Enemies of the Revolution
September 1788. Austria. While the monarchies of Europe debated their profits with regard to France, only one nation spoke of principles: Austria.
"We must strike now and show all of Europe the power of the people!"
"Nonsense! Don't you remember how 700,000 were ground up in the Hundred Days' War?"
It was all because of the Austrian revolutionary government.
The Austrian revolutionary government had originally been an oligarchy of nobles and bourgeois. But during the revolution, those nobles and bourgeois had been purged by the masses, and intellectuals filled the void. Naturally, this hastily assembled government brought great chaos to Austria.
"We must eradicate all the counter-revolutionary scum who refuse to join the revolution!"
There were deputies bloodthirsty for hunting down nobles who had fled in the revolution's final days; others who deflected internal problems onto foreign ones: "We must punish the nations that brought our country to this state!" And still others who blamed everything on Joseph II: "Joseph Adam must die for the revolution to be complete."
There was only one reason this chaos persisted.
"Whatever we do, we need to sort out the price of bread first!"
Austria still hadn't overcome the famine.
"The weather's mild, the rains are good—why is our domestic crop yield so pitiful? How does it make sense that we're worse off than France, which got hammered by hail?"
The Grímsvötn volcanic eruption and freak weather had plagued Eastern and Central Europe from 1783 to 1786, causing famine. That sparked the revolution in early 1786 and Joseph II's pensioning off, but even two and a half years after the weird weather ended, Austria hadn't recovered.
"Mr. Chairman, that's obvious. No one's farming, so there's no produce."
It was because the farmers weren't farming.
During the revolution, the farmers had become militiamen and led the charge. But even after it ended, they roamed Vienna as militiamen.
"Why the hell are they still wandering Vienna? No—why haven't they gone back to their villages?"
"There are a few suspects, but..."
It stemmed from a tangle of reasons. For one, they all remembered the tax collectors' brutal exactions—and how they'd solved it with force. That planted the idea of might-makes-right in these former peasants and artisans turned militiamen.
The spoils they'd reaped during the revolution were another problem. Especially the thousands of francs the tax collectors carried and the tons of food pouring from noble storehouses. Success with such massive rewards through violence had shattered their sense of compensation overnight.
"Why farm when we can raid noble storehouses?"
"Why work for money when we can just kill bourgeois?"
Plunder had become the social norm.
This plundering fad would have faded quickly if the post-revolution government had swiftly restored order, but the Austrian revolutionary government failed at that. As mentioned, the nobles and bourgeois slated for government roles had all died during the upheaval.
"Hey, where'd you get that money?"
"Earned it honestly through work."
"Doesn't look like it."
As the chaos dragged on, the revolutionaries came to see it as the work of "enemies of the revolution." At first, these enemies were the nobles.
"The rich have a duty to give charity to the poor. Wealth is just a reward stolen from others' opportunities to earn!"
But purging them didn't end the chaos, so the bar lowered gradually.
"Why do we even need tenant farming? Why should those who don't work get more of the harvest than those who do?"
And then it dropped broadly.
"There are no real craftsmen. They've just been stuck doing menial labor for years—if we taught them properly from the start, they'd be master blacksmiths in three years!"
Bourgeois, landlords, blacksmiths. "How can some city scholar represent us?" Even members of the revolutionary government.
At a glance, it looked like a revolution for equality.
"So we must redistribute unjustly accumulated wealth!"
But since plunder was the real goal, it didn't spark a chain of revolutions. There was no justice or ideology in their actions—just the urge to live better than others.
"Hm? Uh-huh? Hm..."
"Something wrong?"
"No. Nothing."
The two and a half years of chaos had shattered Austria's industry and traditions while creating one glaring contradiction.
"Hmm."
"You think so too?"
"Tonight?"
"Fine by me."
No more rich to catch—those doing the catching had become the new rich.
"Argh! Weren't we comrades?!"
"That's one thing. This is another."
