Now it was obvious that Alexander could no longer count on the Hungarian nobles to support him in the early winter. The only way back was cut off, so now there were only two choices before him.
One is to pay some price to ask the Prussians to intervene in mediation, and the other is to fight to the death with Karl in the city of Wagram. The final winner will become the master of Austria!
At this moment, Alexander was like a beast forced to a dead end, his eyes were red and he was holding his head in his arms.
"Your Highness, we can no longer hesitate. We can't resist Karl for much longer in Wagram. If the time delay is too long, before the Prussians intervene, we may have become the ghosts of Karl's sword!"
Looking at Alexander who still couldn't make a decision, Daniel quickly spoke to the side.
Daniel's words seemed to stimulate the man who was forced to a dead end. Alexander slapped the city wall next to him, and then said with red eyes:
"Daniel, send someone to contact the Prussians immediately. I ask Prussia for mediation!"
"No, Your Highness!"
After hearing Alexander's decision, Nuhad quickly spoke to dissuade him anxiously.
But now it was obvious that Alexander had made up his mind, so he did not make any reply to Nuhad's dissuasion, but immediately turned around and returned to the city of Wagram.
After Alexander left with a group of people, Nuhad stood on the city wall with his eyes blank and murmured:
"It's over, everything is over!"
After Daniel received Alexander's order, he immediately sent people to České Budejevice, where Dessau's base camp was located.
But after sending the fastest messenger, Daniel still had a more important thing to do, which was to strengthen the defense of Wagram City.
You must know that a round trip from Wagram to České Budejevice takes half a month even with the fastest horse. And now that the Austrian army led by Karl is about to approach the city, how can we ensure that Wagram is at least half a month away?
Not making any mistakes within a month is the biggest problem at the moment.
Less than thirty miles west of Wagram. Karl is currently leading his army to be stationed there.
At this moment, in order to attack Alexander, Karl mobilized more than 30,000 troops, which was also the largest force he could mobilize at present.
After Karl took over Vienna, the areas around Vienna turned to Karl one after another. Not only that, but also areas in southern and western Austria began to welcome Karl as his lord.
"Ferdinand, Alexander still has a posture of fighting to the end. This really gives me a headache. I really don't want us brothers to fight in the same room. Do you have any good ideas to change the current situation?"
Karl said to Ferdinand who was sitting in the military tent.
At this moment, Karl took Ferdinand with him. Although Ferdinand and Alexander were very close to each other, Ferdinand was still on his side after all. In addition, it was precisely because of the relationship between Ferdinand and Alexander.
His feelings made Karl worried about letting Ferdinand out of his control.
If Ferdinand was left in Vienna, if Ferdinand had any thoughts again, Karl, who was leading the army outside, and the tens of thousands of troops under his command would be a threat. Karl knew this well.
As for Karl's precautions, not only Karl was aware of it, but Ferdinand was also well aware of it.
Although after Ferdinand took refuge with Karl, Karl was promoted to a higher rank and received a large number of rewards, but Ferdinand understood that Karl had not let down his guard against him.
But at the moment, Karl is the general trend after all, so Ferdinand said:
"His Highness's thoughts are really touching to me. Well, why don't I write a letter home to Alexander later to give some advice to our younger brother!"
Hearing what Ferdinand said, Karl nodded noncommittally and said:
"Well, then let's give it a try as you said!"
In fact, both of them knew that it was impossible for Alexander to surrender because of Ferdinand's letter from home. It was even impossible to say that when Ferdinand's letter from home was delivered to Alexander, strong indignation would arise in Alexander's heart.
.
After all, Alexander had a lot of trust in Ferdinand before, but who could know. Ferdinand actually turned to Karl at the most critical moment instead of supporting Alexander as always, which really made Alexander very sad.
But no matter what the relevant people think, this letter must still be written. After all, this is an opportunity to show his loyalty to Karl. Ferdinand has no reason not to seize it.
.............................
Sitting in the České Budejevice City Hall, Marshal Dessau looked very unhappy.
The reason for Marshal Dessau's bad mood comes from two aspects. One is that William reprimanded him some time ago, and the other is that the Ministry of Military Affairs rejected his proposal to send troops to Austria.
I have said before that most of Marshal Dessau's military exploits can be said to have been achieved by the Austrians. Now that there is civil strife in Austria again, for Dessau, this is undoubtedly another excellent opportunity for Prussia.
But now the Ministry of Military Affairs actually gave up this opportunity, preferring to watch life and death in Austria, and chose to ignore the benefits at their fingertips.
