After trainload upon trainload of Austrian soldiers stepped off, the Frankfurt citizens and porters waiting nearby were left utterly bewildered. A few minutes later, several station attendants carrying batons finally arrived.
"Are you here to fight a war?"
"No, we're here to liberate you!"
Austria's first troops quickly seized Frankfurt Railway Station. By then, the intelligence officers of the German Federation, carrying news of the defeat at the front, had only just reached the docks.
The frontline reports should have been telegraphed back to Frankfurt at once. As it happened, though, there was a problem with the Bavarian Confederation Telegraph Company's line to Frankfurt.
(There was no wireless telegraphy at the time. Laying a private telegraph line and starting a company were much the same thing; the costs of installation and maintenance alone were astronomical.)
It was hard to say who really held the home-field advantage in Bavaria. Though the Bavarian government had immediately submitted to the National Assembly, that didn't mean Franz had little influence there.
In fact, the Bavarian royal family had performed so poorly for so long that its presence was barely felt. But Sophie and the Austrian Empire were synonymous with strength in the minds of the Bavarian people.
On top of that, the Bavarian Association, the Zollverein, and the church had spent years cultivating their influence. As a result, Franz, the emperor of the House of Habsburg, enjoyed considerable support in Bavaria.
Bavaria's King Maximilian II was in fact strongly opposed to the German States joining together, and being barely noticed didn't mean he didn't exist.
The German Federation's intelligence officers had to be given credit: after years of outwitting the governments of the Confederate states, they had quickly thought of carrier pigeons.
But pigeons were only animals. They could fly between specific places, but