＜ Episode 303 >
Budapest, Hungary
“I’m here?”
“ok. He has come.”
“Let’s have coffee.”
“I give it without whipping.”
All three of them were foreigners.
Of course, it was not unusual for three foreigners to come to a cafe in Budapest with two of them. It was still a cold day, so it was understandable that I was wearing a scarf as well, and foreigners wandering around are common in Europe today.
Of course, as he was shouting ‘I’m suspicious’ with his whole body, one of them was caught, but there were times when the police who confirmed the identity ran away in a hurry.
“Hey, Ernst.”
“What.”
“How is Germany these days?”
“We have entered a period of stability, and the Christian Democratic Party won. The Social Democrats are overthrown.”
“It’s not something that can be heard in foreign countries, but I want you to tell me a little bit of a secret situation.”
“Did you tell me? The extremists, the military broke the pot, and oh yes, Manstein was fired from the defense minister.”
“Aren’t you resigning due to health issues?”
“That’s it too, but I just got lost in the power game, because, frankly, not many people like traitors. But… hey, Yanoshi.”
“What.”
“What the hell… what have you been doing?”
“Is there a problem?”
“When anyone sees me, I go around with a lot of t-shirts that say ‘I’m suspicious’, but didn’t the passing police stop me?”
“I did.”
“I did, but didn’t you feel the problem?”
“what?”
“I will turn.”
“Who will rescue that cursed fashion sense?”
“Be sure to meet the spicy Jesu.”
The two men slurped their coffee after each swear word.
“Well, this is a gift.”
Inside a small box was a pistol.
“I’m not taking this.”
“You didn’t even check? As anyone can see, I am a college student.”
“Where are college students like you?”
After a brief chatter, the man whose name was not called pushed a pistol to the man named Yanoshi.
“Your mother and your mother have a bit of a relationship with the weapon, and I couldn’t find where it went, but my father happened to find it somewhere.”
He nodded as he brushed the surface of the old-looking automatic pistol.
“Thank you.”
“Come to think of it, my mother said that, but… your mother was taking over Steyr.”
“Have the rumors already spread, yes, yes.”
“Well, I’m not going to say anything special about taking over, but… Steyr itself was a place that produced the weapons of the empire during the double empire.”
“right.”
“That’s a little bit different from your mother’s behavior…”
“Are you hanging on to your dick?”
“Hey, I won’t deny it.”
“Well, from your mother’s point of view, I’ll admit it, but that’s the reason… The time has come for us to gradually have our own weapon system, but until when will we dictate it in Russia? You too, Mouser was disbanded on suspicion of taking part in a war crime, but Sig Saeda put together all the remains of Mouser to print a weapon.”
“That’s right, hey, Victor, what do you think?”
“I’m just going to buy some company stock. What can I say? Or what did your father or mother say? My father also owns a lot of stocks in America. If you have money, you are free to invest wherever you want.”
“Well…and unlike Switzerland, Austria has independence as an option.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Now, let’s check, what’s in Austria now?”
“…….. I know? All the factories were in the Czech Republic, and all the agricultural areas were in Hungary.”
“There was a financial industry in the past, but it was all sucked out after it was merged with Germany, and to be honest, it’s just one state in a very backward mountainous region, so it’s not worth it to eat. Even in the same mountainous region, Switzerland is a different story.”
“Since the precision industry has developed there, as a German Empire that has suffered a lot of damage to its industrial capabilities, it cannot be missed, even if it is lost…”
“At least all of the factory equipment should be torn down, including the technical personnel.”
“I understand what you mean, in most cases it is unlikely, but giving up Austria is an option depending on the national situation.”
“Above all, the demand for independence is usually not intense. Well, it would have been easier if the position had been the other way around, but if Austria’s demand for independence was fierce and Switzerland was quiet, Mother would have freed Austria at an appropriate time without any worries.”
“What, did a major strike happen?”
“strike? Strikes are a joke for kids!”
“Ernst, be quiet.”
“Oh, damn, I’m so excited, damn it… So I guess I’ll have to follow my dad’s way.”
“Father way?”
“I don’t recommend it, it’s the opposite of having more complicated women in your family.”
“Other than that, you idiot.”
“Then what?”
“Population exchange, after your father plunders the territory, you expel all the people who live there. Afterwards, we won’t be able to speak out, and those who have not been deported will be relocated to a faraway place.”
“In a word, it is still a work in progress. Administrative power is literally always on the verge of staggering one or two steps away from overload, damn it. No matter how much we expand our workforce, there are still more jobs to come.”
