February Revolution

This problem did not exist in Austria alone. In Prussia, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and other European countries, aristocratic officers held the dominant position.

This situation persisted until after the World War. The war took a heavy toll on aristocratic officers, and with too few reserves to replace them, they eventually lost their dominance in the military.

By comparison, Austria was relatively fortunate. The aristocrats who held the dominant position were German nobles, most of whom had a solid military education thanks to tradition.

In this era, these aristocratic officers were rare intellectuals. If someone stood behind them with a whip, driving them to work hard, they could still serve as junior officers.

For Austria's future, for the happiness of the people of Europe, for the development of all humanity, Franz felt the Mandate of Heaven upon him—no, that should be the will of God.

In any case, he had decided to take on the great task of reshaping the next generation of Austrian nobles. For now, it was only just beginning.

The wheels of history rolled on. After the January Revolution broke out in Sicily, it soon spread north into Italy. To protect the safety of Lombardy and Venice, the Vienna Government sent reinforcements to the region, temporarily stabilizing the situation.

Before the Great Revolution broke out, Europe's working class was living in dire straits. Take France, for example:

Workers' wages were extremely low. Male laborers earned about 2 francs a day, women about 1 franc, child laborers aged thirteen to sixteen only 75 centimes, and those aged eight to twelve just 45 centimes.

At the time, even the cheapest black bread cost over 30 centimes per kilogram. The working class earned barely enough to make ends meet.

(Data from 1840)

On the surface, it seemed that male workers were treated reasonably well, while women and children were paid extremely little.

In reality, capitalists were no fools. They squeezed out as much profit as they could, and workers paid for every cent with their lives. Male workers had to shoulder more arduous physical labor.

They worked fifteen or sixteen hours a day. The more they worked, the faster they wore themselves out, and they needed plenty of energy to replace what they had expended.

This was clear from their life expectancy. The grueling labor kept workers' average lifespan below forty, and in many physically demanding industries it fell below thirty-five.

In 1846, heat and drought caused poor harvests of wheat and beans, seriously threatening France's staple food supply and sending grain prices soaring.

In 1845, a hundred liters of wheat cost 17.15 francs. By 1847, the price had risen to 43 francs; in Upper Rhine Department, it skyrocketed to 49.5 francs, and in some places it even topped 50 francs.

Grain prices rose by 100 to 150 percent across much of northern and northeastern France, while the price of bread doubled.

Everything went up in price except wages, so naturally life grew harder for the working class.

As if the roof leaking wasn't enough, a British economic crisis in 1847 spilled over into France.

Rising grain prices had nothing to do with peasants' pockets. With harvests down, their incomes plunged, reducing France's domestic purchasing power.

Against this backdrop, cheap British manufactured goods flooded in, dealing an immediate blow to French industry and commerce.

Paris's industrial output was worth 1.463 billion francs in 1847, but by early 1848 it had fallen to 677 million.

It had been cut in half, then slashed by another ten percent. Those figures alone showed that French industry and commerce were in agony. In just one year, more than a thousand French businesses went bankrupt.

Behind the wave of business failures, a vast army of unemployed was bound to emerge, and social tensions in France grew ever sharper.

In these circumstances, the July Monarchy not only failed to take any effective measures, but was also rife with corruption and one scandal after another.

After the Labor Protection Act enacted by the Austrian Government reached Paris, it quickly caused a sensation among the working class.

By the time the Paris Government caught on and tried to suppress the news, it was already too late. Of course, the government had never been capable of enforcing such a crackdown in the first place.

Mass strikes erupted in Paris, then quickly spread across France and even reached other parts of Europe.

As the workers went on strike, the peasantry also rose up against hunger. Beginning in July 1847, peasants ruined by poor harvests and debt crises launched a wave of grain raids.

They ransacked landlords' estates, seized grain shops, and beat grain speculators to death. The movement spread to the cities as well, where unemployed workers, driven to desperation by hunger, joined in. It went down in history as the "Bread Riots."

The continuing collapse of social order also stirred the bourgeoisie's discontent with the government.

During the economic crisis, everyone had suffered heavy losses. They had just been getting ready to make a profit from grain to soothe their wounded spirits.

Then they discovered that French peasants were ferocious, and the working class could fight just as fiercely. If people couldn't afford to buy something, they simply took it by force. How were capitalists supposed to survive?

At this point, the French bourgeoisie also split apart. Apart from a few vested interests, most opposed the July Monarchy.

They included both monarchist opponents and Republicans, while the Republicans were divided into the National Party and the Reform Party. Their political platforms differed, but they had temporarily joined forces to oppose the July Monarchy.

The Guizot government's incompetence was plain to see. Its opponents held seventy banquets of various sizes across the country, and many openly called for revolution, yet the government failed to suppress them.

The government's ineptitude exposed its weakness to the revolutionaries, who began preparing for an armed uprising.

To the people of Paris, demonstrations were as commonplace as meals. On February 22, 1848, Parisians took to the streets to protest the government's ban on the Banquet Campaign.

Franz had no idea exactly what happened. In any case, history seemed to have shifted ever so slightly: that very night, the people of Paris rose up, and the February Revolution broke out.

After the uprising began, the revolutionary ranks swelled rapidly. Students, workers, townspeople, and capitalists all took part. Of course, few capitalists took up arms themselves; they offered support from behind the scenes.

Awakened by the revolution, the Guizot government hastily redeployed troops to suppress it. Unfortunately, they had underestimated the bond between the French army and its people.

Even the military had plenty of revolution sympathizers. Most of the National Guard refused to obey the government's order to suppress the revolution, and some troops openly switched sides.

As for what happened next, Franz could only fill in the blanks. More detailed intelligence had become difficult to obtain.

In any case, on the afternoon of February 23, 1848, King Louis-Philippe of France dismissed the Guizot government in an attempt to ease tensions, appointing the liberal Molé to form a cabinet and hoping to quell the bourgeoisie's anger.