Chapter 806 Undercurrent

The surging public opinion even affected powerful states like Prussia, Hanover, and Bavaria.

In fact, even an empire like Austria had been kidnapped by it before, but the problem of Prussia was mainly caused by Franz.

Franz has always supported the Archbishop of Cologne. His original purpose was to let Prussia have a taste of what a dual system is.

Note: In this era, the Rhine region did not border the mainland of the Kingdom of Prussia, and most of it belonged to the spoils of the Napoleonic Wars.

At the same time, the people in the region mainly believed in Catholicism, while the King of Prussia was a Protestant. The Archbishop of Cologne had been arguing with the Hohenzollern family on this matter for decades.

However, the latter really had no good way, because except for some Prussian nobles like Krupp, other people didn't care at all, so Bavaria had always been eyeing the Rhine region.

Franz funded the Archbishop of Cologne to make him trouble Prussia, but the archbishop cleverly combined religion and nationalism.

Now there is a problem. Nationalists are usually suppressed by their own country. However, Prussia's power in the Rhine region cannot form a crushing advantage over the Archbishop of Cologne, so it can only seek compromise. Austria will never do such a thing on Prussian territory.

Let alone whether Prussia is willing or not, the international impact alone is too much for Austria to bear. The latter will become a reactionary leader at best, or be surrounded at worst.

As a result, the Archbishop of Cologne is invincible in the Rhine region, and he looks like a leader of the German nation. In addition, he himself is a missionary, so his ability to incite is full.

Fortunately, this archbishop is a pan-Germanist and still supports Austria on the surface.

However, under the temptation of overwhelming power and the pressure of public opinion that is almost like a tsunami, it is uncertain how long this archbishop can maintain his original intention.

In fact, the area with the most serious German nationalism is not Cologne, but Bohemia in the Austrian Empire.

Unlike the empty target shooting of the Archbishop of Cologne, Bohemia has a group of ready-made enemies, Czech nationalists.

After so many years of development, the local German immigrant population has exceeded the local Czechs. Bohemia was originally the industrial center of Austria, and now it has become the foreign trade center within the German Confederation.

Coupled with the blessing of Franz's various technologies and policies, the local economy took off directly.

But it also further exacerbated the conflict between outsiders (Germans) and locals (Czech nationalists).

Note: Czech nationalists are not necessarily Czechs. Czech nationalism was originally invented by local German nobles to fight against the Austrian central government.

However, some lies are believed after being told too many times. In short, German nationalists and Czech nationalists confronted each other in Bohemia, Austria.

Czech nationalists said that this is their territory, while German nationalists think that this is Austrian territory, and the Austrian Empire is the chairman of the German Confederation, so this is also German territory.

Czechs began to flip through books, saying that it was the Czechs who first established a kingdom in Bohemia, and the Austrian Habsburg family was the thief.

German nationalists also turned the pages of the book, saying that the Czechs were outsiders who migrated from the East and expelled the local Germans. Austria's taking back Bohemia was a restoration.

The two sides often had fierce debates and fights, which seemed like a flood, but in fact it might be a tsunami.

In addition, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were also hard-hit areas for German nationalism. King William II of the Netherlands was not a very talented king.

He wanted to continue his father's reforms, but he did not have enough tolerance, so he competed with the people for profit.

The Netherlands was the country with the highest taxation in Germany, which led to the fact that the economy of the Netherlands did not take off as imagined after joining Germany.

William II decided to do it himself, but he liked to appoint people based on personal connections, which resulted in rampant corruption. At the same time, his religious and ethnic policies were also criticized, and his control over overseas was even more messed up.

King William II of the Netherlands was afraid that the Netherlands would be assimilated by Germany, so he pushed Calvinism. His original purpose was to separate from Lutheranism in northern Germany.

But the result was that some people were seriously hurt, and this kind of religious hegemony was also very hateful.

Note: Calvinism and Lutheranism had great differences in the past.

As the first region in Europe to develop capitalism, people have become indifferent to things like religion and ethnicity, but this does not mean that they like to accept it.

In terms of ethnicity, the Dutch are not recognized as Germans. William II also boasts about his Anglo-Saxon ancestry all day long, and often talks about his glorious deeds of serving the British army with the Duke of Wellington.

If this were more than a decade ago, the Dutch would admire him, but now they only feel disgusted.

On the one hand, there is the loose German Confederation, and on the other hand, there is the Dutch government that exploits and oppresses severely. This has led some Dutch people to feel that they are not Dutch, while others feel that being German is more advantageous than being Dutch.

At first, it was just a complaint and joke from some people, but with the arrival of the wind of nationalism and the participation of a large number of speculators, the contradictions within the Netherlands quickly escalated.

As a result, Carolingian, a spy, had to frequently come forward to help stabilize the situation, but William II simply thought that this was just the pain of reform.

Since the old Courdre used a coffin to carry gold to Frankfurt, Luxembourg has embarked on a road of national fanaticism.

First, the German Confederation responded to the Luxembourgers' request, defeated the Belgians and the French at their doorstep, and excluded the Dutch.

Directly removing the three mountains that weighed on the Luxembourgers, plus the recovery of their homeland, which doubled the population of Luxembourg and expanded the land fourfold, how could the Luxembourgers not be fanatical.

After the war, the German Confederation's sea of ​​aid materials filled every warehouse in Luxembourg. In fact, this was also a means for the states to win over them, but it was completely different from the perspective of the Luxembourgers.

After that, Luxembourg's economic growth was above 40% every year, which was a world-changing change for the already wealthy Luxembourgers, and it was an unimaginable happiness for those Western Luxembourgers and Limburgers who had been poor for several generations or even dozens of generations.

The highly transparent politics with almost universal participation and the almost fanatical national sentiment made it difficult for corruption to breed, and made the poor relatives of the Luxembourgers truly rise up and sing.

So much so that in the Alsace-Lorraine crisis, merchants across Luxembourg went on strike, workers went on strike, students went on strike, and government members took the lead in joining the army.

A country with a population of one million, but it managed to gather 100,000 troops and 100,000 civilians, making it the country that sent the most troops in the German Confederation except Austria and Prussia.