A Different Partition of Poland

Would a two-way partition of Poland, that is only between Prussia and Russia, have been better or worse for Austria-Hungary from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the First World War? Would it be easier to manage and defend? Would it be better or worse off economically?

IIRC Austria-Hungary had a population of 48 million in the 1910 Census including 8 million in Galicia. Taking them away would deprive the Empire of a sixth of its conscripts for the armed forces and a sixth of its taxpayers.

However, the Empire, would have been less heterogeneous, with a bigger percentage of Germans to the other races, especially in Cisleithania where they would have a small majority.

Although it would give Russia more taxpayers and more conscripts for their army the Empire might be easier to defend without Galicia because the frontier with Russia would be along the Carpathian Mountains.
 
No Galicia could be much worse for the Austrians because if a WWI-esque conflict still arises in Europe, and if Austria and Russia are on different sides (quite likely, Austria and Russia weren't inclined to ally each other, had no major common interests and butted heads over the Balkans), then Russian forces are a hand's reach away from the Hungarian Plain and Bohemia, which is disastrous for the Habsburgs.

It could also be better for reasons listed, but Galicia wasn't a particularly problematic region for Austria to control, so I think the negatives outweigh the positives.
 

raharris1973

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Agreed. The Poles and even Ruthenians and Jews of the region were not especially difficult nationalities for most of this time. Also, I hear varying accounts that the region was either very poor, or very rich in grain.
 
Agreed. The Poles and even Ruthenians and Jews of the region were not especially difficult nationalities for most of this time. Also, I hear varying accounts that the region was either very poor, or very rich in grain.
Speaking of economics, no Austrian Galicia means that Austria loses the important Galician oil fields, which will be a heavy blow to their economy as well.
 
Agreed. The Poles and even Ruthenians and Jews of the region were not especially difficult nationalities for most of this time. Also, I hear varying accounts that the region was either very poor, or very rich in grain.
Probably depends on the period. Galicia was very poor in 19 and 20c because of overpopulation in the countryside and barely any industry in towns.
 
Agreed. The Poles and even Ruthenians and Jews of the region were not especially difficult nationalities for most of this time.

Not at the time of the partitions, no, but getting into the rise of nationalism, they become very problematic. Though I guess most of the Jews just leave rather than rabble-rouse, so there's that.

Also, I hear varying accounts that the region was either very poor, or very rich in grain.

Why can't it be both? Fertile soil and inefficient farming techniques, combined with heavy taxes from far-away overlords, leads to some very rich farmland being destitute.
 

B-29_Bomber

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Speaking of economics, no Austrian Galicia means that Austria loses the important Galician oil fields, which will be a heavy blow to their economy as well.

By the time of their OTL collapse oil still wasn't that big a thing as it would become in the next couple of decades.
 
How big were the oil fields in Poland? I did read that the oil fields that Poland had were in the portion occupied by the USSR in 1939, but they don't seem to be as important as the oil fields in Romania or post 1918 Austria for that matter.

It seems that they were discovered at about the same time as the Romanian oilfields. However, while the Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year 1939 article on Romania says the country produced 7,149,000 metric tons of crude petroleum in 1937 there is no corresponding figure the corresponding table of Poland's production in 1937. Having said that the Article on Austria doesn't include its crude petroleum production either.

As a side question the article on Poland does say that the country produced 36,218,000 metric tons of coal in 1937. Would all of that have come from the Silesian mines that Germany lost in the Treaty of Versailles?
 
I would be interested in the Wettins managing to get Poland into a Kingdom with dynastic succession. Apparently around the first partition the King was trying to get this done by offering chunks of the rest of the Commonwealth to neighboring countries but nothing came of it. Maybe if the Austrians accepted the proposal that the Wettins would get to keep a bit of Northern Silesia if they helped take it back from Prussia, instead of being told to sod off and take some land to the north of it instead?
 
How big were the oil fields in Poland?

"By 1909, production reached its peak at 2,076,000 tons or 4% of worldwide production. Often called the "Polish Baku", the oil fields of Borysław and nearby Tustanowice accounted for over 90% of the national oil output of the Austria-Hungary Empire. From 500 residents in the 1860s, Borysław had swollen to 12,000 by 1898.[4] At the turn of the century, Galicia was ranked fourth in the world as an oil producer."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Petroleum_Trail#Background
 
No Galicia could be much worse for the Austrians because if a WWI-esque conflict still arises in Europe, and if Austria and Russia are on different sides (quite likely, Austria and Russia weren't inclined to ally each other, had no major common interests and butted heads over the Balkans), then Russian forces are a hand's reach away from the Hungarian Plain and Bohemia, which is disastrous for the Habsburgs.

