Chapter 12 Is There Such a Good Thing?

Frankfurt, headquarters of the German Customs Union (tentative).

There is an unwritten rule in this era, that is, there must be a dance party during negotiations.

Frankfurt is located in the heart of the German region, and with the promotion of trade, Frankfurt's service industry is the best in Germany at this time.

Historically, Frankfurt Cathedral was the place where the Holy Roman Emperor ascended the throne.

On the temporary stage in the center of the venue, one of the most charming dancers attracted everyone's attention.

The beautiful dance and the peerless face made the audience intoxicated.

However, the representative of Prussia, Frederick Ansilon, was not in the mood to appreciate all this, and ordered his entourage to give the dance troupe a sum of money to stop the performance.

Even though the performance was over, the representatives kept toasting and drinking, as if they had long forgotten about the meeting.

The Bavarian representative even talked about music with the Württemberg representative, and they were so interested that they played four-finger strumming.

The Prussian representative had to stop the performance to get the meeting back on track.

If the alliance could shut Austria out without a reply, he would be happy to enjoy the fun with these people.

But the letter sent by the Austrians was more of an ultimatum than an application.

Austria will open its borders to members of the German Customs Union in a month and will also send its own caravan.

If the alliance cannot reach an agreement and explicitly refuses Austria's joining, then Austrian goods will enter Germany through Saxony and Bavaria.

As for expecting Saxony and Bavaria to stop Austria, it is simply impossible. The Bavarians don't want to cause trouble, and Saxony is happy to see the two powers of Austria and Prussia fighting each other.

The representative of Brunswick spoke first, "I object! Austria is too big. What we want is free trade, and the joining of Austrians may affect our freedom."

As the vanguard of Prussia's unification of Germany, Brunswick naturally has an obligation. Anyway, there are still many countries between Brunswick and Austria, and the most important thing is that there is Prussia among them, so he can be so unscrupulous.

"Isn't Prussia big? Why don't we expel Prussia from the alliance here?" The representative of Saxony joked.

Saxony has always regarded Prussia as the first obstacle to leading North Germany. At the same time, since a large area of ​​​​territory was taken over by Prussia, Saxony will not miss any opportunity to make Prussia unhappy.

"But Prussia has already joined the alliance."

"Then withdraw again." The representative of Saxony is Saxony's Interior Minister Anket.

Originally, this kind of thing would never be done by Anket, the Interior Minister. But by chance, Saxony's Finance Minister and Foreign Minister were sick, and even the king's advisers were sick.

His Majesty Anton has a reputation as a kind and kind person, so he naturally would not force sick ministers to work overtime, so this difficult task naturally fell on his head, under the name of "the more capable, the more work".

Although His Majesty Anton often claims to be the master of the most powerful state in North Germany, Saxony at this time is no longer the same as before.

After the Napoleonic Wars, Saxony was forced to cede two-fifths of its territory to Prussia. By this time, two-thirds of Saxony's territory and half of its population had fallen into the hands of Prussia.

Saxony's industry and commerce were developed, but since joining the German Customs Union, he could clearly feel that this advantage was disappearing under Prussia's intentional or unintentional suppression, and it became increasingly dependent on Prussia.

Between the declining country and the self-proclaimed powerful king, every diplomatic event in Saxony was a torment for the Saxon officials involved.

Although the king declared a constitutional monarchy in 1831, the power of promotion and appointment of officials was still in the hands of the king.

The so-called constitutional monarchy was just for the people.

Prussian Foreign Minister Frederick Ansilon was also full of resentment. Due to the gap in strength between Prussia and Austria at this time, and Austria's position as chairman of the German Confederation, Prussia could not take a tough attitude.

So Frederick Ansilon was told to stop the Austrians from joining the German Customs Union, but not to anger the Austrians.

The reason for this internal negotiation of the alliance was that the Prussian officials hoped to shut up the Austrians through voting.

So he needed to win as much support as possible. Through long-term trade, Prussia had already won over the majority of small states.

But the powerful states in the German Confederation, such as Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg, Hanover, and Hesse, did not stand on the side of Prussia.

They either supported or depended on Austria, or had their own ambitions.

His Majesty William III was only willing to provide 50,000 thalers of financial support, in the spirit of saving as much as possible.

Just now, 2,000 thalers had been spent to get the dance troupe out.

Frederick Ansilon decided to reason with these people first, and then consider the bribe.

What he didn't expect was that Saxony's Ankert was so difficult to deal with.

What was even more terrifying was that Ankert's words seemed to resonate within the alliance.

If you want to blame Prussia itself, Prussia did have an industrial first-mover advantage over other members of the alliance, and the coal and steel in the Rhine region provided Prussia with resource advantages.

Moreover, many rules in the alliance were formulated by the Prussians, so there must be a certain degree of bias.

In addition, there will definitely be frictions between trade, and businessmen will be jealous of each other, not to mention between countries.

So the representatives in the meeting began to recall the past, and some even began to reveal that the Prussians wanted to monopolize the German Customs Union and cut everyone's leeks.

At the same time, representatives of several powerful states praised the Brunswick representative for his foresight and being a real man who pursues freedom and fairness.

Their behavior is self-evident. They want to expel Austria and Prussia, but they don't want to be hated by Prussia and Austria.

The small city-state of Brunswick is unable to withstand the anger of either Prussia or Austria.

The Brunswick representative immediately panicked and looked at Frederick Ansilon on the side.

Frederick Ansilon nodded, then cleared his throat and said.

"Please rest assured, representatives. On behalf of the Kingdom of Prussia, I assure you that Prussia has no ambition to dominate Germany and will never do so. We welcome any German compatriots to join us, but we do not welcome those Hungarians in the Habsburg family's territory."

"The Habsburg family's territory is too large and complex, and there are even tariffs between Austria and Hungary. We cannot accept unilateral trade protection from the Austrians." Another representative added.

The members of the German Customs Union did not like the existence of Hungary. After all, most of the German states were still agricultural countries at that time. Hungary's grain entering Germany would inevitably impact the market and reduce their income.

Frederick Ansilon's speech immediately resonated with everyone, but Metternich was not a useless person. He had bribed the representatives of Thuringia to let him speak for Austria when necessary.

"Then let the Austrians and Hungarians draw a line and keep their tariffs. As long as the Austrians agree, we can still share the entire market. The Austrian market and information will surely inject new vitality into the alliance."

"But what if the Austrians disagree? Or what if they pretend to obey the agreement? Who can punish the Austrians?"

The two sides supporting Prussia and Austria were arguing fiercely at this time.

What they didn't know was that within the Austrian Empire, the Hungarian nobles firmly opposed joining the German Customs Union and were gathering in Vienna to ask His Majesty the Emperor to allow Hungary to be independent of the German Customs Union.

When Franz heard this, he thought there was such a good thing?