As the capital of the United Kingdom, London had stood at the forefront of the world ever since the First Industrial Revolution.
It wore far too many crowns: the largest city in the world, the most prosperous city, and the world's political center, financial center, commercial center, industrial center...
Overnight, it seemed to have become some tiny rural backwater. London's proud citizens could not bear such an abrupt reversal.
In this age, they had every right to be proud, just as the British newspapers described it:
The plains of North America and Russia were our cornfields;
Austria was our granary;
Canada and the Baltic Sea were our forests;
Australia and Argentina were our pastures;
Peru and Mexico brought us their silver;
The Far East grew tea for us;
Our coffee, sugarcane, and spice plantations spread throughout the East Indies;
Spain and France were our vineyards;
The Mediterranean Sea was our orchard;
The Confederate States of America were our cotton fields;
By this logic, everywhere beyond London was the countryside, and every region beyond the British Isles was backward. The sacred mission of leading humanity's progress could be borne only by the British.
With such a mindset, the emergence of Vienna, the city that never slept, dealt an imaginable blow to London's people.
The pressure of public opinion surged toward the new government like an overwhelming tide. Benjamin Disraeli's government felt as though a mountain were bearing down upon it.
They now greatly envied John Russell's cabinet, which had already left office. Though it appeared they had resigned early, John Russell's cabinet had in fact been only two months away from completing its second term.
An economic crisis had struck just as their term was ending, so naturally they would not clean up after their political rivals. John Russell's cabinet