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

Chapter 1971 Living in constant fear
Frederick VII had actually tried something similar before, but failed due to a lack of authority and confidence.

At this moment, Denmark's national day of humiliation has been brought up again, and many people immediately think of Frederick VII, after all, this absurd king was capable of doing such a thing.

When the news reached Stockholm, Frederick VII was indeed slightly agitated, but he quickly realized that it had nothing to do with him.

So he clarified everything to the Swedish high command who wanted to kill him. The Swedes did not believe Frederick VII, but it seemed pointless to pursue the matter further now.

King Oscar I of Sweden was no slouch either; he immediately began crisis management.

"The Treaty of Kiel was a great arrangement jointly confirmed by European countries for the sake of peace after the anti-French war."

It ended nearly two decades of chaos and brought almost half a century of peace to Europe.

Any attempt to shake or question it is nothing more than a conspiracy by ungrateful and ambitious people!

Norway and Sweden share the same constitution, the same market freedoms, and the same level of respect.

We firmly believe that under the leadership of King Oscar I, we can solve any analysis and defeat any conspiracy.

History will prove that Greater Scandinavia is the only correct path.

The Kingdom of Sweden then made a series of compensation payments to Norway, which Oscar I thought would save him from further trouble.

But soon other problems arose. His actions drew the ire of the Swedish side, and a new wave of criticism swept in. He seemed unable to maintain a fair balance.

Everything was going according to Franz's plan. Of course, to make the effect more lasting, Franz also decided to help Norway train university students.

These elites will be the sharpest arrows in the future, but Sweden cannot be spared now. For example, some radical Pan-Scandinavianists are discussing the Finnish question extensively in the Swedish parliament.

As luck would have it, the news quickly reached Russia.

Nicholas I was delighted and decided to send an additional 20,000 men and a squadron to Finland.

Russia has increased its troop presence, and Sweden has no choice but to respond, although the two countries are not on the same level in terms of national strength.

Moreover, Sweden and Russia are in different situations, and Sweden must act with extreme caution to avoid actually causing a conflict.

Nicholas I, however, was in a completely different mood. Although he wanted to continue attacking the Ottoman Empire, he would also be happy if he could provoke a war in the Great Northern Region.

Nicholas I's confidence is now quite inflated, and he'd love for someone to fight him.

On the other hand, Nicholas I himself wanted to divert attention from the contradictions within Russia. In his eyes, Russia had achieved many victories over the years, but these victories could not be converted into loyalty and sustenance.

But what Franz wanted to say was that it was fortunate he won, otherwise Russia would have bombed it long ago.

Nicholas I and the Russian leadership were quite strange; it wasn't that they didn't know how to develop, but rather that nobody cared at all.

To be honest, Franz always thought Russia would imitate Austria, but it turns out he was overthinking it.

Compared to the traditional Russian nobility, Nicholas I was considered progressive.

These people only care about their own privileges, not whether they can grow more food or produce more products.

In fact, Nicholas I and other high-ranking Russian officials had proposed reform plans for industry and commerce, but their implementation was a complete mess, and the industry quickly reverted to its original state.

They didn't care as long as they were better off than others, and Franz gradually realized that what these guys wanted was privilege, not the development of the country.

This was vividly demonstrated in the issue of serfdom, with the two sides constantly bickering and even leaving Nicholas I and the Austrian Empire, who were bystanders, confused as to whether the Russian leadership wanted to liberate the serfs or consolidate the serfdom system.

Because the same group of people from the same faction can have two completely opposite attitudes on the same matter.

Many people thought they were crazy, but they themselves were perfectly clear-headed. They wanted the same wealth as Europe, but they didn't want to change their current lives or give the serfs freedom or power.

Therefore, the Russian nobility chose to retain their privileges while abandoning their obligations. They wanted both the price advantage of low costs and the power to retain their near-slave-owner-like status.

Nicholas I may not have been a good person, but he was raised as a soldier from childhood, and to some extent, he lived his life like a soldier.

In the military, reputation is extremely important, not in the abstract sense of the business world, but in a real, physical sense. This made it impossible for him to betray his soldiers, which is why Nicholas I committed suicide in history.

