The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1132: Different people have different opinions.

Franz was really disgusted by the British's act of taking advantage of him, but fortunately he had a backup plan.

Napoleon III had always suffered from the lack of real bargaining chips and was unable to perform well at the negotiating table.

So he happened to learn through a secret channel that the Austrian army would withdraw from the Maltese Islands and Cyprus. As an excellent speculator, he immediately realized the benefits and risks involved.

The Maltese Islands are the legal territory of the United Kingdom. Any country that dares to occupy it is tantamount to declaring war on Britain.

Although Britain has just suffered a series of heavy blows in the Mediterranean, no country will doubt that Britain is still the only overlord in the world's oceans.

However, Cyprus is different. It still nominally belongs to the Ottoman Empire, and the French expedition to Cyprus is absolutely justified.

As a result, the Cyprus defenders who were just about to hang the British flag were beaten up by the French army, and under the coercion and inducement of the French army, they had to admit that they were the Ottoman Empire army.

The situation in the Maltese Islands is slightly better, and no country dares to encroach on the British territory, but this does not include some southern Italian gangs and vagrants.

The Austrian Imperial Navy only controlled a few important seaports, so most of the island had been in a state of anarchy since the war began.

This chaotic state is exactly what gangsters and vagrants love, and the island of Malta is very close to Sicily and can be easily reached by boat.

When the Austrian army attacked Malta, it started from Sicily, catching the British off guard.

In addition, as the beacon country in the 19th century, Britain also attracts a large number of immigrants. In the past, one had to travel across the ocean to go to the beacon country, but now there is an opportunity to go to the beacon country and breathe the free air right at your doorstep.

In the past, if you wanted to go to the Lighthouse Country, you could go as a contract laborer, but after the Austrian Empire, the German Confederation and the Italian states signed the "Anti-Human Trafficking Act" and the "Anti-Human Smuggling Agreement" successively, this route was basically blocked.

After all, ocean-going ships are easy to identify, and with the large number of informants reporting on them, Italian chinois have basically disappeared in Britain and the United States.

In the 19th century, Italy had been the main destination for immigrants. Later media, dominated by Britain and the United States, would always exaggerate how poor the poor Italian boys were in their hometown, how wild (uneducated) they were, and how desperate they were to abandon their homes and businesses in order to come to the United States.

But in fact, most Italians sign contracts, but Britain and the United States do not recognize contracts signed in Italy because many of the clauses do not comply with local laws.

The excuse most often used by the British is that the contract salary is higher than the legal requirement, so the two parties have to sign a new contract that complies with local law.

But such contracts are usually predatory contracts, essentially turning so-called indentured laborers into indentured servants.

So why don’t the deceived Italians return home?

How could a group of people on their own get on a ship without a guarantor? And how could the traffickers not have two plans?

Italian laborers seemed to be all single men. In fact, Italians have a strong sense of family. Most of them really thought that they could go back to England and America to make their families live a good life after working there for a few years. Franz could not have allowed the Italian population to emigrate as crazy as in history. After all, the Austrian Empire also needed people to develop.

So some people naturally thought of the closer island of Malta. After all, this is also British territory and they can feel the "breath of freedom".

There is an old saying that the deeper the love, the deeper the hurt.

All the people who landed on the island suffered mental trauma without exception, so it is understandable that they would do extreme things, such as taking revenge on society or conducting evil sacrifices.

The British had no choice but to accept the problems left over from the Austrian Empire, because declaring war on the Austrian Empire now was not a wise move.

For Britain, it would be the best outcome if the Austrian Empire gave up Malta and Cyprus. If Austria insisted on occupying the two places, then a full-scale war would be the only option.

If America recaptures one of the three fulcrums in East Asia, the two sides can still negotiate, but if the remaining Koreans and Japanese are also taken, the situation will be difficult to predict. (Quoted from a book friend)

The Austrian Empire helped Greece to recapture Crete, obtained a naval outpost, and captured Albania to eliminate the risk of being strangled by the Adriatic Sea, which was already a huge gain for Franz.

In fact, what really distresses the British is not the current situation in Malta and Cyprus. There are plenty of ways to deal with the unruly British people. The French just want to extort money, which is not difficult to solve.

However, recognizing Botswana as a colony of the German Confederation would cause greater harm to Britain, because after seizing Botswana, the colonies of the Austrian Empire would be connected, directly cutting across the African continent from Namibia in West Africa to Tanzania in East Africa.

If it were in other countries, not everyone would be so keenly aware of all this. After all, Botswana was still a wild land at that time. There were three powerful and barbaric tribes occupying it, and the total population was likely to exceed 500,000.

Although the British expedition team discovered a large copper mine here in 1840, the cost of mining copper in the interior of Africa at that time was too expensive, not to mention the even more terrifying transportation costs.

However, the British have always had the ambition to rule the world, so naturally some people are paying attention to the situation in the world. If they judge others by themselves, they can easily discover Austria's intentions.

It's not easy for Franz to make a fortune quietly, but it's not that difficult either.

Britain is a very strange country. It is not short of talent, but it is also short of authority. Talent and authority seem to complement each other, but in fact they can also be opposite.

Talent can break authority, and authority can also suppress talent. However, the advantage of authority is still quite large. After all, people always have preconceived ideas, and authority can mobilize more social resources than talent.

Before Karl Popper proposed the falsifiability of science in academia, most so-called scientists were studying how to prove that the words of authority were correct.

(Karl Popper Austrian philosopher, founder of critical rationalism.)
In Britain, academics are also a kind of capital. Since it is capital, it has its price. Franz did not mind using some small money to let the British authorities prove to him that the Austrian Empire had absolutely no ambition to connect with Africa, let alone open up a channel between East and West Africa.

Of course, in addition to authority, necessary public pressure is also necessary. If that doesn't work, Franz can also use off-field forces.

The fact that the British signed a statement recognizing the German Confederation's rule over Botswana fully proves that Franz's actions were very effective.