Of course, during his time in České Budejevice, Marshal Dessau did not spend all his time in depression. After all, this area had just been occupied by the Prussians, and the post-war occupation work was undoubtedly the most energy-intensive.
At least those Austrian guerrillas who were not willing to submit to Prussian rule and some bandits still needed Marshal Dessau to dispatch troops to annihilate them.
For Prussia, every time it conquered an area, Prussia would always centralize and preserve all local books and documents, and then the books on the market, especially the teaching materials of various schools in the occupied areas, would all be replaced with books written in Prussian.
At the same time, Prussia had a strict order that prohibited the circulation of any writings from the previous dynasty.
I believe everyone has studied a text called "The Last Lesson", which mentioned the story of Prussia completely banning French and switching to German after occupying Alsace and Lorraine in France.
A century-old plan, education is the main priority! This is not only familiar to William from later generations, but even in its original history, Prussia also did a very good job.
Prussia was the first country in the world to implement a census, and also the first country in the world to implement six-year compulsory education. As early as the end of the 18th century, Prussia's illiteracy rate had been controlled below three percent.
After William came to power, he stepped up education efforts.
Of course, this education does not refer to miscellaneous education. After all, Prussia is still an autocratic monarchy. The books of the famous Voltaire and some so-called democrats are not only circulated by the upper class in Prussia.
In addition, all other private holdings and circulations are considered anti-national.
Even though the land at the foot of Dessau had just been divided into Prussia within a few months, Prussian books had already begun to be distributed to all schools in the entire region, and as for the original teachers in those schools
, only some who were screened and qualified remained, and many teachers with tendencies in teaching were dismissed. Of course, the vacancies vacated by these teachers will be uniformly deployed by the Prussian Ministry of Education.
Many people may think that the lingua franca in the Holy Roman Empire is German, and are the Prussians unnecessary? In fact, this question is completely absurd.
The current official language of Prussia is German, which originated in the Brandenburg region. Although it is also German, it is a branch of German called East Low German. Among them
The difference between the German used in Prussia and the dialect used in Austria is no smaller than the difference between the Northeastern dialect of China and the Shanghai dialect. As for the writing method, there is even a difference, just like mainland China and Taiwan currently have
It is common to use simplified Chinese characters and traditional Chinese characters respectively. Many people who learn simplified Chinese characters cannot understand traditional Chinese characters at all.
In addition, if Mandarin is not taught in schools, do you expect a Northeastern person to be able to chat with a Shanghainese as soon as they meet? (As an aside, I am from northern Jiangsu Province, but when I hear the Suzhou dialect in southern Jiangsu, I will
I’m almost desperate. I’ve been living with it for nearly two years, but I still feel unclear.)
It can be said that childhood is the most important period in a person's life. Only when those children grow up in an environment will they develop a sense of dependence and belonging. The education work in the occupied areas has always been Prussian.
Government's focus.
At the moment, Marshal Dessau is just worried about such a thing. There is a small town called Lishov in the east of České Budejevice.
The language spoken in this town is Austrian German, and after Prussia captured it, people were sent to renovate the schools in the town. But who knew that all the more than twenty teachers in the town refused to teach Prussian?
Language and writing.
Originally, this was nothing to be alarmed about. After all, there were many schools that did not cooperate with the policies of the Prussian Ministry of Education, and in many of them, all teachers refused to teach Prussian textbooks, language and characters.
But what gave Dessau a headache was that just as he was about to follow Prussia's previous practice of handling such matters, dismiss all these teachers and arrest the leaders among them, he aroused the common hatred of everyone in the town.
The thirty or so Prussian soldiers sent to arrest these teachers, as well as several officials and some policemen who had been assigned to Lishov, were all driven out of the town.
Originally, because Lishow was just a small town, Prussia did not station any troops.
You must know that the area occupied is so large. If Prussia stationed all its troops in these places, Prussia's 200,000 troops would not be able to spread it.
Therefore, for these strategically unimportant and relatively remote areas, Prussia often arranges a few officials and some police to get the job done.
But who could have known that Lishov's group would be so bold. Not only did they openly resist arrest, but they also drove out all the local Prussian officials and police. Their nature was undoubtedly that of rebellion.
What made Dessau even more troublesome was that Lishov had a very bad head. After Lishov drove away the Prussians, several surrounding towns followed suit.
According to Dessau's intention, the army must be sent to wash all these areas again, but Dessau's opinion was considered inappropriate by the staff.
In addition to advising the commander in chief during wartime, the staff officers in the Prussian army also have the responsibility to analyze every order given by the commander. If they think there are problems, then these staff officers have the right to reject it.
