Chapter 486 Let’s talk again

Chapter 486 Let’s talk again

Vienna, Schonbrunn Palace

Franz, who finally had time to relax in the study with his eyes closed, was a little curious as to why he hadn't received any news from Nan Ming yet.

Little did he know that Friedrich was still on his way to Kalimantan at this time, and the development of the situation had exceeded his expectations.

After thinking for a moment, he glanced at a huge map hanging on the wall to the right of the desk. In 1815, Prague had a population of only 70,000, of which 50,000 were Germans, 15,000 were Czechs, and the rest were from other ethnic groups.

In history, by 1844, the population of this important imperial town soared to 180,000, including 158,000 Germans, 15,000 Czechs, and the vast majority of the rest were Jews.

Prague currently has a population of 380,000, making it the second largest city in the empire after Vienna; among which the German population is as high as 300,000, the second largest ethnic group is the Jews, 50,000, the Czechs only have about 20,000, and the rest It is other ethnic groups.

(By the way, historically Prague was only opened to traffic in 1845)

However, Prague today is still the area with the most violent nationalism outside Hungary. However, what is different from history is that this time there is not only Czech nationalism but also German nationalism.

The former opposed the imperial dictatorship and demanded autonomy equal to that of Hungary, including independent taxation and military.

The latter firmly supports the rule of the empire, while opposing special policies for local people and demanding fair trade and free markets.

In fact, the Vienna court also gave Bohemians and Moravians quite favorable conditions, such as selecting a group of officials (including civil servants and military attachés) from the two places every year, and the right to limit land prices.

(At that time, Austria was not called Czechs. The term Czechs began to appear in official documents after 1848)

Imperial law stipulates that non-local ethnic groups need to pay an additional 150% price limit tax when purchasing land. This was mainly used to prevent German princes from annexing land in Bohemia, which would lead to a recurrence of the Hussite uprising.

The Hussite Rebellion was actually a rebellion in which the German nobles went to Bohemia to annex land wantonly, which ultimately led to the people's desperation.

This was also one of the heaviest losses suffered by Austria in its history; the domestic economy almost stagnated for twenty years, the number of troops lost exceeded one hundred thousand, and the Vienna court did not dare to raise taxes on the Czech region for hundreds of years.

(Guess who broke this rule later. That’s right, it was our great Joseph II! The only emperor who could force the entire empire to rebel.)

However, the current Czechs are actually highly Germanized, just like the Irish in later generations. Almost no Czech people around the city speak Czech. Only in impoverished mountainous areas, in the countryside and in universities are people often communicating in Czech.

The best way to irritate a local Bohemian noble at this time is to communicate with him in Czech, so that he will think that you think he is a low-class person.

From the perspective of the imperial government, both forces are seeking death, so the intensity of the strikes is about the same. Historically, Austria did not take any substantive measures and only issued several imperial edicts to appease the people.

However, now that the Austrian Empire's pockets are bulging and its prestige has been accumulating, it will naturally attack these guys who may cause turmoil in the country.

But what Prime Minister Metternich did not expect was that the so-called Czech nationalism and German nationalism were not created by college students and professors.

Behind the two are two huge interest groups. It was not until Franz killed the Winster family that Czech nationalism reached a low ebb. Of course, the unexpected death of Viscount Hill Barron also dealt a heavy blow to German nationalism. hit.

Therefore, the two sides are generally evenly matched. Occasionally, radicals from both sides are caught by the secret police. These restless guys will even hold unlimited fighting competitions in prison.

Franz knew very well that all this was just a preview of the Spring of Nations four years later, but changes in history had also changed the balance of power among the three parties.

Prague at this time became the center of exchanges between Neletania and the German region. The influx of large numbers of German immigrants greatly changed the structure of the local population.

However, there are actually not many people who really want to overthrow the Habsburgs, which is quite gratifying for the future prince.

But the problem is that the historical Czech national movement was not originally aimed at overthrowing the empire. After all, intelligence will naturally decrease when people gather together, and they can easily be exploited.

So Franz must find a way to curb this trend; but unless forced, he will not choose to fight fire with fire with German nationalism.

At this time, the only Czech political, economic, military, and academic leader was Marshal Radetzki. However, the old Marshal had no interest in pursuing independence. On the contrary, he was very opposed to it.

Firstly, Radetzky was an imperial soldier, and secondly, he was proud to be a member of the Austrian nobility. The most important thing is that whether from the perspective of a weather-beaten old man or a soldier, Radetzky feels that Bohemian independence is nonsense and will neither succeed nor be possible.

The large number of German immigrants entering Bohemia did bring about a series of thorny problems, but it was actually a good thing for the local nobles and businessmen because labor costs dropped.

It is also beneficial to small shopkeepers and property-owning farmers, because a large number of immigrants and outsiders stimulate local consumption.

At the same time, because the empire is on the rise, the vast majority of residents actually feel that life is better than before.

Of course, not everyone agrees with this view. For example, some local overlords have lost their control over Bohemia due to population growth and a large number of German immigrants.

Especially after Winster was killed by Franz, the government began to liquidate them.

Although each of these guys claimed to have thousands of troops, when the farmers and a few mercenaries actually saw the regular army, they ran faster than rabbits.

However, Czech nationalist interest groups still thought of a way to counterattack the Vienna court, which was to demand the compilation of local history.

In fact, due to historical reasons, almost every province in the empire can compile its own local history.

This is reasonable, but they internally introduced Palacki, a radical professor, who openly opposed Habsburg rule more than once in the university and was a fanatical admirer of Hus.

In his writing, the Austrians are like clowns, robbers who have stolen the ancestral homeland of the Czechs.

However, someone soon pointed out that the Germans had lived in Bohemia since ancient times, and that the Czechs, who were West Slavs, were the foreign invaders.

This made German nationalists so angry that they even surrounded the historian's house until the army was dispatched to drive the crowd away.

Later, the University of Prague, under strong pressure from public opinion, had to expel the "troubling" professor on the grounds of academic misconduct.

Words such as "thief" and "liar" were written all over the door of Palacki's house, which was unacceptable for a proud and arrogant professor.

He angrily came to the local gendarmerie headquarters and demanded severe punishment for the "thugs", but the only answers he received were "Who are the thugs?" "Who are the thugs?"