Chapter 882: Outrageous Return Home

Venice, City Hall.

Franz did not expect the Hungarians to attack him, but in order to prevent the Pressburg tragedy from happening.

He specially sent five complete infantry regiments to Pressburg in the name of the Ministry of War, a total of 8,000 people, so that the total force of Pressburg reached 15,000.

In fact, if there were no historical tragedy, Pressburg would definitely be a strong city that could not be captured.

As the last barrier of Vienna in the East, its importance is self-evident.

In hundreds of years, this city has only been captured three times, by Suleiman the Magnificent, Napoleon, and Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa.

The city is high and deep, with complete firepower and sufficient food and grass. It is located at the confluence of the Morava River and the Danube River, surrounded by water on three sides.

Only one side needs to engage the enemy, which greatly limits the advantage of the attacker's force. No matter from which point of view, it deserves the word indestructible.

Such a fortress, Franz couldn't think of how it couldn't hold up for even a day.

However, in view of the fact that Austria had too many strange deeds in history, such as sending all officers to die at the beginning of the war, which led to the collapse of the entire command system.

Or using half of the enemy's troops to fight an annihilation war but being annihilated by the enemy, and then contacting the enemy to ask whether the code would be changed after deciphering the enemy's code.

Franz decided to change the generals on the battlefield, but of course he could not do it in a way that would cause conflicts, such as transfer or promotion.

Franz decided to let the general in charge of Pressburg go on vacation. Although the treatment of Austrian soldiers in history was a mess, the officers had many benefits.

In addition to one day of vacation per week, there are 7 days of monthly leave every month and 28 days of annual leave every year, and the three are calculated separately.

In summary, Austrian officers have an average of 164 days of vacation per year, but it still makes the nobles complain.

In fact, military positions in Austria are more like honorary titles. Officers' salaries are very low, and cavalry officers even have to buy their own horses.

This is also one of the important reasons why Hungarians are so unruly, because many cavalry officers' ranks are bought, and they buy their own horses and train themselves.

This is a bit like the militia in the late Qing Dynasty. The excessive autonomy and low rate of return have led to the long-term problems of low morale and poor military discipline in the cavalry.

The Austrian Empire has been plagued by many problems for hundreds of years, which cannot be explained by Franz in a few words, nor can it be resolved by him moving his fingers casually.

The roots of corruption have long been rooted deep in the earth, and the intertwined interests are like a mess.

Franz tried to build a new army himself, but if he just had a playful mentality.

Then the nobles and businessmen would send superior horses, exquisite sabers, gorgeous hussar uniforms, and suitable training grounds and trainers, and the wealthy clans would even send their best disciples in.

But once Franz went beyond the level of playing, he would encounter all kinds of unexpected troubles.

It is possible that horses will be frightened and disappear, and horseshoes may not be properly nailed, causing horses to fall off and die.

Therefore, the size of the regular troops that Franz can control has never exceeded 10,000, because those people may think that this is a safe number.

However, Franz did not completely fight back. These people wanted to reach into his arsenal.

Franz broke them directly and deliberately threw the broken limbs on the street.

In the past, when Adjani was there, anti-infiltration was not so difficult. Colonel Bordeaux worked very hard, and Adjani's successor was also loyal to his duties, but Franz still had to use the method of killing chickens to scare monkeys to warn others.

Military industry and the Academy of Sciences are Franz's bottom line. They can run military enterprises, but no one can touch Franz's arsenal.

Similarly, Franz does not mind those privileged classes investing in education or technology, but they must compete based on their abilities, rather than poaching people from Franz, or directly using power control instead of technological progress.

In fact, the arrival of the stormy year also gave Franz an opportunity to settle accounts. Most of the people who restricted Franz were also making trouble in Vienna at this time.

The logic of this group of people is very simple, that is, to resolutely restrict the imperial power and never let the royal family dominate.

In fact, this is a kind of sadness of the times. They can't wake up from the struggle between the nobility and the royal power.

It's not that they can't see the new opponents, but they are unwilling to abandon the old ideas, even if they drag the entire class to be buried with them.

But Franz will not let them do what they want. Since they like to make trouble, Franz will help them make a bigger trouble.

