Chapter 841 The First Shot
January 9, 1848, Italy.
In Palermo, the capital of Sicily, a notice appeared on the city wall.
"Sicilians! ... Protests, petitions, and peaceful demonstrations have proven to be useless. Ferdinando II has shown that he only has contempt in his eyes. For us, free people have been tied to miserable chains.
How long will it take for us to get back our legitimate rights? Take up arms, sons of Sicily, take up arms!"
The most ridiculous thing is that the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at this time only regarded this as a joke. Ferdinando II even held a grand birthday celebration on January 12, three days later.
In fact, continuous disasters have plunged agriculture into an unprecedented low, and the global economic crisis has destroyed its handicraft industry.
Under the internal and external difficulties, heavy snowfall destroyed people's hope for the future. The people thought that this was all the fault of King Ferdinando II, and the indifference of the government and the royal family further stimulated the people.
Ferdinando II was once an enterprising king. As soon as he came to power, he carried out a lot of reforms, selected talented people, eliminated accumulated problems, and tried to build an honest and efficient government.
Later, Ferdinando II reduced taxes, abolished labor, encouraged industry, developed trade, established education, promoted talents, and even established early welfare security institutions.
Under his promotion, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies established the earliest railway in Italy (Naples-Portici Railway), the first shipping company in Italy, and the first telegraph company on the Apennines.
Ferdinando II was once considered the most likely king to reunify Italy, but at this time he just wanted to live his life in mediocrity.
Three days later, on January 12, 1848.
At the celebration of the king's birthday, someone took out the red, white and green tricolor flag symbolizing Italy, and then people took up arms and ran to the palace as the notice advocated.
At this time, in order to have a peaceful birthday, Ferdinando II mobilized five regiments of troops to maintain order in front of the palace, and a whole fleet was stationed in the port.
In addition, there were a large number of military police, spies, solid fortresses and black cannons in the city.
And all the rebels had only 500 guns in total. They were craftsmen from various guilds, refugees fleeing famine, and bankrupt craftsmen. They were not subordinate to each other and were a typical mob.
No one thought the latter could win.
Ferdinando II took his 12-year-old eldest son, the later King Francesco II, to stand on the balcony on the second floor of the palace. He wanted to see with his own eyes how the mob was destroyed.
The father and son were ready to watch a bloody massacre, but at this time, Ferdinando II's close minister Dozanca Xialuo came forward.
"Your Majesty, those dirty blood should not stain your eyes, just leave it to me."
Ferdinando II was unmoved.
"I want to see how those ungrateful guys are crushed by my army! Damn the scoundrels! They actually blamed me for the natural disasters! The locust plague was clearly summoned by Pius IX!"
In fact, Pius IX also demanded debts from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and also put all the debts from the Murat period on his head, so the relationship between the two sides was very bad.
Dozanka Xia Luo was a little overwhelmed, because he was a traditional nobleman and had more respect for the Pope, at least he didn't dare to scold the Pope in front of others like the king.
Of course, as a smart man, he didn't want to annoy the king, and only suggested again after Ferdinando II's anger subsided a little.
"Your Majesty, the guns and cannons will be blind when the war starts. It would be bad if your Majesty and the prince are accidentally injured."
Ferdinando II thought about it and it made sense, so he decided to return to the palace for a while. Anyway, there were high walls and fortresses outside and more than 10,000 troops, and the other side had only 500 mobs, so there was no reason to lose.
"The king ran away!" A roar and a gunshot shocked everyone and kicked off the grand prelude of the Spring of Nations.
Something Ferdinando II could not understand happened. Fifteen minutes after he left, his army was breached, the city was full of defeated soldiers, and five hundred mobs rushed straight to the palace.
In fact, after the French Revolution, the word revolution was enough to scare all nobles, whether it was the Industrial Revolution or any other revolution.
Another unexpected reason was that Ferdinando II left the balcony. The king's sudden departure directly brought the morale of the army to the brink of collapse.
A "The king ran away!" directly shattered the remaining fighting spirit of the soldiers.
