The reason they gave that many loans to Russia was because it was backwards and because some things (such as the railway network) needed to be done fast, AH isn't in that position so no reason to give them loans, it's just as asking why doesn't Britain give loans to France to develop Brittany? Because they already have most industries they would need, no reason to go develop that region in particular since there's not that much resources to exploit.
Plus Galicia was useful as an agricultural land (something like a third of AH's production) and to extract the oil reserves there.
Ok, this makes sense, I'll cede my point on the economics. I still AHs economy should be stronger, but not because of the loans now. Galicia made up 1/3rd of
Austria's agricultural output, not Austria-Hungary. Hungary was/is one of the bread baskets of Europe so that agriculture in Galicia isn't really needed, if Vienna wanted to do something like promote polish nationalism under a Habsburg aegis, they could go and develop Galicia to exploit its oil reserves and get a large middle class of polish speakers to boost the economy. But they don't even need polish nationalism, they would likely just develop it for better defenses against Russia.
"More willing to work with their minorities" and "Remain centralized" is kind of contradictory, minorities want autonomy so you have to decentralize. Anyways I don't see why you think they would be more willing to work with minorities ITTL.
Its not. If you looked at the rest of what I said on that topic, I said that historians like Christopher Clark(and Alexander Watson) have said that the Austrian system was workable under multiple ministers pre WW1. And had it continued in peacetime, it could have developed into multiple guarantees(guarantees on language and culture and the like which already existed in practice, did not exist officially which bothered a lot of nationalists) for the minorities that would've/should've dealt with any remaining issues with the centralized system. This was already happening pre WW1, except the guarantees were being worked out on a case by case basis instead of having them in writing in the constitution. I said that all I'm proposing is, those guarantees get pushed forward for whatever reason, maybe because the empire is surrounded and wants as few problems as possible, really it doesn't matter, leading to the central governments having the support of the people. More importantly that support results in more military funding as its easier to pass votes on it(specifically in the Hungarian half because in the Austrian half Franz Joseph could rule absolutely via emergency decrees).
I have to say I don't understand why you're saying that, to the best of my knowledge the Czechs weren't particularly restless and even if what you said is true just because they allied themselves with France and GB doesn't make them more inclined to do this.
Because the Bohemian language law was never passed, Czech political leaders stopped working with the central government and made parliament essentially useless for the 15 or so years of the Empire because they wouldn't vote on anything without the language law being passed first.
Which will still be done by the very incompetent army leadership, and the funding problem is far from solved ITTL, adding more loans will only make the financial situation worse.
Hate to break it to you, but I don't think the army is incompetent, Potioreck is responsible for the failures early on as he personally asked Franz Joseph for B staffel so he could go on a revenge trip for FF in Serbia, since B staffel wasn't in Galicia as the Austrian war plan for Russia+Balkans said it should be, A staffel was severely outnumbered and outgunned, and when B staffel was finally redirected to Galicia, it had already taken serious damage in Serbia because it was led by Potioreck, and just got caught up in A staffels retreat. Leading to the loss of 1 million men and Austrias best officers. This was not the army being incompetent, this was a disaster brought about by one guy who does not represent the entire general staff.
All sides in the conflict had OK commanders, the question is how many and where were they in the command chain, AH did not lose the war because of losses in 1914, it lost because it failed to beat its enemies after it had recovered from 1914 losses.
AH lost because it was fighting on 3 fronts, and starving while doing it. Its recovery from 1914 was gimped because the best officers the army had were lost in 1914. Brand new officers who did not know how to work the multi ethnic system as well as the captured officers were brought in. The moment AH recovered from one problem, another one rose up, They recovered from 1914 to immediately fight a new front, they recovered from Brusilov and had to fight a new front. OTL AH is just the unluckiest thing you could think of.
Look at the Brusilov Offensive, AH's commanders are overoptimistic and incompetent. Or look at their loss of Galicia in 1914 and their failure to bring down Serbia for so long, their command is very incompetent, the only place where they mostly did fine was against the Italians who also did not have ta brilliant leadership.
And 1m men is AH's losses in the frontlines in the ENTIRE war, not in 1914.
Yeah lets look at the Brusilov offensive. Here, Austria-Hungary was outnumbered around 2:1, fighting the best general the Russians had, and they were nearing the limits on their manpower while Russia had men for days. Oh and they had an ongoing offensive in Italy eating up what manpower they did have left, and they were without their best officers. Their soldiers probably ate turnips for breakfast too. Yup this offensive is totally representative of the quality of the army. I already explained how Galicia was lost. Their command is fine. Even Conrad for all the shit he gets, developed a decent war plan against Russia and Serbia, and led the Asiago offensive against Italy well enough before the Brusilov offensive started. And no, they did lose 1,000,000 men in 1914. Wikipedia counts 1.4 million dead on the military side, 1.7-2 million dead in total, and 3.6 million military wounded. Wikipedia also counts 324,000-420,000 causalities for the battle of Galicia in 1914, 273,000 for the serbian campaign, and 473,000 casualities in the Carpathian front but that one started in January 1915, so maybe the better wording would be "1 million casualities early in the war), but 1914 still runs you into the 6-700,000+ range.
