While sweet-talking Switzerland, Austria used the same playbook on Spain, only with more generous terms and looser requirements.
Though the Spanish Empire had declined, it was still one of the great powers. Petty gains were not enough to buy it off, while Austria was unwilling to pay too steep a price.
So all they could do was lower their demands. Spain would not even need to send troops into battle. It only had to station forces along the border to give the French a headache, then step in to deliver the finishing blow once the overall situation was settled.
If the French won, then they could simply pretend nothing had happened and carry on as before.
Austria was even paying the military expenses. The earlier interest-free loan was Spain's appearance fee.
It was a deal guaranteed to turn a profit, with no risk of loss at all.
The only trouble was probably offending the French, but Spain had already offended them when it shifted its foreign policy. It did not matter if it did so once more.
As one of the great powers, Spain could still weather such a minor matter.
Besides courting Spain and Switzerland, Austria was also lobbying other European countries.
Although geopolitical considerations made it impossible for these countries to join the war, they were still useful for bolstering momentum.
By comparison, the French response was far more sluggish. It was not that the French Foreign Ministry was incompetent; the main issue was simply that the historical baggage was too severe.
The now-exposed Central European Strategy had alarmed all the countries of Europe, directly making the Foreign Ministry's work far more difficult.
Although the French Government repeatedly denied it, its military expansion and war preparations could not deceive anyone. Compared with French promises, everyone preferred to believe