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

Chapter 1172: Earth-shattering (Part )

The college students who had just returned to school immediately became the main force in this activity. They gathered in front of the gate of the War Ministry, shouting slogans of "revenge".

"Are all the people in your War Department raising pigs? Hundreds of thousands of troops can't take down a tiny Hungary!"

"Tural, get out!"

"Tural, go back to the countryside!"

The protest soon turned violent, with college students smashing the windows of the War Ministry with stones and setting fire to the door.

Then the military police were dispatched, and people always had a sense of déjà vu about this scene.

Fortunately, this time the gendarmes did not shoot directly, but only used compulsory labor as punishment.

Compared to Vienna, the reaction in other parts of Europe was much more intense.

Especially in the German states, thanks to the joint propaganda of the government and nationalists, Hungarians for the first time were qualified to be compared with the Huns and Mongols.

And the nature of this war has changed again. It is not just a shameless betrayal, but a terrible invasion, a war between civilization and barbarism, order and chaos.

Driven by fear, anxiety, and justice, the Germans became unprecedentedly united. Both the monarchs and their subjects hoped that the Austrians would win the war.

More volunteers and volunteers from Germany flocked to Vienna, determined to eliminate all invaders who might threaten their world.

How could Pius IX be missing at such a time? He published a public manifesto, saying that the Hungarians were a group of lunatics bewitched by the devil.

Although Pius IX was just trying to make his presence felt, other Italian princes had to express their opinions after his actions.

Among them, the most active was King Ferdinando II of the Two Sicilies, apart from King Vittorio Emanuele II of Sardinia.

At this time, the monarchy had been overthrown in France, the Count of Chambord was in a remote corner, and the House of Orleans was barely surviving.

Ferdinand II was completely driven crazy after the rebellion of 1848 and he trusted no one.

After successfully restoring his country with the help of the Austrian army, Ferdinand II discovered that his confidant, Dozanka Carlo, was one of the culprits who caused the situation to deteriorate.

After his "divine thinking", Ferdinando II decided to send his eldest son Francesco de Si Maria Leopoldo, later King Francesco II of the Two Sicilies, to study in Vienna.

Everyone with a discerning eye knew what Ferdinand II was going to do, but this was not part of Franz's plan. From then on, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies became a pawn of the Austrian Empire.

In fact, in the previous Mediterranean naval battle, the attitude of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was very clear. Ferdinand II was willing to lend the port to the Austrian Navy and help transport Austrian soldiers even at the cost of offending the British.

It’s just that the British arrogance made them think that the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies dared not offend Britain, so the dark situation occurred.

In the East, as soon as Nicholas I received the news in St. Petersburg, he announced that Russia was willing to send 300,000 troops to help the Austrian Empire quell the rebellion, and notified ambassadors of various countries that he would sever all relations with countries supporting Hungary, and would even declare war directly on the Hungarian rebels if necessary.

Although the European monarchies were all showing signs of being aggressive and eager to try at this time, they were still far behind the situation in the Austrian Empire.

As soon as the news reached northern Italy, all the prominent figures in northern Italy, whether nobles, merchants, monks or artists, stood up to cheer for Austria and began to raise funds on a large scale. Each one shouted louder than anyone else, and the amount was ridiculously high, but Franz knew without a doubt that someone would take advantage of the opportunity to exploit patriotic enthusiasm.

In today's highly developed information age, there are many cases of fraudulent donations and donation scams. Sometimes it is even questionable whether 1% of the so-called donations can be realized.

This kind of thing was naturally even more unavoidable in the 19th century, but Franz never felt that charity from the rich was necessary for the country.

Handouts obtained through state concessions and special policies are not charity; they are just transactions.

Donating should be a voluntary act, but it has been subject to too many shackles and has been used by a small group of people as a tool to make money and evade taxes.

It is difficult to define how many unknown dirty deals are involved and behind the scenes.

The transparency issues that may exist in the donation and use process, as well as the division of responsibilities, are always difficult to resolve.

If the detailed flow and source of each donation are required to be disclosed, it will not only increase the burden on donors, but also increase the administrative costs of the government and institutions, and may even cause unnecessary trouble to some donors.

However, if we don't do this, we will never be able to achieve transparency, and it will be even more difficult to figure out the flow of funds. As for the so-called responsible person, it is impossible for him to exist.

So it seems that a certain degree of transparency can only be maintained by the state giving up its interests. But is this wrong from the beginning?

So Franz personally poured cold water on those "great patriots" at the time, and his decrees left everyone dumbfounded.

In order to prevent certain people from profiting from consuming people's patriotic enthusiasm and sympathy, Franz had to bear the stigma of greed.

The Austrian imperial government and the royal family jointly set up a fundraising platform and issued a decree that no organization or individual could initiate fundraising privately.

Organizations and individuals in need of fundraising can go through the government or royal offices, which will set a reasonable amount after review and then launch a fundraising campaign.

This is definitely a thankless task at this time. Not only will it consume a lot of administrative power, but it will also leave a bad reputation for greed and even leave room for conspiracy theorists to imagine.

But compared with the tragedy of the collapse of social sympathy one day, all these efforts are worth it.

As for the charity from the so-called "rich", Franz felt that the Austrian Empire did not need it, and he did not think that some bankers and financial groups who controlled a large amount of social wealth would donate to the country.

Franz's actions confused the subjects in northern Italy. It was the first time they had seen a situation where they could not donate money.

Even wealthy businessmen would not refuse the so-called membership fees on a normal day, and churches and other charitable organizations welcome donations of any amount at any time.

In fact, some people really intend to tighten their belts and donate the money they save from their teeth to the country to fight the Hungarians.

However, most of them were only allowed to donate 1 florin, and those in southern Italy without identity documents were only allowed to donate 5 groschen.

As for the extra money, government officials suggested that patriots buy government bonds, claiming that this was a trendy way to be patriotic.

(Groschen, the currency of the Austrian Empire, thirty groschen equal one florin.)
On January 1849, , Franz declared a state of war in the Austrian Empire.