There's no way AH is occupying Poland, they'll be surrounded on all sides and they should go on the offensive? Germany still has a much faster mobilization than AH and Russia even with half the speed of OTL has more than enough troops to beat AH.
Yes, they should go on the offensive because the backwards Russia without any loans is going to take a damn long time to get any good number of troops to the frontline. Definitely longer then the 6 weeks in OTL, Germany mobilized around 3.5 million men on the outbreak of war, France a little less than that, and AH 1.7 million. These numbers are from Ring of Steel. So no, Germany "even half the speed of OTL has more than enough troops to beat AH". It is not out of the realm of reason, I think likely even, that France and AH don't come up with their own Schlieffen plan to beat Germany before Russia mobilizes, they'll have longer then 6 weeks this TL too. And I don't think Germany is mobilizing faster then AH, I'd be damned if AH doesn't invest in some way to mobilize as fast as Germany, building more railroads helps for sure, their system was the second largest in Europe in OTL not counting Russia, but it wasn't as dense as Germanys, and I can definitely see them making it denser and working on army organization to provide for a larger and quicker mobilization time. They're definitely mobilizing more then 1.7 million men in this TL, because the army should have a lot more money and therefore be larger, and faster too. So I don't see why Germany isn't in some trouble while it waits for Russia to mobilize. Even if you assume AH doesn't make its army larger, which I think is a big stretch considering they'll know pre war they have to fight on multiple fronts, and just assume they modernize it more, Germany is still outnumbered. France + AHs numbers in OTL on outbreak are bigger then Germanys. An occupation of Poland also seems likely against the backward Russian army. Maybe Russia isn't stuck in 1880 in this TL, but they are definitely 20 or so years behind. The devastation AH suffered to modern artillery in OTL will happen to Russia. And even if they don't occupy Poland, Russia still can't feed Germany, even if they were as industrialized as OTL, Russia still can't do it.
Serbia wanted to expand there, it doesn't matter how well they treat the Southern Slavs, and Serbians in Bosnia still very much want to be a part of Serbia regardless of how well they are treated.
This is a fair point, but it ignores other butterflies and doesn't really reflect why Serbia broke with AH. Serbia broke because Austria treated them like absolute shit, which made the ruling dynasty at the time very unpopular, leading to them being overthrown, etc. If Austria is isolated, they don't want to lose their only ally in balkans, hence I can see them treating Serbia better, like a partner instead of a total puppet(emphasis on total). If that happens, it makes any removal of the pro Habsburg dynasty much less likely, and continuing on the track of AH treats Serbia better, it would make a lot of sense that they direct Serbian nationalism towards Macedonia, and they could work out an arrangement for Bosnia too. What led to Serbian opinion of AH going from bad to violent after the dynasty overthrow was the annexation of Bosnia, if Austria treats them better, directs nationalism at the Balkans, and figures out an arrangement for Bosnia(Serbian annexation but Austrian military occupation should make both states happy as Austria just wanted it to protect croatia.
Why exactly? The Italians while not good, diverted a lot of resources from other fronts and simply existing as a threatening power is enough to divert resources that might be diverted elsewhere to Italy.
For reasons I stated right after that sentence.
Just because they'll suffer doesn't mean they're a non-factor, they would be weaker than IOTL but not inexistant.
No, they will be inexistant. Only suicidal Italian government would enter a war against France, Britain and Austria. Italy will not just suffer, Italy will be destroyed and any politician in Rome will know that. Any coastal city will be at risk of being leveled, all international trade will be shut off, and I've said already Italy depended on Franco British trade. Its not just the coast too, any long range naval gun would be more then capable of raining hellfire on the inner citys as well. How is Italy going to mobilize when its northern rail system is destroyed by bombardment? In OTL Austrias navy was able to seriously damage Italian infrastructure as they had been expecting a declaration of war and the navy was in position to bomb Italy, this significantly slowed Italian mobilization and was a massive factor as to Austria surviving the initial offensives by Italy. So yeah, Italy is a no go. Only a suicidal government is going to war.
They will be as scared for their lives as IOTL, building up the military is something every state with a military has always done.
Must be why the Austro Hungarian army has a reputation for being underfunded, and why the Hungarian half always shut down any idea of funding the army. Austria-Hungary in OTL did not build up their military, here they will because the Hungarians finally feel threatened.
The military being better funded doesn't change the fact that it never fought in the last what 50 years? Commanders are still sons of the nobility who are extremely incompetent and better equipment is sort of irrelevant when your industrial heartland is occupied by the enemy.
Thats fine, the military of Germany hadn't fought in 50 years either and they did just fine, that also applies to France and Britain. German commanders were also sons of nobility. And I already explained why AHs commanders aren't so incompetent. The industrial heartland isn't going anywhere either.
