Chapter 399 Civil War in the Peaceful Country

Wagner never expected that he would find a job in the end. He became the court music director of the Netherlands.

Of course, this was not possible without the help of Miss Caroline, the mistress of William II, and the new financial adviser Hans Hoffman also strongly advocated keeping this genius.

It is said that the new financial adviser's real name was not Hans Hoffman, but changed it after studying in Prussia.

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

Franz was worried because he got some news about things he had never known.

According to Austrian intelligence, a civil war was brewing in Switzerland. Franz thought it was ridiculous at first, because in his previous life, although Switzerland often pretended to be neutral, let alone civil war, even the flames of war had never touched this land.

But after repeated confirmation by the archbishop, the locals did have this idea, and it was supported by the Pope.

Yes, it was Gregory XVI, the miser who opened the holy water company, the Holy Spirit Bank.

It is hard to imagine that such a short-sighted person would have such great ambitions to annex Switzerland and make it a direct territory of the Pope.

After some investigation, Franz learned that this was not the work of Gregory XVI, but a kind of inheritance.

Since 1814, the Vatican has formulated this plan, and four popes have already experienced it.

Roman missionaries rebuilt the Jesuits and formed the Catholic Popular League to promote the legitimacy of the Pope's rule.

The Papal States invested a lot of money in this, but with little effect. When Gregory XVI came to power, he didn't want to waste money on meaningless things.

So he sent a group of radicals to "stimulate" the local people. These clergymen who were high up in Rome even wanted to interfere in local public affairs.

The absurd plan and stupid approach eventually caused the anger of Catholic and Protestant governments across Switzerland. The ambassadors of the Vatican were expelled, and the influence of the Jesuits was much less than before.

The Swiss federal government even proposed "give to Caesar what is Caesar, and give to God what is God."

However, due to the dominant position of Protestantism in the federation, the Catholic Popular League was excluded. This aroused the dissatisfaction of Catholic parliamentarians and priests.

Some clergymen called out "our faith is in danger", which made many simple and pious mountain people believe that the Swiss Confederation would persecute them and they had to resist in order to survive.

At the same time, a pastor named Belit found the French ambassador and claimed to ask for help from King Louis Philippe of France.

At first, Louis Philippe was very excited when he heard the news, because there were indeed some French-speaking residents in western Switzerland, and the whole of Switzerland once belonged to France (in the Napoleonic era).

It was just that at the reminder of the old Marshal Soult, he looked at the map of Switzerland again and saw a piece of Prussian territory.

Louis Philippe immediately lost his temper. He was not afraid of the Swiss Confederation or Prussia, but if this matter involved the entire German Confederation, it might be like the Luxembourg incident.

In addition, the Russians were slow to react and difficult to figure out. The Treaty of Vienna stipulated that Switzerland was a neutral country. If France sent troops to Switzerland, it would be tantamount to challenging this treaty. Russia is a member of the Holy Alliance, and it certainly does not want to see anyone destroy the system established by the Holy Alliance. Soult told Louis Philippe from the perspective of a strategist. "Only annexing western Switzerland will not attract the covetousness of the Holy Alliance, because the local area is mountainous and easy to defend and difficult to attack, and there are not many resources that can be used for supplies." "Don't Luxembourg have many mountains? The locals have to import their own food, but Austria and Prussia still sent troops. We can't take this risk," Louis Philippe immediately retorted. Soult is already a dying old man, and he has long lost the courage to kill and make decisions on the battlefield. If Guizot had not been driven to America, he would just want to spend his old age in his office. Now that His Majesty the King has made a decision, Soult doesn't want to say much and shuts up. Louis Philippe was not responsible in the first place, and the French layout at that time was so large that the treasury was almost empty, which gave him more reasons to shirk responsibility.

The result was naturally to reject Belit's request for military assistance.

The Swiss Civil War was not just a disagreement on faith, but also involved family conflicts and conflicts of interest. For example, the Klauen family and the Horner family in Schwyz both had a large number of sheep and grazed them on the same pasture.

In the end, the Horner family completely drove the Klauen family out of Switzerland, and the bloody massacre and naked interest disputes were also borrowed in the name of defending faith.

Since 1814, the riots in the Swiss Confederation have never subsided. While the German Confederation recovered Luxembourg, the German population in Switzerland was also ready to move.

It's just that their actions were covered up by fierce religious conflicts.

Among them, Aargau is the area with the most intense conflicts, and local Catholics even began to recruit soldiers and buy weapons.

In 1841, a riot broke out. The federal government demanded the arrest of the Catholic leaders, but the local Catholics did not back down and attacked the local Swiss federal government and prison.

General Frei Holosai led the army to suppress the local rebellion, and this action killed more people than the total number of casualties in the entire Swiss Civil War.

Augustin Keller even demanded the permanent abolition of the monastery. This action against Catholicism was opposed by Catholics throughout the Swiss Confederation.

Even because his approach was too radical, many Protestant states opposed his approach.

Although Augustin Keller's approach was opposed by many people, the Swiss Confederation at that time had no ability to implement its will on the states under its rule, so the matter could only be left unresolved in the end.

In May 1842, a new liberal government was born in a new election.

On January 16, 1843. Lucerne became the capital state of Switzerland.

(The capital state is the state where the federal parliament is located.)

The new government once again asked Augustin Keller to stop his behavior, but was rejected.

Lucerne then issued a notice to other Swiss states, requesting that the parliament be convened to solve the problem.

However, Augustin Keller and the Aargau government had long been prepared. Through lobbying and secret transactions, they not only escaped sanctions, but also made the parliament pass a series of bills that were extremely unfavorable to the Catholics of the Swiss Confederation.

This is why Pastor Belit asked France for help.

Of course, in addition to this, the Swiss cantons of Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, and Fribourg secretly formed an independent alliance.

However, only what others don't know can be called "secret". The organization of this independent alliance is extremely loose and has no discipline at all, so that the surrounding countries are clear about their actions.

This naturally includes their enemies. Franz can only sigh that this is really a hopeless case.

However, Franz is still very interested in taking back the ancestral property of the Habsburg family-Eagle Castle, and by the way, he can also increase the German population in Austria.