Holy Roman Empire

Chapter 10: Intelligence Agents at Minimum Cost

It was not Franz's intention to show up so early, and he wouldn't mind being behind the curtain all the time if he could help it.

Unfortunately, that was impossible. As the Crown Prince of the Austrian Empire, Franz's every move was scrutinized by men with serious intentions.

Franz's frequent contact with the military could have caused a kerfuffle if he were not young and hadn't had power in hand. But such was the advantage that power and youth provided him.

Still, Franz had to show up behind the scenes, either to find a way to manipulate public opinion or to act as one who could and would speak for the public. The only difference would be whether he was pushed out in front of the public reluctantly or proactively stepped out into the open.

Franz did not want to be anyone's pawn, so he chose to take the initiative this time around and step forward of his own volition. If everything stayed on course, Vienna would have a revolution in March 1848, and he would ascend the throne in December of that year.

In order not to be tarnished by the rebels and have to ascend the throne with the shame of an executioner, thus marring his reign before it even began, Franz had to make the first move to act a leader of the public.

Because everyone had a preconceived notion of who he was, Franz had to establish the image of a merciful emperor to prevent any attacks or mudslinging before they damaged the reputation of the Austrian royal family.

"Raul, how goes the secret staff recruitment I asked for?" Franz asked with concern.

"Dear Archduke, I'm afraid not very well, as too few people meet your requirements. So far, I have only poached two people from the secret police, and their ability only meets your minimum requirements!" Raul replied perplexedly.

Franz was slightly taken aback by this, as he did not expect it to be so difficult to recruit intelligence agents. Was it because the standards he set were too high?

He thought he had made were the most basic of demands: loyalty to the imperial family, no political affiliation, a certain amount of wisdom, courage, alertness, patience, and a keen sense of judgment, and preferably a certain level of professional ability.

Aside from those, he didn't even bring up the generally typical requests for agents: good personal temperament, a wide range of knowledge, keen political instincts, and strong analytical ability.

"Exactly what requirements are they unable to meet?" Franz asked with concern.

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"Your excellency! Plenty of candidates can meet one or several of your requirements, but very few can meet them all!" Raul said, as a second thought.

Franz was dumbfounded by the answer. Now that he thought about it, Franz found it was true: professional intelligence agents, at that time, were rather rare, while amateur ones were plentiful.

It was challenging to set up an intelligence agency. Even if Franz, the imperial Crown Prince, could poach government agents, how could he guarantee the loyalty of these people?

What if they were spies controlled by someone else?

He couldn't ignore the possibility. In those days, professional intelligence agents always had a boss. Franz could only establish an agency by either cultivating agents himself or poaching ones from the government.

"Don't hold back if you have any suggestions!" said Franz with a frown, looking at Raul, whose words stopped all of a sudden.

"Archduke, in fact, you don't have to establish this agency by yourself since the royal family already has one. But all these years..."

Raul stopped in the middle of a sentence.

Franz nodded, as he knew of the Royal Intelligence. Typically, this agency answered only to the emperor.

While its scale was small, its purpose was singular—to keep an eye on the internal condition of the state and its neighbors.

After his uncle took office, the Intelligence was almost deserted, and many agents were poached by Prime Minister Metternich.

There was also the question of how much loyalty was left among those who remained.

On the other hand, even Franz would despise them if they didn't seize the opportunity to take advantage of these departments when the emperor was weak.

Because of that weakness, intelligence under the royal family was more like a sieve than armor.

That was why Franz tried to start a separate agency to begin with, one which would be entirely loyal to himself alone.

The problem was that time was running out: one year remained before the breakout of the Vienna Revolution, and there was nothing he could do to get his agents ready before that time came.

"Well, Raul, first send someone to check out, in secret, what big forces had infiltrated the organization. I believe there must be some people still loyal to the royal family in there!" Franz said, resolute and decisive.

If there were no such people, then the Habsburg family would be damned. They had stood at the peak of Europe from the 11th century to the present, and there had to be a reason for that, one that was more complex than met the eye.

Franz could tell some of that from the situation in Austria. Since Franz's uncle, Ferdinand I, couldn't manage government affairs, power over major issues fell upon Prime Minister Metternich.

However, Prime Minister Metternich, as a ruler, behaved unlike any other. He bullied and suppressed the royal family, and his policies were even frequently affected by the Vienna Court.

The chief representative of the next generation of the royal family, Archduke Franz Karl, also had a congenital defect, and his IQ in politics was definitely zero.

Franz could quickly obtain support from the military on the basis of his origins as an heir to the Habsburg family and the Crown Prince of the Austrian Empire.

Beyond that, he could not make any difference, no matter how hard he tried. In fact, in history, Prime Minister Metternich was forced to resign after the outbreak of the Vienna Revolution, simply because he had no support from the military.

Then the situation would not be as bad as previously thought. Perhaps the aristocracy infiltrated the intelligence, but this didn't necessarily mean that they had betrayed the royal family. As long as their interests were not involved, the intelligence could still be used under normal service conditions.

When he realized this, Franz breathed a sigh of relief. Conflicts of interest between them might exist on other issues, but the Viennese aristocrats definitely stood with the emperor on the subject of suppressing the rebellion.

As for the bourgeois, without contempt, Franz just didn't see them being able to infiltrate the intelligence, considering that most of the members of the intelligence were nobles. Otherwise, with no money granted for more than ten years, the agency would have been dismissed long since.

Through these nobles scattered throughout the country, the royal family could easily collect domestic intelligence, and no salary was needed for the vast majority of them.

Agents in the intelligence agency of the Hapsburg family were not killer spies, and they had no law enforcement powers except to collect ordinary information.

Because of the tribute system of European nobles, the emperor had no access to anything inside their fiefdoms, and they could hide any information they chose since they themselves were the providers of the messages.

After a long hesitation, Franz finally decided to take this agency in hand first, because a rotten agency was better than no agency. At least, before a local rebellion broke out, he could get news in advance.

Moreover, a poor person like him could only support a self-sustaining organization like that.