"Archduke Franz, if you'll forgive my bluntness, the princes won't care about this land unless they put up money. And even if they do care, they don't have enough naval power."
What Archduke Franz wanted them to guard against wasn't an enemy at sea, of course, but a possible war on land.
"Don't worry. We're giving them a share of the profits, aren't we? Two-tenths."
"Just two-tenths?" Metternich was curious. Archduke Franz had always been an exceptionally generous man—or, one might say, a spendthrift. Why did he think that two-tenths of the profits would be enough to buy over the entire German Confederation?
But even if war broke out someday, it would happen after he was dead. At Austria's current rate of development, perhaps in a few decades those small states would naturally join them anyway. Then there would be no need to ask them to help defend the land.
"Don't worry. I promise I'll have a reason they can't refuse when the time comes."
Franz realized his mistake, too. Metternich had no idea that the world's largest gold mine lay beneath Transvaal, so he could only fall back on his old trick of being deliberately mysterious.
That did sound much more reassuring. Ten million florins a year wouldn't put too much strain on Austria's finances.
What irritated Metternich was that, even though the Austrian Empire had paid for the land, it couldn't use it.
They should treat the place just as they treated the black population: drive out every African tribe as far as the eye could see, and allow in "black laborers" at most.
In reality, most of Austria's African colonies faced labor shortages. Because of their race, white people weren't suited to working in places with such intense sunlight. They were easily sunburned, and the tropical climate