Bavaria's King Maximilian II had never dreamed that he would be caught up in the labor war between Austria and Prussia. Even Franz had not expected Bavaria to be the first country to explode.
Bavaria had always been an important ally of the Austrian Empire, and Maximilian II was quite supportive of Franz. He had even made his position clear from the very beginning.
However, the king's own stance was one thing; the government's actual implementation was another.
Maximilian II himself might have been one of the most enlightened monarchs in the entire German Confederation, but the Bavarian government as a whole was, without question, the most conservative government in the German Confederation.
Compared with Prussia's Junker Landowners, Bavaria's landed aristocrats and agricultural capitalists were even more contemptuous.
They not only ignored the farmers' protests, but also ignored the king's orders.
These people instinctively opposed anything and anyone that might threaten their interests. They did not have the nerve to oppose it outright, but they could pretend that nothing had happened.
That tactic had always worked well in the past. If the local nobles and capitalists wished, they could even drag things out until the next king took the throne.
Even if some hothead truly fought his way through every obstacle and brought the matter before a court, the landed aristocrats and agricultural capitalists did not care.
After all, the court system of the time was already quite mature. It was all about evidence.
The farmers had reason on their side, legal protection, and rights stipulated by the state—but courts had procedures.
Why was procedural justice so revered in the West? Because it could be dismantled and reconstructed, because technique could be used to evade reality.
Moreover, the resources each side could mobilize were not even on the same scale.