War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

Venice, City Hall.

The Hungarians added insult to injury as Franz had expected, but to prevent the Pressburg massacre from happening.

He deliberately added five complete infantry regiments to Pressburg in the name of the War Department, totaling 8,000 men, so that Pressburg's total strength reached 15,000 men.

In fact, had it not been for the historical tragedy, Pressburg would have been the kind of fortified city that would have been impossible to fall.

As Vienna's last barrier in the east, its importance is self-evident.

The city was captured only three times over the centuries, by Suleiman the Magnificent, Napoleon, and Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa.

The city is high and deep, with complete firepower and sufficient food and grass. It is located at the confluence of the Morava River and the Danube River, surrounded by water on three sides.

Only one side needs to engage the enemy, which greatly limits the attacker's strength advantage. No matter from any point of view, it is worthy of being indestructible.

Franz couldn't imagine how such a fortress could not hold out for even a day.

However, in view of the fact that Austria has had too many weird deeds in history, such as letting all the officers die before the war started, which led to the collapse of their own entire command system.

Or maybe you use half of the opponent's troops to fight an annihilation battle, but are annihilated by the opponent instead. After deciphering the enemy's code, you proactively contact the opponent to ask if they will change the password, etc.

Franz decided to make a temporary change, but naturally it couldn't be in a conflict-provoking way such as transfer or promotion.

Franz decided to let the general in charge of Pressburg go on vacation. Although the treatment of Austrian soldiers in history was a mess, the benefits of the officers were not many.

In addition to one day of holiday per week, there are 7 days of monthly leave each month and 28 days of annual leave each year. All three are calculated separately.

In summary, Austrian officers have an average of 164 days of vacation per year, but this still makes the nobles complain a lot.

In fact, military positions in Austria are more like honorary titles. Officers' salaries are very low, and cavalry officers even have to buy their own horses.

This is also one of the important reasons why the Hungarians are so unruly, because many of the ranks of cavalry officers are bought, and they purchase their own horses and are responsible for their own training.

This is a bit like the regiment training in the late Qing Dynasty. Too much autonomy and too low profitability led to the long-term problems of low morale and bad military discipline in the cavalry units.

The Austrian Empire's long-standing shortcomings for hundreds of years were not something that Franz could explain in a sentence or two, let alone a simple move of his fingers.

The roots of corruption have long been rooted deep in the earth, and the intertwined interests are like a mess.

Franz tried to build a new type of army himself, but if he just had a playful mentality.

Then nobles and businessmen will send high-quality horses, exquisite sabers, gorgeous hussar uniforms, as well as suitable training venues and trainers. Rich clan families will even send in their best disciples.

But once Franz goes beyond the level of play, he will encounter all kinds of unexpected troubles.

It may happen that the horses are collectively frightened and disappear, and the horseshoes are not nailed properly, causing them to fall off the horse and die.

Therefore, the size of the regular troops that Franz could control never exceeded 10,000, because those people may feel that this is a safe number.

However, Franz was not completely devoid of counterattacks. These people wanted to put their hands into his arsenal.

Franz simply broke them and deliberately threw the stumps on the street.

In the past, counter-infiltration was not so difficult when Adjani was around. Colonel Bordeaux worked very hard, and Adjani's successors were also dedicated to their duties, but Franz still had to warn others by killing the chicken to scare the monkeys.

The military industry and the Academy of Sciences were Franz's bottom line. They could run the military industry, but no one could touch Franz's arsenal.

Similarly, Franz does not mind those privileged classes investing in education or technology, but they must compete based on their ability, rather than come to Franz to poach people, or directly replace technological progress with power control.

In fact, the arrival of the Year of the Storm also gave Franz the opportunity to liquidate himself. Most of the people who restricted Franz were also causing trouble in Vienna at this time.

The logic of this group of people is very simple, which is to resolutely limit the imperial power and never allow the royal family to dominate.

In fact, this is a tragedy of the times. They cannot wake up from the struggle between the nobility and the royal power.

It's not that they can't see new opponents, but they are unwilling to abandon their old concepts, even if they drag the entire class with them.

But Franz will not let them get what they want. Since they like to make trouble, Franz will help them make it bigger.

Franz learned that the privileged nobles and businessmen had gone to the liberal side again, and he decided not to return to Vienna.

