The turmoil in Austria's financial markets was still within controllable limits. Everyone knew the Russo-Austrian Alliance had not yet broken apart. Even if the Russians defaulted, their allies would be the last ones they defaulted on.
The Russo-Austrian negotiations had now reached a deadlock. To some extent, that was good news as well. Having something to negotiate was always better than having nothing to negotiate.
Before this, the Russians had already approached several countries one after another, all to no avail. Quite a few financial institutions had been swindled to tears, and the capitalists had been forced to shed their shells like cicadas.
The financial markets in Paris and London had been hit the hardest. Do not assume that enemies never extended loans to one another. Before profit, capitalists did not care whom they worked with.
The Russians had used the proceeds from grain exports as collateral for loans. Beforehand, no one had worried that the Tsarist Government would default. Once Russian grain was sold abroad, they could collect their money.
But plans could not keep up with change. With the loss of the Polish-German Plain's granary, compounded by the civil war draining the Moscow Region dry, the Russians now had very little grain left to export.
Large-scale land reclamation was physical labor. The more work one did, the more one naturally had to eat, and the demand for grain rose accordingly.
From the outbreak of the Prusso-Russian War onward, the Russians had stopped exporting agricultural products to Britain and France. At one point, they had even imported grain from Austria.
With the Russians withdrawing from the grain export market, their share had naturally been seized by others. The so-called collateral of grain export proceeds had now become a joke.
Expecting the Russians to repay their debts by selling grain