Chapter 486 Old Student Re-Talks

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace

Franz, who finally had some free time to rest in his study, was a little curious as to why he had not received any news from the Southern Ming.

Little did he know that Friedrich was still on his way to Kalimantan at this time, and the development of the situation had exceeded his expectations.

After thinking for a while, he looked at a huge map hanging on the wall to the right of the 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 other nationalities.

In history, by 1844, this important city of the empire had soared to 180,000 people, of which 158,000 were Germans, 15,000 were Czechs, and the vast majority of the rest were Jews.

At present, Prague has a population of 380,000, making it the second largest city in the empire after Vienna; among them, the German population is as high as 300,000, the second largest ethnic group is Jews, 50,000, the Czechs are only about 20,000, and the rest are other nationalities.

(By the way, Prague was not opened to traffic until 1845)

However, Prague is still the most nationalistic region besides Hungary. However, what is different from history is that this time there is not only Czech nationalism but also German nationalism.

The former opposes the dictatorship of the empire and demands the same autonomy as Hungary, including independent taxation and army.

The latter firmly supports the rule of the empire, opposes giving special policies to local people and demands fair trade and free market.

In fact, the Vienna court also gave Bohemians and Moravians quite favorable conditions, such as selecting a group of officials (including civil and military officials) from the two places every year, and the right to limit the price of land.

(At that time, the Austrian side was not called Czech. The name Czech began to appear in official documents after 1848)

The imperial law stipulates that non-local ethnic populations need to pay an additional 150% price limit tax to purchase land. This is mainly used to prevent German princes from annexing land in Bohemia, leading to a recurrence of the Huss uprising.

The Hussite Rebellion was actually a struggle in which the German nobles wantonly annexed land in Bohemia, which eventually led to the people's livelihood.

This was also one of the most serious losses Austria suffered in history; the domestic economy was almost stagnant for 20 years, and the number of troops lost exceeded 100,000, which made the Vienna court dare not increase taxes on the Czech region for hundreds of years.

(Guess who broke this rule later. That's right, it was our great Joseph II! The only emperor who could force the entire empire to rebel.)

However, the current Czechs are actually highly Germanized, just like the Irish in later generations. Czechs around the city hardly speak Czech, and only in poor mountainous areas, rural areas and universities do people often communicate in Czech.

At this time, the best way to anger a local Bohemian noble is to communicate with him in Czech, so that he will think you think he is an inferior.

In the eyes of the imperial government, both forces are courting death, so the intensity of the attack is about the same. Historically, Austria did not take any substantive measures, but only issued several imperial decrees to appease the people.

However, the Austrian Empire is now richer and its prestige is accumulating, so it will naturally strike hard at those guys who may cause national unrest.

What Prime Minister Metternich did not expect was that the so-called Czech nationalism and German nationalism were not created by college students and professors.

Behind the two are two huge interest groups. Czech nationalism did not reach a low ebb until Franz killed the Winster family. Of course, the accidental death of Viscount Hill Barron also dealt a heavy blow to German nationalism.

So the two sides are generally evenly matched. Occasionally, radicals on both sides are caught by the secret police, and these restless guys will even hold unlimited fighting competitions in prison.

Franz knew very well that all this was just a preview of the Spring of Nations four years later, but the changes in history have also changed the balance of power among the three parties.

Prague has become the center of communication between Neretania and the German region. The influx of a large number of German immigrants has greatly changed the structure of the local population.

However, there are actually few people who really want to overthrow the Habsburgs, which is quite gratifying for the future crown prince.

But the problem is that the Czech national movement in history was not originally aimed at overthrowing the empire. After all, when people gather together, their intelligence will naturally decrease, and they can be easily exploited.

So Franz must find a way to suppress this trend; but unless he has to, he will not choose to use German nationalism to fight poison with poison.

At this time, the only person who can be used in the political, economic, military and academic circles of the Czech Republic is Marshal Radetzky, but the old marshal has no interest in independence at all, on the contrary, he is very opposed to it.

First of all, Radetzky is an imperial soldier, and secondly, he is proud to be a member of the Austrian nobility. The most important thing is that whether from the perspective of a weathered old man or a soldier, Radetzky thinks that Bohemian independence is nonsense, and it will not and cannot succeed.

The massive influx of German immigrants into the Bohemian region did bring a series of thorny problems, but in fact it was a good thing for local nobles and businessmen because the cost of labor decreased.

It is also beneficial for small shop owners and wealthy farmers because a large number of immigrants and outsiders stimulate local consumption.

At the same time, since the empire was in its ascendant period, in fact, most residents felt that their lives were better than before.

Of course, not everyone agreed with this view. For example, some local tyrants, due to the population surge and a large number of German immigrants, their control over Bohemia was much less than before.

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

Although these guys claimed to have thousands of soldiers, when those farmers and a small number of mercenaries really saw the regular army, they ran away faster than rabbits.

However, the Czech nationalist interest group still thought of a way to fight back against the Vienna court, that is, to ask for the compilation of local history.

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

This is reasonable, but they introduced Palacky, a radical professor, who publicly opposed the rule of the Habsburgs more than once in the university and was a fanatical admirer of Hus.

In his writing, the Austrians are like clowns, robbers who have occupied the ancestral homeland of the Czechs.

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

This made the German nationalists extremely angry, and they even surrounded the historian's house until the army was dispatched to drive the crowd away.

Later, under strong public pressure, the University of Prague had to expel the "troublemaker" professor on the grounds of academic misconduct.

The front door of Palacky's house was covered with words such as "thief" and "liar", which was unacceptable for a proud professor.

He angrily went to the local gendarmerie headquarters and demanded severe punishment for the "thugs", but the only answer he got was "Who are the thugs?" "Who are the thugs?"