Chapter 871 Twelve Articles (Part 2)

7. The taxation power of the Crown of St. Stephen belongs to the Hungarian Parliament, and it can formulate taxes and adjust tax rates according to its own situation. Everyone must pay taxes, including the estates and royal territories of Austrian nobles.

8. Judicial independence. The Hungarian Parliament has the right to formulate all laws in the Crown of St. Stephen.

9. Hungary requires the establishment of an independent national bank and the right to issue currency. The Austrian side must recognize its value and must not discredit or refuse to accept Hungarian currency.

10. Soldiers in Hungary must re-swear allegiance to the Hungarian Constitution. Austria has no right to mobilize Hungarian soldiers. All Hungarian troops in Italy must be withdrawn to Hungary.

At the same time, soldiers in Hungary must withdraw unless they are loyal to Hungary.

11. The Austrian side must immediately release the Hungarian prisoners in custody.

12. The former Crown of St. Stephen will be renamed Hungary from now on and will be under the unified jurisdiction of the Hungarian government. Transylvania and Vojvodina will be incorporated into Hungary. 】

When Count Raikkonen read halfway, his hands began to shake.

If the Austrian imperial government really accepted such a "peace agreement", Austria would really become a colony of Hungary.

In addition to losing control of nearly one-third of its territory, Austria must also hand over Transylvania and Vojvodina.

"Mr. Count, how do you feel?"

"It's simply too much! Those damn guys! At this time, he actually proposed such a crazy agreement, which is simply taking advantage of the fire!"

"It's taking advantage of the fire."

Mrs. Sophie did not hide it. After all, many Hungarian nobles had joined Franz's plan at this time. In order to keep their shares in the Hungarian Development Company, they could not mix with the revolutionaries in Budapest.

In fact, there was even more shocking news, that is, Hungary had sent troops to Pressburg.

But she didn't want to continue to exert pressure at this time, because these people might not be able to bear it.

Compared with the Hungarians and the Italian coalition forces of the Papal States, the King of Sardinia was really not worth mentioning.

"This time, the Kingdom of Sardinia has gotten a bargain."

The two regents said, but Madame Sophie corrected them.

"It's not that we want to get them a bargain. We can settle accounts later."

Austria announced a truce with the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Yes, it was a truce, not a truce in the usual sense. This is very interesting, but both sides need a chance to breathe, so the Kingdom of Sardinia and Austria stopped the ongoing war.

As for the captives of the Kingdom of Sardinia, they naturally followed the old European rule - redeem them with money.

The ransom culture in Europe has a long history, and it can be traced back to the war between the Romans and the Gauls.

As for the amount of ransom, there are corresponding standards for the treatment of captives.

For example, there was once a British soldier who was captured 24 times in his life, and the ransom he paid was a total of 400 Spanish silver coins.

This is equivalent to the total income of the halberd player during his service. Finally, under his strong request, the British royal family had to pay a sum of money to compensate for his losses.

A knight who participated in the Crusades paid 260,000 gold coins to redeem himself.

This is of course positively correlated with the person's status and the degree of damage caused, and factors such as the local prices at the time must also be taken into account.

The price given by the Austrian side is 600 florins per Sardinian prisoner, and the officers will naturally rise.

However, some people with connections can still be released early through the back door, but the specific price is unknown.

For ordinary people, the price of 600 florins is unimaginable, and the Austrian officials naturally do not expect the other party to make a private redemption.

To be honest, the officials in Austria are not stupid. Who has money to be a soldier? This is obviously to extort money from the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Theoretically, the Kingdom of Sardinia should cede land and seek peace after its defeat, but now Austria is in trouble, so it can only take a step back and only ask for money, not land.

Regarding the cost of 600 florins for an ordinary prisoner, the Austrian side has strict data statistics and can provide a reasonable source of expenditure.

First of all, there will inevitably be casualties in war, so the dead need to be buried and the wounded need to be treated. Medical expenses in Europe have always been sky-high before World War II.

Doctors and lawyers have long been the highest-income groups in Europe, and ordinary doctors naturally cannot treat such knife wounds and gunshot wounds on the battlefield, so professional doctors must be hired.

(It is not a joke that barbers work part-time as doctors.)

Full-time doctors are naturally much more expensive than those guys who practice medicine without a license.

Secondly, prisoners of war are also people, they have to eat and drink, right? You know, this is a disaster, and food prices in Europe have soared, so it is reasonable to charge a little more for the ransom, right?

At the same time, such a large group of people gathered together, in order to prevent the occurrence of plague, we must take some preventive measures, right?

Asking a few priests to sprinkle disinfectant water, it is reasonable, right?

After a while, the ransom went up. In addition, the troops of the Kingdom of Sardinia came to Austria not to repair bridges and roads, the buildings they destroyed and the flowers and plants they trampled to death also cost money, right?

And such a large group of people must have a place to live, right? So it makes sense to build a prisoner-of-war camp, right?

Where did Austria get the manpower to build the prisoner-of-war camp during the war? Professional matters should naturally be handed over to professionals, so that the prisoners can do it themselves.

Helping to build the prisoner-of-war camp can also reduce some of the ransom, so the Sardinian prisoners of war are very motivated. Some even planned not to go back after hearing the offer from the Austrian army.

They think it is not bad to work as construction workers here. After all, they are provided with food and accommodation, and the salary is not low.

In fact, the wages of workers in the Austrian Empire at this time are much higher than those in other countries, which is one of the reasons why Austrian workers rarely make trouble.

Marshal Radetzky does not mind these Italian prisoners of war living in Lombardy. After all, these people seem to be more hardworking and diligent than the locals.

Moreover, the old marshal is a person who pays great attention to propaganda. He has more political skills than those pure soldiers.

This makes the image of the Austrian army very good, at least in the eyes of ordinary people, it is not as bad as the Jesuit propaganda.

At this time, these prisoners of war who work hard in the Austrian prisoner-of-war camps are undoubtedly the best propaganda machines after returning to the Kingdom of Sardinia.

However, Marshal Radetzky regrets not capturing more prisoners of war. In fact, in order to speed up the march, the prisoners of war in the Kingdom of Sardinia have always been in a trusteeship state.

If those people really wanted to escape, they would have had many opportunities.

However, the reality was that almost no prisoners chose to escape. Most of them chose to be obedient and wait for the Austrian army to come back to accept them.

A total of 37,000 prisoners, the total ransom was 23 million florins.

Carlo Alberto thought the Austrians were crazy, and it was impossible for him to pay to redeem those prisoners.