"War is only a means to an end, not the end, itself." That was the best excuse that Franz could come up with. In fact, despite the Bohemian corps rapid and continuous successes, he was still worried about history repeating itself. Historically, the Bohemian corps had also managed to enter Budapest, although not so easily as now, but the Hungarians had suddenly taken the Austrians by surprise and forced the Bohemian corps to retreat.

If Franz said this right now, no one would believe him. After all, the Bohemian corps had over 100,000 troops of whom over 50,000 were veterans of many battles. In comparison, the Hungarian troops in Budapest were pitiful in number. Nominally, the Republic of Hungary had over 250,000 troops, but due to financial difficulties, they could only support a very limited number of troops.

According to the intelligence gathered by the Austrians spies, Kossuth had gathered some soldiers from nearby cities and also formed a militia which had allowed Budapest's nominal strength to reach 80,000. However, only one-third of the militiamen were equipped with guns and their morale was falling by the day. Prince Windisch-Grätz believed that the Bohemian corps could easily rout the Hungarians in a single engagement.

Still, he didn't plan to vehemently oppose the future Emperor as he asked, "Your Imperial Highness, is this part of the government's plan?"

Franz smiled and said, "Prince, have you forgotten the war in Italy?"

Prince Windisch-Grätz fell into deep thought. Although he did not consider the Kingdom of Sardinia to be a threat to Austria, he knew that adding too many fronts during a war was not conducive to decisive battles.

He was confident that Marshal Radetzky could defend Venice from the Sardinians. Once the four corps unite to attack Budapest, the rebellion would be quickly quelled and Sardinia would face not the 100,000-strong Italian army, but more than double that number.

Finally, Franz commanded, "Prince, order General Haynau to steadily progress towards Budapest without leaving any gap for the enemy to slip through!"

**********

The land area of the Kingdom of Hungary was quite huge, reaching an area ​​more than 300,000 km², which was more than three times the land area of the modern-day Republic of Hungary. By now, however, over two-thirds of the kingdom had sided with Austria thanks to the Viennese government's previous political offensive.

The closest Bohemian corps was only a day's march from Budapest while even the farthest Transylvanian corps was within a radius of 300 kms from Budapest. Since the outbreak of the war, the people in the Hungarian government had regretted the revolution many times since the response from Austria was much tougher than they had expected.

Normally speaking, the Austrians should've sent the gendarmerie to arrest a few rebels and then sent a battalion of soldiers to retake a few rebellious towns as they slowly continued to deploy more soldiers as the rebellion spread. The Hungarians had hoped to rely on their repeated small victories against Austria to eventually force the Viennese government to recognize their independence.

This was how the American Revolutionary War had progressed and how Kossuth had hoped that the Hungarian War of Independence would progress. He had felt that they may encounter small setbacks and defeats, but the ultimate victory would belong to the Republic of Hungary, just like the 13 colonies. As a politician, deception was an essential skill and the highest form of deception was self-deception.

Unfortunately for him, this was not a game where he could start off as a novice and slowly defeat enemies to gain experience and grow stronger until he was strong enough to defeat the final boss. Instead, he had entered the boss room as a lvl 1 noob.

Due to the desperate situation, Kossuth had no choice but to turn to Count István Széchenyi, his biggest political opponent.

István Széchenyi, one of the great nobles of Hungary, was also Hungary's greatest reformer, and has a high reputation in the country. Unlike Kossuth, a demagogue, he was a hardworking man who had made outstanding tangible contributions in the fields of education, transportation, culture, politics, and economy, and was considered by many as "the Greatest Hungarian."

Unfortunately, his outlook was very different from that of Kossuth. Where Kossuth believed in bringing about change as quickly as possible, Count Széchenyi believed that any economic, political or social reform needed to be carried out slowly and carefully to avoid unforeseen consequences. While Kossuth advocated the establishment of an industrial nation, Count Széchenyi advocated some industrialization while retaining the traditional agricultural strength of Hungary and leaving agriculture as a major sector of the economy.

However, the biggest conflict between the two was their diametrically opposed views on the issue of nationality. Count Széchenyi believed that Hungary is a multi-ethnic country where people are divided based on their language, culture and religion. Therefore, it is very dangerous to promote nationalism and the idea of a single Hungarian identity. He believed that what Hungary needed was gradual economic, social and cultural progress, not excessive radicalism and nationalism.

Facts have proven that Kossuth's ideology of nationalism failed spectacularly, and became the sore spot which was used by the Viennese government to easily divide Hungary from the inside.

Helpless, Kossuth had to grit his teeth and turn to his political opponent for help.

"Lord Count, for the future of the 13 million Hungarians in the Republic of Hungary, I'm here to invite you back into the government!"

Count Széchenyi smiled and said, "Your Hungarian Republic doesn't have 13 million people. Besides the 500,000 or so "Hungarians,"the rest are subjects of Emperor Ferdinand. I believe you would agree with this statement."

Not interested in giving Kossuth any face, Count Széchenyi directly stated the biggest reason behind the precarious situation with the Hungarian Republic.

Due to the Republic's aggressive nationalistic ethnic policy, the ethnic minorities within Hungary had chosen to remain loyal to the Emperor. In addition, since the Republic failed to solve the land problem, the farmers chose to remain loyal to the Emperor; the Republic did not consider the interests of the working class, so the workers chose to remain loyal to the Emperor.

In the end, only capitalists and nobles were left. And even among them a considerable amount remained loyal to the emperor. At the very least, few had thrown their lot entirely with the Republic since not many people truly identified with the Republic of Hungary.

"Lord Count, with each passing second the Austrian army is moving closer to Budapest. Do you have the heart to watch Hungary being butchered by them?" Kossuth pleaded.

Unaffected, Count Széchenyi replied calmly, "Mr. Kossuth, don't say useless things. I enlisted in the army at the age of 17 and even performed dangerous missions during the Napoleonic Wars. I remained in the army for 18 years before retiring. My understanding of war far exceeds your own, and I don't see any way for your Republic and its rag-tag army to defeat the elite Austrian army.

Of course, if you want to give up your foolish independence and negotiate with the Viennese government in earnest, that's a matter in which I could help."

Kossuth's face was somber with his brows frowned. Although he also agreed with Count Széchenyi's words, he couldn't admit it. As the head of the Hungarian Republic, he had no choice but to fight until the end. Surrender and negotiations would spell the end of his political career.

-TO BE CONTINUED-