Belle Epoque alliance system without the Habsburg Empire

[Snake Featherston]

Nobody is saying that but you. In all likelihood, this lasts not that much more than the F-P war, say an extra six months on tops.

You're missing a huge and I hope obvious difference: it's the Franco-*Prussian* war, not the Franco-*German* War. If Austria's likely to go to war against it, Prussia can't amass quite the number of troops as it did IOTL. Austria-Hungary may well exploit Protestantism v. Catholicism here to further divide the German states allied with Prussia, which means the high casualties from charging right into proto-machine guns will hurt Prussia *worse*. Italy wins barely-there victories in 1866, in 1870 Austria-Hungary will simply grab that territory *back.*

The Poles certainly did not need or would benefit from any further encouragement about putting their relations with Russia into question, after their 1831 and 1863 attempts. If anything, union with Galicia might make them marginally less unhappy.

So Austria-Hungary divided on multi-ethnic lines despite being another absolutist empire united more by a dynasty than anything else has no impact on the nationalisms in the Russian Empire? Sorry, Eurofed, human nature does not work this way.

If Alexander II had gotten his way, they would have.

What you're missing is that this did not happen with an empire seen at the time as the traditional place for land-grabs, plus it was *Muslim.* Europeans dividing a German-speaking Christian Empire? Not. remotely. likely. Nobody will want to open that can of worms.

You fail to realize this is a wholly different case from San Stefano (where, however, if the Tsar had gotten his way, something quite similar would have been done). SS was the other powers intervening to limit Russian gains. In this case, Germany, Russia, and Italy are all partners to the act, France is a defeated power and powerless, Austria has collapsed in military defeat and internal revolution, Britain can't act without support on the continent.

And that was a Russia that didn't distinguish itself (an understatement if I may be forgiven for it) against the Ottomans. Here, seven years earlier this Russia deals Brusilov defeats with what logistical support and ability to send armies to Galicia?

And in WWI France held together for four years, while in 1870 it fell in a few months.

Thing is in WWI France *had* won victories against Germany at the Marne and its collapses in 1870 and 1940 were due to armies with an extreme mobility. In case you've forgotten Russia has some huge logistical areas and Cislethania is full of mountains. Even with lesser logistical requirements than 1870 neither Italy nor Prussia can send hundreds of thousands of troops into bloody mountains while simultaneously fighting France.

You know, the arbitrary way you call all kinds of things ASB about all kinds of scenarioes is really off-putting.

It's not arbitrary. Russia and Austria not being made up of Zapp Brannigans is not arbitrary.

 

[Eurofed]

Judging by World Wars I and II, no I do not.

Seriously, this is 1870. Prussia is the only state with an army of World Wars-style power and numbers. The other states in Europe at this point lack the logistics and 30+ years of preparation that went into general warfare. In 1870, you have relatively limited numbers of troops and quite minimal logistical infrastructure to pull this kind of thing off. It'd look somewhat like the US Civil War hybridized with WWI (about a year to get the armies going, then the WWI Eastern Front on a continental scale).

Sigh... 1859, 1866, 1877. Major wars between European great powers DID happen in this period. For any of them (apart from poor Austria, trapped in a three-front war), the effort would not be that different from any of the OTL wars. The European powers were able to fight general continental wars for centuries before the PoD (Thirty Years War ? War of Spanish Succession ? Napoleonic Wars ?). I really don't get where all this arrogant confidence in declaring a general war in 1870 summarily impossible comes from.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Sigh... 1859, 1866, 1877. Major wars between European great powers DID happen in this period. For any of them (apart from poor Austria, trapped in a three-front war), the effort would not be that different from any of the OTL wars. The European powers were able to fight general continental wars for centuries before the PoD (Thirty Years War ? War of Spanish Succession ? Napoleonic Wars ?). I really don't get where all this arrogant confidence in declaring a general war in 1870 summarily impossible comes from.

Major wars between individual European powers, yes.

The Crimean War, the one quasi-coalition war was a resounding Russian defeat.

The war of 1859 was won primarily by the French and Napoleon III, the Italians did not do very well.

In 1866, Italy again failed to distinguish itself against an Austria that Prussia did all the real work against.

