WI: Austria joins the German Empire in 1871 after AH dissolution in 1867

Which are the possibilities for an Austrian state, created after the eventual dissolution of the Austrian Empire in 1867 (Ausgleich fails and Hungary gets independence etc etc), to join the German Empire after its proclamation in 1871, just like Bavaria did?

- Could the Habsburgs become just another Wittelsbachs, rendering allegiance to a Hohenzollern Kaiser?
- Could Prussia accept it inside the new Empire? In this case, could a Grossdeutschland's Kaiserreich impose even harsher peace conditions to France?
- This solution could boost another former German Confederation members (Limburg, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein...) to join the Empire as well?

Please, discuss it

Prussia wouldnt allow them in, its really that simple. The German lands of the Austro hungarian empire are considerably larger than OTL Austria, with the consequent large population.



Austria in Germany after its defeat by Prussia in the 1860s, is a non-starter. Prussia has its dominance, it isnt giving it up

Though even OTL's German Empire quickly became the continent's most powerful nation even without Austria. With a large part of Cisleithania added (and likely Hungary in its diplomatic orbit) it would have been even more powerful, and with the right people in power it could have dominated Europe.

libbrit said:

Prussia wouldnt allow them in, its really that simple. The German lands of the Austro hungarian empire are considerably larger than OTL Austria, with the consequent large population.

Austria in Germany after its defeat by Prussia in the 1860s, is a non-starter. Prussia has its dominance, it isnt giving it up

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But this division is resulting from the Ausgleich of 1867. I was thinking in a minor Austrian state, resulting from a larger split of the Empire. Maybe only post-1920 Austria with maybe Südtirol, Carniola, Bohemia and Moravia, but never Galicia or Dalmatia.

Germany certainly isn't annexing Galicia - it has few Germans in it and is ludicrously exposed to Russian attacks.

Considering how much Kleindeutschland attempted to stop Catholic political influence, admitting a state as populous like Austria (even if you were to exclude Hungary and Galicia-Lodomeria) is just too much and it would shift the balance of power within the Empire too much in favor of the Catholic states (and regions, btw; remember that Prussian provinces like Posen and the Rhineland were primarily Catholic). Combine that with the old rivalry between Austria and Prussia, which, I shall remind you, only ended when isolating France was more important (aka post-1871), then the climate will be VERY chilly.

Alternatively if Cisleithanian Austria would join the Empire, then I'd expect it to be under conditions that weaken the power(s) of the individual member states and with a less severe Kulturkampf, though it would still lead to the Catholic church losing most of its direct influence within Germany. Also it should be noted that Austria wouldn't really like that either, because unlike the Wittelsbachs, which were bribed into ceding their competences to Berlin, the Habsburgs are a more involved bunch, so they would still want autonomy, which is of course against what Prussia wants to have within the empire (aka dominance).

Regarding the other states of the GC... Luxembourg and Liechtenstein could work, especially Liechtenstein... Limburg however is just completely out of the question, since its way too awkward due to being very Dutch and just intended as a bit of compensation for the loss of Belgian Luxembourg.

Mario said:

But this division is resulting from the Ausgleich of 1867. I was thinking in a minor Austrian state, resulting from a larger split of the Empire. Maybe only post-1920 Austria with maybe Südtirol, Carniola, Bohemia and Moravia, but never Galicia or Dalmatia.

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Austria would most likely take perifieral areas of Hungary like Pressburg, Wieselburg, Ödenburg and Eisenburg in any frustrated dissolution.

Kvasir said:

Austria would most likely take perifieral areas of Hungary like Pressburg, Wieselburg, Ödenburg and Eisenburg in any frustrated dissolution.

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OTL Bratislava - part of Germany. That's an interesting scenario, though didn't the city have an ethnic German majority prior to WW1?

Southpaw said:

OTL Bratislava - part of Germany. That's an interesting scenario, though didn't the city have an ethnic German majority prior to WW1?

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It was a pretty even split between Germans (Austrians), Hungarians, and Slovaks. Which really means it was majority Slovak, but some of them were well educated enough to speak the languages of power.

Southpaw said:

OTL Bratislava - part of Germany. That's an interesting scenario, though didn't the city have an ethnic German majority prior to WW1?

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JamesG said:

It was a pretty even split between Germans (Austrians), Hungarians, and Slovaks. Which really means it was majority Slovak, but some of them were well educated enough to speak the languages of power.

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According to most sources at the time, Pressburg was plurality German, and the second largest group were the Hungarians. Then again, obviously we should take this data with caveats as to its total accuracy.

But the idea that the majority was Slovak is, in my view, false.

Southpaw said:

Germany certainly isn't annexing Galicia - it has few Germans in it and is ludicrously exposed to Russian attacks.

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Yes, this is out of question. They would not also take Dalmatia for similar reasons too.

Iserlohn said:

Considering how much Kleindeutschland attempted to stop Catholic political influence, admitting a state as populous like Austria (even if you were to exclude Hungary and Galicia-Lodomeria) is just too much and it would shift the balance of power within the Empire too much in favor of the Catholic states (and regions, btw; remember that Prussian provinces like Posen and the Rhineland were primarily Catholic).

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Well, the religion issue was certainly a problem. But I think that some sort of compromise could be achieved for avoiding undesirable cross-influence between the Lutheran North and the Catholic South in religion matters.

It worked for the German Confederation, however it was a looser entity.

Iserlohn said:

Combine that with the old rivalry between Austria and Prussia, which, I shall remind you, only ended when isolating France was more important (aka post-1871), then the climate will be VERY chilly.

