Back at the Anglo-Austrian peace talks, before Prince Albert could even ask a question, Baron Bruck handed the British delegation another report.
"This is a breakdown of our country's public finances, along with a detailed financial analysis."
In this era, a country's financial situation was usually considered sensitive information, so Baron Bruck's move once again astonished the entire British delegation.
At the time, only Britain, the United States, and France occasionally published financial information. Traditional monarchies, especially Austria and Russia, had never made such information public.
The strategic value of these figures was not as great as one might imagine, but some of them were enough to reflect the economic strength of the Austrian Empire.
758 million florins—and that was without counting the spoils of war and confiscated assets.
The total value of the property seized in Vienna alone was a staggering astronomical figure, and many of its owners also held Austrian Empire bonds.
Many families had held these bonds for decades, even centuries, and the interest paid by the Austrian Empire had already amounted to several times their value.
Normally, as long as the whole family had not rebelled, even if the rebellion failed, they could transfer those bonds to family members who had not taken part.
That way, they could keep the means to rebel forever. Even if every member of the family who had joined the revolt were killed, they could pass the "spark" on to like-minded friends.
But with the enactment of the Wartime Handling Measures and the Wartime Compensation Law, these bonds were either permanently voided or frozen for the long term.
According to incomplete statistics, of the Austrian Empire's domestic debt of 1.65122 billion florins, 932.61 million was now certain to be written off. Of the remaining 718.61 million, more than half was frozen.