At the beginning of December 1943, the case of the attack on Prince Felix was heard in the Austrian Supreme Court, and as soon as the news came out, the focus of attention immediately focused on the relationship between Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy, because there was a lot of gossip that the attacker was an Italian-speaking Austro-Hungarian citizen, and he was most likely instigated and financed by the Italian side. If Italy refuses, it will face severe retaliatory sanctions and even the threat of war. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info Once these two European powers, with a combined population of more than 100 million, once they go to war, the degree of influence and scope of the impact may be second only to the previous two world wars!

As the trial progressed, the Viennese were the first to capture the strange atmosphere, the confession of the attacker and all kinds of evidence did not point to Italy, but excavated a terrible conspiracy force from within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and then some people began to commit suicide in fear of crime, army officers, government officials, on the surface, things are becoming confusing, and then put aside the external suspicions to analyze the various contradictions of interests within the empire, it is not difficult to find the cause and effect of this......

Halfway through the trial, all the testimony and evidence pointed at one man, the second son of Emperor Karl I of Austria and the younger brother of Crown Prince Otto, who inherited the patriarchship of the Este branch from the late Archduke Ferdinand, who, despite his young age, had already established a wide reputation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Robert, Archduke of Austria-Este, a young, handsome, and personable royal nobleman who was not yet 30 years old.

In order to clear his suspicion and save his reputation, the Grand Duke came to the court, made a generous statement, and argued vigorously, which once left the prosecution prosecutor speechless, but at this time, public opinion in Vienna almost overwhelmingly attacked the young Archduke, accusing him of trying to seize the throne, and did not hesitate to sell the interests of the country in exchange for the support of foreign powers, and even fabricated that he had received a large amount of money from the Italians (before the 19th century, the Este branch was an important political force in northern Italy, Until the rise of Napoleonic France broke the original pattern of the region), thousands of people took to the streets to launch the so-called patriotic royalist movement, and some radicals even threatened to punish the conspirators by special means.

From a prince and nobleman admired by all the people to a target of public criticism, the psychological pressure on the Archduke of Esther can be imagined, although he swore in public that he would never think or act against his brother, and tried his best to win the trust and support of Karl I, his situation became worse and worse. Under these circumstances, the Grand Duke had the idea of leaving Austria-Hungary, and four days before Christmas of that year, he arrived at the port of Tirieste with his family, but they were prevented from boarding a cruise ship bound for France by the gendarmes at the docks. Unable to detain the Grand Duke and his family, the gendarmes kept them under surveillance, but the Grand Duke and his family continued to celebrate Christmas in a turbulent and toiling manner, while the Habsburg court, as in previous years, enjoyed great music and sumptuous food, seemingly unaffected by the attack on Prince Felix.

After the Christmas holidays, the Austrian Supreme Court continued to hear the case, at this time the public opinion of the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire was accusing and attacking the Archduke of Esther, and many people who did not know the truth shouted "Severely punish the conspirators" and "hang the traitors", and the Archduke Esther, who lacked social experience and frustration experience, returned to his territory in Salzburg with his wife and children tremblingly, not only closed the door, but also made his subordinates strengthen their vigilance, which just became a new way for the opponent to launch a public opinion war. The intense mental pressure led the Archduke d'Este to make a decision that was not surprising, and he turned to the Germans for help seeking political asylum in Germany, but the Hohenzollerns did not want to break with their long-time allies, and although they refused the Archduke's request, they did not divulge the matter.

In desperation, the Grand Duke of Este turned to his personal friend, the French Consul General in Salzburg. Nevertheless, the relationship between Austria-Hungary and France has been lukewarm, and the political situation in France has often been in turmoil, but the French have shown their romantic chivalry in this matter. After receiving the report from the consul general, the French cabinet held a meeting overnight and made a decision to admit the Grand Duke of Este and his family to France for refuge, and then immediately arranged for the Grand Duke and his family to stay at the local French consulate and quickly dispatched a special plane to pick them up. When the Austrian Supreme Court filed a request to the royal family for custody and review, the Grand Duke of Este was already bathing comfortably in the presidential suite of a high-end hotel in Paris!

Annoyed by the fact that the Grand Duke of Este had gone to France under the guise of political asylum, Emperor Karl I of Austria, instigated by some nobles and ministers, ordered the central government of Austria-Hungary to lodge a strong protest with the French government, trying to force the French to return him. The French government neither refused nor agreed, but played Tai Chi with ease, and had no intention of repatriating the Grand Duke of Este and his family. With the Germans deliberately watching and the Italians sitting back and watching the farce, Austria-Hungary lacked the means to make the French government jealous, and in the end it could only protest.

