an idiot. If it weren't for his lack of talent and his tendency to give random orders, Suramar would definitely be the biggest challenge he faced.

Fortunately, Carlos personally buried this general who was good at fighting.

Most of the current Carlist generals have never attended a military academy. They only focus on the gains and losses of one city and one place, and have no overall view of the overall situation.

The Northern Army led by Espartero achieved great success in the early stages of the war and defeated the Carlists.

On the other hand, the French Foreign Legion led by Lieutenant General Pierre also attacked very smoothly and successively captured several important Carlist strongholds.

However, a huge problem arose now. Espartero received an order from the Queen Regent to stay put and preserve his strength. Lieutenant General Pierre seemed to have a tacit understanding with him and also stopped his advance.

Louis Philippe also did not want the French army to suffer losses, and he did not trust the Queen Regent herself, so he needed to weaken the Queen Regent as much as possible and preserve the combat power of the French army.

As a result, the two sides began a sit-down competition, but the two leading generals also felt that this was inappropriate.

Then the two sides informed each other of their difficulties, hoping that the other party could advance troops in advance, and promised that as long as the other party advanced troops, they would follow.

Espartero

"Although Her Majesty the Queen Regent's government army has 62,000 people, the cavalry in the mountains cannot be used. At the same time, they also brought 100 cannons, and most of these cannons were old and heavy, which seriously slowed down our march. , I had to have my men fix it.”

Lieutenant General Pierre

"His Majesty the King sent a foreign corps. They have no experience in mountain warfare. Moreover, we still need to cut off the supply lines of the Carlists. We really do not have enough troops to continue advancing."

In fact, both sides understood that whether it was from the direction of Spain or France, the supply lines were cut off, and Carlos was already a turtle in the urn.

As long as they spend two months here, Carlos's army will cease to exist, and those soldiers will become helpless peasants and poor beggars.

However, they did not wait for Carlos's trapped beast to fight, which made the two generals who were good at fighting feel a little uneasy.

Their hunch was correct, and the British found Carlos.

"His Majesty."

"You call me Your Majesty? Don't you British want to persuade me to give up the throne and always call me sir? You also want to give me a pension and let me retire in the UK."

Carlos was at the end of his rope at this time, his territory was compressed in the mountains, there were not many supplies left, and several companies had already left without saying goodbye.

The general loyal to Carlos proposed a counterattack to boost morale, but Carlos did not have the courage to fight to the death. He hoped to hide in the mountains as before and wait for the opponent's supplies to run out and retreat.

It's just that this time Carlos's supply line was cut off by the French, and the Spanish government forces had allocated a large amount of supplies in advance, so the initiative was not on his side.

The arrival of the British can be said to be a life-saving straw, but Carlos, who was in anger, did not seem to notice this.

Liaison officer Baron Peter was also very depressed. If there wasn't an order from above to reach an agreement with Carlos, he really wanted to leave immediately and ignore this idiot, but at this time he could only speak patiently.

"At the beginning, it was just a test for you. If you are now willing to accept the conditions and go to the UK, we are now willing to provide you with a pension of 30,000 yuan per year. But now we have seen your ambitions, and our British Empire is willing to fully support you. "

Carlos was still not satisfied. He wanted to say something more, but was blocked by the staff and generals around him.

Baron Pitt continued.

"It is said that as far as we know, there are 70,000 troops of the Queen Regent of France and Spain outside the mountain, but you have less than 20,000 troops, and they are seriously short of supplies.

For your safety, I propose that you take our ship to Portugal, where we will train your army for you. "

"That's impossible!" Carlos replied decisively, "I am here, this is my home, and I want to live and die with my soldiers!"

"With all due respect, your army may be vulnerable. But you insist on doing so, and we are willing to provide you with supplies, mercenaries, and an experienced commander."

Before Baron Peter could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Carlos.

"What are your intentions!"

Carlos didn't believe that there was such a good thing. The other party must have an intention. Baron Peter directly stated his purpose.

"We hope that you will refuse to marry the French and promise never to ally with the French."

New York, USA.

A young man dressed as a gentleman said a few words to the teller.

With just a few words, the teller became panicked. He asked the young gentleman to wait, and then quickly ran to the lobby manager's office.

A butterfly in the Amazon rainforest of South America can cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later by flapping its wings occasionally.

A withdrawal on June 28, 1836 would trigger a global economic crisis a few months later.