After the end of the Frankish Kingdom, due to the existence of supreme immunity and the support of religious ideology, there were almost no monarchs who committed suicide in Europe.

But Nicholas I was not a legitimate heir to the throne; in his own eyes, he was always a soldier who had to take responsibility for the defeat.

Similarly, after a victory, Nicholas I would also take responsibility for his soldiers.

Although he liberated the serf soldiers largely to populate Constantinople, he did not forget the soldiers who had risked their lives for him, even though they were serfs.

In fact, Nicholas I's previous pardon of serfs who had distinguished themselves in battle and his promotion of them to junior military officers had already greatly angered the Russian high command.

They transferred troops to Constantinople under the guise of garrison duty, and then granted these serf-born soldiers their freedom.

This operation directly crossed the bottom line of the Russian leadership, who considered it utterly outrageous and even comparable to the infamous "lighting the beacon fires to amuse the feudal lords."

If Nicholas I had actually played the game of lighting beacon fires to amuse his subjects, perhaps these Russian high-ranking officials wouldn't have had such strong opinions.

But now they're threatening the very foundation of the nation, mobilizing the military, deceiving them, and even directly impacting their interests.

Now, if Nicholas I wanted to mobilize troops again, the Russian high command would treat him like a thief, lest the Tsar once again act first and ask for permission later.

This cannot be blamed on the Russian ministers' PTSD, because after succeeding once, Nicholas I really did achieve a second victory.

The Russian serf soldiers responded to Nicholas I's orders with unprecedented speed; any order to be dispatched to the vicinity of Constantinople was met with a scramble for the task.

Some soldiers even believed that the officers had altered the Tsar's orders without authorization, and then beat the officers to death.

Almost all the interest groups in Russia were at odds with this Tsar, and they wished nothing more than to kill Nicholas I.

In their current view, the Decembrists were right back then, but they were too lenient. They should have gouged out his eyes, cut his throat, and hung him in the square.

In fact, the Decembrists, who had been almost forgotten in the past, suddenly became highly sought after again, invited back from Siberia at great expense and kept well-fed and cared for on private estates. Various factions within Russia also unusually set aside their differences and joined forces to cause trouble for Nicholas I.

Furthermore, the Russians seem to have focused all their energy on internal strife, resulting in a complete mess of internal development. Leaving aside the newly conquered territories in the Balkans, even the established Russian homeland has seen little change.

The pace of industrial progress was impressive; the spies Franz sent even thought it was a complete waste of time.

There was no need for the Austrian Empire to interfere in restricting the development of Russian industry; the Russian bureaucrats and nobles themselves would block the path for Russian industry.

In Western European countries like the UK and the US, the concern is that intellectual property rights may not be guaranteed. In Russia, however, the primary concern is whether intellectual property rights can be protected at all.

In Russia, the core and premise of everything is power. Without power, if you reclaim land today, it may be occupied by others tomorrow.

Without power, a factory built today could be confiscated tomorrow. The wealth accumulated today could become someone else's pocket money tomorrow.

In Russia, the lack of power isn't a matter of whether you can make money; it means you might not even be able to protect yourself.

While laws and contracts certainly exist, they are merely tools serving the ruling class. Let alone the common people of Russia, which of the wealthy merchants in the Austrian Empire who could conduct international business didn't have a powerful backer?
But it was utterly useless in Russia; the Russian bureaucrats and royal merchants simply didn't care. Apart from official business with the Austrian Empire, other merchants couldn't even guarantee their own rights.

Despite years of trade between the Austrian Empire and Russia, no notable large merchants or companies emerged; instead, anti-Russian sentiment grew stronger.

The most outrageous thing is that Russians don't trust their own courts, are afraid to do business with Russians, and are even afraid to invest.

Two groups of Russians went to Vienna to litigate an economic dispute, which left the jury shaking their heads in disbelief.

What happened next was even more outrageous. The two sides took the judgment they received in Vienna to Russia, and the Russian side believed that the judgment was valid and enforceable.

Before Russia could even protest, the people of Vienna were already indignant, feeling that the Vienna city government was wasting its public resources to appease the Russians.

The protests lasted a month, and the judge who made the ruling had to be transferred out of Vienna.

But this incident also reflects how low the level of trust is in Russian society.

