Chapter 841 The First Shot

Chapter 841 The First Shot

January 9, 1848, Italy.

In Palermo, the capital of Sicily, a notice appeared on the city wall.

"Sicilians! ... Protests, petitions, peaceful demonstrations have proved useless. Ferdinando II has shown that in his eyes there is only contempt. For us, free people have been chained to misery. on the chain.

How long do we have to wait to get our legitimate rights and interests back? Take up arms, sons of Sicily, we take up arms! "

The most ridiculous thing is that the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies only regarded this as a joke at this time. Ferdinand II even planned to hold a grand birthday celebration on January 12, three days later.

In fact, continuous disasters have plunged agriculture into an unprecedented low, and the global economic crisis has destroyed its handicraft industry.

Amid internal and external difficulties, another heavy snowfall destroyed people's hopes for the future. The people believed that this was all the fault of King Ferdinand II, and the indifference of the government and the royal family further stimulated the people.

The former Ferdinand II was an enterprising king. As soon as he came to power, he carried out a large number of reforms, selected talents, eliminated accumulated abuses, and strived to create a clean and efficient government.

Afterwards, Ferdinand II reduced taxes, abolished labor, encouraged industry, developed trade, established education, promoted talents in an exceptional manner, and even established early welfare institutions.

Under his promotion, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies established the earliest railway in Italy (Naples-Portage Railway), the first navigation company in Italy, and the first telegraph company on the Apennines.

Ferdinand II was once considered the most likely king to reunite Italy, but at this time he just wanted to live out his life in mediocrity.

Three days later, January 12, 1848.

At the celebration of the King's birthday, someone took out the red, white and green flags symbolizing Italy. Afterwards, people took up arms and rushed to the palace as the notice suggested.

At this time, in order to allow himself to have a stable birthday, Ferdinand II mobilized five regiments of troops to maintain order in front of the palace, and an entire fleet remained in the port.

In addition, there are a large number of military police, spies, strong fortresses and dark cannons in the city.

All the rebels together only had 500 guns. They were craftsmen from various guilds, refugees fleeing famine, and bankrupt craftsmen. They did not belong to each other, and they were a typical mob.

No one thinks the latter can win.

Ferdinand II pulled his 12-year-old eldest son, who was later King Francesco II, to stand on the balcony on the second floor of the palace. He wanted to see with his own eyes how the mob was destroyed.

The father and son were ready to watch a bloody massacre, but at this time Dozanka Charlotte, a close minister of Ferdinand II, stepped forward.

"Your Majesty, the dirty blood should not stain your eyes. Just leave this to the humble minister."

Ferdinando II was unmoved.

"I want to see how those ungrateful guys were crushed by my army! Damn the unscrupulous people! They actually blamed me for the natural disaster! The locust plague was clearly summoned by Pius IX!"

In fact, Pius IX also collected debts from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and all the debts from Murat's period were also counted on his head, so the relationship between the two parties was very bad.

Dozanka Shiloh was a little at a loss because he was a traditional nobleman and respected the Pope. At least he did not dare to scold the Pope in front of others like the king.

Of course, as a smart man, he did not want to offend the king, so he only suggested it again after Ferdinand II's anger subsided.

"Your Majesty, when a war breaks out, guns and cannons have no eyesight. It would be bad if you accidentally hurt your Majesty and the prince."

Ferdinand II thought it made sense, so he decided to go back to the palace for a while. Anyway, there were high-walled fortresses and more than 10,000 troops outside, and the opponent only had 500 mobs and there was no reason to lose.

"The king has run away!" A roar and a gunshot shocked everyone, and also kicked off the vigorous prelude to the Spring of All Nations.

Something happened that Ferdinando II couldn't understand. Fifteen minutes after he left, his army was broken through the defense line. The whole city was filled with rout troops, and five hundred people rushed towards the palace.

In fact, after the French Revolution, the word revolution was enough to scare all nobles, whether it was the Industrial Revolution or any other revolution.

Another unexpected reason was that Ferdinand II left the balcony. The king's sudden departure directly put the morale of the army on the verge of collapse.

A cry of "The king has run away!" directly shattered the remaining fighting spirit of the soldiers.

