After George V was expelled, the takeover of Hanover encountered little difficulty. Although the Kingdom of Hanover still possessed a complete army and bureaucratic system, no one wanted to keep fighting.
Even with a power vacuum, no strongman wanted to seize the chance to rise to power. It was not as though no plotters wished to push things from behind the scenes; Britain had even sent people to lobby them.
Yet no one dared take hold of this scalding hot potato. The Austrian Empire had annihilated the main force of the Prussian army in a single battle, and Franz's prestige, accumulated over the years, only added to the deterrence.
As stated before, throughout the entire German Confederation, no one dared call himself a strongman before Franz.
Ambitious men did indeed have ambition, but they also valued their lives. Besides, ambition required strength, and strength required the right circumstances.
Bloodline and legitimacy alone choked off ninety-nine percent of all ambitious men. No matter how capable they were, they could only become puppeteers behind the curtain.
That was why monarchs went to such lengths to preserve those so-called traditions, and why traditional monarchs so detested Napoleon.
But becoming a Napoleon was no easy feat. The first—and indispensable—condition was to force the nations of Europe to recognize you through military might.
Then there was Leopold I's path: gaining the recognition of the five great powers through connections. Yet this too could not be separated from bloodline, and connections with the royal houses of various nations were hardly something ordinary people could hope for.
There was no need even to consider what would happen afterward between the Austrian Empire and other countries. The nationalists within Hanover alone were not something an ordinary strongman could control.
This force was far too savage. Anyone who came