Chapter 1172: Earth-shattering (Part 2)

Chapter 1172: Earth-shattering (Part 2)

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 the slogan of "revenge".

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

"Tural, get out!"

"Tural, go back to the countryside!"

This protest soon turned into a violent action. The college students smashed the glass of the War Ministry with stones and set fire to the gate of the War Ministry.

Then the gendarmes were dispatched, and people always felt 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 with Vienna, the reaction in other parts of Europe was much more intense.

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

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.

Under the blessing of fear, anxiety, and justice, the Germans became unprecedentedly united. Both the monarchs of various states and their subjects hoped that the Austrians would win the war.

More volunteers and volunteers from the German region flocked to Vienna. They wanted to eliminate all the invaders who might threaten their world.

How could Pius IX be missing at this time? Pius IX publicly issued a manifesto, saying that the Hungarians were a group of lunatics bewitched by the devil.

Although Pius IX was just showing his presence, other Italian princes had to express their opinions after his operation.

Among them, the most active one was King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, in addition to Vittorio Emanuele II of the Kingdom of Sardinia.

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

Ferdinand II had been completely crazy after the rebellion in 1848, and he did not trust anyone.

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

After his "sacred thinking", Ferdinand II made up his mind to send his eldest son, Francesco de Sis Maria Leopoldo, who later became the King of the Two Sicilies, Francesco II, to study in Vienna.

Everyone with a discerning eye knew what Ferdinand II was going to do, but this was not in Franz's plan. Since then, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies has become 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 offend the British to lend the port to the Austrian Navy and help transport Austrian soldiers.

It's just that the arrogance of the British made them think that the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies dared not offend Britain, so the situation of darkness under the lamp appeared.

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

Although the monarchies in Europe were all eager to try, they were still far behind the Austrian Empire.

As soon as the news reached northern Italy, all the prominent figures in northern Italy, whether nobles, businessmen, 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 didn't need to guess that someone would take the opportunity to consume patriotic enthusiasm.

In today's highly developed information age, there are many cases of fraudulent donations, and sometimes it is even a problem whether the so-called donations can be implemented at 1%.

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

Alms that rely on concessions from the state and special policies are not charity, they are just transactions.

Donations should be a voluntary act, but they are put on too many shackles, and at the same time, they are used by a small group of people as a tool for making money and avoiding taxes.

It is really difficult to define how many unknown dirty deals there are behind the scenes.

The transparency issues that may exist in the process of donations and use, 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 made public, it will not only increase the burden on donors, but also increase the administrative costs of governments and institutions, and even bring unnecessary troubles to some donors.

But if it is not done this way, transparency will never be achieved, and it will be even more difficult to figure out the flow of funds, and the so-called responsible person will not exist at all.

So it seems that only by relying on the state to transfer interests can a certain degree of transparency be maintained. Wouldn’t this be wrong from the beginning?

So Franz personally poured cold water on those "great patriots" at this time, and the decrees one after another made everyone dumbfounded.

In order to prevent some people from profiting from consuming people's patriotic enthusiasm and sympathy, Franz could only bear the notoriety 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 who need to raise funds can go through the government or royal offices, and after review, a reasonable amount will be set before issuing a fundraising notice.

This is definitely a thankless act 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.

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

As for the charity of 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 lot of social wealth would donate to the country.

Franz's actions confused the subjects of northern Italy. It was the first time they saw a situation where donations could not be donated.

Even the wealthy businessmen would not refuse the so-called share money on weekdays, and as for the church and other charitable organizations, they would welcome any amount of donations at any time.

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

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

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

(Groschen, the currency of the Austrian Empire, 30 groschen equals one florin.)

On January 1, 1849, Franz declared the Austrian Empire to be in a state of war.