Rudolf's trip to Berlin soon came to an end, after establishing initial contacts with German intelligence agencies and bringing back a large amount of material on the Eastern Front. Rudolf and his entourage basically returned to Vienna.

The intelligence of the Germans was detailed and even more shocking. Facts have proven that the so-called three-person rifle in Tsarist Russia in later generations is only a partial generalization.

The standing army of the Russian army has reached 1.42 million people, and this number is growing, according to the planned goal of the reform, this number will reach 5 million. As the fourth largest economy today, Tsarist Russia spends as much on army spending as Germany.

A large part of the reason why the Russian army caused a shortage of weapons and equipment in the later war was that the Russian army stopped military production for a period of time before and after the war. What the Russian army really lacks on the front line is food, clothing, ammunition. In the war, not only Russia, but other countries also faced more or less logistical supply problems.

Rudolph has now given up the illusion of peace, and the pace of war is inevitable. The German-Austrian alliance is an out-and-out military alliance, and joint plans have been drawn up for everything from the G98 and Manlisya M1895 general-purpose ammunition to the battle plans on the eastern and western fronts.

In the war, the main enemy of the Russian army was not Germany, but Austria-Hungary. Ludendorff himself commented in "Total War" written after the war that if Russia had the main force against Germany at the first time, then Germany would not have been able to hold out for the first year.

At the beginning of the war, Russia's task was to pin down the German forces in the north and defeat Austria-Hungary in the south. At the beginning of the following year, the Russian army conquered the fortress of Przemyśl. Austria-Hungary had no danger to defend and had completely lost the initiative in the war.

Reform was urgent, and as the emperor grew older, Archduke Ferdinand, whose role became more important, saw the Hungarian nation in Austria as the greatest danger. He was horrified by Franz. Joseph's major "national concessions" to the Hungarians in 1903 were seen as a fatal blow to the monarchy's already damaged military power. By 1913, the Hungarians had almost completely withdrawn from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They didn't even want to sing the lyrics of Hayden's "Lord Save the Emperor," the Austro-Hungarian anthem, because the anthem contained the words Emperor that they hated. They will hum tunes, or they will not make a sound, or even boo.

The situation was so dire that the two rulers never agreed on their approach. Joseph I saw the compromise of the dual empire as the foundation of the empire, but Archduke Ferdinand saw it as a tumor to be removed. The Grand Duke established his own military clerical office at Belvedere Palace, acting as a shadow government.

The Viennese satirist Klaus once said: "Never pander to the fickle, vulgar, hypocritical nature of the Viennese, and even have no intention of winning the hearts and minds of the people." The Archduke was "a Fortinbras-type figure, not a Hamlet-type figure", the last and greatest hope on which the monarchy depended to "become a state of order and to put things right." ”

Rudolph also saw Ferdinand as the country's greatest hope, and in the army, the stronghold of fanatics, his ideas were even more radical. Rudolph hoped to launch a "226"-style coup d'état to oust the dim-witted, conservative old emperor from power.

"We don't just have two councils, we have two emperors." Rudolph lamented.

General Offenberg, Minister of War and a close associate of the Grand Duke, also lamented that "the emperor is unwilling to solve the problems of the Hungarians, unwilling to save the sluggish morale." ”

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that investing heavily in military affairs is both a necessity of the times and an urgent task in the twentieth century, but Vienna and Budapest have no intention of thinking about it.

The Russians, more keenly than most, smelled the corruption of Austria-Hungary, and they saw the right moment to turn their attention back to Europe. Inspired by Pan-Slavism (an ideology in which all Slavs should be united and led by Russia), Tsar Nicholas II vowed to advance into the Balkans, bolster Slavic kingdoms such as Serbia, annex land bridges to Constantinople and the Dardanelles, regain the former Orthodox capital, and connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea through the Turkish Straits. If they do, Russia will escape from the "cage" of the Black Sea and announce their arrival as the most powerful country in Europe.

In the event of a major war, Austria-Hungary would only be able to assemble 48 divisions to deal with 90 Russian divisions and 10 Serbian divisions. Offenberg astutely pointed out that Austria-Hungary was already at the bottom of the great powers in terms of the number of artillery.

Soon after, the crown prince and his officers proposed a new armament program.

The Hungarian parliament did not even bother to discuss it and rejected the expenditure. István Tiza and his parliamentarians laughed and said, "This plan is a complete fantasy, and we will not come up with a single crown." ”

The actions of the Hungarian magnates have caused public outrage, even those half-Hungarians like Rudolf can't stand it, the army is ready to move, the German officers are unwilling to accept the country's destruction, the Slavs want to fight for power, and the Hungarian soldiers are also at odds with the nobles who have been beating the bone and the marrow.

The crown prince made a speech: "The main duty of the army is not to defend the Motherland against external enemies, but to defend against internal enemies, and the mission of this monarchy is to unite the Western Slavs, South Slavs, Magyars, Austrians in Europe." ”

The Hungarian nobles were furious, and they felt that this was an offense to them. These Magyars have been in power on the Hungarian plain for half a century, and the privileges here have long been taken for granted. Now, the crown prince's comments have made them see a threat.

Rudolph, a staunch supporter of the crown prince, was equally opposed to continuing to feed the moths. In the era of industrialization, 10 million Hungarians contributed as much revenue as 3 million Romanians. Bohemia was the industrial heart of the empire, and the Czechs were desperate to restore their rights, which had been abolished in the 17th century.

The crown prince put forward his political proposition that the Czech region should be a special region of the empire, and that Poland, Galicia, and Croatia, which were dominated by Slavs, would establish a Slavic fiefdom.

Reform is still being discussed, this is only a preliminary idea, and it is the bottom line for the crown prince and his Slavic supporters. Germany, which had colluded with the Hungarians, decided at the previous joint meeting that it would remain neutral for the sake of its only ally.

After receiving the promise of his friend Wilhelm II, Archduke Ferdinand and his government had sent a circular to Hungary in conjunction with the Imperial Parliament. The Triple Empire, or the era of the Danube Confederation, was coming.