The conflict between the two sides could hardly be called a battle; it was a one-sided massacre.
By the time Franz's orders arrived, the city's population had already been reduced by a quarter—and that was with relative restraint.
If those people had truly been allowed to run wild, the Gate of Hell might well have opened by now.
It had to be said that anyone who could survive on this land had some skills to their name. They quickly set to work.
But Franz did not trust them that much. For the most part, he had them repair roads and build reservoirs.
If you wanted to get rich, build roads first. That saying was correct more often than not, especially in the nineteenth century.
Ancient Canaan had not been particularly poor. Its modern poverty had much to do with the decay of its roads.
In truth, the Canaan region had the foundations laid in ancient Roman times, so its underlying conditions were not all that bad. Once repaired, its key areas could immediately be linked together.
Yet Franz's ambitions clearly went beyond that. The Ottomans had not been entirely useless over the centuries; at the very least, they had preserved several ports left behind from the Roman era.
Those major ports, however, remained undeveloped natural shallow-water harbors. Large Austrian Empire vessels could not dock there, leaving medium and small ships to transport soldiers and supplies.
Fortunately, Franz possessed knowledge from the future. He knew that Haifa was in fact an excellent natural deep-water harbor, merely misjudged by the Ottomans for centuries. Thus, at this point, it was still only a small town.
With only simple modifications, Haifa could become an outstanding deep-water harbor. Coordinating sea routes with land routes would bring the entire region to life.
Seawater desalination was a