AHC successful Austria Hungary after the first world war

[LeCHVCK]

So in most central powers victory scenarios floating around on the internet Austria Hungary still gets split up and Germany becomes the master of Europe.
But that's boring. How could Austria Hungary be the main beneficiary of the Great War? How could it have a surviving Habsburg monarchy until today with at least Austria Czechia Hungary Croatia and Slovakia under the rule of the same Habsburg monarch. Bonus points if Germany itself is screwed in this scenario

 

[Athelstane]

So in most central powers victory scenarios floating around on the internet Austria Hungary still gets split up and Germany becomes the master of Europe.
But that's boring. How could Austria Hungary be the main beneficiary of the Great War? How could it have a surviving Habsburg monarchy until today with at least Austria Czechia Hungary Croatia and Slovakia under the rule of the same Habsburg monarch. Bonus points if Germany itself is screwed in this scenario

The earlier the Central Powers win, the better Austria-Hungary's chances.

Avoiding the smashing they took in Galicia in August-September 1914 also helps a great deal.

An East-First strategy is likely to help, especially in regards to the latter. It also helps keep Italy out of the war.

But even in a best case scenario, Austria-Hungary will have to do some restructuring. Renegotiating the Ausgleich will still be a tough task. And then if you throw in a third crown, well...

 

[Fehérvári]

I'll write my sceniario here soon

 

[yourworstnightmare]

As mentioned, the shorter war, the better chances. Because A-H is not really in a good situation post war. The minorities would demand greater autonomy, but AH doesn't want to give them that. The Hungarians would also be against other minorities getting more rights, since it would diminish their special status. The elite in Vienna had hoped the war could be used to enforce recentralization, that won't happen, but they might try. A quick war mean von Hötzendorf somehow was succesful (this is seriously ASB!) and thus he would basically be in power, and his ideas of a Germanic Absolute Monarchy would clash hard not only with the Slavs and Hungarians but with the Liberals in Vienna.

 

[Keb]

Alternately, and this might both bold and a bit out there as far as ideas go, have Austria-Hungary make a seperate peace. IOTL, they tried negotiating their way out of the war in early 1917. Nothing came of it. The French published the letter, causing a major embarrassment for the Emperor and the Germans to tighten their leash on Austria.

But, suppose Central Powers performance is a bit better and the Entente position a bit worse ... not enough to really change the outcome of the war, but make the Entente harder pressed and facing a tougher fight. So, the Entente decides that giving Russia some relief, weakening Germany and cutting the flow of supplies between Germany and the Ottomans justifies giving Austria a peace treaty. Maybe it's a white peace, maybe there's some minor border adjustments and reparations to Serbia/Russia, whoever, but Austria goes out of the war.

The war continues and ends with a German surrender, after another year and a half of bloody fighting that leaves Germany, Russia and France hollow ruins. Russia might even avoid the revolution. Italy is obviously pissed, but all of Austria's other rivals are neutered for the time being.

This buys time for Austria to reform. The national councils are effectively powerless, so internal forces, which still call for autonomy (rather than independence). Though the success of the reforms is up in the air, they might succeed - certainly, there was enough revolutionary belief among the populace to force Vienna'a hand into making real concessions.

So, best-case scenario: Austria-Hungary bows out of the war early, survives and everyone else is ruined by the war.

There's likely an Austro-Italian war ready in a decade or two ... Germany is certainly going to want rev

 

[VoidStalker]

Alternately, and this might both bold and a bit out there as far as ideas go, have Austria-Hungary make a seperate peace. IOTL, they tried negotiating their way out of the war in early 1917. Nothing came of it. The French published the letter, causing a major embarrassment for the Emperor and the Germans to tighten their leash on Austria.

But, suppose Central Powers performance is a bit better and the Entente position a bit worse ... not enough to really change the outcome of the war, but make the Entente harder pressed and facing a tougher fight. So, the Entente decides that giving Russia some relief, weakening Germany and cutting the flow of supplies between Germany and the Ottomans justifies giving Austria a peace treaty. Maybe it's a white peace, maybe there's some minor border adjustments and reparations to Serbia/Russia, whoever, but Austria goes out of the war.

The war continues and ends with a German surrender, after another year and a half of bloody fighting that leaves Germany, Russia and France hollow ruins. Russia might even avoid the revolution. Italy is obviously pissed, but all of Austria's other rivals are neutered for the time being.

This buys time for Austria to reform. The national councils are effectively powerless, so internal forces, which still call for autonomy (rather than independence). Though the success of the reforms is up in the air, they might succeed - certainly, there was enough revolutionary belief among the populace to force Vienna'a hand into making real concessions.

