Holy Roman Empire

Chapter 21: The Unexpected Economic Crisis

Even though he could not convince these cunning men, Ham was not angry, for he knew that they were already moved by his words. They were just too scared to speak their minds.

He was not a revolutionary, either; he had only joined the Revolutionary Party for the benefit of his interests, and he would be an idiot to rebel if he was able to achieve his goal by peaceful means.

What could he gain even after a successful rebellion, considering the battlefield was the whole European Continent?

Are the powerful and noble people born with their standing?

The answer is: Yes!

If the rebellion was a success, the best-case scenario was that he would become the president of the bourgeoisie republic, a situation not necessarily better than his present one.

On the other hand, if it was a failure, presumably the best outcome for him would be being exiled overseas.

In the face of harsh reality, Ham's unmotivated revolutionary enthusiasm abated even more.

For the vast majority of capitalists, supporting the Revolutionary Party was one thing; however, leading the revolution themselves was another thing, since they didn't want to be the president.

...

The banquet was difficult to keep a secret, so what happened in the Veris estate on the outskirts of Vienna was quickly passed on to Metternich. In that version of the story, of course, the later secret meeting was not included.

However, Prime Minister Metternich, a man of the rules, who kept the bottom line of the political struggle, could by no means arrest the capitalists who participated in the banquet on the charges of colluding with the Revolutionary Party.

It was exactly his rule-following nature which annoyed him.

He was frustrated because he could only defend himself passively, even knowing that capitalists were conspiring.

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"Beset by enemies from within and without" would be the appropriate description of his situation: the nobles, planning something against him, the capitalists, eyeing him covetously, all with the common purpose of getting rid of him.

In the winter of 1847, the public in Vienna had an intuitive feeling that prices of commodities had risen, and in fact, they had risen sharply at a rate that was even visible to the naked eyes.

By the end of December 1847, prices of commodities in Vienna had risen by 47 percent, and the capitalists were trying, little by little, to test the limits of the public's tolerance.

Everyone turned their eyes to the Vienna Government, expecting them to come up with a solution.

Obviously they were disappointed, for the Vienna Government had neither the capacity nor the authority to intervene in prices of commodities.

Very little effect was produced by the numerous measures taken by Prime Minister Metternich.

For instance, the government posted a public announcement ordering businessmen to stop raising prices of commodities, of which nothing came.

And nothing changed after several meetings between the Prime Minister and the capitalists.

Unfortunately, the government also failed to stabilize the price of goods by urgently pouring supplies from outside into the Vienna market. They were blocked by the capitalists and corrupt nobles.

Of course, it was not completely ineffective: at least the speed of price increase was suppressed, and prices did not climb to the peak all at once.

After the last failure, the capitalists did not trust each other much, and in the face of profit, many small capitalists could not wait for the highest prices.

As selfishness is the nature of humans, Franz knew very well that behind the sharp rise in prices in Vienna was the participation of the nobles, although they were motivated only by profit and were not involved in the joint action of capitalists.

Initially, these people had perhaps just wanted to take the opportunity to earn a fortune, but later, blinded by wealth, they had become trapped in a swamp of desire.

However, their luck was so bad that they got caught up in the European economic crisis.

Since 1845, Europe had suffered from poor food harvests, and international food prices soared. As food prices rose, Europe's purchasing power shrank consistently.

In 1846, the price of cotton and cotton textile products in the United States almost doubled, and high prices led to a decline in sales of cotton textile products.

With such decline in the volume of merchandise traded, the capitalists had no choice but to cut jobs: Britain's unemployment continued to soar, railway freight volumes hit new lows, many railway companies were in a state of loss, and the British railway bubble burst in the autumn of 1847.

A slight change in one part might affect the situation as a whole in Europe: when the railway bubble burst, the railways under construction were shut down, and the demand for steel fell.

The crisis quickly affected the steel and coal industry, and 58 out of 137 steel furnaces in Staffordshire were closed.

Production of pig iron fell by a third in a month and a half, while coal production fell by almost twenty percent.

In November 1847, 200 of the 920 cotton textile factories in Lancashire, one of the UK's textile industry centers, were completely closed, and the rest only worked two to four days a week.

More than 70 percent of workers suffered from unemployment or semi-unemployment.

The industrial crisis that broke out in Britain did not attract the attention of Austrian capitalists because neither the British economic crisis in1825 nor the one in 1837 affected Austria.

As a non-industrialized country, Austria did not even have the basics for an industrial crisis; even if it did, the possibility of an economic crisis would be infinitely low.

Many people had forgotten that Austria was no longer the major power it had been, and, as a non-industrialized country, it could not stand alone in the economic crisis.

The very first country that was affected was France: after the British economic crisis broke out, in order to overcome the crisis, British capitalists began dumping materials overseas, and the unprotected French became the first wave of victims.

By 1848, France's total industrial production fell by 50 percent.

Germany was no exception: as its industrial strength was weak, the impact was even graver.

In the winter of 1847, 3,000 out of 8,000 weaving machines in Klefeld were shut down; in the first half of 1848, only 3 of the 14 factories in Cologne worked; meanwhile, Erfert's industry was almost completely wiped out.

The Austrian capitalists cried, and the nobles who wanted to take advantage of the crisis also cried. In order to curb prices of commodities, the Vienna government cut import tariffs, and a large number of cheap British goods rushed into the market. It was more than they could bear.

In the face of dumping from an industrial country, any Austrian capitalist with half a brain would choose to retreat from the market immediately.

In January 1848, the prices of all industrial and commercial products collapsed, except food. Everyone was so busy with their own business that they did not have time to care about others.

Some capitalists, running ahead of time, could barely stop the loss, while the ones moving slow were locked up immediately.

Because of oversupply, the prices of industrial and commercial products on the Vienna market fell below their production costs, and the capitalists and nobles who drove up prices were forced to bear their painful losses.

Everyone knew that the economic crisis was coming. In order to reduce losses, capitalists started layoffs. Many capitalists suffered such great losses in this crisis that they simply closed the factories; thus, unemployment in Vienna climbed steeply.