The survivors turned on each other like locusts devouring their own kind. Comrades who chatted amiably by day became plunder targets by night. Vienna's nights hid it all. By dawn, no traces remained. Just another "enemy of the revolution."
"...And so, with the former chairman's death, I, the deputy, will succeed him."
This shadow warfare raged even within the revolutionary government. Observers wanted to become deputies, deputies wanted party prominence, prominent party members wanted to lead the party, party leaders wanted the chairmanship—and they used Vienna's nights for it.
"Even if we can't fill the assembly seats, we must end this chaos. To stop the madness, we need food rations first."
This was the real cause of the chaos's prolongation—beyond the early purges. With deputies swapping out constantly, they couldn't even draft policies, let alone restore order.
"We have to do something now. Once France recovers from its famine, they'll attack us under the pretext of rescuing kin."
Fortunately or not, the revolutionary government regained stability after two and a half years. In truth, it was just that everyone worth intriguing against was dead—no more replacements.
"With that madness keeping anyone from producing food, where the hell are we supposed to get it?!"
This amateur revolutionary government knew nothing of republican values.
"We'll take money from the people and buy food abroad in Austria's name."
"Requisitioning? Isn't that too coercive? Better to collect it as a special tax..."
The revolution that rose against exploitation now proposed exploitation as its solution.
"It's a requisition for all the people. They can't buy anything with money anyway, right?"
The revolutionary government dubbed it "benevolent requisitioning." To carry it out, they mobilized the militias—all in the government's name.
"You look like you've got some money."
"Take it all! Just spare me!"
The militias shoved guns and swords in faces to requisition cash, and while at it, "voluntarily" accepted food and goods as donations.
"Same shit, different assholes."
The "voluntary donations" proved highly effective. They requisitioned 7 million francs in cash in the first week alone.
"Thanks to the citizens' cooperation! The revolutionary government will use this to ration bread to all of Vienna!"
Of course, the deputies were oblivious to the reality of these "voluntary donations." Even if they knew, most wrote it off as individual excesses.
Ignoring such trifles, the revolutionary government approached foreign embassies to declare intent to buy food.
"French ambassador. Chairman of the Austrian revolutionary government."
"I'll see only those of proper rank."
But Austria's revolutionary diplomacy had long been in ruins.
"Prussian ambassador?"
"No business with rabble."
During the revolution, they'd purged local and central nobles alike, leaving no one fit for normal diplomacy.
"British ambassador?"
"Lower than the underclass."
In two and a half years of chaos, Austria had killed off not just nobles but bourgeois who knew high society, even scholars versed in etiquette from books.
"Joseph Adam! You've got work to do."
In the end, the revolutionary government had no choice but to use the pensioned Joseph II.
They dragged him to the French embassy for food negotiations.
"You'd do well to untie the ropes. Even if not, don't surround the embassy."
"Shut up, criminal."
Of course, to prevent any escape, they'd added "minimal security measures."
"What the hell is this?!?!"
Naturally, this outraged every embassy in Austria.
"Before his honor as Austria's monarch, guarantee his treatment as a human being. What is this?"
Even a faded emperor was an emperor. Insulting Joseph II wasn't just personal—it slighted every monarch in Europe.
"Just precautions against the criminal fleeing."
The intrigue-born deputies couldn't grasp the embassies' fury. To them, binding a criminal was obvious.
"Criminal? What crime has Austria's emperor committed?"
"Deceiving the people and exploiting the masses, of course."
"Introducing yourself?"
The French ambassador called out their hypocrisy.
"You dump bodies from back alleys into cemeteries like trash, and even six government chairmen died the same way this year without cleanup. Is that a normal country? If I weren't ambassador to Austria, I'd have withdrawn to the homeland immediately. What the hell have you 'revolutionaries' been doing for two and a half years? Why bother with a revolution at all?"
"So, will you sell grain? Or just talk?"
"For nation-to-nation talks, show some decorum."
France bolted the embassy doors shut.