Franz learned that the privileged nobles and businessmen ran to the side of the liberals again, and he decided not to return to Vienna.

The reason, of course, is that the railway is not smooth.

In fact, some people have sent people to blow up the railway to prevent Franz from returning to Vienna, but the people they sent happened to be spies sent by Franz.

Franz's base is indeed the nobility, but the privileged class is not equal to the entire aristocracy.

Franz wants to deal with them, not to cut off his own life, let alone betray his class.

On the contrary, what Franz did was to save the aristocracy and remove the blood clots.

It is ridiculous to equate the privileged class with the entire aristocracy. There is no reason for the benefits to be enjoyed by one person alone, while everyone should share the blame.

After so many years of careful transformation by Franz, Vienna has nurtured so many groups. If it still can't resist the pressure, then he doesn't mind a thorough cleaning.

Of course, Franz will take his family out before then. After all, at that time, the inheritance of the royal family will be more important than anything else.

Otherwise, it will be like the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. It can no longer be described as falling apart. It can only be said to be in pieces.

Franz would not be idle until he returned to Vienna.

Fortunately, the old emperor wanted to make Venice the capital of the Austrian Empire. Later, Franz also managed it while developing overseas trade and colonies.

Therefore, Venice at this time is fully capable of being a companion capital, with both the bureaucratic system and the economic system in place.

As for the so-called rebels and insurgents, they either threw the Italian tricolor flag in the ditch, or rushed into the Jesuit church and bought it for zero dollars.

Perhaps the transformation of these Italian nationalists was a bit sudden, but it makes sense when viewed from another perspective.

Most of the rebels just regarded revolution as a business, and neither the Carbonari nor Pius IX had the influence they imagined.

In fact, the reason why those people revolted before was because they felt that the Italian nationalists could win and they could gain benefits by following them.

Just as nationalists were betrayed and attacked at this time, and churches were sacked, it was also because doing so was in the best interest of those who were insurrection.

In other words, they will help whoever wins.

This is a typical characteristic of small citizens. They like to think in a bourgeois way, but they have no capital, so they can only be the pawns they despise most.

This is also the reason why uprisings in northern Italy mostly occur in cities. Compared with citizens, farmers are more risk-averse, so as long as they are not able to survive, they will not rebel easily.

Of course Franz knew this very well, so he only needed to give out some relief grains and then raise the purchase price of the grains.

Those farmers will stay at home honestly. When the urban rebels go to the countryside to recruit soldiers, they will encounter desertions or even resistance.

In the eyes of farmers, the government that distributes relief grains to them and collects crops at high prices is a good person, while the government that makes them unable to eat is the bad guy.

Driven by these simple values, Austria's eyes are almost everywhere in Northern Italy.

As for those outsiders who hunted down and killed the rebels everywhere, Franz was not prepared to condone them either.

It is true that using them can better suppress Italian nationalists, but this is not conducive to the restoration of order.

What Franz wants now is to restore order. Whether it is stabilizing the Venetian region or supporting Albrecht's Po River defense line, a good order is needed.

The best way to quickly stabilize order is to use severe punishment, which can be translated into easy-to-understand words with one word: "Kill!"

In fact, Franz killed many more people to stabilize order than when he pacified Venice.

However, in order to prevent abuse of power, Franz delegated the power to impose the death penalty only to lieutenants. At the same time, the death penalty must be reported and recorded.

There were many college students among the rebels in Venice, and Franz directly recruited these prisoners of war to help record the war.

There are three reasons for this. First of all, Franz does not have that many people. Secondly, college students are still very precious in this era, and he is a little reluctant to part with them.

In the end, Franz was just a human being. He had compassion and felt that these young people might have been led astray.

However, the crimes they committed must also be repaid, and these young people will be sent to the battlefield after completing the work assigned to them by Franz.

If they can survive, then they still have a chance to atone for their sins slowly, otherwise let them wash away their sins with blood.

Po River Line of Defense.

Albrecht's march was very fast, and the insurgents and rebels he encountered along the way could not pose a threat to his army at all.

The construction of the defense line has been basically completed, and the equipment from the rear and reinforcements temporarily transferred by Franz from Venice are also arriving one after another.

But Albrecht was very depressed because the Italian coalition forces did not enter the battlefield as he expected on time.