In 1877 that was purely a Russian-Ottoman affair.

The World Wars of the 20th Century were coalition wars. It took repeated crises and fear of Germany to make European nations comfortable about allying with each other in wars that meant one nation had to trust its military power to another, as the last time they'd done that had been about 100 years ago.

Now, we're talking 1870, when Prussia's facing an alliance of France and Russia, both traditional British rivals at this point and Britain's diplomacy is nowhere to be found and its military participation is completely ignored in a general war, and when Prussia's won small-scale wars against individual enemies, not had to fight a war against more than one enemy at one time, and won those due to the kind of numbers that a two-front war will not have, and assuming that European armies have anachronistic logistical power?

It's the equivalent of Sealion or a Confederate capture of Washington.

The 1870s are in between Napoleonic mobility and the massed firepower of WWI armies. There's no real chance for 1870s Europe to have a short, decisive general war than there ever was for the Russian steamroller to overwhelm an industrially superior and better-armed German Empire in 1914.

 

[Eurofed]

Austria-Hungary may well exploit Protestantism v. Catholicism here to further divide the German states allied with Prussia, which means the high casualties from charging right into proto-machine guns will hurt Prussia *worse*.

It may, or it may not. German public opinion is still going to see this war as started by French aggression, and quite likely Austria as a stooge of France, so German nationalism may trump this.

Italy wins barely-there victories in 1866, in 1870 Austria-Hungary will simply grab that territory *back.*

Part of the PoD is that Italy does *better* in 1866.

So Austria-Hungary divided on multi-ethnic lines despite being another absolutist empire united more by a dynasty than anything else has no impact on the nationalisms in the Russian Empire?

As I said, given 19th century conditions, you couldn't possibly make Poles any more restive to Russian rule than they were OTL. The Finns were apathetic, and Ukraine does not really exist as a national consciousness in 1870.

What you're missing is that this did not happen with an empire seen at the time as the traditional place for land-grabs, plus it was *Muslim.* Europeans dividing a German-speaking Christian Empire? Not. remotely. likely. Nobody will want to open that can of worms.

The kings of Poland and Hanover called to say they would like to get their thrones back, and that any hint of them being Muslims is slander.

And that was a Russia that didn't distinguish itself (an understatement if I may be forgiven for it) against the Ottomans. Here, seven years earlier this Russia deals Brusilov defeats with what logistical support and ability to send armies to Galicia?

The Russians didn't get too much trouble invading Hungary in 1849, and Austria has no good record fighting multi-front wars. You reverse the burden of proof, it's Austria that has to survive fighting a three-front war.

Now, we're talking 1870, when Prussia's facing an alliance of France and Russia, both traditional British rivals at this point and Britain's diplomacy is nowhere to be found and its military participation is completely ignored in a general war, and when Prussia's won small-scale wars against individual enemies, not had to fight a war against more than one enemy at one time, and won those due to the kind of numbers that a two-front war will not have, and assuming that European armies have anachronistic logistical power?

You can't even get the lineups right, it's about the second or third time you talk about a TTL non-existent alliance of France and Russia. Sorry, WWI this ain't. Why I should keep taking your armchair generalship seriously ? As a matter of fact, I stop.

 

[archaeogeek]

Part of the PoD is that Italy does *better* in 1866.

How?

The kings of Poland and Hanover called to say they would like to get their thrones back, and that any hint of them being Muslims is slander.

Who? There was no king of Poland: the last King o Poland was the elector of Saxony, and the napoleonic duke of Varsovie was the king of Saxony: Prussia just happens to be sitting on half this part of his kingdom. The tsar was explicitly king of Congress Poland. Poland doesn't fucking count, it was a political irrelevance, a huge european "here be dragons" where the political system had completely fallen apart for a century already.

The Russians didn't get too much trouble invading Hungary in 1849, and Austria has no good record fighting multi-front wars. You reverse the burden of proof, it's Austria that has to survive fighting a three-front war.

They were invited!

You can't even get the lineups right, it's about the second or third time you talk about a TTL non-existent alliance of France and Russia. Sorry, WWI this ain't. Why I should keep taking your armchair generalship seriously ? As a matter of fact, I stop.