If Ferdinand II had never left, or never appeared on the balcony, the situation would at least not have been so bad.

"Don't let Ferdinand II escape!" someone shouted. Afterwards, Ferdinand II fought and retreated under the desperate protection of the royal guards, and hurriedly fled into the port of Palermo to survive.

Ferdinando II, who fled to the battleship, looked at the rebels cheering in the port in the distance, and heard the sounds of "Long live Italy!" and "Long live Pius IX!" from time to time.

"Damn Pius IX!" Ferdinando II spat fiercely into the sea. He knew that those rebels had no ability to break through his defense line. The big devil Pius IX must have used some spell. .

In fact, the banner of the Italian unification movement at this time was Pius IX, because after he came to power, he issued a general amnesty to the world, and many demons and ghosts were released together with political prisoners.

These people lived up to expectations and began to cause trouble in various places. The city of Rome was flooded with slogans such as "Long live the Pope!", "Death to Austria!", and "Long live Italy!".

Even the French ambassador thought the pope was crazy, he wrote in a letter to King Louis Philippe of France.

"The Pope is digging his own grave. His crazy behavior puts even the most brutal violent revolutionaries to shame."

Some secret leaflets even claimed that "the Jesuits are an Austrian conspiracy", "the Pope is under control", and "only by driving the Austrians out of Italy can the Holy See be saved".

Just when rebels everywhere were preparing for uprisings, Pius IX suddenly decided to set up a "Consultative Committee" to openly seek ways to save the Italian nation from the people.

In fact, Pius IX wanted to mobilize the people to drive the Austrian side out and become the leader of Italy.

But the reality is that the political prisoners he released were not interested in a papal Italy and demanded more rights.

The monks in the consultative committee were quickly dismissed, and radical nationalists emerged on the stage of history.

Under the connection of these people, a large number of horse racing clubs appeared in Italy. Just like the French banquet movement, they were not just horse racing clubs, but openly organized associations.

Franz knew this very well. Al Pacino Corleone was a Sicilian and he knew this method of association very well.

Franz naturally had a countermeasure, which was to arrest those without horses for fraud. In the end, everyone in the entire Jockey Club actually had to bring a horse, which greatly raised the threshold for membership.

At that time, the price of horses was not cheap, especially the follow-up costs. Moreover, Italy itself did not produce horses, and the total number of horses was not as high as that of Belgium before the disintegration.

However, the reality is that the nationalists in northern Italy are not easy to deal with. They launched a smoking cessation campaign on January 1, 1848.

In fact, the planners originally planned to recreate the tea party in North America that year, but as soon as they poured out two boxes of tobacco, someone lost their money.

Obviously Austria's security force in Northern Italy is much stronger than that of Britain in North America, and Al Pacino Corleone, a local gangster, and his Sicilian gang are the underground managers of the docks.

But Franz didn't want too much bloodshed, so he only asked the nationalists to pay. But the price of tobacco at that time was not cheap, and the arrested nationalists were unable to pay off their debts.

In order to avoid being sent to the colonies to pay off their debts, they had no choice but to identify the real culprits behind the scenes. Franz still used fines to deal with them, which was particularly effective against the middle class.

Many people grew old overnight, but they had no choice but to do so because they had the support of the law and both the person and the person gained the stolen goods. In fact, many people become less radical after losing their property.

Moreover, the people at the bottom like to see these people being unlucky. Report letters gradually increase, and some people even make a living from it.

In desperation, the nationalists in northern Italy could only quit smoking. In fact, Franz had always advocated quitting smoking and limiting alcohol. After all, tobacco and alcohol were not good things.

After the smoking cessation campaign began in Northern Italy, Franz even sent people to promote the harmful effects of smoking.

It's just that the so-called harmful effects of smoking at that time were all nonsense without scientific basis, because people who smoke and drink are obviously more energetic and live longer than people who don't smoke or drink.

Although the nationalists in northern Italy can stop smoking or call on the people not to smoke, they cannot restrain the soldiers in the army.