If Ferdinando II had never left, or had never appeared on the balcony, the situation would at least not be so bad.
"Don't let Ferdinando II run away!" Someone shouted, and then Ferdinando II fought and retreated under the desperate protection of the royal guards, and fled to the port of Palermo in a hurry to escape.
Ferdinando II, who escaped to the warship, looked at the rebels cheering in the harbor in the distance, and heard the voices of "Long live Italy!" and "Long live Pius IX!" from time to time.
"Damn Pius IX!" Ferdinando II spat fiercely into the sea. He knew that the rebels had no ability to break through his defense line. It must be that Pius IX, the big devil, used some kind of spell.
In fact, the banner of the Italian Unification Movement at this time was Pius IX, because after he came to power, he pardoned the world and released many demons and ghosts along with political prisoners.
These people lived up to expectations and started to cause trouble everywhere. Rome was flooded with slogans such as "Long live the Pope!", "Death to Austria!", and "Long live Italy!".
Even the French ambassador thought the Pope was crazy. He wrote in a letter to King Louis Philippe of France.
"The Pope is digging his own grave. His crazy behavior makes the most brutal and violent revolutionaries ashamed."
Some secret leaflets even claimed that "the Jesuits are a conspiracy of the Austrians", "The Pope is under control", and "Only by driving the Austrians out of Italy can the Holy See be saved."
Just when the rebels in various places were preparing for an uprising, Pius IX suddenly decided to set up the [Consultative Committee] and openly asked the people for ways to save the Italian nation.
In fact, Pius IX wanted to mobilize the people to drive out the Austrians and become the leader of Italy.
But the reality is that the political prisoners he released were not interested in an Italy established by the Pope. They demanded more rights.
And the monks in the Consultative Committee were soon sidelined, and radical nationalists came onto the stage of history.
Under the connection of these people, a large number of horse racing clubs appeared in Italy. Just like the French banquet movement, it was not a simple horse racing club, but an open association.
Franz knew this very well. Al Pacino Corleone was a Sicilian, and he was very clear about the means of this association.
Franz naturally had countermeasures, which was to arrest those who did not have horses for fraud. In the end, everyone in the entire horse racing club really had to bring a horse, which greatly raised the threshold for joining.
The price of horses was not cheap at that time, especially the follow-up costs, and Italy itself did not produce horses, and the total number of horses was not as many as Belgium before the disintegration.
However, the reality is that the nationalists in northern Italy are not easy to deal with. They launched a smoking cessation campaign on January 1, 1848.
In fact, the planners originally planned to replicate the North American tea party incident, but they just dumped two boxes of tobacco and someone lost everything.
Obviously, Austria's law and order force in northern Italy is much stronger than that of Britain in North America, and Al Pacino Corleone, the local boss, and his Sicilian gang are the underground managers of the docks.
However, Franz did not want to shed too much blood, so he only asked the nationalists to pay. But the price of tobacco was not cheap at that time, and the arrested nationalists could not pay off their debts at all.
In order to avoid being sent to the colonies to pay off their debts, they had to identify the real culprits behind the scenes. Franz still used fines to deal with them, which was particularly effective against these middle-class people.
Many people turned gray overnight, but they could not do anything about it because they had the support of the law and were caught red-handed. In fact, many people were not so radical after losing their property.
Moreover, the lower-class people liked to see these people suffer, and the number of reports gradually increased, and some even made a living from it.
In desperation, the nationalists in northern Italy could only quit smoking. In fact, quitting smoking and limiting alcohol has always been something Franz advocated very much. After all, tobacco and alcohol are not good things.
After the anti-smoking movement in northern Italy began, Franz even sent people to promote the harm of smoking.
However, at that time, all these so-called harms of smoking were nonsense without scientific basis, because people who smoke and drink are obviously more energetic and live longer than those who do not smoke or drink.
Although the nationalists in northern Italy can not smoke, and can also call on the people not to smoke, they can not restrain the soldiers in the army.
The price of tobacco at that time was not cheap, and it was not popular. At least most people at the bottom could not afford to smoke. In history, it was not until the popularization of paper cigarettes that the number of smokers really began to approach the number of alcoholics.
