Time to Stir Things Up

The Congress of Vienna was still ongoing, yet the refugee issue, which should have drawn enormous attention, was being subconsciously ignored by everyone.

The Russian representatives did not mention it, the Prussian representatives played dumb, and no one asked for help. Naturally, the international community assumed the matter had already passed.

No one knew when it had begun, but the primary mission of the armies along the Prusso-Russian border had shifted from fighting to suppressing refugee uprisings.

Starting in April, the number of refugees fleeing famine into Austria plummeted. By May, there were virtually none crossing the border.

Franz did not know what had happened during that time, nor did he dare ask.

According to Vienna Government estimates based on the information it had gathered, the Prusso-Russian War had caused at least four million deaths and displaced more than six million people.

Including local forces and guerrillas, Prussian Army losses amounted to roughly 1.768 million dead and 382,000 wounded or disabled; Russian Army losses were roughly 1.433 million dead and 671,000 wounded or disabled; direct civilian casualties stood at around 800,000, most of them in the Prusso-Polish Federation.

There was nothing surprising about it. A large share of the reason the losses of Prussia and Russia were so close was the contribution of Polish local forces and guerrillas.

Mountain bandits and common brigands may have been counted in as well. There was no way to distinguish them; the Russian Army counted every armed resistance group as part of its battle record.

After abandoning the Warsaw region, Poland became an enemy-occupied war zone. Naturally, there was no such thing as wounded or disabled soldiers there. The Russians would not treat enemy wounded, and all of the Prussian Army's wounded and disabled came from soldiers of the Kingdom of Prussia.

Counting the