So, best-case scenario: Austria-Hungary bows out of the war early, survives and everyone else is ruined by the war.

There's likely an Austro-Italian war ready in a decade or two ... Germany is certainly going to want rev

This seems to be poor for them as their enemies will rearm in time and be back for round 2 and now they have no allies to back them up. Plus Romania wants land from them still, combined with a rearmed Russia and Italy that wants land as well and this time Germany not helping them out, well long term their position is poor.


I think best case scenario, is not an early victory. Instead some of the deadweight has heart attacks/strokes or sidelined. However AH executes war plan Russia and performs better avoiding the pounding they took OTL. Ottomans also do better vs the Russians to keep more pressure on them and so they have to keep reinforcing that front. Let the war continue to grind on in the West as that weakens Germany somewhat post war but the war in the East is going the CP way.

With success in the East in 1914 the CP decide to focus forces that way in 1915 to try and drive Russia out of the war and push far into Russia, Bulgaria joins in against Serbia which has exhausted itself launching attacks against prepared defenses. AH is doing well so Italy stays neutral. Russia is doing worse so maybe Romania jumps in mid 1915 when AH, German and Ottoman forces are pushing back Russian armies.

Russia is a mess at this point and trading space for time, AH is in better shape not needing to recruit as many men since no Italian front and fewer losses on the Russian and Serbian fronts. So more men hone working the fields, mines and factories.

Germany is still bleeding on the Western front where I can see the UK and France are throwing more and more men into the grinder to relieve pressure on Russia so all three countries are getting worn down.

Now 1916 happens, Russia is very obviously on the ropes and let's say they actually lost several armies during 1914 and 1915 to encirclement, casualties, and desertion. Now with German, AH, Romanian and Ottoman troops pushing deep into Russian territory and the Russians scraping the bottom of the barrel revolution comes a year early, probably late 1916 after a failed counter offensive fizzles and they get pushed even further back. At this point Russia places out in early 1917 with lots of reparations and loss of territory along with puppets.

Now AH can partially stand down some of their forces while Germans send forces west and with no USW and no USA entrance funding runs low for UK and France so they have to do with reduced supplies dwindinling to almost none from the US. With the threat of veteran troops arriving and a worsening supply situation UK and France try for one last offensive which fails and eventually sue for peace.

AH is getting reperpations from Russia and also some puppets. In addition they suffered fewer losses and so did not need to call up as many men, more so with Russia taking worse losses and Ottomans doing better so contributing more against Russia drawing off forces plus Romanian armies also fighting and drawing off even more Russian forces.

Germany wins but has still suffered a higher loss rate and had to canablize themselves to an extent to keep producing war material. This means for a time the gap between them and the AH will be smaller then pre war.

With this victory an economic block arises of the CP, however with a weakened Germany and stronger AH, Ottoman, Bulgaria and Romania, Germany cannot dominate the block and AH will have a strong position inside of it.

 

[BlondieBC]

So in most central powers victory scenarios floating around on the internet Austria Hungary still gets split up and Germany becomes the master of Europe.
But that's boring. How could Austria Hungary be the main beneficiary of the Great War? How could it have a surviving Habsburg monarchy until today with at least Austria Czechia Hungary Croatia and Slovakia under the rule of the same Habsburg monarch. Bonus points if Germany itself is screwed in this scenario

Read my ATL for my thoughts. I wanked A-H and the Ottomans a good bit. Wiking has a partially done one too.

To step back to more general trends.

• Keep Italy out of the war for whatever reason, and A-H will slowly gain dominance in the east in late 1915 and 1916. Austrians would have a great military reputation and most of the ethnic issues occur after A-H looks like it can't win the war.
• Run War Plan Russia instead of War Plan Serbia and A-H looks good.
• Or don't cancel orders 24 hours before Russian 5th army is encircled.
• etc, etc

So we have a lot of possible ATL where A-H does well. There is growing strength in the nationalism of "Hapsburgism" for lack of a better word. With Russia looking like it is losing, then the incentives are for the various nationalities to remain loyal. Then you just have to have one thing, resolve the Hungarian issue for another generation or two. IMO, Germany will have a strong incentive to keep A-H together and with Russia greatly weakened and Serbia utterly crushed, we are likely to find another compromise that works a couple generations. Then nukes will appear between 1930 and 1960, and borders will freeze.

 

[BlondieBC]

The earlier the Central Powers win, the better Austria-Hungary's chances.