The reason? Of course the railway is not smooth.

In fact, some people had sent people to blow up the railway in order to prevent Franz from returning to Vienna, but the people they sent happened to be the spies sent by Franz.

Franz's base is indeed the aristocracy, but the privileged class is not equal to the entire aristocracy.

Franz wants to deal with them not to commit suicide, nor to betray his own class.

On the contrary, what Franz did was to save the aristocracy and eliminate the blood.

It is ridiculous to equate the privileged class with the entire aristocratic class. There is no reason why the benefits should only be enjoyed by everyone, while everyone should share the blame.

After so many years of careful transformation by Franz, Vienna has nurtured so many groups. If it still can't resist the pressure, then he doesn't mind a thorough cleaning.

Of course, Franz will take his family out before then. After all, at that time, the inheritance of the royal family will be more important than anything else.

Otherwise, it will be like the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. It can no longer be described as falling apart. It can only be said to be in pieces.

Franz would not be idle until he returned to Vienna.

Fortunately, the old emperor wanted to make Venice the capital of the Austrian Empire. Later, Franz also managed it while developing overseas trade and colonies.

Therefore, Venice at this time is fully capable of being a companion capital, with both the bureaucratic system and the economic system in place.

As for the so-called rebels and insurgents, they either threw the Italian tricolor flag in the ditch, or rushed into the Jesuit church and bought it for zero dollars.

Perhaps the transformation of these Italian nationalists was a bit sudden, but it makes sense when viewed from another perspective.

Most of the rebels just regarded the revolution as a business. Neither the Carbonari nor Pius IX had the influence they imagined.

In fact, the reason why those people revolted before was because they felt that the Italian nationalists could win and they could gain benefits by following them.

Just as nationalists were betrayed and attacked at this time, and churches were sacked, it was also because doing so was in the best interest of those who were insurrection.

In other words, they will help whoever wins.

This is a typical characteristic of small citizens. They like to think in a bourgeois way, but they have no capital, so they can only be the pawns they despise most.

This is also the reason why uprisings in northern Italy mostly occur in cities. Compared with citizens, farmers are more risk-averse, so as long as they are not able to survive, they will not rebel easily.

Of course Franz knew this very well, so he only needed to give out some relief grains and then raise the purchase price of the grains.

Those farmers will stay at home honestly. When the urban insurgents go to the countryside to recruit soldiers, they will encounter desertions or even resistance.

In the eyes of farmers, the government that distributes relief grains to them and collects crops at high prices is a good person, while the government that makes them unable to eat is the bad guy.

Driven by these simple values, Austria's eyes are almost everywhere in Northern Italy.

As for those outsiders who hunted down and killed the rebels everywhere, Franz was not prepared to condone them either.

It is true that using them can better suppress Italian nationalists, but this is not conducive to the restoration of order.

What Franz wants now is to restore order. Whether it is stabilizing the Venetian region or supporting Albrecht's Po River defense line, a good order is needed.

The best way to quickly stabilize order is to use severe punishment, which can be translated into easy-to-understand words with one word: "Kill!"

In fact, Franz killed many more people to stabilize order than when he pacified Venice.

However, in order to prevent abuse of power, Franz delegated the power to impose the death penalty only to lieutenants. At the same time, the death penalty must be reported and recorded.

There were many college students among the rebels in Venice, and Franz directly recruited these prisoners of war to help record the war.

There are three reasons for this. First of all, Franz does not have that many men. Secondly, college students are still very precious in this era, and he is a little reluctant to part with them.

In the end, Franz was just a human being. He had compassion and felt that these young people might have been led astray.

However, the crimes they committed must also be repaid, and these young people will be sent to the battlefield after completing the work assigned to them by Franz.

If they can survive, then they still have a chance to atone for their sins slowly, otherwise let them wash away their sins with blood.

Po River Line of Defense.

Albrecht's march was very fast, and the insurgents and rebels he encountered along the way could not pose a threat to his army at all.

The construction of the defense line has been basically completed, and the equipment from the rear and the reinforcements temporarily transferred by Franz from Venice are also arriving one after another.

But Albrecht was very depressed because the Italian coalition did not enter the battlefield he expected on time.

