Speculation

The pros and cons were obvious, and Franz had a headache. All three options looked good on the surface, but in reality, none of them was particularly reliable.

On the surface, Austria had quite a few colonies. Carve out a patch of land at random, and it could accommodate several million people.

But once they actually started drawing boundaries, the situation changed. The African Continent was out of the question; that was future homeland territory.

The South Seas looked promising, but in truth, there were not many islands capable of housing several million people. In any case, Franz was reluctant to give up New Guinea.

And after that, there was nothing. Kalimantan Island already had a population exceeding ten million; there was not that much unclaimed land.

Perhaps in later generations, several surrounding islands could also accommodate a few million people, but right now, it was truly impossible.

Franz still had his bottom line. Deaths on the battlefield could not be helped. But deliberately causing a man-made disaster after the war that starved more than a million people to death—that was something he could not do.

Of course, that bottom line only meant he would not do it himself. If someone else did it, Franz could turn a blind eye.

Oh, he could still condemn it. Anything more than that was beyond him. The world was simply that cruel; saints could not survive in the nineteenth century.

Unlike later generations, when supplies were abundant, an emperor whose compassion ran wild in this era could get his country killed.

The Americas were also a problem. Alaska was vast and rich in resources, especially now that gold mining had begun. The Vienna Government certainly would not let it go.

Austrian Central America was the strategic core of the Americas and could not