Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace

Franz, who finally had free time to close his eyes in the study, was a little curious why he hadn't received news from Nanming until now.

As everyone knows, Friedrich was still on his way to Kalimantan at this time, and the development of events had exceeded his expectations.

After pondering for a moment, he set his sights on a large map hanging on the wall to the right of his desk. In 1815, Prague had a population of only 70,000, of which 50,000 were Germans, 15,000 were Czechs, and the rest were of other nationalities.

By 1844, the empire had grown to 180,000 people, including 158,000 Germans, 15,000 Czechs, and the vast majority of the rest were Jews.

With a population of 380,000, Prague is now the second largest metropolis in the empire after Vienna. The population of Germany is as high as 300,000, the second largest ethnic group is the Jews (50,000), the Czechs are only about 20,000, and the rest are of other nationalities.

(Incidentally, historically Prague was only opened to traffic in 1845)

Today, however, Prague is still the most nationalist region outside of Hungary, but unlike in history, this time there is not only Czech nationalism, but also German nationalism.

The former opposed the dictatorship of the empire and demanded the same autonomy as Hungary, including independent taxation and an army.

The latter, on the other hand, was a staunch supporter of imperial rule, while opposing the granting of special policies to the locals and demanding fair trade and free markets.

In fact, the Viennese court also gave the Bohemians and Moravians quite favorable conditions, such as the annual selection of a group of officials (both civil and military) from both places, and the right to limit the price of land.

(At that time, Austrians were not called Czechs, and the term Czechs began to appear in official documents after 1848.)

Imperial law required non-ethnic groups to pay an additional 150% price tax on land purchases, mainly to prevent the German princes from annexing land in Bohemia, leading to a recurrence of the Hussite uprising.

The Hussite revolt was in fact a revolt in which the German aristocracy went to Bohemia to annex land, which eventually led to the outbreak of civil discouragement.

It was also one of the heaviest losses in Austria's history; The domestic economy was almost stagnant for twenty years, losing more than 100,000 troops, and the Viennese court did not dare to raise taxes on the Czech region for hundreds of years.

(Guess who's behind that broke the rules.) That's right, our great Joseph II! The only emperor who can force the whole empire to rebel. ）

However, the Czechs today are in fact highly Germanized, just like the Irish in later generations. Czechs around the city hardly speak Czech, and only in poor mountainous areas, in the countryside and in universities are people who often communicate in Czech.

The best way to anger a local Bohemian nobleman at this point is to communicate with him in Czech, so that he will think you are an inferior person.

In the eyes of the Imperial Government, both forces are fighting to the death, so the intensity of the attack is about the same. Historically, Austria did not take any substantive measures, except for the issuance of several imperial edicts to appease the populace.

However, now that the pockets of the Austrian Empire are bulging and prestige has been accumulating, it is natural that these guys will strike hard at these guys who may cause national turmoil.

However, what Prime Minister Metternich did not expect was that the so-called Czech nationalism and German nationalism were not made up by those university students and professors.

Behind them were two huge interest groups, and it was not until Franz killed the Winster family that Czech nationalism was at a low ebb, and of course the unexpected death of Viscount Hill Barron dealt a heavy blow to German nationalism.

So the two sides are still half-hearted on the whole, with the occasional militant on both sides caught by the secret police, and these restless guys even engage in unrestricted fighting tournaments in prison.

Franz was well aware that all this was just a rehearsal of the Spring of Nations four years later, but the change in history changed the balance of power between the three sides.

Prague was now the center of communication between Neletania and the German region. The influx of large numbers of German immigrants dramatically changed the structure of the local population.

However, there are actually few people who really want to overthrow the Habsburgs, and the future Prince is quite pleased with this.

But the problem is that the historical Czech national movement was not originally aimed at overthrowing the empire, after all, when people get together, intelligence is naturally reduced, and they are easy to be exploited.

So Franz had to find a way to curb this trend; But unless he is forced to do so, he will not choose to use German nationalism to fight poison with poison.

At this time, the only Czech Republic in the political, economic, military, and academic circles was Marshal Radetzky, but the old marshal was not interested in independence at all, on the contrary, he was very opposed to it.

First, Radetzky was an imperial soldier, and secondly, he was proud to be a member of the Austrian aristocracy. The most important thing is that whether viewed from the perspective of a weathered old man or a soldier, Radetzky felt that Bohemian independence was nonsense, and that it would neither succeed nor could succeed.

The influx of German immigrants into Bohemia did pose a series of thorny problems, but it was actually a good thing for the local aristocracy and merchants, as labor costs fell.

It was also beneficial for small shopkeepers and propertied farmers, as the large number of immigrants and immigrants stimulated local consumption.

At the same time, due to the rise of the empire, the vast majority of the inhabitants actually felt a better life than before.

Of course, not everyone agrees with this view, such as some of the Tu tyrants, whose population boom and large numbers of German immigrants have made Bohemia much less controllable than before.

Especially after Winster was taken out by Franz, the government began to liquidate them.

Although each of these men claimed to have thousands of soldiers, when the peasants and a handful of mercenaries actually saw the regular army, they ran faster than rabbits.

Still, Czech nationalist interests thought of a way to counter the Viennese court by demanding a local history.

In fact, due to historical reasons, almost every province of the empire could compile its own local history.

This would have been reasonable, but they had introduced within themselves Palacky, a radical professor who had more than once openly opposed Habsburg rule in the university and was a fervent admirer of the Hussites.

In his writing, the Austrians, like clowns, were robbers who stole the ancestral homeland of the Czechs.

However, it was soon pointed out that the Germanic people had lived in Bohemia since ancient times, and that it was the Czechs who were the West Slavs who were foreign invaders.

This angered the German nationalists, who even surrounded the historian's mansion until the army was dispatched to drive the crowd away.

Later, the University of Prague was forced to expel the professor for "telling the truth" on the grounds of academic misconduct.

Palatsky's front door was filled with words like "thief" and "liar", which was unacceptable for an arrogant professor.

Angry, he went to the local gendarmerie headquarters and demanded that the "thugs" be punished severely, but received only the reply "Who are the thugs?" "Who are the thugs?".

(End of chapter)