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

Chapter 1307 The Truth
In fact, Friedrich really wanted to wipe out the British reinforcement fleet. As long as he destroyed this fleet in front of him, the British fleet in the Mediterranean would most likely choose to surrender.

Now that the Austrian Empire has occupied Ceuta and Andalusia is also under its control, it is not a problem to take Gibraltar by both sea and land.

Friedrich had thought of taking Gibraltar before, but was stopped by Franz. After all, he was considering how to end the war at that time, while this time it was just the opposite.

The British were shameless and wanted to attack from behind. If we were careless for a moment, they might really take advantage of us, but Franz never gave up monitoring Britain.

The Austrian Empire was well aware of every move of the British side. The warships wanted to cross the war zone? Don’t dream!
Although the entire Mediterranean is not a war zone, who made Spain block the entrance to the Mediterranean?
Shameless people can always find excuses. If you insist on arguing with them about who is better, you will end up being at a disadvantage.

William Simmons was a brave vice admiral, but he was not brainless.

Before setting off, William Simmons read all the information about the Mediterranean naval battles and the Austrian Imperial Navy. He initially felt that even if his fleet did not join forces with the Mediterranean warships, he would have a 99% chance of defeating the Austrian Imperial Navy.

However, at this time, especially after boarding the "Trieste", William Simmons felt that even if he joined forces with the Mediterranean Fleet, his chances of winning were only 50%.

The actual combat capability of the Austrian Imperial Navy is much stronger than what is portrayed in the intelligence. Either the intelligence is wrong, or the Austrian Imperial Navy has been reinforced recently.

Would he hesitate to move forward in the face of a strong enemy? This was not his character.

William Simmons decided to take advantage of the night and quietly send the fastest new paddle-wheel warships in his fleet through the Austrian defense zone.

The sea is not land, and visibility at night was extremely low in that era. It was simply a pipe dream for the Austrians to blockade the entire ocean.

Unfortunately, however, a paddle wheel warship carrying 642 British soldiers sank in the western Mediterranean that night, and less than twenty people were rescued.

The Austrian Empire generously gave these survivors to Lieutenant General William Simmons, which made the latter very angry. He felt that it must be the Austrian Empire's doing.

But the rescued soldiers knew nothing about anything. They only knew that there was a problem with the paddle wheel and the boiler, and then the captain sent people to perform emergency repairs, and then the explosion occurred.

They drifted on the sea all night and were discovered by the Austrians the next day.

As to whether it was the Austrians who were behind this, the crew had no idea.

Vice Admiral William Simmons felt that it did not matter if he did not know the details. After all, the Austrians were the most suspicious. Moreover, although accidents involving warships could happen during voyage, it was impossible for such a coincidence to happen.

Just as Vice Admiral William Simmons was about to accuse the Austrian Imperial Navy of the tragedy, the Austrian envoy directly took out the survivors' transcripts.

William Simmons was a man with a strong sense of revenge. He also considered repaying tooth for tooth and blood for blood, but the Austrian Imperial Navy's pick-up fleet had already arrived.

William Simmons had no choice but to release the people. He tried twice more, but gained nothing except the loss of several warships and thousands of naval soldiers.

The loss of manpower was secondary. The most important thing was the blow to the morale of the fleet and his personal prestige.

The surviving soldiers said that there was a sea monster in the Mediterranean Sea, and that Lieutenant General Simmons was sending them to their deaths. Some even said that Simmons was actually a cultist who was conducting an unspeakable evil sacrifice.
Especially at this time there were quite a large number of Irish people in the fleet. These people usually did the hardest and most tiring work, and now they were dragged to be cannon fodder (sacrifices), so naturally they complained.

Lieutenant General Simmons had no choice but to go to Portugal to rest and wait for reinforcements to arrive and for further negotiations between the British and Austrian foreign ministries. The diplomats were even more cautious, after all, neither country had to fight at this time.

Berlin, Prussia.

William IV was going crazy. He pushed everything on his desk to the ground and cursed breathlessly.

"Traitors! They are all traitors!"

The story began a month ago, when William IV was determined to solve the domestic political chaos and national division in one go.

William IV ordered the dissolution of the Parliament of Eight Provinces and arrested the nobles and merchants who had been singing a dissenting voice in the Parliament.

The Rhine region needed to pay additional taxes to support the War of the Holy Alliance. William IV was very smart. On the one hand, he collected taxes under the banner of the Holy Alliance and the German Confederation, and on the other hand, he put the taxes into the Prussian treasury.

In addition, William IV also sent people to Frankfurt to secretly arrest the Archbishop of Cologne. His purpose was naturally to capture the leader first.

According to William IV's staff, as long as the Archbishop of Cologne was arrested, those so-called believers and collaborators would surely flee.

At this time, the Austrian Empire was deeply trapped in Spain, and the Russians were fighting with Poland and Chechens at home. There was no better opportunity than now.
However, the reality was that the Archbishop of Cologne resisted arrest, and a conflict broke out between his bodyguards and Prussian spies. The Saxon police arrived, and in the three-way melee, the Archbishop of Cologne was hit by a stray bullet.

On the other hand, no one knew who had leaked the news, but the news of the forced dissolution of the eight provincial councils and the arrest of their members spread like wildfire.

The Eight Provincial Diet was indeed dissolved, but the members fled to Cologne.

Legend has it that at this time the parliamentarians and the Archbishop of Cologne met in Cologne Cathedral, and the Archbishop of Cologne talked with the parliamentarians for a long time despite his own injuries.

On his deathbed, he shouted: "Liberty, Constitution!"

Many people outside the church heard it, and the councillors could testify to that, but the clergy of the church had a different story.

The Archbishop of Cologne did not shout "Freedom, Constitution!" but "Believe in God! Down with the tyrant!"

In any case, Prussia's two troubles now merged.

The parliaments of eight provinces moved to Cologne and continued to oppose William IV, while the people in the Rhine region suspected that the Prussian government had murdered their archbishop.

Just when William IV was in a state of panic, people in the Rhine region rushed into the town hall and beat officials. Although they did not figure out whether the Prussian government murdered the archbishop, they found evidence that the Prussian government had fooled them.

The so-called allied war taxes did not flow to the Spanish front, but went into the pocket of the Prussian government.

Naturally, William IV could not admit it, so the public leaders, religious representatives and parliament members in the Rhine region came to Vienna to ask for an explanation.

The Austrian Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded immediately, stating that it had not received any donations from the Rhine region, and even disclosed all donations from Prussia.