The head coach can also act arbitrarily regardless of the opinions of these staff officers, but similarly, these staff officers also have the right to report the matter to the Military Ministry for judgment.
Although the matter in Lishov can only be regarded as a civil dispute, after all, these towns have begun to openly resist Prussia, so these staff officers have the right to express their opinions on this matter.
If it is not true that Dessau was reprimanded by William some time ago, then he will not care too much about the objections of these staff officers, but the key point is that he has just been reprimanded by William. At this time, if he still insists on going his own way, what if?
If the matter is not handled well, then there will definitely be no good fruits for him in Dessau.
It was under this situation that Dessau felt somewhat constrained.
At this moment, a man dressed as an official walked into Dessau's room
"What did the people who were sent say?"
Seeing the official come in, Dessau frowned and asked.
"Your Excellency Marshal, the people in Lishov and several surrounding towns have still not given up their plan. They not only ask us to put back all the teachers we arrested before. They also ask us to stop interfering in their local education issues!"
"It's just nonsense! It seems that if you don't show these people some skills, they really don't know how capable they are! Education in Prussia has always been the focus of His Majesty the King, and several regions have been severely punished for this.
!Before, I just couldn’t bear it, but now it seems that we must let them see the pros and cons!"
This official was sent by Dessau to Lishov to communicate with the people of the town, but it was obvious that the reply this official brought was not in line with Dessau's wishes.
The implementation of Prussian education in the occupied areas is Prussia's national policy that cannot be changed! There is no doubt about this! Since under such circumstances, those people still dare to provoke Prussia. Then they must pay the price for this!
After making up his mind, Dessau immediately ordered the Prussian 20th Division stationed in the České Budjevice area to mobilize and prepare to go to Lishov.
And on the next day, when Dessau was just about to give the order for the 20th Division to march to Lishov, Alexander's envoy happened to arrive at České Budejevice.
In the official residence in Dessau.
"Hello, dear Marshal!"
Looking at the dusty man in front of him, Dessau's nose twitched unnoticed.
"I wonder why His Highness Alexander sent you here?"
Dessau was not prepared to beat around the bush with this man. You must know that it was precisely because of this man's arrival that Dessau had to postpone the deployment of the 20th Division. If the people in Lishov knew about it, they would probably burn incense and pray to thank this man.
Alexander's envoy. Because it was he who bought a few more days for the people of Lishov.
Seeing that Dessau was not going to beat around the bush, the envoy kept his story short and said immediately:
"Your Excellency, Marshal, His Royal Highness the Regent of our country sent me here in the hope that Prussia can be asked to lend a helping hand regarding the current situation in our country!"
Upon hearing this man's words, Dessau meant that this person came to apply for aid from Prussia on behalf of Alexander, so Dessau immediately waved his hand and said:
"Your Excellency, Ambassador. Less than half a year ago, our country just signed a peace agreement with your country, and the validity period of this agreement is five years! The Kingdom of Prussia is a country that abides by its credibility, so within five years
.Unless there is an unforeseen major situation between the two countries, we in Prussia will never interfere in your country's domestic affairs!"
Indeed, from Prussia's perspective, Prussia has really cared about its credibility so far. At least in the second Austro-Prussian War, Austria started the war against Prussia first.
Hearing what Dessau said, the envoy immediately shook his head and said:
"No, no, no, Marshal, I think you have misunderstood. His Royal Highness the Regent Alexander did not intend to request military assistance from your country. His Royal Highness the Regent just hopes that your country can mediate the civil war currently occurring in our country!
Although the war in our country was caused by Karl rashly launching a rebellion in Vienna, after all, Karl and His Highness the Regent are brothers. In this case, His Highness the Regent hopes to restore the brotherhood between him and Karl, so
I would like to ask Prussia to mediate!"
When Dessau heard about the mediation, he was stunned, but joy followed.
Although due to the current plans of Prussian high-level officials, Prussia is not prepared to intervene in the fraternal disputes in Austria. However, for Dessau, the so-called intervention by high-level officials is only military intervention, which does not mean that it cannot intervene diplomatically.
At present, there are still executive officers in the area that Austria just ceded to Prussia. This also means that before there is accurate information from Brandenburg, Dessau is not only the top decision-maker in this area, but also the key link between Prussia and Austria.
The most critical part.
Even for Dessau, as long as he can bite off a piece of fat in Austria, then it is Dessau's credit no matter what.
"Oh, please ask our country to mediate, yes, but......................"
As he spoke, Desau began to ponder. From the perspective of the envoy, Desau's behavior made it clear what Desau was thinking. He made this gesture simply because he wanted benefits!