In Europe in 1850, petroleum was used primarily to refine kerosene and asphalt. Gasoline and diesel were entirely by-products. Diesel could still be used as fuel, while gasoline could only be sold to the military.
The Austrian Empire's military did not waste it. Using gasoline as a base, they developed a variety of explosives. Since the military had an ample supply of gasoline, it also developed various incendiary bombs, whose main purpose was to destroy enemy fortifications and kill targets inside fortifications and trenches.
However, constrained by technology and other issues at the time, incendiary bombs were highly ineffective. Franz felt it would be more fitting to call them fire-starting bombs.
In fact, the role of incendiary bombs in warfare at this time was indeed arson. Almost no commander used them to kill enemy living forces.
This was not out of humanitarian concerns, but simply because incendiary bombs were far too unstable and could easily injure one's own men.
Not only were incendiary bombs exceptionally good at crushing friendly morale, they often took the artillery along with them.
By comparison, gasoline performed quite well in setting fires. It burned fiercely, could ignite a blaze in a short time, and was difficult to extinguish. Conventional firefighting methods of the era could not deal with gasoline fires. It released great energy and could burn on its own without other combustible materials.
Most importantly, it was extremely cheap. Yet because it had so few applications, the warehouses were already about to burst.
Across the entire Austrian Empire, the Transylvanian theater had the greatest demand for gasoline incendiary bombs. Julius von Haynau was a man with no taboos, and he had no objection to using gasoline incendiary bombs.
By this point, in the relatively large Transylvanian region, every bandit gang of any real renown