What angered Franz most was, in a sense, the indolence of imperial officials. Many of them had grown accustomed to making bricks fly through sheer force whenever they encountered a problem.
They could not be bothered to think about the problem. They only wanted to increase investment and add manpower.
On the surface, these people seemed diligent and concerned, but such thoughtless behavior only enraged Franz. He despised this formulaic bureaucratic conduct.
There was a problem, so resources were poured into solving it. The bigger the problem, the more was poured in.
At first glance, this logic seemed perfectly reasonable, making Franz, in his anger, appear exceptionally stingy instead.
Yet in reality, this approach was often nothing more than a performance of shirking responsibility, an outright and perfectly legitimate waste.
Since they simply did not know—or could not be bothered to ask—what had caused the problem, situations often arose where governance only made things worse, or where pressing down one gourd made another ladle pop up.
This was also an important reason why the more officials the Austrian Empire had, the lower its efficiency became.
When Franz had first ascended the throne, there had been only one-fifth as many officials as there were now, yet efficiency had been little different. Some departments might even have been more efficient back then.
Sometimes Franz felt that he was truly raising a troupe of actors. Every day, he had to watch all manner of performances, and even had to critique their clumsy acting.
Only eleven years had passed, and the bureaucratic system had returned in full force. Few people cared whether a problem had truly been resolved, and no one cared about the so-called optimal solution.
It was too abstract. The Empire's bureaucrats were all exceedingly practical. What they cared about most was