Deleted member 1487
How do you get Austria and Hungary as separate states with independent governments/militaries with a Habsburg personal union and alliance between them by the 20th century?
AHC: Austria and Hungary separate states with personal union by 20th century
Two ideas:
1) The Hungarian demands in 1848 where basically for a PU (separate government, separate army).
Problem I see here is that a more successful 1848 revolution would probably not create the OTL split (Hungarians and Croatians were fighting) and lead to huge european butterflies.
2) Changes in 1866 (maybe kill Deak or make the Italians be more successful) make the Hungarians demand a full PU. The problem I see here is that Vienna could try to strengthen itself by giving less autonomy to various other nationalities if they feel the Hungarians demand too much.
In the end it comes back to the fact that the OTL Ausgleich was the easiest solution because it empowered the biggest and most established nationality beside the Germans and gave them a stake in the empire's survival.
A PU would be in most scenarios be just a step on the road to real independence, because it would weaken the empire overall compared to a real union with common foreign, economic and military policies.
Not a specific POD but an idea: maybe a Habsburg led German Confederation, reforming itself into a more state like entity, requires the Habsburgs to decouple their “non german” lands via PU's to satisfy the German nationalist and the minor states (only “german” lands can vote for parliament). You would probably get at least three PU’s: Galicia and Bukovina, Hungary-Croatia, and Lombardy-Venetia (if still with Austria).
1) The Hungarian demands in 1848 where basically for a PU (separate government, separate army).
Problem I see here is that a more successful 1848 revolution would probably not create the OTL split (Hungarians and Croatians were fighting) and lead to huge european butterflies.
2) Changes in 1866 (maybe kill Deak or make the Italians be more successful) make the Hungarians demand a full PU. The problem I see here is that Vienna could try to strengthen itself by giving less autonomy to various other nationalities if they feel the Hungarians demand too much.
In the end it comes back to the fact that the OTL Ausgleich was the easiest solution because it empowered the biggest and most established nationality beside the Germans and gave them a stake in the empire's survival.
A PU would be in most scenarios be just a step on the road to real independence, because it would weaken the empire overall compared to a real union with common foreign, economic and military policies.
Not a specific POD but an idea: maybe a Habsburg led German Confederation, reforming itself into a more state like entity, requires the Habsburgs to decouple their “non german” lands via PU's to satisfy the German nationalist and the minor states (only “german” lands can vote for parliament). You would probably get at least three PU’s: Galicia and Bukovina, Hungary-Croatia, and Lombardy-Venetia (if still with Austria).