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

Chapter 1183 Kossuth's Decision
Becoming emperor was not a decision made on impulse by Kossuth. In fact, it was the final choice he made after careful consideration and under no other circumstances.

Although the country was in crisis, the political struggle in Hungary was intensifying. The assassination of Duke Banyat in front of the Parliament seemed to have a far-reaching impact at this time.

The struggle between factions turned into a brutal life-and-death struggle, while power and status also corrupted the original revolutionaries.

Most of the people who followed Kossuth were from noble families. They were once so poor that they only had one piece of clothing left. Although they have left the prosperous Budapest now, as long as they put some thought into it, they can also enjoy the benefits of power and status in the eastern capital of Debrecen.

The use of public resources for private purposes is a Pandora's box that is difficult to close once it is opened. Withholding supplies from the front and exploiting civilians are just basic operations, but reselling strategic materials to the Austrians or even the Ottomans in exchange for luxury goods is truly outrageous.

Some officials who control the military even show a tendency to transform into warlords.

In Kossuth's opinion, many of his orders were not effectively executed. If these people could execute his orders in time, perhaps they would have cleared out the remaining enemies in the territory of St. Stephen's Crown by now, or even joined forces with Britain and France to attack the Austrian mainland.
If there were no constraints from other factions, he would not be timid.

As president, Kossuth felt that his power was limited, while the opposite example was that Franz ascended the throne and quickly took control of the situation.

In times of crisis, the strong only trust their own judgment.

Kossuth believed that he was undoubtedly such a strong man. After all, the royal families in Europe were all idiots who married close relatives. How could they compare to people with great luck like himself who climbed to the top step by step.

In addition, it was Napoleon's enthronement that ended the chaos brought about by the French Revolution and brought France to its peak.

Kossuth even wrote a book to back up his claims.
Of course, he had other considerations for becoming emperor, one of which was to ease the conflict with the monarchy.

This sounds a bit far-fetched, but there are indeed countries that secretly guaranteed that if he became emperor, they would at least not directly participate in the war between the two sides, and were even willing to provide some help at critical moments.

Kossuth's close associates had been replaced one after another at this time, and many of his former followers had become leaders of other factions.

In order to become emperor, Kossuth had even made plans to massacre the entire Hungarian high-level leadership again.

However, what he did not expect was that the Congress and various factions reacted surprisingly calmly to Kossuth's declaration of emperorship, and some people even seemed relieved.

At this time, Kossuth himself was a little hesitant, so he staged a farce of "three requests and three resignations" in Europe.

Eventually Kossuth was crowned emperor in the Provisional Parliament in Debrecen (Debrecen Grand Theater). Since no priest was willing to crown him, he was also afraid that some extreme fanatics would take the opportunity to stab him.

After all, Kossuth confiscated the church's property as soon as he came to power, and the subsequent secularization reforms were also bloody. The two sides had long been in a situation of life and death, so he could only ask the actors to wear monk robes.

Kossuth also imitated Napoleon and snatched the crown from the actor's hand and crowned himself to show that he was different from past monarchs.

The first thing he said was: "I am proclaiming myself emperor in order to save the Republic. I hope you will not misunderstand me."

Vienna, Hofburg Palace.

"The Hungarian Empire?"

Even Franz couldn't hold back at this moment. Was he pushing Kossuth too hard and going insane? Where did he get the legal basis?

When this idea popped up in his mind, Franz was stunned for a moment. His thinking was increasingly assimilated by this era and he began to look at problems from the perspective of a superior.

Legal issues? This is not a problem at all. After all, Napoleon did not have any legal basis at that time. However, it did not prevent his family from being extremely powerful for a time, and even making a comeback thirty-seven years later.

From the perspective of traditional European monarchs, Napoleon undoubtedly set a precedent of "are there any kings, princes, generals or ministers of different species?" This was undoubtedly a destruction of order and system. At this time, Kossuth could be crowned emperor, and any cat or dog could be crowned emperor, which was a huge blow to the monarchy.

But on the bright side, Kossuth's enthronement was also a blow to the European republic. Can this prove from the side that the end of the European republic is the monarchy?

However, it was impossible for Franz to exile Kossuth like the British did to Napoleon, because exiling Kossuth was tantamount to implicitly recognizing Kossuth's identity and Hungary's independence.

The British could profit from exiling Napoleon, but Austria would be playing with fire if it let Kossuth go.

There was only life and death between the Austrian Empire and Kossuth, and there was no room for compromise.

Although it is a pity, Franz has to do this. He cannot bring shame to the country just because he wants to make a fool of himself.

Seeing that Franz's face had returned to normal, Prince Schwarzenberg continued.

"Yes, Your Majesty. Kossuth has declared the establishment of the Hun Empire on February 2, with Debrecen as its capital. What should we do?"

Prince Schwarzenberg was not a man without his own opinions, but Franz's reputation, judgment, and strength had completely exceeded his imagination.

As a senior military official in the empire and the head of a top family in the past, Prince Schwarzenberg knew that Franz was no ordinary person.

After what happened in 1848, even saints in this world were no more than this in his eyes. However, only after he climbed to the high position of Prime Minister did he realize how terrible the new emperor of the Austrian Empire was.

"Add more troops."

"Add more troops? Your Majesty, we have already deployed nearly 400,000 troops in the Hungarian battlefield. Although the Magyars claim to have an army of 200,000, they have been defeated by us a long time ago.

And will continuing to transfer troops to Hungary lead to instability in the rear?"

What Prince Schwarzenberg said was true. More than 200,000 prisoners of war were captured in these days, and as the front line advanced, the pressure on logistics was increasing.

If it weren't for the Danube River, the cost of maintaining supplies for hundreds of thousands of troops would be an astronomical figure.

"How many 200,000 have we defeated?" Franz asked in return.

Prince Schwarzenberg suddenly realized that if calculated according to the battle reports from the front, one out of every two of the six million Hungarians had been defeated by Austria in the past year.

However, the Hungarian side was still able to quickly gather troops at this time, which was enough to prove that the Magyars' war potential had not been exhausted.

But the Austrian army did not lie about military intelligence. Take prisoners of war for example. Initially, they were sent to road construction teams and mines after a simple trial.

However, these two places were soon filled with prisoners of war, and the excessive number of prisoners even affected the miners' wages, which led to several small protests.

The reason why it was neither big nor small was that the miners were really pushed into a corner, but if they dared to go on strike they would be immediately replaced by prisoners of war.

Everyone knew that the Hungarian prisoners of war were doing hard labor, even themselves.

However, what most Austrians did not know was that, due to Franz's mining reforms and his plans to prevent prisoners of war from revolting, life in the mines was actually better and more promising than being a serf.