Franz's terms made the British feel as though they still hadn't woken up. Otherwise, they never would have expected to see such an outrageous peace treaty.
But this really was Austria's peace treaty. As for why the Austrian government could put such an outrageous proposal on the negotiating table—
That was, of course, thanks to Franz. The senior officials in the Austrian Empire's government were being replaced one after another, as if in a parade.
Franz could grab a whole handful of scapegoats whenever he pleased. He still wouldn't dirty his own hands with a peace treaty so blatantly provocative, and he had to leave Austria and himself a way out.
After all, if some British powerhouse suddenly appeared, or a meteorite came crashing down on a ship, Franz would still need someone to take the blame.
Besides demanding that the British return Crete and seize all the facilities on the island, Franz also set a limit on the number of British troops stationed in Albania.
No more than three thousand. But that was only a smokescreen. In truth, Franz would have been delighted if Britain sent more troops to Albania—ideally a few hundred thousand, so they could find out what the Balkans were like.
The most critical demand, though, was the last one. It was what Franz really wanted to say: British warships were to be barred from the Adriatic Sea.
No vessels over a thousand tons, or any ships that could threaten the security of the waters, would be allowed in.
Franz did this to tell the British whose territory the Adriatic Sea was. In truth, if there had been another way, he wouldn't have wanted to do this.
But in reality, as the trailblazer on the European continent, the Austrian Empire couldn't escape the British. No matter