Avoiding the smashing they took in Galicia in August-September 1914 also helps a great deal.

An East-First strategy is likely to help, especially in regards to the latter. It also helps keep Italy out of the war.

But even in a best case scenario, Austria-Hungary will have to do some restructuring. Renegotiating the Ausgleich will still be a tough task. And then if you throw in a third crown, well...

My thoughts. I don't think we see a third crown and the A-H leadership understands that extra minorities are not what they need. The third crown is more likely to be Polish than Southern Slavic in nature, maybe even a separate state under Hapsburg. Also, don't rule out ethnic cleansing. None of these guys are nice.

 

[Athelstane]

My thoughts. I don't think we see a third crown and the A-H leadership understands that extra minorities are not what they need. The third crown is more likely to be Polish than Southern Slavic in nature, maybe even a separate state under Hapsburg. Also, don't rule out ethnic cleansing. None of these guys are nice.

Certainly the lean in CP postwar planning in the first stages of the Great War was toward a Habsburg relation for the new Polish crown. Of course, at that point, Vienna was also not willing to cede that crown Galicia, beloved cousin or not...

I suppose the obvious candidates, historically, for a third crown were the Croats and the Czechs. It goes without saying that Budapest would be extraordinarily unhappy with the idea of a Croat crown (as they were in OTL whenever the idea came up), a hard fact that Franz Ferdinand would have had to struggle with had he ever reached the throne.

The long-term solution may be a more general decentralization, especially in the Cisleithanian lands (the Magyars were too protective of their new-found power to be as ready to cede any of it, and this would be an ongoing tension within the empire if it lasted deep into the 20th century), rather than adding just one or even two more crowns as such. The alternative is, as you say, ethnic cleansing. But that only happens if the empire breaks up, I think. Whatever their faults, the Habsburgs just did not do that sort of thing.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

Italian neutrality (eventually leading her to probably backstab France if and when Russia collapses in 1916) is the easiest way to help Austria survive. Avoid the complete rout in 1914 (and possibly- under German pressure- offer some concessions- Italian protectorates over Albania and Montenegro, a sale of Trentino and Gorizia, autonomy for Trieste), Italy stays neutral for at least a few months longer (if she can't get bribed into joining outright; not really possible IMHO if Britain joins), Gorlice-Tarnow fails (OTL the Italian Front was a serious drain which contributed to the Russian success) and Serbia falls earlier, Bulgaria and Romania both swing CP and the Russian Revolution happens a year earlier. Italy, seeing the writing on the wall joins late 1916/early 1917 and with a few million Italian reinforcements the Germans can take Paris in August or so of that year, with a peace settlement shortly thereafter (Italy gets, at minimum, Tunisia, Nice, Corsica, and Savoy, probably also Malta, possibly also some portions of France's or England's leavings that Germany doesn't want- say French Somaliland and Algeria, maybe Tahiti or Guyana or Kuwait). I think the Austrians don't bother with anything beyond Poland and Ruthenia (Habsburg Kingdom of Kiev?), possibly excluding a few French islands somewhere at the utmost. Probably they set up Franz Ferdinand's kids on the Serbian throne or something. Germany probably just takes all of France's stuff, plus Kenya and Zanzibar and the Belgian Congo, Belgium receiving a few bits of France's territories and/or Picardy. Germany also annexes the Vosges and Luxembourg, including Arlon.

The Ottomans take Egypt and Cyprus, Germany annexes Crete, Italy probably tries to get a Savoy on the Greek throne or else partitions the country with Bulgaria and Germany/Turkey.

Fear of Communist Russia and/or French revanchism keeps the alliance mostly cooperating and the new emperor- with substantial German support- manages to claw back some semblance of functional government.

The best Kaiserreich Scenario is one I already posited- Italy remains largely pro-CP under a surviving King Umberto, no Libyan affair, England stays neutral initially since Germany avoids the Flemish coast (Belgian neutrality by itself did not guarantee British entry; if Germany had stuck to the Ardennes she might well remain neutral). Possibly have the war kick off over a combined Agadir Crisis/Russo Japanese War (with the latter dragging on with the Russians not suffering horrendous luck- they lost two of their best admirals to freak mines/artillery- combined with a worse Dogger Bank incident and Britain won't help the Russo-French alliance). Italy, Germany, and Austria DoW versus France and Russia in 1905, England possibly joins later if it drags on long enough. The Russian Revolution of 1905 becomes the Russian Revolution. A short, sharp victory vs France and Russia, peace in 1907, Britain left disgruntled and France and Russia neutered.