Tobacco was not cheap at that time, and it was not popular. At least most people at the bottom could not afford to smoke. Historically, it was not until paper cigarettes became popular that the number of smokers really began to approach the number of alcoholics.

Although paper cigarettes were available in Austria at this time, they were not popular. Most people still liked to use pipes, snuff and the like, and the prices of these were too high for ordinary people.

Although the price of tobacco is not high, the tax is very high. The reason why the nationalists in northern Italy launched the smoking cessation campaign was to attack Austria's tax revenue and thereby force the government to carry out reforms.

I have to say that there must be government officials or experts who are familiar with taxation to help make suggestions, but now the Austrian treasury is much more abundant than in history, and it can still afford to spend dozens or millions.

In fact, this amount of money is really not worth mentioning in the face of import and export duties, industrial taxes, agricultural taxes, and the funds of the Royal Development Company and the Austrian-Merchan United Company.

Except for Franz, the top officials in the empire did not even take this matter to heart. The local officials were very anxious, but not particularly anxious, at least they did not think that any special measures should be taken.

However, the withdrawal reaction from nicotine is not so pleasant. On January 3, two days after the quit smoking campaign started.

A group of smokers stormed the guard post and beat up a soldier who was smoking. Then a large number of soldiers arrived and a physical conflict broke out between the two sides.

Marshal Radetzki was very strict in managing the army. He did not want too many conflicts between the army and the locals, so the soldiers were very restrained and still maintained the level of fighting.

However, some radical nationalists soon began to use weapons. When the violence escalated, the army soldiers turned into soldiers again and began to fight back quickly and decisively.

Everything stems from the words given to the Italian Legion by the royal family: "Evil people should not be tolerated, and good people should not be wronged." (mentioned in the previous article)

Facing heavily armed and well-trained soldiers, how could those thugs with nicotine withdrawal symptoms resist them.

The fighting, which may not have been a fighting at all, was quelled after two armed thugs were shot dead.

Due to the decisive action taken, casualties were much lower than in history. Only two people died and a dozen were slightly injured.

In fact, the nobles and businessmen in Italy did not want to make things too serious, because they just wanted to achieve independent status like the Hungarians.

To be honest, they are very satisfied with both the policies of the Austrian Empire and the market of the Austrian Empire.

They have made a lot of money over the years, and their lives are not much better than those of their relatives and friends in other countries.

However, after having money, they felt that they could go further.

In fact, they are not necessarily nationalists, but because of the good example of Hungary, the nobles and businessmen in the Italian region also hope that the Northern Italy region can also be independent, so that they will have enough power to protect their own interests. .

Officials in northern Italy also wanted to expand their power, so the two sides hit it off immediately, and a vigorous nationalist movement began.

However, while they instigated the nationalists and the people at the bottom to cause trouble, they also sent people to start contacting the Austrian Imperial Government.

These people hope to make the Austrian Imperial Government compromise under heavy pressure, but Metternich and Count Korolaf have seen this kind of thing too many times.

There are many people in the Austrian Empire who want to do this, and Bohemia is even more troubled at this time. If they compromised so easily, Austria would have been torn apart.

So Metternich directly ordered the arrest of a group of nationalist leaders such as Daniele Manin, Nicolo Tomaseo, Bishop Coser, and Bishop Ambras.

On the other hand, Marshal Radetzky felt strongly uneasy. As a veteran who had participated in the anti-French war, he knew the horror of "turmoil".

Marshal Radetzky said in a telegram to Vienna, "We must immediately take the strongest measures against those insane and radical reformists, and must extinguish this flame in the bud."

However, the old marshal's surprising toughness did not attract the attention of the Vienna government, because according to usual experience, Metternich felt that as long as the leader was arrested, the matter would soon calm down.

However, a gunshot in Sicily shattered Metternich's dream, and the entire northern Italy became restless.

At this moment, Metternich finally smelled a strange smell, which was the salty and wet breath before a bloody storm.

But the 74-year-old prime minister still didn't think anything could shake the Austrian Empire, which was well equipped with troops and food and a full treasury.

What he didn't expect was that the scale of the coming storm, its destructive power, and its far-reaching impact would completely exceed everyone's estimates, including Franz, who was full of confidence at this time.

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