Pot, kettle.

 

[Snake Featherston]

It may, or it may not. German public opinion is still going to see this war as started by French aggression, and quite likely Austria as a stooge of France, so German nationalism may trump this.

Again, this is 1870. There is the pro-Prussian alliance of German states but no singular German state. France is not a society of 90 lb weaklings, and Russia is not quite a military powerhouse here. Russia goes to war against Austria, it's going to take it time to amass the troops and the equipment to fight that war. Russia's at this point managed to finally end the Caucasian War, hardly an endorsement of its ability to fight a general war in Europe.

Part of the PoD is that Italy does *better* in 1866.

A POD that sees it winning razor-thin victories, which is hardly going to incline that Italy to try again and risk a major defeat.

As I said, given 19th century conditions, you couldn't possibly make Poles any more restive to Russian rule than they were OTL. The Finns were apathetic, and Ukraine does not really exist as a national consciousness in 1870.

Actually yes, you could if it came to dividing states to create an ethnic state only seven years after Russia defeated a major Polish uprising.

The kings of Poland and Hanover called to say they would like to get their thrones back, and that any hint of them being Muslims is slander.

There never *was* a Poland in the 19th Century. Europe had the opportunity to completely eliminate the Ottoman presence in the Balkans in the way independent Poland had been partitioned away. This it did not do. Victorians did not remotely treat Christian states with the backhand that they dealt to the Ottomans, so if they did not do this to the Ottomans I cannot see it happening eight years earlier to Austria-Hungary.

The Russians didn't get too much trouble invading Hungary in 1849, and Austria has no good record fighting multi-front wars. You reverse the burden of proof, it's Austria that has to survive fighting a three-front war.

To judge by OTL, neither does united Germany. For that matter, Prussia was saved in a previous war like that by a Tsarina dying early, not by anything Friedrich der Grosse did. I didn't say it would survive or win, I simply said it's not going to be a three-month war. The Kingdom of Prussia of 1870 is not the Germany of 1914, and Napoleon III's France was no pushover.

You can't even get the lineups right, it's about the second or third time you talk about a TTL non-existent alliance of France and Russia. Sorry, WWI this ain't. Why I should keep taking your armchair generalship seriously ? As a matter of fact, I stop.

Your TL seems to ignore the entire existence of Britain or its Balance of Power politics, so any scenario where all the Great Powers *save* the British Empire are in a general war is not entirely reflecting existing Victorian realities. Britain would come in on one or the other side, and it would not stay neutral. And I *really* don't think Britain wants a European hegemon, particularly in the 1870s.

 

[Eurofed]

How?

Here are some ideas.

Poland doesn't fucking count, it was a political irrelevance,

I was obviously referring to the pre-partition kingdom of Poland, whose size was comparable to the Habsburg empire.

 

[archaeogeek]

Here are some ideas.



I was obviously referring to the pre-partition kingdom of Poland, whose size was comparable to the Habsburg empire.

It's not about size, it's about diplomatic relevance. Poland's political system was broken by the liberum veto and their continued existence was down to the goodwill of everyone else around: Poland was a country alright, but it was barely a state anymore. That was not the case with Austria. The Prussian-Austrian war was a gambit, there's a reason they didn't push further after Sadowa.

 

[Eurofed]

Russia goes to war against Austria, it's going to take it time to amass the troops and the equipment to fight that war. Russia's at this point managed to finally end the Caucasian War, hardly an endorsement of its ability to fight a general war in Europe.

Austria is even less the military powerhouse than Russia. What about the Caucasian War ? It was a guerrilla war. Apples and Oranges.

A POD that sees it winning razor-thin victories, which is hardly going to incline that Italy to try again and risk a major defeat.

A reverse outcome for Custoza and Lissa, and Italian landings in Dalmatia are hardly razor-thin. And a better Italian performance in 1866 would greatly boost national confidence.

Actually yes, you could if it came to dividing states to create an ethnic state only seven years after Russia defeated a major Polish uprising.

Where are the Polish revolts directly and demonstrably caused by the Italian and German unifications ?

