They found many reasons, such as the local leaders of the German community, who openly asked the Prussian and Austrian consuls to help them.

They believed that they had been oppressed by the Russian aristocracy, that the Russian government had imposed unreasonable taxes on them, that the German peasants had not benefited from the reform of serfdom in Russia, but that they had to bear the special taxes levied by the tsar to compensate the serf owners. In turn, these nobles used government subsidies to compete with them unreasonably, and some millers said that they went bankrupt because the nobles bought grain at unreasonable prices and sold flour at prices below cost. Some German-style food mill owners say their regular customers love their cheese and sausages, but the local Russian aristocracy, through the controlled parliament, sent police to seize their pork and milk raw materials and not allow them to be processed.

There was also the issue of religion, with priests saying that they were threatened by Orthodox groups to convert to Russian Orthodoxy or face being expelled from Russian-ruled territories.

The Prussians were Protestant, the Austrians were Catholic, and neither of them was an Orthodox nation. Orthodox Christianity, bounded by the Dnieper River, and east of Ukraine, where the faith spread from Greece and gained a foothold in Russia; The region west of the Dnieper, under the long-term rule of Poland, was generally Catholic. Austro-Prussia also demanded that the Russian government guarantee the freedom of belief of these peoples.

In a word, the German nation, as a small ethnic group, under the rule of the Russian tsar, suffered injustice. They could not live in the proud way of life of the German nation, as their compatriots in Germany did, and they could not maintain their religious beliefs like their compatriots in their homeland.

Therefore, the Prussian and Austrian governments jointly protested and demanded that the Tsar improve the situation of the German diaspora and the German nation in Russia. And the reform tax on serfs payable by the German ethnic groups must be abolished to protect their normal and legal business. Freedom of belief for German nationals and ethnic Germans is guaranteed.

The tsarist government said that Russia had always respected freedom of belief and had not forced other peoples to convert. Although Russia is not absolute in this regard, for example, the Muslim faith in the Urals was converted during Russian rule, which is a very rare religious phenomenon. It was because in the 50s of the 16th century, after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate and the Bashkir region by Tsarist Russia, the Tatar and Bashkir inhabitants of these regions were forced to abandon their Islam and convert to Orthodox Christianity, otherwise they would be flogged and imprisoned, or driven to other places. After the constant uprisings of the Tatars and Bashkirs, especially after the participation of many Bashkirs in the Pugachev uprising of 1773-1775, the Russian government realized the dangers of the policy of forced conversion, and Catherine II began to confirm the legitimacy of Islam.

Therefore, Russia can still guarantee freedom of belief, at least after the Napoleonic Wars, it is relatively open.

However, the tax problem does exist, especially for German immigrants in the Volga region. The German national immigrated to Russia from the time of Peter the Great, but at that time it was mainly technicians and merchants. The real large-scale migration of peasants was in the time of Catherine the Great from Germany, and after that there were continuous immigrants. They concentrated in the Volga valley, reclaiming the wasteland and establishing German-style homesteaders. By now, this group of more than a hundred thousand people has established a community of Germans in the Volga region.

After the reform of serfdom, Germany levied a tax on land, indeed on all landowners, and did not discriminate against German yeoman farmers.

But this tax is levied on land, not on individuals or ethnic groups, and the land of Germans is also changing, and the differential treatment of shareholding will create confusion. If it was stipulated that the German nation was not required to pay this ransom tax, would the Germans pay the tax on the land they bought from other peasants? The Germans lived in serfdom communes, and although they lived in a concentrated manner, there was no clear boundary between them. Land sales have always been common, and there have been cases of German peasants buying property in the German ghetto, whether or not their land is taxed.

And the land of the Germans is not levied this tax, then the Poles are not levied, the land of the Ukrainians is not levied, Russia is a multi-ethnic country, especially the Poles, the Baltic peoples and the Ukrainians have a higher proportion of yeoman farmers, if they are all exempted, simply let those liberated serfs pay taxes, not only will lose a large amount of taxes, but also cause a decline in the income of these people, especially all the taxes are borne by the liberated Russian serfs, and their pressure will become more and more great, Once national contradictions appeared, it was a great hidden danger to the rule of the tsar.

Therefore, from the beginning, the Russians did not intend to distinguish between these complex issues, nor did they intend to cause national contradictions for the sake of a small nation, and did not think that these problems would become a reason for Austria to start a war.

As a result, Puo demanded that the Tsar guarantee freedom of worship in Russia, but could not accept a special tax exemption for the German nation. And it is subservient to the words of Puo, what do the Poles think? What do Ukrainians think? Combined, these two ethnic groups accounted for as much as three or four percent of Russia's population, and the Tsar could not bear the consequences of such a huge ethnic conflict.

Therefore, the Russian government categorically rejected the request to tax exempt the Germans.

This created a strong national sentiment in both Prussia and Austria, and through newspaper propaganda, the Germans believed that they had suffered humiliation and that their compatriots were being oppressed by the Russians.

Not only Prussia and Austria, but the whole German nation was ignited, and the two countries convened a conference of the German Confederation to discuss the German national question in Russia.

All the states agreed that Russia must abolish the unjustified taxes imposed on the German nation, and that the Germans were neither serfs nor serf owners, that they had nothing to do with the reform of serfdom, and that they did not have to bear the cost for it.

The Federal Assembly authorized Prussia and Austria to issue an ultimatum to Russia. Why two at the same time, and not one, because neither Prussia nor Austria could accept that the other should represent Germany. Historically, the Prussian-Danish War also authorized Prussia and Austria to wage war with Denmark.

But Denmark is only a small country, Russia is a big country, so the ultimatum is still issued by Austria, but the war is the business of all Germans. All the states of the Federal Assembly unanimously agreed that in the event of Russia's rejection of the ultimatum, the Federation would declare war on Russia!

The genius of Paus lies in the fact that they stirred up the mood of the German nation as a whole, and not by supporting the Polish uprising and the like.

In this way, the war became a national war between the Germans and the Slavs, and the war strongly united the national feelings of the German nation.

And this is exactly what Bismarck diligently sought.