That's right, tens of thousands of troops are now arriving after a long journey, but not even a shadow of the Italian coalition forces is seen. The scouts dispersed in batches, but there was still no news.

The Po River defense line was very strong, and it was supported by natural dangers, so the General Staff felt that 50,000 troops were enough to stop the Italian coalition.

Unless they choose to take a detour, but it is not easy for such a large army to take a detour.

Not to mention the grain carts and horses of hundreds of thousands of people marching, the excrement alone is already amazing.

In addition, Central Italy is very mountainous, so it would be extremely difficult for them to take a detour.

Three days ago, in the mountains of Bologna.

Blenin was an orphan, but fortunately he was adopted by a nobleman who had no heirs.

But unfortunately for him, his stepmother disliked him very much and kicked him out of the house when his adoptive father passed away.

However, nobles still have to be decent, so his adoptive mother bought him the rank of major.

Although he was a major, he was thrown into the mountains with more than a thousand people, and it was said that they were asked to guard strategic locations.

However, in this quiet place, there are usually no smugglers, and Bolaining has no chance to make contributions.

After five or six years, he saved a small amount of money, which was enough for him to buy dozens of acres of land and hire two helpers to become a small landlord in the countryside.

On this day, Bo Laining watched the sun rise and set as usual, and suddenly a sentry ran back.

"People! People! People! So many people!"

"Asshole! Did you burn your tongue when drinking soup? Straighten your tongue and speak!"

Major Bo Laining has been in the army for many years, and his official authority is still a bit.

"Report! There are a lot of people in the valley!"

The sentry talked for a long time without getting to the point. In fact, this was a very common situation at that time.

Because the quality of most soldiers is very low, except for some gifted people, most people can only use many, a lot, and very many to describe the number of enemy troops when exploring the enemy situation.

Although they have also received special military training, learning and using are two completely different concepts.

Senior scouts in the army are usually directly linked to the headquarters, while Bo Laining's men are just tramps in military uniforms.

"Stop talking! Take me there."

Berlin looked helpless.

When he arrived in front of the valley, he was really shocked. A large army was slowly advancing in the valley.

Although it was a valley, the widest part of the open space in the middle was hundreds of meters, so the tactic of blocking the road with huge rocks used in Switzerland would not work at all.

At this time, Bernin was not ready to retreat. He only knew that there were many people, and he didn't know that there was a whole Italian coalition in the valley.

"Tell the brothers that the beggars from southern Italy are here!"

Most of Bernin's troops are from northern Italy. Although they are the bottom of northern Italy, they still look down on southern Italy, and even think that it is the southern Italians who have taken their jobs that have led to their miserable lives.

After hearing what the superior said, the sentry was not so scared in an instant. Looking at the densely packed enemies in the valley, he only had contempt and disdain in his heart.

"Yes!"

Hearing the sentry's loud answer, Bernin couldn't help but admire.

"You've got a good tongue, you have a future! If we win this battle, I'll promote you to sentry leader!"

"Yes!"

Sentry Geno went happily.

Berlin looked back at the fortress behind him, and he felt that he had come to the end of his career.

In fact, what Major Bernin didn't know was that the strategic deployment map in his hand was a few years old.

At this time, there were no friendly troops on his flanks and rear wings, and the nearest Po River defense line was dozens of kilometers away.

Yes, this fortress was ignored. The bad news was that no one notified them to retreat, and the good news was that the Italian coalition didn't know there was a fortress here.

This fortress was an Austrian outpost in Bologna that had been built for many years, but with a series of secret transactions between Metternich and Gregory XVI.

This outpost suddenly became useless. The Austrians could enter the Papal States openly, so naturally they didn't need this sneaky outpost.

However, due to the sudden death of Archbishop Cavaggi on the way over the mountain, the Italian coalition fell into a state of disarray.

Finally, after some conspiracy and fighting, Mr. Porral, the liberal leader from Tuscany, took the leadership of the army.

According to the intelligence sent earlier, the Austrians had built a defense line near the Po River.

Mr. Porral was a small shop owner before, and he would not jump into the fire pit so obviously, so he decided to temporarily change Archbishop Cavaggi's marching route, not taking the main road, but taking the valley instead.