There never *was* a Poland in the 19th Century. Europe had the opportunity to completely eliminate the Ottoman presence in the Balkans in the way independent Poland had been partitioned away. This it did not do. Victorians did not remotely treat Christian states with the backhand that they dealt to the Ottomans, so if they did not do this to the Ottomans I cannot see it happening eight years earlier to Austria-Hungary.

Britain had a major vested interest in stopping Russian expansion to the Mediterranean. For London this containment of Russia concern trumped by far any other concern they might have about Europe. Things would be wholly different in this case, the only thing London really cares about Germany and Italy getting bigger and stronger from Habsburg booty is, are they going to help or hinder me in keeping Russia away from Constantinople ?

To judge by OTL, neither does united Germany. For that matter, Prussia was saved in a previous war like that by a Tsarina dying early, not by anything Friedrich der Grosse did. I didn't say it would survive or win, I simply said it's not going to be a three-month war. The Kingdom of Prussia of 1870 is not the Germany of 1914, and Napoleon III's France was no pushover.

It's not obviously going to be a three-month war, it's not certainly going to be a four-year war. My guess is one-year war or so.

Your TL seems to ignore the entire existence of Britain or its Balance of Power politics, so any scenario where all the Great Powers *save* the British Empire are in a general war is not entirely reflecting existing Victorian realities. Britain would come in on one or the other side, and it would not stay neutral. And I *really* don't think Britain wants a European hegemon, particularly in the 1870s.

In 1870, Britain thought Napoleon III was the aggressor, troublemaker, and would-be hegemon, filling in the boots of his uncle. Yet, they saw fit to keep neutrality, as soon as they noticed the warring parties did not violate the neutrality of Belgium, because in the 1870s, the main foreign policy concerns of London were imperial ones, rather than the balance of power.

 

[Eurofed]

The Prussian-Austrian war was a gambit, there's a reason they didn't push further after Sadowa.

True, but the PoD includes a better Italian performance in 1866, so TTL Austria is already pushed closer to the brink by a greater military humiliation and worse territorial losses (surely Trentino, quite possibly Gorizia-Gradisca and/or Dalmatia, as well as Austrian Silesia).

 

[Douglas]

True, but the PoD includes a better Italian performance in 1866, so TTL Austria is already pushed closer to the brink by a greater military humiliation and worse territorial losses (surely Trentino, quite possibly Gorizia-Gradisca and/or Dalmatia, as well as Austrian Silesia).

Wha...?

This is insane. There's even less reason for Austria to join France in this situation!

 

[I Blame Communism]

Sigh... 1859, 1866, 1877. Major wars between European great powers DID happen in this period. For any of them (apart from poor Austria, trapped in a three-front war), the effort would not be that different from any of the OTL wars. The European powers were able to fight general continental wars for centuries before the PoD (Thirty Years War ? War of Spanish Succession ? Napoleonic Wars ?). I really don't get where all this arrogant confidence in declaring a general war in 1870 summarily impossible comes from.

The countries of Europe had clubbed together in 1815 and decided that there were to be no more general wars of national mobilisation, because they meant unwelcome social change. One-hundred years later, world war 1 - and, not coincidentally, Bolshevism. Engels even staked hoped on the Crimean War spiralling out of control, IIRC.

But revolutions imply conflicts not based on nationality, so nah, not interested.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Sometimes they change, sometimes they don't. Many people expected NATO to break down with the fall of Communism, but it didn't, since the interests of the US and Europe remain quite complementary.

Again with the far-out comparisons. Can we actually find an example of two nineteenth-century states that might reasonably be called chums?

Let's think back to the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, another venerable monarchist power past its prime carved up by three other monarchist powers. A quite similar case to the TTL partition of the Austrian Empire (and the precedent that OvB and co. would use to guide their actions).

That happened before 1792, when the monarchs of Europe could go around being atheists and wouldbe-revolutionaries. Bismarck was one of the men who had come off the estates to establish that kings had to act the part: God and the hangman.

And as AG says, Poland was a failed state. "Partition" was, in real terms, the Russians giving away bits of the country they owned.

I mentioned him just because you declared your explicit support of his arguments.

That sort of problem is why I don't Ignore people.

