Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.
While Franz was still planning how to develop the gold mines in Transvaal without other countries finding out,
old Pretorius's disgraceful behavior at the German Confederation assembly had forced the former to reconsider his plans.
Austria's monopolizing Transvaal at this point would not be good news. As the saying went, a man was not guilty of a crime, but possessing jade brought calamity. That was how the Boers had become victims of the British blade.
Old Pretorius did not want a kingdom. Whether or not Franz sympathized with the Boers, his position made it impossible for him to support people like them.
Since they did not want to form a country, then they could only be a colony. The remaining question was how to govern this distant land.
The Boers were not a spineless people. The Battle of the Blood River and the later Second Boer War showed how tenacious they were, and how little they feared powerful enemies.
Franz had even begun to regret getting involved in South Africa too early, and regretted helping these people who called themselves "Germans" but did not want to be governed by the German Confederation.
Actually, that was not quite right. After all, the whole affair had flared up because of the feverish fervor of nationalism. Rather than helping them, he had been forced into it by the democrats.
Compared with what would come in 1848, this was no more than a light drizzle before the storm.
The question of how to control Transvaal was not urgent, but it was far from simple. Taking a hard line like the British was certainly out of the question.
It was not that Austria could not win a war; the price would simply be too high. Austria's homeland was too far from Transvaal,