Returning to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which succeeded in driving out its number one rival, Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg decided to pursue another of his plans while the iron was hot, that is, to use strong military means to demonstrate the determination and ability of Austria-Hungary to maintain national stability, and then to resolve the grievances of the various ethnic groups in the empire one by one through a combination of grace and power, so as to achieve the goal of consolidating the rule of the Habsburgs......

The shrewd Crown Prince certainly does not think of the Italians as "chickens", and among the countries surrounding Austria-Hungary, they are the most powerful, while Greece, Ukraine and Romania are the weaker. After the First World War, the Greeks turned to the Germans and became a pawn used by the Germans to contain Italy and Austria-Hungary, and its neutral status was guaranteed by the Germans, and there were basically no Greeks living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so Greece was not suitable to be a "chicken". Today's Federal Republic of Ukraine is fundamentally different from Ukraine in the geographical concept, south of Kiev and west of the Dnieper River are owned by Austria-Hungary, and east of Kiev is owned by Germany, and the Federal Republic of Ukraine established by the Germans only occupies 40% of Ukraine's territory and less than half of its population, but as a buffer between the Western Allies and Soviet Russia, the military strength of this "little Ukraine" is not bad at all.

As a result, Crown Prince Otto chose to attack the Romanians. At this time, Romanians living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire accounted for about 5% of the total population of the empire, or about 3 million, and they lived in the Duchy of Bukovina, which was close to the Kingdom of Romania, and in the eastern part of the Kingdom of Hungary. In the recent period, the Slavs and Italians in the empire have been the most violent, and the Romanians have been relatively peaceful, but there are also quite a few people, especially young people with strong blood, who have been agitated by nationalist ideologies to speak out for a nation and a country, and advocate a referendum to decide the ownership of the Romanian-inhabited areas. In order to make the Austro-Hungarian top brass pay attention to their opinions and accept their demands, the militants organized marches and strikes of a certain scale in Chernivz, Yaslovods and other places, and although there were no riots of a bad nature, they had a considerable negative impact on the economic production and social order of the region.

At the beginning of 1944, shortly after the departure of the Grand Duke of Este, Crown Prince Otto, in his capacity as commander of the Letanian Legion, mobilized more than 80,000 troops in 35 regiments to the Duchy of Bukovina, and transferred thousands of secret police officers from all over the country and a large number of them, imposed a strict blockade on the area in the name of military exercises, and then carried out a carpet sweep of all the cities, villages and towns here, arrested residents who had participated in the so-called national independence movement, and subjected them to centralized interrogation and public trial. In just half a month, more than 4,000 Romanians with legal citizenship were sentenced to prison terms, and dozens more were shot. Fair and reasonable public trials can indeed serve as an example, but in Bukovina, many of the verdicts are inconclusive and logically unclear, which has aroused strong dissatisfaction among the residents and attracted criticism and ridicule from public opinion.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire's official purge of the Romanians in its territory was almost persecutive, and the Kingdom of Romania was extremely indignant from top to bottom, and many soldiers and civilians were clamoring for a war with Austria-Hungary. Of course, Romania, with a population of 7.3 million, of which about 6.5 million are ethnic Romanians, cannot be compared with the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the rule of the Habsburgs in terms of military or economic strength, and for a long time it has been neglected to be armed, neither has the strength to compete with Austria-Hungary, nor is it mentally and materially prepared, and in the end it can only fight by non-military means such as diplomatic protests, international appeals, and family appeals. King Carol II wrote to Emperor Karl I of Austria to express his strong protest against the plight of the Romanians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and said that "if the Austro-Hungarian Empire no longer regards the Romanians in its territory as subjects, the Kingdom of Romania can accept them at any time", and out of support for Crown Prince Otto, Karl I replied that the reason why Austria-Hungary sent troops and judicial personnel to the Duchy of Bukovina was to find out the rebels hiding among the local population, and that everyone who was executed was a person guilty of treason. There are Romanians, Ukrainians, Croatians, and those sentenced to prison terms have their most basic right to life guaranteed.

Karl I's explanations certainly did not calm the anger of Carol II and his people, and in desperation, the Romanian king turned to Kaiser Wilhelm the Younger for help. The Sigmaringen family, which ruled Romania, was a branch of the Hohenzollern family, and William Jr. had every reason to lend a helping hand to Carroll II from the standpoint of kinship or from the point of view of containing Austria-Hungary, not to mention that Romania's oil resources have always been the object of spied on by European powers, and its unique geographical location not only has industrial and economic advantages, but also has strategic value that overseas oil fields are not enough.

(End of chapter)