Actually, the present thread explores a different aspect of the no-Habsburg Victorian Europe scenario. I think that with LordKalvan's invaluable assistance, I have pretty much nailed down the first decade or so after the PoD, but the course of the alliance system still leaves me quite uncertain (of course, taking into account what I regard as high-probability outcomes). It is true that I often revisit old ideas I left dormant for a while, in an attempt to further develop and polish them. You must always remind how I approach the genre in these cases, from outcome to cause, so a fair degree of optimization effort is inevitable.

A different aspect of precisely the same thing is what you mean. I've got no objection if you stick to familiar ground, my objection is if you complain that you always get the same responses from the same people to the same scenarios. Well, that figures.

And this is a problem, why ? Not to mention that pretty much everyone on this board has its favorite causes.

It's not a problem, but it explains problems because you let your preferences get in the way of fact.

History is full of events that a lot of people on this board would scorn and howl against as ASBish, and happen for reasons no more compelling or likely than my TLs'.

Reproducing a past quip:

History is unpredictable but it is never implausible because everything that happened must have plaused. If a historian considers another historian's theory 'implausible' then he's rubbishing it.

Go back to classical Athens and tell them that one day the Tin Islands will be top nation and have Greece on a string, and you'll get a laugh, I'm sure; that's because history is unpredictable and we can't look too far ahead with any reliability.

But Britain, as it turns out, is an island with a plum position sitting on deposits of coal. There's nothing implausible about its being the centre and origin of industrial capitalism, hence becoming top nation for a while.

But supposing you told your man that the Orcadies would be top nation...

And other people sometimes (often) act like a bloody dynastic state was a necessary pillar of European civilization, which existed before and after the cousin-marriage-fetishists' rise to power.

This is another things that annoys me. By our standards, almost everybody in Europe was inbred for most of history. Fun fact: Somerled Lord of the Isles, genetic testing suggests, is the direct paternal ancestor of 25% of MacDonalds and 33% of MacDougals. What a guy!

There's a reason we're taller now.

Accusing the Hapsburgs of being inbred is a bit like pointing out that people in the past were racists eek; to do so betrays either a lack of knowledge of the period or a particular dislike.

1848 was a narrow-miss for Austria, and so did 1867, it had just lost two wars in 1859 and 1866, ITTL the latter gets worse and the sequence gets topped by suffering another major foreign policy and military disaster.

Yeah, they narrowly missed a couple of Hungarians that got away.

Russia took successive policy disasters all the way up to WW1.

And since Austria was never in the position to win a war with Russia, or diplomatically intimdate it, without German assistance, TTL differs from OTL how ?

That's where you're wrong: the Austrian army was the shadow hanging over Berlin.

This wasn't the era of total war, as Snake keeps saying. Armies were as big as you could equip and pay for. So much for the steamroller.

Remember, apart from giving Galicia and Bukovina to Russia, the partition only redistributes the assets of the Habsburg between Germany and its clients and allies.

This is rather the problem. The Germans have chucked Russia a (dubious) prize and then more-or-less annexed another great power.

The existence of Austria in no shape or form was necessary or sufficient to prevent a total war, as Gavrilo Princip discovered.

I know you wouldn't guess from his memoirs, but to clarify: Bismarck could not scry the future.

Terminological nitpicking. It may have been invented in the Cold War, but "detente" IMO aptly describes pre-Cold War situations where powers that have strong background reasons to be hostile achieve a phase of warming relations nonetheless.

But Germany's relations with France were a mess of conflicting interests and contradictions, like most Victorian great-power relations. They were not really generally worse than Austro-Russian, Franco-Italian, or Russo-British relations were for spells of the long 19th century.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Austria is even less the military powerhouse than Russia. What about the Caucasian War ? It was a guerrilla war. Apples and Oranges.

Simple: after almost 30 years of one war that Alexander II's ended he's going to decide to stake things on a general European war for what reason? What army does he have that's suited not to a glorified Colonial War but for a war against Austria?

A reverse outcome for Custoza and Lissa, and Italian landings in Dalmatia are hardly razor-thin. And a better Italian performance in 1866 would greatly boost national confidence.