Although Austria had paper cigarettes at this time, they were not popular. Most people still liked to use pipes, snuff and other things, and the price of these was too high for ordinary people.
Although the price of tobacco was not high, the tax was very high. The reason why the nationalists in northern Italy launched the anti-smoking movement was to hit Austria's taxation and force the government to reform.
It must be said that there must be government officials or experts who are familiar with taxation who are helping to make plans, but the current Austrian treasury is much more abundant than in history, and it can afford to spend tens or even hundreds of millions.
In fact, this amount of money is really not worth mentioning in front of import and export tariffs, industrial taxes, agricultural taxes, the Royal Development Company, and the funds of the Austrian-Mexican Joint Company.
Except for Franz, the top officials of the empire did not even take this matter to heart. The local officials were very anxious, but not particularly anxious, at least they did not think that any special measures should be taken.
However, the withdrawal reaction of nicotine is not so pleasant. On January 3, two days after the anti-smoking campaign began.
A group of smokers attacked the sentry post and beat a soldier who was smoking. Then a large number of soldiers arrived and the two sides had a physical conflict.
Marshal Radetzky was very strict in military discipline. He did not want the army to have too many conflicts with the locals, so the soldiers were very restrained and still maintained the level of fighting.
However, some radical nationalists soon began to use weapons. When the violence escalated, the soldiers of the army turned back into soldiers and began to fight back quickly and resolutely.
Everything stems from the words given by the royal family to the Italian Legion: "Evil men should not be tolerated, and good men should not be wronged." (mentioned in the previous article)
Facing heavily armed and well-trained soldiers, how could those thugs with nicotine withdrawal symptoms resist them.
The fighting, which may not have been a fighting at all, was quelled after two armed thugs were shot dead.
Due to the decisive action taken, casualties were much lower than in history. Only two people died and a dozen were slightly injured.
In fact, the nobles and businessmen in Italy did not want to make things too serious, because they just wanted to achieve independent status like the Hungarians.
To be honest, they are very satisfied with both the policies of the Austrian Empire and the market of the Austrian Empire.
They have made a lot of money over the years, and their lives are not much better than those of their relatives and friends in other countries.
However, after having money, they felt that they could go further.
In fact, they are not necessarily nationalists, but because of the good example of Hungary, the nobles and businessmen in the Italian region also hope that the Northern Italy region can also be independent, so that they will have enough power to protect their own interests. .
Officials in northern Italy also wanted to expand their power, so the two sides hit it off immediately, and a vigorous nationalist movement began.
However, while they instigated the nationalists and the people at the bottom to cause trouble, they also sent people to start contacting the Austrian Imperial Government.
These people hope to make the Austrian Imperial Government compromise under heavy pressure, but Metternich and Count Korolaf have seen this kind of thing too many times.
There are many people in the Austrian Empire who want to do this, and Bohemia is even more troubled at this time. If they compromised so easily, Austria would have been torn apart.
So Metternich directly ordered the arrest of a group of nationalist leaders such as Daniele Manin, Nicolo Tomaseo, Bishop Coser, and Bishop Ambras.
On the other hand, Marshal Radetzky felt strongly uneasy. As a veteran who had participated in the anti-French war, he knew the horror of "turmoil".
Marshal Radetzky said in a telegram to Vienna, "We must immediately take the strongest measures against those insane and radical reformists, and must extinguish this flame in the bud."
However, the old marshal's surprising toughness did not attract the attention of the Vienna government, because according to usual experience, Metternich felt that as long as the leader was arrested, the matter would soon calm down.
However, a gunshot in Sicily shattered Metternich's dream, and the entire northern Italy became restless.
At this moment, Metternich finally smelled a strange smell, which was the salty and wet breath before a bloody storm.
But the 74-year-old prime minister still didn't think anything could shake the Austrian Empire, which was well equipped with troops and food and a full treasury.
What he didn't expect was that the scale of the coming storm, its destructive power, and its far-reaching impact would completely exceed everyone's estimates, including Franz, who was full of confidence at this time.
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