Foreign Minister Lord Habescu immediately retorted.
"Prime Minister, are you trying to start a war?"
Minister of War Count Latour was the first to lose his patience.
"So what if we start a war? They're the ones who should be afraid, not us! Do they think The British care whether they live or die?"
"Do you want to start a European war and follow in Napoleon's footsteps?"
"What makes Napoleon comparable to us?!"
Franz had truly had enough of these meaningless quarrels. Every imperial council meeting seemed to turn from a discussion of the nation's fate into a scramble for the interests of every faction.
The reason so many ministers opposed the gold standard was not only because the Austrian Empire itself was a bastion of conservatism. Many among the Empire's upper ranks had countless tangled ties to the nobles of Germany and the Apennines; some of them even came from those regions themselves.
As for silver itself, many Austrian Empire families held vast quantities of it, and some silver mines were outright in the hands of those families.
Now that the Austrian Empire was powerful, its allies and vassals would naturally rack their brains to curry favor with its upper ranks. This was precisely the time for that group to make its presence felt.
Most supporters of the gold standard were radicals. The Austrian Empire's victories had inflated their confidence to the extreme. These people always hoped the Empire would quicken its pace—unify Germany, unify the Apennines, even unify Europe.
In their eyes, war was not an alternative. It was mandatory. After all, they could always win.
Then there were people like Baron Bruck. They believed they were acting for the nation, and so felt no shame; disregarding their colleagues' opinions was as commonplace to them as eating and