Remind how the POD works that turns Italians from the joke of Europe to doing well against the Habsburgs exactly? I mean the Habsburgs had only occupied a great deal of Italy and kicked their asses in most of the wars they fought, it's not like this would make Italian armies hesitant or anything because 19th Century armies are robots in your view, eh?

Where are the Polish revolts directly and demonstrably caused by the Italian and German unifications ?

Now *this* is apples to monkey puzzles. Bigger nations won't spur Poland's revolt. Splitting up a nation, OTOH.....particularly in the age of nationalism......

Britain had a major vested interest in stopping Russian expansion to the Mediterranean. For London this containment of Russia concern trumped by far any other concern they might have about Europe. Things would be wholly different in this case, the only thing London really cares about Germany and Italy getting bigger and stronger from Habsburg booty is, are they going to help or hinder me in keeping Russia away from Constantinople ?

From what I understand what London really wanted was to keep St. Petersburg from menacing India, and preserving the Ottoman Empire mattered for that, not dislike of Russia/sympathy for the ottomans. If Russia and everyone partition Austria-Hungary and have direct borders, things are going to be slightly unpleasant.

It's not obviously going to be a three-month war, it's not certainly going to be a four-year war. My guess is one-year war or so.

It's 1870. Nobody has the military power to fight that kind of rapid general war on multiple fronts. As it turned out in 1914-8 Britain and France were better at it than everyone else, which is why the Allies won World War I. In 1870 even more than in 1914 people are really rather unprepared to fight themselves a giant war in Europe. You can't simply sow dragon's teeth and create full-fledged armies.

In 1870, Britain thought Napoleon III was the aggressor, troublemaker, and would-be hegemon, filling in the boots of his uncle. Yet, they saw fit to keep neutrality, as soon as they noticed the warring parties did not violate the neutrality of Belgium, because in the 1870s, the main foreign policy concerns of London were imperial ones, rather than the balance of power.

So London had nothing to do with the Treaty of San Stefano? I might note you're the one who wants the general war in Europe. If it's in fact a general war what's Prussia going to spare Belgium for, exactly? If it's fighting a two front war it's not got much to lose militarily by the kind of surprise attack launched in 1914.

 

[archaeogeek]

That happened before 1792, when the monarchs of Europe could go around being atheists and wouldbe-revolutionaries. Bismarck was one of the men who had come off the estates to establish that kings had to act the part: God and the hangman.

That's also a good point. Christian VIII was a pariah of foreign monarchies for merely being a suspected liberal (he had agreed matter of factly to a liberal constitution as king of Norway), and only kept his throne after 1815 because he submitted to the reactionary order. He died on the eve of the 1848 revolutions, with the last words "I couldn't make it."

But supposing you told the Orcadies would be top nation...

Petrol, dear boy

There's a reason we're taller now.

Blessed be Sivrac and Drais.

That's where you're wrong: the Austrian army was the shadow hanging over Berlin.

This wasn't the era of total war, as Snake keeps saying. Armies were as big as you could equip and pay for. So much for the steamroller.

Indeed, the Prussians didn't stop pushing forward in Moravia simply because they thought they could afford it.

This is rather the problem. The Germans have chucked Russia a (dubious prize) and then more-or-less annexed another great power.

As we all know, Russia loved to bolster potential enemies, and somehow, the ASB have decided to replace Alexander II with Peter III...

 

[Eurofed]

The countries of Europe had clubbed together in 1815 and decided that there were to be no more general wars of national mobilisation, because they meant unwelcome social change. One-hundred years later, world war 1 - and, not coincidentally, Bolshevism. Engels even staked hoped on the Crimean War spiralling out of control, IIRC.

If you don't want to call them "wars of national mobilisation", give them another name, but the 1854-1877 wars did happen, and were a major sign that the 1815 reactionary order and its "peaceful" consensus had already come apart in 1870.

I've dug out diplomatic evidence that a general war of five powers almost happened in 1870 as an expansion of the F-P war. Such a war would have been more or less a combination of the 1870 and 1866 wars with a 1877 one with a different target. This general war would involve a military scenario that all involved actors planned for or accepted as a contingency.

