Surviving Austro-hungarian monarchy?

plenka

Banned
Are there any possible PODs that would enable AH monarchy to reform, to become more stable, and less likely to collapse?
 
at most you could have a majority of the nations in the hapsburg independent, but closely connected via the hapsburgs. a-h was on a timetable, full of various nationalities waiting to revolt.
 
at most you could have a majority of the nations in the hapsburg independent, but closely connected via the hapsburgs. a-h was on a timetable, full of various nationalities waiting to revolt.

No, this is a myth perpetuated by the results of WWI and positivist, present-centered history. Austria-Hungary, while not some unstoppable military juggernaut, was also not the edge of tipping over until well into the First World War, specifically the entrance of a power espousing ethnic self-determination as the basis of post-war state-building. It was a stable state which afforded its subjects a standard of living comparable to that of Germany or France.

There are a host of PoDs which make it likely for the Habsburg Monarchy to survive. Federalization seems the best option. United States of Greater Austria and all that jazz.
 
No, this is a myth perpetuated by the results of WWI and positivist, present-centered history. Austria-Hungary, while not some unstoppable military juggernaut, was also not the edge of tipping over until well into the First World War, specifically the entrance of a power espousing ethnic self-determination as the basis of post-war state-building. It was a stable state which afforded its subjects a standard of living comparable to that of Germany or France.

There are a host of PoDs which make it likely for the Habsburg Monarchy to survive. Federalization seems the best option. United States of Greater Austria and all that jazz.
i stand corrected i guess
 
No, this is a myth perpetuated by the results of WWI and positivist, present-centered history. Austria-Hungary, while not some unstoppable military juggernaut, was also not the edge of tipping over until well into the First World War, specifically the entrance of a power espousing ethnic self-determination as the basis of post-war state-building. It was a stable state which afforded its subjects a standard of living comparable to that of Germany or France.

There are a host of PoDs which make it likely for the Habsburg Monarchy to survive. Federalization seems the best option. United States of Greater Austria and all that jazz.

absolutely right.

who knows, if franz ferdinand had become emperor, he could have dragged the A-H empire into the 20th centry (rather than under franz joe, where the nation was largely still living in the 1860s economically).

USGA could/would have preserved the monarchy, maybe even until the present day - although obviously a constitutional monarch today.
 
No, this is a myth perpetuated by the results of WWI and positivist, present-centered history. Austria-Hungary, while not some unstoppable military juggernaut, was also not the edge of tipping over until well into the First World War, specifically the entrance of a power espousing ethnic self-determination as the basis of post-war state-building. It was a stable state which afforded its subjects a standard of living comparable to that of Germany or France.

There are a host of PoDs which make it likely for the Habsburg Monarchy to survive. Federalization seems the best option. United States of Greater Austria and all that jazz.

This, basically. For one specific example, the Czechs were one of the more problematic ethnicities in the empire, but even among them, the advocates for independence were a radical fringe politically until late in the war. Serbs and other groups with homelands outside Austria-Hungary may have been a bigger issue, but no one of those neighbors were as strong as Austria, so they could have been managed. The real problem were the Magyar elites that stymied reform time after time. Their power needed to be reined in for the state to remain healthy.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Victory can bring its own solution to internal problems

Or you can have an Austro-Hungarian War when the Ausgleich next comes up for renewal and have the revolting Hungarians lose.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Maybe if Franz Josef dies in the 1890s.

No guarantee of success, but it leaves Ferdinand enough time to try and establish closer ties with Russia, resolve the Bosnian/Serbian question in a mutually acceptable way, thus establishing a friendly southern border, and work on suffrage and other reforms in both halves of the monarchy. If all that goes well enough, it means some of OTL's chief existential threats to Austria-Hungary have been taken care of.
 
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Are there any possible PODs that would enable AH monarchy to reform, to become more stable, and less likely to collapse?
Just to clarify but is your usage of Austro-Hungarian mean we're limited to points of departure after the Ausgleich in 1867 or can we make changes before that? I ask as I often find people use Austro-Hungarian Empire interchangeably with Austrian Empire even though the former followed the latter with some rather large changes.


Or you can have an Austro-Hungarian War when the Ausgleich next comes up for renewal and have the revolting Hungarians lose.
In an ideal world there wouldn't have been an Ausgleich in the first place, I've always liked the idea of a slow movement towards a sort of federation but with a strong central government.
 

plenka

Banned
Nice to see that people have so many good ideas. I meant Austria, not Austro-Hungary, my mistake. I would like to see Austria do better, in almost every TL I see AH ends up being a punching bag, and splits up. I have been writing something but I will probably never put it up because I am not sure how plausable it is, and I am scared of someone accusing me of Austrowank. :(
But thank you all anyways for your ideas and discussion no matter how short it is.
 
As usual, I'll be the Franz Joseph apologist here too.

I feel like FJ gets a bad rap. Was he a reactionary? Yes, but I've always felt this was because he felt he had to be and saw it as the pragmatic, dare I say, stabilizing option. Why do I say this, well because we have a situation where the antitheses prove the thesis. We often forget that in the build up to the Ausgleich, Franz Joseph was in favor of giving the Kingdom of Bohemia the same level of autonomy as Hungary. Likewise, while the Baron von Beck is the politician associated with it, it was through an imperial edict that Franz Joseph promulgated universal manhood suffrage. I honestly think had he found the right opportunity, he would have moved forward. The problem was largely that he didn't trust populist politicians, be they German, Magyar, Slavic, whoever, and saw devolution as giving them far too much power.

