Chapter Fourteen
While there were various border incidents with neighboring nations, Austria chose to settle these cases diplomatically rather than by force of arms. Two bit larger rebellions also materialized, but were swiftly taken care of by the army. Indeed, biggest event in 1895 was the outbreak of tuberculosis in the state of Moravia.
However, finally, on the 17th of March 1897, remainder of German states convened in Belvedere, Vienna to formally acknowledge Austrian superiority within Germany, and to follow (second) crowning of;
His Imperial Majesty,
Franz Joseph I, by the Grace of God Holy Roman Emperor of Germany and Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Lombardy and Venice, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; King of Jerusalem etc., Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow, of Rhine and Westphalia, Duke of Lorraine, of Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and of the Bukovina, of Sleswig and Madgeburg; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz, Zator and Teschen, Friuli, Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and Zara (Zadar); Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trent (Trento) and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg, etc.; Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro (Kotor), and over the Windic march.
Some titles get awfully long, but in essence, Franz Joseph reclaimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor (that Ferdinand had abandoned) and melted Germany and Austria into it.
Notably missing were the Polish, who though still loyal to Austria blatantly refused to relinquish their newly found indepence, Krakowians and Swizz, who maintained they were not really German either. Those two states had not really been expected to join the union, but exclusion of Poland was a set back, after all, Franz Joseph had originally meant it to have limited indepence if that, but things had changed in their 15 years of indepence. For now, they'd remain outside the union, perhaps the 'Russian Poles' could be convinced to revolt and join our 'vassal' but since they had not in the last 15 years, there were no great hopes of that happening either.
The neighboring powers were not all that happy about this development, but lacked the strenght to do anything about it, and indeed, lacked unity among themselves for coordinated responce anyways. Russia now had China in it's sphere, and French had convinced Ottomans to join them, but overall the Great powers - excluding United Kingdom - now had miniscule Sphere's of Influence.
However, the confusion of unification lead to small depression, and the Fabric industry, that had already been in trouble only ended up in even worse state, forcing the state for first time to abandon subsidies and force closing of the factories, indeed, some of the Luxury clothing overproduction was pruned out as well.
It was obviously high time to do this, as industrial subsidies had risen to 10000 a day, with closure of the worst deficit running factories, in states where workforce could find jobs in other factories at least, lead to saving of almost 8000, which in turn allowed drastic reduction of taxes.
To celebrate the unification, various projects, like removing french influences from Elsass-Lothringen, building of the Kiel canal and pestering United Kingdom about the obviously German Heligoland.
Now, we haven't really touched the subject of goverment of Austria (and Germany) all that often, mostly this is because, well, there hasn't been all that much change, but just to confirm this remains with the expanded empire...
Upper house, as in the court, has varying opinions, even if the emperor rarely listens to them.
And lastly, the rainbow of empire's population, with some additional information.
Notably, average literacy within the empire rose by 20% with inclusion of the northern states and now has 3rd largest population in the world, after British Empire and Chinese Empire.