Prussia in OTL 1870 kept a portion of its mobilised army on its eastern border to guard against an Austrian attack, and it made the secret alliance with Russia. Italy in 1866 kept a portion of its army in Southern Italy to keep quelling brigandage (which in 1870 had been quashed, so those resources were freed) and in 1870 there was serious talk in Italy of an intervention in the F-P war. Austria fought a two-front war in 1866 and an alliance with France was seriously talked about in 1868-70. Russia in 1868 and 1870 did committ itself to attack Austria if it joined France against Prussia.

I may accept that some posters disagree with the peace settlement I have devised as the outcome of such a war, but to deny that such a war would occur, despite evidence, is unacceptable. And for the record, this war would not be anything like WWI and its long revolution-inducing trench warfare stalemate, because the military technology to induce that kind of stalemate was not yet there. No war of this period was such, even the ACW, which came the closest, was much, much more based on movement than WWI.

 

[Douglas]

How you get, with an 1866 POD, the idea that an Austria beaten down (in tremendously unlikely fashion) by Italy would be more likely to enter war against Prussia than in OTL (i.e., they didn't at all) in 1870, while ignoring the fact that Napoleon III would clearly be more cautious in dealing with Prussia 1866-70 given a clearly weakened Austria is beyond me.

EDIT:

From The Great Powers, Imperialism, and the German Problem, 1865-1925, it appears that the "deal" the Russians and Prussians agreed to in 1870 was to move 100,000 troops each to the borders of Austria. Moving troops to the borders is indeed threatening, but not a guarantee of intervention.

From the same, Austria refused to intervene in the event of a Franco-Prussian War until after a period of at least six weeks. Ignoring the highly unlikely sweeping Italian victories in 1866, and assuming things run roughly as OTL (which is a best-case scenario for Prussian, in any event), by the time Austria is willing to commit (as OTL, September 1, 1870), the Battle of Sedan is being fought that very day and Bazaine is pocketed in Metz. Not exactly good omens for intervention.

1870 Standing Army - Post-Mobilization Figures (from The Tragedy of Great Power Politics)

AUS 250,000 - 420,000 [1]
FRA 360,000 - 530,000*

PRU 320,000 - 1,180,000
ITA 210,000 - 220,000 [2]
RUS 740,000 - 790,000 [2]

* - Eventually, counting volunteers and civilians, France raised 2 million men under arms.
[1] Extrapolated via comparison with 1866 figures
[2] Extrapolated via comparison with 1861 figures

In 1876 it took six weeks for the Russians to get less than 200,000 men to Bessarabia, and that only after a real conscription law was passed in 1874. Italy took 20 days in 1866 to invade Austrian territories, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are ready for war when Austria-Hungary is. Russia gets 100,000 men on the border while Austria-Hungary mobilizes, and another 100,000 1-2 months later. Austria-Hungary, according to the above work, planned to deploy 1/4 of its troops against Italy. To continue the line of implausibilities inherent in the scenario, let's trace our steps:

1. July 1870: Prussia and France go to war. Austria gives France six weeks to prove itself.

2. September 1, 1870: As Napoleon surrenders Sedan, Austria decides to commit suicide and enter the war against Prussia. Russia and Italy declare war on Austria.

3. September - October 1870: Austria-Hungary opposes Germany and Russia with 320,000 soldiers against a total between the two of 200,000, and opposes Italy with 100,000 soldiers against 200,000, assuming Italy makes no forays against France. The discrepancy between the Italian and Austrian forces, interestingly, is roughly the same as at the Isonzo, or, if you prefer, only a slightly greater discrepancy than at Custoza. Germany is still tied down fighting France.

4. November 1870: Austria-Hungary opposes Germany and Russia with 320,000 soldiers against a total between the two of them of 300,000, and opposes Italy with the number as previously. Germany is still tied down in France. Austria-Hungary has now been fighting for an agreement signed with a country whose capital is besieged for an Emperor who has been dethroned for two months.

5. December 1870 - May 1871: Still assuming that Austria-Hungary has an inexplicable desire for partition (lol), Germany has 100,000 soldiers in theater (possibly boosted by cruddy reserves, or by dangerous withdrawals from France) against Austria, Russia has 300,000 (number arrived at by comparing number deployed in the Balkans by the same time period and using slightly greater percentage of military force), and Italy has 200,000 (again, assuming no intervention against France). Austria-Hungary admittedly only has 400,000+ to match roughly 600,000 arrayed against it, but collapse is far from likely.