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That's why I was talking about a 'minor' Austria that would have badly affected by the dissolution of its Empire, so Prussia it's in a clear position of dominance and Austria is in a weak one. If Prussia thinks that Austria is now weak, it might not consider it a rival any long.

Iserlohn said:

Alternatively if Cisleithanian Austria would join the Empire, then I'd expect it to be under conditions that weaken the power(s) of the individual member states and with a less severe Kulturkampf, though it would still lead to the Catholic church losing most of its direct influence within Germany. Also it should be noted that Austria wouldn't really like that either, because unlike the Wittelsbachs, which were bribed into ceding their competences to Berlin, the Habsburgs are a more involved bunch, so they would still want autonomy, which is of course against what Prussia wants to have within the empire (aka dominance).

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Of course, other possible Cisleithanian territories annexed to Germany (Bohemia, Moravia or even Tyrol) would be separate members; a whole unified 'Cisleithania' inside the German Empire would be too challenging for the Prussian dominance.

Iserlohn said:

Regarding the other states of the GC... Luxembourg and Liechtenstein could work, especially Liechtenstein... Limburg however is just completely out of the question, since its way too awkward due to being very Dutch and just intended as a bit of compensation for the loss of Belgian Luxembourg.

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Maybe it's possible then that Germany would push for getting Belgian Luxembourg instead? Maybe later (WWI)?

Kvasir said:

Austria would most likely take perifieral areas of Hungary like Pressburg, Wieselburg, Ödenburg and Eisenburg in any frustrated dissolution.

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True, the borders in this scenario could not been those of the IOTL post-Ausgleich.

in such a scenario, what's likely to happen to Galicia?

A independent state seems extremely unlikely to me, would the Russians just annex it outright? That seems the mostly likely outcome.

Saladan said:

in such a scenario, what's likely to happen to Galicia?

A independent state seems extremely unlikely to me, would the Russians just annex it outright? That seems the mostly likely outcome.

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It would be interesting for it to become some sort of Poland-in-exile centered on Krakow. Though Russia wouldn't accept that, and Germany wouldn't like it either.

Saladan said:

in such a scenario, what's likely to happen to Galicia?

A independent state seems extremely unlikely to me, would the Russians just annex it outright? That seems the mostly likely outcome.

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Probably. Germany-Austria could let Russia to annex Galicia if the Russian Empire accepts in return the formation of a Grossdeutschland Empire (well, this is a complicated issue anyway).

I would know if in this case, a more powerful German Empire is likely to impose more territorial cessions to France in 1871 (i.e. Belfort) or this scenario would not affect the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War in which is related to France.

Mario said:

Probably. Germany-Austria could let Russia to annex Galicia if the Russian Empire accepts in return the formation of a Grossdeutschland Empire (well, this is a complicated issue anyway).

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That's a shit trade for Russia and everyone will know it.

Southpaw said:

That's a shit trade for Russia and everyone will know it.

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Yeah, but Russia was not in a good position for starting a war against a combined German-Austrian Empire in 1871. Maybe they have accepted the 'gift' of Galicia and wait to start a war sometime later (well, more or less it happened IOTL, but without ceding Galicia).

based on everything I know here's what i can see happening in a Ah dissolution.

Hungary keeps all it's lands though finds itself in much the same situation ironically as the Hapsburgs did with all it's non Magyar minorities.

Croatia either breaks off and forms it's own state with Dalmatia or gets annexed wholesale by Hungary. probably the latter.

Galicia annexed by Russia, though probably not added to Congress Poland. The Russians even if some of the leadership is interested in courting some concessions and accommodations to the poles are still very much interested in keeping them weak as possible. And any independent polish state even if not officially called as such is intolerable to a Tsarist Russia and also nearly equally unacceptable to Imperial Germany as well.

Austria-Bohemia is not going to be a part of Germany for the reasons others have already said. It would upend the balance of power too much in Germany's favor in the eyes of her neighbors and would upend Prussian dominance in the Empire as well, hence they have no reason to support it either. Odds are Germany turns it into a client state in it's orbit and let's the Hapsburgs keep whatever's left of their little empire. This keeps mostly everyone happy enough.

plus Austria going belly up means the German leadership under Willy II is forced to act less stupid and antagonistic. No Austria means one huge block to possible friendly or at least neutral relations with Russia is removed.

Perhaps rather than Austria just taking the German lands in the East, the prize off more territory from Hungary, like Slovak lands to the North. This would provide a thicker connection to Galicia.

The mountainous Slovakian lands are easy to defend and sparsely populated, adding only a small number of none Germans to the Empire, and there are German mining towns in them there hills.

Also, one imagines Germany would loath to see the Russians get Galicia and the Slovaks would loath to be under the Hungarian boot.

Just a thought.

Saladan said:

Austria-Bohemia is not going to be a part of Germany for the reasons others have already said. It would upend the balance of power too much in Germany's favor in the eyes of her neighbors and would upend Prussian dominance in the Empire as well, hence they have no reason to support it either. Odds are Germany turns it into a client state in it's orbit and let's the Hapsburgs keep whatever's left of their little empire. This keeps mostly everyone happy enough.

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That's make little difference. The German Empire (1871-1918) was not the French Republic, this is, was not a centralized entity: Austria as a 'client state' would not differ much from the status of Bavaria, and their neighbors would not see the difference.

Austria would not challenge Prussian dominance as long as it would join the Empire from a weak position (that could be caused if the split of the AH Empire in 1867 is not peaceful).

Sorry, Kvasir, but no. Germany already has Poles and Lithuanians, even Bohemia is going to be a stretch considering how continuously poor German-Czech relations were there. Galicia and Slovakia? No way.