Chapter 1009: Shotgun Prince

However, with the example of the German coalition army, the residents of Celesta suddenly had higher demands on the army.

Every day, the front of the town hall was filled with people marching and demonstrating, and Mayor Blanqui obviously did not want to suppress his partners who had resisted the invasion with him.

Fanny Cote was also very annoyed with the soldiers who disturbed the people. She wanted to find a few culprits to punish them, but soon she found that almost everyone in the entire army was committing crimes.

And those people had their own reasons. After all, the Orleans Dynasty did treat them badly, and they did bleed for the dynasty and the city of Celesta.

Fanny Cote, an idealist with only the most simple emotions, could not think of a solution at all, so she tried to copy Franz's method of giving money.

But she had no money at all, and her money had long been used to buy weapons and ammunition.

The demise of the French Swiss Expeditionary Force was already within Franz's expectations, but he did not expect the Prince of Shotgun to get involved.

Franz originally wanted to strengthen the Count of Chambord's momentum. After all, it would be a bit unfair to only help the Orleans family.

It was not good news for Franz if either side dominated, because whoever controlled France would march into Italy and North Africa, which was obviously not in line with Austria's national interests.

In fact, what Franz hoped most was that France would march into the lowlands, but the French dared not take this bait, and the development of German nationalism was too rapid, so Franz could only temporarily abandon this plan.

The continuous defeats and the continued high prices have brought the rule of the Second French Republic to the brink of collapse.

In June, Cavaignac had suppressed two uprisings at the instruction of Dan Gira, but this did not have much effect. There were signs of large-scale uprisings in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and even Toulon.

Franz naturally did not mind adding fuel to the fire. Donating money and materials, or even directly sending mercenaries and gang members into France were all acceptable.

Prince Shotgun bought the body of the French commander and sent it to Berlin, which tied Prussia to the chariot of Germany. No wonder his brother was so angry that he had a stroke.

William IV should be regarded as the most cowardly of all Prussian monarchs. He was afraid of the church. He did not dare to send troops to suppress the dual system of the Archbishop of Cologne in the Rhine region.

William IV was afraid of the people and was forced to accept liberal reforms and convene a constitutional assembly. He was also forced to go to war with Denmark under the pressure of public opinion.

But he was also afraid of Denmark, Sweden, Britain, and Russia.

He was afraid of losing the support of the German states and was afraid of Austria. He wanted to exclude Austria from Germany, but he did not dare to go to war with Austria, so he went crazy in the end (historically, he fell into complete madness in 1858).

Due to the appearance of Franz, William IV's illness progressed much faster than in history.

As for Prince Shotgun doing such a thing, it is not surprising. After all, he was not trained as an heir at all.

Prince Shotgun never received an orthodox royal education since he was a child. He was thrown into the military camp by his father William III at the age of ten, and was sent to the battlefield to face real battles at the age of seventeen.

Compared with the army commanded by Napoleon, Pelissier's expeditionary force was simply a joke, so he was not afraid at all in Switzerland, and even wanted to ride a warhorse to have a "fair" one-on-one duel with Pelissier.

William III hoped that Prince Shotgun could become a loyal, brave warrior who could sacrifice everything for his family and country. He succeeded, but William IV was numb.

In fact, due to William III's education problems, William IV's remaining two brothers also had problems in this regard. They often became inexplicably brave, and the latter was also worried about holding down the three brothers who were sick in turn.

Franz did not choose to continue the attack after liberating Celesta. Although some people in the coalition advocated continuing to attack France, no one dared to take that step without Franz's consent and the permission of the Confederation.

After all, the French hammer has been hanging over the heads of the Germans for hundreds of years, and the pressure of these hundreds of years will not disappear without a trace because of a few victories.

On the other hand, Franz received a large number of letters expressing his willingness to surrender. In addition to some declining nobles and politicians who follow the trend, there are also some relatives who advocate democracy and freedom in the Austrian Empire.

In addition, Franz also received dozens of gifts ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of francs, as well as more than a dozen hostages, most of whom are young and beautiful girls and young women.

Although Franz had no intention of occupying French territory, he could not chill the hearts of these French friends. He returned the people, and the money was directly used as the start-up capital of the local secret intelligence network.

At the same time, in order to appease these people, Franz also gave these families an Austrian flag one by one. The superficial meaning was that one day when the Austrian army arrived, they only needed to hang this flag to prove that they were their own people.

As for the deeper meaning, it depends on their personal imagination.

According to the latest battlefield intelligence, Albrecht will also complete the encirclement of the French Sarrebourg defenders in the near future.

The French troops in the Italian battlefield are still on the sidelines, as if they are waiting for the Austrians to make a mistake, but both Austria and Marshal Radetzky have plenty of time to waste with them.

The only battlefield that did not open up as planned was the Belgian battlefield, where Henri Arsène was much more cunning than expected.

No matter how Archduke Karl tempted him, Henri Arsene was not fooled. Even though he had won more than a dozen victories against the German Confederation, he showed no signs of recklessness. Instead, he deployed a large number of defenses around Brussels, and collected weapons and supplies throughout Belgium and sent them to major cities.

In fact, the French commander also sent troops into the Netherlands, but not to capture cities, but simply to plunder.

When the Allied General Staff Headquarters was full of hope that Henri Arsene would finally step into the trap that had been set up long ago, he chose to retreat.

He ran away after robbing, and even did not fight for some cities with not many troops and weak city defenses. For a time, the Allied staff thought that there was a traitor in the Allied forces, so the other side could avoid all the traps so accurately.

However, Henri Arsene did not have an independent intelligence network from the French army. He simply felt the crisis.

The news of the Mediterranean Sea War later confirmed that the Austrian Empire was far from being as incompetent as the newspapers wrote. Although he defeated many German coalition forces that came to Belgium to support them, there was not a single Austrian army among them.

According to the confession of the prisoners, the Austrians could not rush to the battlefield in time due to transportation problems.

Henri Arsene did not believe that it was not a fluke to defeat the British twice. The Austrians might have planned this war for a long time, so they did not dare to be careless and even prepared for the worst.