6. Post - May 1871: Austria-Hungary refuses to give in after France surrenders and fights a war with three other Great Powers. The magic pixies of Revolution strike because the Emperor is clearly insane (been fighting for Napoleon III since September 1870), Russia and Germany (hey!) and Italy divide up the old empire.

So ask yourselves...really?

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

Douglas' first post (as much as it was forcibly brought to my attention by LK's quoting, since he's on my ignore list, and generally there's a damn good reason for it) shows too much misunderstanding (or willful ignorance) of the scenario to be taken seriously.

You've gotta be joking. Douglas has pretty extensively studied this era of history.

I assume by "misunderstanding of the scenario", you mean he's actually analyzing the background of the era in question, considering the OTL actions of the characters involved, and comparing their OTL reactions to the ATL circumstances to see what their ATL reactions would likely be.

Quit being a hypocrite. If you have a problem with his assertions, whether he provides sources or not, provide sources to "smack him in the face" (I'm being metaphorical, hence the quote marks) with. Maybe then he'll come closer to your line of thinking, or not.

(Granted, I'm being hypocritical myself, but good advice is good advice, no matter from where it comes)

 

[Eurofed]

That happened before 1792, when the monarchs of Europe could go around being atheists and wouldbe-revolutionaries. Bismarck was one of the men who had come off the estates to establish that kings had to act the part: God and the hangman.

And again, you only want to see one side of Bismarck M.O. He is also the man that abolished several German states with a stroke of pen, which, I may add, is also what the monarchs of Europe did in 1815. I may remember you that this scenario does not see OvB purposefully seeking the partition of Austria beforehand, it is something that events and political pressure force on him.

And as AG says, Poland was a failed state. "Partition" was, in real terms, the Russians giving away bits of the country they owned.

And yet, they did it.

That sort of problem is why I don't Ignore people.

Well, I don't Report people, because as far as I'm concerned, this board curtails free speech far too much. But I much prefer putting people on Ignore rather than keep enduring personal attacks and trolls or worse losing temper and exploding in a flamewar and emperiling my membership. And I've noticed that people I put on Ignore rarely reform much (e.g. a couple of them recently threw personal attacks on me that moderators reprimanded).

A different aspect of precisely the same thing is what you mean. I've got no objection if you stick to familiar ground, my objection is if you complain that you always get the same responses from the same people to the same scenarios. Well, that figures.

Thankfully, sometimes different people show up to give different responses. E.g. Lord Kalvan has been an extremely cooperative and helpful source of constructive advice for developing this scenario, across multiple threads.

It's not a problem, but it explains problems because you let your preferences get in the way of fact.

Fact: period people do diplomatic talks and sign accords to make wars in certain contingencies. Non-fact: posters that say period people won't do what they said would do because "they fear revolution" or "they don't have the logistics".

There's a reason we're taller now.

Yeah, we eat much better during the growth stage.

Accusing the Hapsburgs of being inbred

I'm mocking them, to cast them down from the pedestal of necessary component of European civilization some people set them up.

Yeah, they narrowly missed a couple of Hungarians that got away.

And the Ausgleich was a totally unnecessary act of gracious liberality, because everyone in Austria notoriously worshipped at the shrine of Metternich

Russia took successive policy disasters all the way up to WW1.

I have no trouble stating that as multinational empires go, the Russian one was rather more solid than the Habsburg one, and hence it would take much more abuse before falling or being torn apart.

This wasn't the era of total war, as Snake keeps saying.

"People won't do what they signed accords to do, because my misconstructed armchair general generalizations know better" ? Please.

This is rather the problem. The Germans have chucked Russia a (dubious) prize and then more-or-less annexed another great power.

More or less annexed two-fifths of it, you mean. I didn't remember writing that the Kingdom of Hungary joined the German Empire.

 

[Eurofed]

As we all know, Russia loved to bolster potential enemies, and somehow, the ASB have decided to replace Alexander II with Peter III...

Actually, the partition of Poland was done by Catherine II.