To help its little brothers restore their economies, an Austrian version of the "Marshall Plan" was born. Its core purpose was likewise to revive Europe's economy and seize markets for selling goods; the only difference was that the contents had changed a tiny bit.
Austria at this moment was nowhere near as flush with cash as the Americans after World War II. The Vienna Government could not produce massive financial aid at the drop of a hat.
To provide postwar reconstruction funds for the various countries, it had no choice but to raise money through the financial markets, so interest was unavoidable.
Before the outbreak of the Continental War, Europe's four major financial centers were London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfurt. As the undisputed king of finance, London's capital market was nearly equal to the latter three combined.
Because of the war, Paris was basically finished. Napoleon IV's counterattack before fleeing had battered the French financial syndicates until they were bruised and broken; simply surviving was no easy feat.
Austria had still been developing for too short a time. Franz also placed particular importance on the real economy, so most domestic funds had flowed into industry, leaving relatively little capital circulating in the financial markets.
Vienna and Frankfurt had become two of Europe's four major financial centers not because they were especially formidable, but entirely because the competitors behind them were too hopeless.
If all currency circulating in Europe's financial markets amounted to one hundred percent, London's financial market accounted for 48.7%, while second-place Paris accounted for 19.6% before the war. Vienna and Frankfurt followed close behind, accounting for 14.1% and 13.7% respectively.
Further down, the gap became staggering. Fifth-place Milan did not even reach two percent, and Madrid and Saint Petersburg further behind needed no mention.
This ranking applied not