It could also be better for reasons listed, but Galicia wasn't a particularly problematic region for Austria to control, so I think the negatives outweigh the positives.
But the hand has to punch its way through the Carpathian Mountains, which I thought would be easier to defend than the OTL frontier with Russia. I also though there might be better relations with Russia if Galicia was part of Russia instead of part of Austria-Hungary.

One of the reasons why I started the thread was that my limited knowledge of the World War One Eastern Front was that the Austro-Hungarian Army suffered terrible losses in Galicia in 1914, which saw them pushed back to the Carpathians anyway and crippled the Austro-Hungarian Army for the rest of the war.

From a defensive point of view, I thought they could fortify and garrison the mountain passes with a smaller force and use the surplus to crush Serbia while the Germans were crushing France with the Schlieffen Plan. But the big hole in that arguments is that without Galicia the Austro-Hungarian Army has 40 infantry divisions instead of 48 so there aren't the surplus troops to crush Serbia with.
 
How big were the oil fields in Poland? I did read that the oil fields that Poland had were in the portion occupied by the USSR in 1939, but they don't seem to be as important as the oil fields in Romania or post 1918 Austria for that matter.

It seems that they were discovered at about the same time as the Romanian oilfields. However, while the Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year 1939 article on Romania says the country produced 7,149,000 metric tons of crude petroleum in 1937 there is no corresponding figure the corresponding table of Poland's production in 1937. Having said that the Article on Austria doesn't include its crude petroleum production either.

As a side question the article on Poland does say that the country produced 36,218,000 metric tons of coal in 1937. Would all of that have come from the Silesian mines that Germany lost in the Treaty of Versailles?

In the 1920s they were significant for a few years. Afair in the top 10 oil-producing regions in the world. Then superseded by Romania, Baku, Saudi, Indo, Cali, Texas, etc.
 
But the hand has to punch its way through the Carpathian Mountains, which I thought would be easier to defend than the OTL frontier with Russia. I also though there might be better relations with Russia if Galicia was part of Russia instead of part of Austria-Hungary.

One of the reasons why I started the thread was that my limited knowledge of the World War One Eastern Front was that the Austro-Hungarian Army suffered terrible losses in Galicia in 1914, which saw them pushed back to the Carpathians anyway and crippled the Austro-Hungarian Army for the rest of the war.

From a defensive point of view, I thought they could fortify and garrison the mountain passes with a smaller force and use the surplus to crush Serbia while the Germans were crushing France with the Schlieffen Plan. But the big hole in that arguments is that without Galicia the Austro-Hungarian Army has 40 infantry divisions instead of 48 so there aren't the surplus troops to crush Serbia with.
The Austro-Hungarian army was awful in WWI. Even with the entirety of Galicia to slow the Russians down with, they came just an inch away from losing in the Carpathians and thus getting practically kicked out of the war. Their general had no idea how combat in the mountains works, too.

With no Galicia, there's no buffer between the Carpathians and the Austro-Russian border, and thus the Germans might not get enough time to reinforce Austria before the Hungarian Plain is lost.
 
The Austro-Hungarian army was awful in WWI. Even with the entirety of Galicia to slow the Russians down with, they came just an inch away from losing in the Carpathians and thus getting practically kicked out of the war. Their general had no idea how combat in the mountains works, too.

With no Galicia, there's no buffer between the Carpathians and the Austro-Russian border, and thus the Germans might not get enough time to reinforce Austria before the Hungarian Plain is lost.
Fair enough. I thought the Austro-Hungarian Army was reasonably good at mountain warfare from their performance against Italy. However, I don't know any of the details of that either, so I could easily be wrong about that too.
 
Fair enough. I thought the Austro-Hungarian Army was reasonably good at mountain warfare from their performance against Italy. However, I don't know any of the details of that either, so I could easily be wrong about that too.

It was truly awful, see also Italian Army in WW1, for a good account of the AH army in the early part of the war see Wawro A Mad Catastrophe. I particularly like the bit about the japanese infantry being timid, so we can storm anything the Russians put up.
 
It all depends on how Southern Poland is divided between Prussia and Russia. If Russia takes all of the region, then it's pretty much what's being discussed in the posts above.

Hovever, if Prussia took Malopolska (Polish) and Russia took Galicia (Ukrainian), then you have a slightly different set of dynamics going on here.
 
Jesus Christ, do you guys know something called "butterfly effect"?
As I explained earlier, if an European scale conflict were to happen as an analogue of WWI, Austria and Russia would be extremely likely to end up on different sides.

We're not talking about OTL WWI here.
 
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