That's right, tens of thousands of troops are now arriving after a long journey, but not even a single shadow of the Italian coalition forces has been seen. The scouts have dispersed in batches, but there is still no news.

The Po River defense line was very strong and was supported by natural dangers, so the General Staff felt that 50,000 troops were enough to stop the Italian coalition.

Unless they choose to take a detour, but it is not easy for such a large army to take a detour.

Not to mention the grain carts and horses of hundreds of thousands of people marching, the excrement alone is already astonishing.

In addition, Central Italy is very mountainous, so it would be extremely difficult for them to take a detour.

Three days ago, in the mountains of Bologna.

Blenin was an orphan, but fortunately he was adopted by a nobleman who had no heirs.

But unfortunately for him, his stepmother disliked him very much and kicked him out of the house when his adoptive father passed away.

However, nobles still have to be decent, so his adoptive mother bought him the rank of major.

Although he was a major, he was thrown into the mountains with more than a thousand people, and it was said that they were asked to guard strategic locations.

However, in this quiet place, there are usually no smugglers, and Bolaining has no chance to make contributions.

After five or six consecutive years, he managed to save a small amount of money, which was enough for him to buy dozens of acres of land and hire two helpers to become a small landowner in the countryside.

On this day, Bolai Ning watched the sun rise and set as usual. Suddenly a sentry ran back.

"People! People! People! So many people!"

"Asshole! Did you burn your tongue when you drank the soup? Straighten your tongue and speak!"

Major Bolining has been in the army for many years, and he still has some official authority.

"Report! There are many people coming to the valley!"

The sentry talked for a long time without getting to the point. In fact, this was a very common situation at that time.

Because the quality of most soldiers is very low, except for some people with extraordinary talents, most people can only use many, many, and very many to describe the number of enemy troops when exploring the enemy's situation.

Although they have received special military training, knowing it and being able to use it are completely different concepts.

Senior scouts in the army are usually directly linked to the headquarters, and the men under Bolai Ning are just homeless men in military uniforms.

"Stop talking! Take me."

Bolai Ning looked helpless.

He was really startled when he came to the valley. A large army was slowly advancing in the valley.

Although it is a valley, the widest part of the open space in the middle is several hundred meters wide, so the tactic of blocking the road with huge rocks like that used in Switzerland is simply not feasible.

At this time, Bolining was not prepared to retreat. He only knew that there were many people, but he did not know that there was an entire Italian coalition army in the valley.

"Tell brothers, the stinky beggar from southern Italy is here!"

Most of Bolenin's troops were Northern Italians. Although they were at the bottom of Northern Italy, they still looked down on Southern Italy. They even felt that it was Southern Italians who took their jobs and made their lives miserable. .

Hearing what the officer said, the sentry instantly became less afraid and looked at the densely packed enemies in the valley with nothing but contempt and contempt in his heart.

"yes!"

Hearing the sentinel's resounding reply, Bolining couldn't help but admire.

"If you keep your tongue straight, you have a bright future! If you win this battle, you will be promoted to whistle commander!"

"yes!"

Sentinel Geno went happily.

Bolai Ning looked back at the fortress behind him. He felt that the place where he had made great achievements was coming.

In fact, what Major Bolining didn't know was that the strategic defense map in his hand was from a few years ago.

At this time, there were no friendly troops on his flanks and rear flanks, and the closest Po River defense line to him was dozens of kilometers away.

Yes, this fortress was ignored. The bad news is that no one informed them to retreat. The good news is that the Italian coalition forces did not know that there was a fortress here.

The fortress was built over the years as an outpost of the Austrian-run Bologna, but following a series of secret deals between Metternich and Gregory XVI.

This outpost suddenly became useless. The Austrians could enter the Papal State openly, so naturally there was no need for this sneaky outpost.

However, due to the sudden death of Archbishop Cavaggi on the way over the mountain, the Italian coalition forces fell into a leaderless state.

Eventually, after some intrigues and conflagrations, Mr. Pollard, a liberal leader from Tuscany, assumed leadership of the army.

According to the intelligence sent previously, the Austrians have built a defense line near the Po River.

Mr. Boral used to be a small shopkeeper. He would not jump into a fire pit openly, so he decided to temporarily change the marching route of Archbishop Kawaji. Instead of taking the main road, he walked through the valley.