“It doesn’t happen that much, but my father is overloaded with administrative power and adjusts the speed so that all administrations are not paralyzed. We put it in the warehouse and release it just enough to not overload the factory.”
“Returning to the original story, what are you going to do to send the Austrians to Switzerland and forcibly relocate the Swiss to Austria?”
“It is one of the options. If it’s hard, I’ll really do it, but I’d like you to shut up before you make that choice.”
“Why don’t they know that, even if they rise up, there is no hope of independence in the first place unless the country of origin is defeated in the war?”
“I used to say that to the Irish, but they were already independent.”
“It’s because Britain was defeated in the war, do you think we’re going to lose the war again? There will be no war in the first place.”
“The Great War happened because there was a country that wanted to fight.”
“It was a predicted war, and who knew there was going to be a war in the Balkans. Now the Balkans have changed a lot, think of the United States of Hungary.”
“Actually, Austria-Hungary was not a ruined country either. If it had won the war, it would have been able to survive. Would it be a sin if my father was in an enemy country?”
“If it was a sin… it would be a sin.”
Yanoshi sighed, sipping his coffee.
“There will be no war or civil war in the future, anyway, Mother promised semi-independent status to most peoples, and returned most of the local autonomy powers except for diplomatic and military powers, above all…”
In original history, an intellectual who was a Czech nationalist said this after the Czech Republic gained independence. ‘We wanted independence from Austria-Hungary, and we got it, but it was a curse, not a blessing. There is no one who does not want to go back to the past.’
The same is true for the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the obvious preferential policy towards Serbs provoked the wrath of Croatians and other ethnic groups, and the Yugoslavian royal family had no ability to control it.
It was no coincidence that the nostalgia for Austro-Hungary grew stronger, and that, once the fire broke out, the entire kingdom of Yugoslavia fell, and when the Hungarian army intervened, Croatians brought bread and salt to welcome the return of the Habsburgs. It wasn’t.
In fact, when Queen Sofi stimulated the nostalgia of the past by actively promoting welfare policies, such as declaring that she would inherit all the policies for the satisfaction of the subjects of Austria-Hungary, the Croatians attacked Serbs as if they were enemies and drove them away for the first time in 30 years. They welcomed the returned Hungarian troops.
“There are a lot of people who miss the Austria-Hungarian Empire.”
“Others are good, but how are you going to recover Czechoslovakia? You want me to go to my father and ask him to give it to me?”
“Then it would be terribly good, but… it can’t be, there is a scenario that we are considering most easily and seriously, but even if things go well, it will take a while.”
“how much?”
“Shortly, 30 years.”
“… I know what method it is.”
“The traditional way.”
“The question is, don’t you need the active support of the people for your plan to succeed? In 30 years, the generation that remembers Austria-Hungary will be pushed out of the mainstream of society, and everyone will be ready to cover it up.”
“That’s a problem… In the Czech Republic, the support force is weaker than in Austria, Hungary or the Balkans.”
“It’s funny by the way, but after all, this is a reproduction of the Bismarck system. If Russia, Germany, and Austro-Hungarian Empire removed the Ottomans and replaced Britain with the United States, would it be the Bismarck system itself?”
“A reproduction of the Belle Epoque.”
The man nodded and took the food he ordered with a fork.
“Belle Epoch ……. Actually, my father was negative about Belle Epoch.”
“Isn’t that ironic?”
The three of them were, as you might guess, half brothers.
Perhaps the most famous half-brothers in the world at this time.
Crown Prince Victor of the Russian Empire.
Prince Ernst of the German Empire.
and Janos, Crown Prince of the United States of Hungary.
three successors.
“The difference is that Bismarck maintained the Belle Epoque through his diplomatic power, but his father made it through military power and blood.”
“My father wants more than that, he wants the whole of Europe to act as one country, and the renewal of this joint defense treaty will be part of it.”
“The whole of Europe… the Roman Empire didn’t even get there, because it couldn’t cross the Rhine.”
“You are dreaming of a feat equal to that of Charlemagne, your father. Reducing the power of the lower classes and the abolition of privileges for the nobility would be part of it.”
“Charlemagne the Great… By the way, did Charlemagne have four wives and six concubines? Two of them were thrown out, so in the end, I had two wives and six concubines.”
“Uh… well… that’s right… I mean, there’s only one person missing. Anyway.”
“It seems that Charlemagne the Great of the 20th century is right…”
No one said what was missing.
“Well, there are many more sons, but three of the four sons of Carolus died earlier than their father, and the only survivor was Ludwig the Pious? Let us not die prematurely.”
“That’s right, by the way, it would have been nice if my father was a little more lenient.”
“If your father had done it in moderation, you would never have been born, child.”