The five members of the Frankfurt Preparatory Committee all looked grim. The Austrian delegation strongly protested, arguing that the Austrian Empire should be considered a whole entity. At the Frankfurt National Assembly, delegate seats were allocated based on population. In theory, one delegate was elected for every 50,000 people. If the non-German regions were not kicked out, this assembly would become an exclusive platform for Austria. During this period, the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein still belonged to Denmark, while Austria controlled parts of Italy. In terms of population, Austria exceeded the combined total of the smaller German states. The protests could be shrugged off since, after all, regions like Hungary did not belong to the German region, and they were not afraid of engaging in debates. However, it was unexpected that the Austrian delegation would cleverly leak the information to the journalists, openly revealing the Assembly’s hidden agenda. Due to the influence of the Zollverein (German Customs Union), Prussia, the most industrially advanced among the German states, held significant influence among the capitalists. This assembly indeed displayed a clear bias. At this point, everyone understood that the Austrian delegation was deliberately causing disruptions. Not let Austrians participate in the assembly? Can this still be considered a preparatory parliament for Germany? The Austrians would probably be delighted to leave, as this assembly already lacked much legitimacy to begin with. Without Austrian participation, it would become a laughingstock. “Gentlemen, we must take action. Recent public opinion has been very unfavorable towards us. If this continues, our enemies’ schemes will succeed!” Merlin said gravely. The media’s exposés of their dark history did not alarm them. After all, capitalists worldwide are cut from the same cloth. Who doesn’t have a dark history? What they were more concerned about now was the Austrian delegation causing trouble. As the largest German state, Austria often played the leading role among them. Whether they liked it or not, Austria wielded immense influence among the German states. A parliament without Austrian participation could never gain public approval. “Why don’t we just rename it the ‘Lesser German Parliament’ and kick the Austrians out!” proposed a Prussian delegate. “Impossible! Winstor, that would split the great German Empire. If it’s just a Lesser German Parliament, then we’ll withdraw too!” objected the Bavarian delegate. The main purpose of this assembly was to expand the political influence of the bourgeoisie; the unification of Germany was secondary. The Frankfurt Assembly was not as historically significant as described in books. Otherwise, in the end, even the Kingdom of Prussia would not have recognized this assembly — the conference’s ideals were far too impractical, excessively expanding capitalist interests without any feasibility. The interests of capitalists are not the same. Capitalists from different regions and industries often have diverging interests. Establishing a “Lesser German Empire” aligned with the interests of North German capitalists, allowing them to avoid competition from their Austrian counterparts. But for many South German capitalists, especially in the Kingdom of Bavaria, whose economy was closely tied to Austria’s, such a split would be disastrous. Due to the protests from the Austrian delegation, the conference hasn’t even started yet, so the option of resolving issues through voting doesn’t exist. If they lose the support of representatives from southern Germany, there would be no point in continuing this conference. …… The bourgeoisie is inherently prone to compromise. After a week of arguing, everyone reached a compromise — allowing delegates from Bohemia and Hungary to participate, but limiting their numbers. They set a maximum limit for the number of representatives from each state. No state could have more than 200 representatives. Only Austria and Prussia had that many attending. Undoubtedly, the status issue between Austria and Prussia would lead to more quarreling, as the two largest German states would demand equal standing. Led by Anderson, the Austrian delegates had really come to make trouble, so of course they wouldn’t give in easily. They insisted that Austria must have the most representative seats. After all, Austria had the largest population, and in those days there were no professional statistics to accurately determine how many German people were in the Austrian region. The Prussian delegates, who wanted to attain equal status with Austria, naturally refused. It was an open secret that this assembly was orchestrated by an internal interest group in Prussia to exclude Austria. The Prussian and Austrian delegations engaged in a tug-of-war that quickly escalated into a territorial conflict between North and South Germany, involving all the representatives. The dispute continued until June, and the Austrian delegation gradually found themselves at a disadvantage. However, it didn’t matter much, as by this time the scandal-ridden Frankfurt Assembly had become a laughingstock. The Vienna Daily derided it as a “Capitalists’ Feast”, depicting a group of fat, big-eared capitalists carving up a cow with knives and forks. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhenish Newspaper) published an article by Engels strongly criticizing the Frankfurt Assembly, mocking it as a “conference for the distribution of interests among capitalists.” The Munich Post went further with an exposé series on the shady backgrounds of the delegates in the Frankfurt Assembly, calling it the “Dirtiest Parliament in History” that could not be whitewashed, as all attending delegates had scandals. Even scholars, officials, and other participants were not spared, with electoral fraud being the biggest skeleton in the closet — for example, some “elected” with 30,000 votes when fewer than 100 actually voted; in some places, only one candidate ran by default... In summary, it was electoral fraud. This election lasted less than a week from start to finish, and in many places, there was not even enough time to transmit information, let alone prevent manipulation. Expert analysis piled on from the technical side. Newspapers would announce today where voting would happen, and it would start the next day, making participation practically impossible. Countless surveys showed 90% of Germans didn’t even know about these “elections”, and 99% didn’t vote. At this stage, there was no need for Franz to take further action. The delegates were so thoroughly disgraced in the press that many withdrew from the assembly themselves under public pressure. The assembly persisted until July, finally collapsing under changing political circumstances and internal and external challenges, burying this capitalist self-organized conference.
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