The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1427 Rescue (Part )

Modern medical technology in the Austrian Empire developed rapidly, mainly due to the establishment of germ theory and advances in anatomy.

In addition, because Franz developed the periodic table in advance, the Austrian Empire also made great strides in basic chemistry and synthetic chemistry.

In addition, with the application of many practical technologies such as chlorine, hand washing, nitroglycerin, allicin, etc., the survival rate of the wounded treated by the Austrian Imperial Field Rescue Team was very high.

All of this was recorded in the files of the accompanying officials, but at that time modern medicine was still very powerless in dealing with some difficult and complicated diseases.

At this time, it was the turn of the charlatans of the Austrian Empire to come on the scene. They collected a large amount of herbal knowledge from all over the world, and were not limited to traditional Chinese medicine.

The knowledge of these empirical medicines was re-summarized by the charlatans and verified through extensive practice. After continuous exploration and improvement, they have explored a path of their own.

Never before had any individual or group in the world been able to apply and accumulate empirical medicine on such a large scale. Even those medical families with dozens of generations of inheritance could not achieve the level of the Austrian Imperial Church at that time.

In addition, their status as clergymen naturally made it easy for them to gain the trust of believers, so in the field of internal medicine, the professional doctors of the Austrian Empire were completely unable to defeat the charlatans.

With the help of the professional team of the Austrian Empire, the death rate from injuries and illnesses in Russia was greatly reduced, and the plague spreading in the army was also brought under control.

However, the most fundamental problem was not solved, and the Russians were still defeated by the British and Turkish forces on the battlefield.

Low morale and feelings of despair made many wounded soldiers prefer to mutilate themselves rather than return to the front line, which was naturally unacceptable to the Russian commander Alexander Plinsky.

He immediately ordered his men to go to the wounded barracks to snatch people, but he forgot what he had promised the Austrian side before. However, Prinski's subordinates had long been accustomed to the days of rampant behavior.

During these days, the guards of the wounded battalion had already become familiar with the rescue team of the Austrian Empire, and they did not receive orders from their superiors. The soldiers truly admired these doctors who were willing to come here to save lives.

In addition, as soldiers themselves, seeing the miserable conditions of the wounded soldiers also triggered some empathy. They hoped that if they were injured one day they would be able to receive such treatment.

So the two sides drew their guns and confronted each other at the door of the wounded camp. Although Prinsky's subordinates were arrogant, they were not brainless. Seeing that the other side was a group of lunatics who didn't care about their lives, they didn't get entangled and directly reported the situation here to Prinsky.

Of course, in order to shirk responsibility and avoid leaving an impression of incompetence on superiors, it is inevitable to exaggerate.

Normally, Plinsky should not have been fooled by such a cheap trick, but for him, who had long been suspicious of the Austrian Empire's intentions, it was exactly what he wanted.

Fortunately, in addition to doctors, scholars, and religious personnel, the Austrian Imperial rescue team also included a group of administrative and diplomatic officials whose task was to ensure the safety of the rescue team.

Lord Karasu, the leader of the team, arrived at the Russian headquarters before Plinsky took action.

Lord Karasu was not a big shot in the Austrian Empire, but he had a powerful distant relative in Russia, Prince Menshikov.

Relying on this relationship and his identity as the special envoy of the Austrian Emperor, Prinsky really did not dare to turn him away.

"Lord Plinsky, I'm sure you've heard about what happened in the wounded camp recently. I won't keep you in suspense here. Whether the wounded are willing or not is your country's family affair, and we have no intention of interfering.

But please do not disturb our work, otherwise I would like to ask you if you still consider us your allies!"

Lord Kalasu changed the subject and took out a form. "As for the wounded, we will handle them in different levels. The lightly wounded will be treated in ten days, the seriously wounded will be treated in one month, and the wounded who may be contagious will be treated separately."

Prinsky was quite satisfied with the graded treatment plan for the wounded. After all, this way the wounded soldiers would not be able to slack off, as they would have to come out on time anyway.

But he was still not satisfied with the time limit.

"Ten days for the lightly wounded? No! That's absolutely not possible! I can only give them three days at most!"

"Do you think broken bones and lacerations are so easy to heal?"

"That's something you should consider. We Russian soldiers are not that delicate. I mean three days!"

To be honest, three days was too short, but Lord Karasu also knew that there would be no point in continuing to argue, after all, this was Russian territory.

In fact, as an Austrian aristocrat, he did not quite understand Franz's intention. In his eyes, there was no need for the elites of the Austrian Empire to take risks for the Russians.

Lord Karasu had actually sent an urgent letter for help before meeting Prinsky. He could not accept that the elites of the Austrian Empire were buried in such a remote place.

Moreover, he couldn't let the Russians throw dirty water on him, so everything was just an illusion created to delay time, including bargaining with Prinsky here.

After all this trouble, some cowardly wounded soldiers chose to leave the camp and return to the team. Prinsky's subordinates did not hesitate to organize these people into a suicide squad, and the first batch will go to the front line tomorrow.

This included soldier Nicholas, who had lost three fingers in a previous battle and whose hands were now wrapped in thick gauze.

But it didn't matter anymore, he might die tomorrow. As a soldier who had survived many brutal battles, Nicholas seemed to deserve a promotion.

However, what is even more cruel is that no matter how many times he can escape death, his promotion may still be infinitely close to zero.

Because Nicholas was born a serf, legally he could only be a lifelong soldier. Unless he could get the support of the Tsar or high-ranking officials and nobles, he could be granted the status of "honorary citizen" and enter the official career.

Being promoted nine levels in one day was simply impossible in Russia at that time.

Historically, Nicholas I allowed soldiers to accumulate military merits and obtain the rank of warrant officer, but that had to wait until the Crimean War.

Warrant officer is a military rank between officers and non-commissioned officers.

In fact, the Austrian Empire in history was not much better. Not to mention ordinary soldiers, even military academy graduates of civilian origin had to go through life and death on the battlefield before they could start their official career.

(This has been introduced in the previous article, so I won’t go into details here.)
Such a selection mechanism greatly reduces the possibility of civilian officers succeeding in their careers, and also results in a huge waste of talent.

So Franz changed this mechanism during the war in 1848, and after he ascended the throne he directly issued a decree to completely change this history.

Franz did this on the one hand for the sake of military talent, and on the other hand to open up upward channels and ease social conflicts.