Plans could never keep up with change. Franz had originally intended to pull one over on the Russians, but the moment he made his move, the plan was declared a failure—the economic crisis had arrived.
The collapse of the free-trade system had indeed dealt the Holy Roman Empire the greatest losses, but France was the first to crumble.
There was no helping it. First came the beating from the Continental War, then the Russians ravaged them once more. Even mighty France had been battered until it lost all spirit.
After the Russian Army withdrew, with the Vienna Government's assistance, the French economy began to recover slowly as well.
Everything had been moving in a positive direction, but the crushing burden of debt had wrecked the healthy growth of France's economic ecosystem.
Apart from creating jobs and meeting the people's basic needs, all the benefits of economic recovery flowed into the pockets of the Anti-French Alliance nations as reparations.
After the free-trade system collapsed, the economies of every European country suffered a blow. France was naturally no exception.
Without a sufficient economic moat, its fragile economy collapsed in the first wave of impact, directly triggering an economic crisis.
Under the free-trade system, the economies of European nations had already become deeply intertwined; those ties could not be severed overnight.
Once the French economy fell into crisis, the rest of Europe could not avoid being implicated. Before Franz could even react, the economic crisis began sweeping across the European Continent.
Economic crises were always accompanied by overcapacity and unsold goods. This time was no exception. Everyone was worrying over their products failing to sell, so driving up the prices of strategic materials naturally became a pipe dream.
It was impossible to say whether Japan and Russia were lucky or unlucky.
Against the