The credibility of the Russian government is also very poor, and Nicholas I himself is considered by his own businessmen to be a representative of inconsistency.

Russia is not without intelligent people, nor is it without morally upright people, but those people must hide themselves well, or they may suffer some undeserved disasters.

When Lord Habescu went to Russia, he personally witnessed an engineer being ordered to repent in the freezing cold of minus thirty degrees Celsius because he did not understand etiquette or questions, until he was frozen into an ice sculpture.

Whenever the Austrian Empire's troops visited Russia, many people would volunteer to serve.

Initially, the Austrian officials and scholars who accompanied the group looked down on these vagrant-like fellows, but after some conversation, they felt even more that the group was incredibly stupid.

Occasionally, they would encounter a few truly talented individuals. However, once this group arrived in Austria, people discovered that the Russians were sitting and discussing matters with experts from the Austrian Empire using materials that were more than a decade behind.

(This mainly refers to information about the British and French; the Austrian Empire held it in low regard.)
Those who seem stupid are not necessarily scammers; they just started from a very low point.

There was a real reason why Austrian officials thought those people were swindlers, because fraud was rampant in Russia at the time.

Various types of fake news emerged one after another, and even many highly educated officials fell for it.

The more familiar one is with Russian law, the easier it is to be deceived. Franz was very curious, so he found a group of legal scholars and anti-fraud experts to study it.

They concluded that Russian law itself contained numerous loopholes, which could be easily exploited by a few intelligent people with sufficiently low morals.

Russians also have their own commercial traditions and wisdom that differ from those advocated in other parts of Europe. Regardless of whether European merchants can actually do it, they all want the respectable image of an honest businessman.

However, Russians have a different business acumen; they believe that "no business is without guile." In Russia, this saying carries no negative connotation; they consider it a sign of wisdom.

In 19th-century Russia, the practice of passing off inferior goods as superior ones, mixing sand into flour, diluting honey with water, using dual contracts, and adding urine to beer were all considered "business tricks," not fraud.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, the author of "Crime and Punishment," once commented on Russia at that time in this way.

"In a dishonest society, people will have to lie to themselves in order to survive."

The construction of Russian railways was also a complete mess. Nicholas I and the Russian leadership both realized the importance of railways, but neither side wanted to spend money and both wanted to take advantage of the situation.

In addition, Russia's own industrial capacity is too weak, and it has to import many things from other countries, so the cost of railway construction remains high.

Even in 1859, Russia's longest railway was still built with aid from the Austrian Empire. Nicholas I personally regarded this railway as his private property and a source of income.

Anyone who wanted to use the railroad, except for him and his army, had to pay exorbitant fees, and no one else was allowed to get a share.

This caused widespread discontent in Russia, but unexpectedly provided a livelihood for horse traders and merchant guilds.

In Nicholas I’s eyes, the two most profitable paths were: first, monopolizing trade with the Austrian Empire and selling Austrian goods in the Russian market.

Secondly, they planted cotton and cash crops and raised sheep along the Black Sea coast. This required fighting the Ottomans.

But both of these paths are minefields in the minds of those Russian high-ranking officials.

Nicholas I didn't really know that much; he just knew that things seemed a little easier when there was a war.

As for who to attack, it didn't really matter. If it weren't for the armistice agreement with Britain, he would even have wanted to attack Canada.

After all, the Alaskan colonies were doing quite well after the discovery of gold.

But Sweden is not Russia, and the more Nicholas I acted so nonchalantly, the more cautious Oscar I had to be.

In fact, the reason why the Kingdom of Sweden wanted to expand Scandinavia was largely due to the threat from Russia.

In fact, the whole of Europe assumed that the Russians would definitely move westward. The Austrians felt that a war with Russia was inevitable, as did the Swedes.

In particular, the so-called "Eastern and Western Rome" seem to be in harmony now, and the Holy Roman Empire is very powerful under Austrian dominance.

So how could the Russians continue their westward expansion?
Sweden, their former arch-enemy, is now in decline, and if they were in each other's shoes, they would also choose to attack Sweden.

Under this mindset, the Kingdom of Sweden could only live in constant fear. And Franz was acutely aware that some things, the more you fear them, the more likely they are to become reality.