Since entering 1931, undercurrents had surged through Central Europe—Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For these two nations, the economic impact of the global economic crisis had left every industry withering and the people struggling to survive.
Politically, the two countries' monarchical systems had increasingly provoked public dissatisfaction. Of course, their current economic troubles had little to do with whether they were monarchies, since this economic crisis had swept across the entire capitalist world.
More precisely, the entire world market had been affected. Yet by 1931, looking across the globe, not even the relatively closed Soviet market could completely avoid participating in international trade.
Therefore, in the world of that day, no matter what political system a country had, it could not escape the impact of the global economic crisis.
What made Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire special was that their emperors were the first ones held responsible. Thus, any economic problem, even one largely unrelated to them, had to be pinned on their backs. In Britain, they could simply replace the prime minister; in the United States and France, they could elect a new top leader. That would temporarily soothe the public's fury and discontent.
Under ordinary circumstances, the emperors of the two countries might have used all sorts of methods to stall for time. But this time, the social movements in Central Europe had come with fierce momentum.
Vienna.
For Austria, 1931 had unquestionably been a terrible year. As time passed, the officially recorded unemployed population in Vienna alone had climbed to more than two hundred thousand, not including the hidden unemployed who had lost their sources of income.
The unemployment rate across Austria was now rocketing toward the twenty-percent mark, while the more industrialized Bohemia Industrial Zone had become even more turbulent, with storm clouds churning overhead.