I've always felt the Hungarian nobility was the major stumbling block to federalization, and have been somewhat perturbed by the fact that this seems to be a gap in, at least, the English-language historiography of the late Habsburg Monarchy (alas I'm not as well read in the German-language historiography, and I don't speak Magyar so I'm not at all read in the Hungarian historiography).
 
Nice to see that people have so many good ideas. I meant Austria, not Austro-Hungary, my mistake. I would like to see Austria do better, in almost every TL I see AH ends up being a punching bag, and splits up. I have been writing something but I will probably never put it up because I am not sure how plausable it is, and I am scared of someone accusing me of Austrowank. :(
But thank you all anyways for your ideas and discussion no matter how short it is.

NEVER BE AFRAID OF CREATING AN AUSTROWANK. It was my bread and butter when I wrote TLs. Let your Schwarz-und-Gelb freak flag fly!
 
Given all of the Prussia-Wanks on this board that I've read right up to the point where Freddy Prince Junior effortlessly walks all over Central Europe and annexes the Entire HRE and all of Poland and half of France and Belgium and Switzerland all in one or maybe two lines of description with the rest of the world just shaking their fingers and going 'Oh you silly Hohenzollerns, you Scamps, what sort of get rich quick scheme are you planning now' I don't think you need to worry about Wanking a country.

Austria is pretty much due for a good Wanking anyways, although my personal favorite PoD would be Charles VI still not having a Male Heir, but listening to the advice of ... someone whose name I forget but I think was a Prince of Savoy, who advised him to not make concessions to foreign powers, but to instead invest in the Nation's Military.

In particular I would love to see someone explore the butterflies of a surviving Ostend Company.
 
Oh good, in that case I shall forward my favourite point of departure of Emperor Charles VI arranging a different match for his daughter Maria Theresa she instead marrying Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia to create the House of Habsburg-Savoy. He also listens to Prince Eugene of Savoy's advice to not try and buy off acceptance of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 from foreign rulers but instead invest all the time and money into expanding and improving the Austrian military. Charles Emmanuel, like his father Victor Amadeus II, was from what I've read a quite forward thinking reformer in both the civil and military spheres but sensible in not trying to change things too rapidly so a good match for Maria Theresa.

Come the War of Austrian Succession the Austrian Empire is able to do much better managing to fight Prussia to a draw allowing them to retain Silesia, or at least Upper, that is the southern part of, Silesia. Obviously there won't be a Joseph II who had the urge to try and swap Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands but it's an enticing idea in that it would expand Austria's influence in the Holy Roman Empire and make the Habsburg lands more ethnically German overall. Even without that having added the Kingdom of Sardinia to their holdings means the Habsburgs control most of the mountain passes between France and northern Italy and have potentially locked the French out so over time expect them to try and expand their influence to take over all Italy down to the Papal States.

For extra Habsburg-wank have the Austrians already of swapped Bavaria for the Kingdom of Naples at the close of the War of Spanish Succession since they were occupying it. Then have things play out roughly as in our timeline until we come to the creation of the House of Habsburg-Savoy as above. :D
 
Oh good, in that case I shall forward my favourite point of departure of Emperor Charles VI arranging a different match for his daughter Maria Theresa she instead marrying Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia to create the House of Habsburg-Savoy. He also listens to Prince Eugene of Savoy's advice to not try and buy off acceptance of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 from foreign rulers but instead invest all the time and money into expanding and improving the Austrian military. Charles Emmanuel, like his father Victor Amadeus II, was from what I've read a quite forward thinking reformer in both the civil and military spheres but sensible in not trying to change things too rapidly so a good match for Maria Theresa.

Come the War of Austrian Succession the Austrian Empire is able to do much better managing to fight Prussia to a draw allowing them to retain Silesia, or at least Upper, that is the southern part of, Silesia. Obviously there won't be a Joseph II who had the urge to try and swap Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands but it's an enticing idea in that it would expand Austria's influence in the Holy Roman Empire and make the Habsburg lands more ethnically German overall. Even without that having added the Kingdom of Sardinia to their holdings means the Habsburgs control most of the mountain passes between France and northern Italy and have potentially locked the French out so over time expect them to try and expand their influence to take over all Italy down to the Papal States.

For extra Habsburg-wank have the Austrians already of swapped Bavaria for the Kingdom of Naples at the close of the War of Spanish Succession since they were occupying it. Then have things play out roughly as in our timeline until we come to the creation of the House of Habsburg-Savoy as above. :D
This, I like this. A lot.
 
Nice to see that people have so many good ideas. I meant Austria, not Austro-Hungary, my mistake. I would like to see Austria do better, in almost every TL I see AH ends up being a punching bag, and splits up. I have been writing something but I will probably never put it up because I am not sure how plausable it is, and I am scared of someone accusing me of Austrowank. :(
But thank you all anyways for your ideas and discussion no matter how short it is.

Just post it :D to be honest Austro-wanks are sadly absent on this site more often than not
 

plenka

Banned
Just post it :D to be honest Austro-wanks are sadly absent on this site more often than not

There is just several dozen lines of text, more of a test then enything else. I would rather not post it because, even if you do like it I simply cannot promise you anything else. I am really sorry.
 
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