I am aware that this will require changes prior to 1900, but the ultimate goal is how Austria-Hungary would be in 1914, so I think this suffices. For reference, I am referring to 1914 France.
AHC: Austria-Hungary as Industrialized as France by 1914
- Thread starter Airborne2001
- Start date
More invesment on Translethania part? that is hard as wasn't as rich as the Cislethania one, specially the Bohemian Mines and Austrian industria in the Vienna/Danube Basin, so you might need to found more valuable material in Hungary and exploit, well done could Match france in industry..the thing is using that industry well too
Keeping Lombardy-Venetia helps. But that obviously involves a pre-1900 POD. Northern Italy was always fairly industrialized for its era.
Plus was already an industrial center for the Habsburg, specially Venetia for the Navy
Ramping up the war economy would certainly help in this aspect. Have the defence budget expand at a beyond European average rate starting from 1903, and you're already quite ahead compared to OTL. The demand created by the modernisation and expansion of the army would stimulate coal and steel production in Austria, but even moreso in Hungary.
The Austro-Hungarian steel production IOTL amounted to around 2,5 million tonnes in 1913, while the French was marginally above 4 million tonnes in the same year. In this ATL however, the increased military demand would be able to boost the Austro-Hungarian heavy industry. In my opinion, it would be not unreasonable to believe, that the Austro-Hungarian steel production ITTL could be about x1,5 the size of its OTL counterpart, which would be 3,6–3,8 million tonnes in 1913. This still falls short from the French numbers, but the gap is significantly smaller to say the least. Ofcourse, industrialisation is not only about steel production, but it's certainly a very important factor, since it could aid all the other fields of industry in the long run.
The high military budget furthermore could boost two other very important sectors: Railway building and oil industry. Galicia had some significant oil fields, which weren't completely exploited, while Transleithania had some oil too. If the army modernises or the navy is expanded, the development of these fields would be viewed positively and would be encouraged. Railway generally improves regions' connectedness to the overall economy, so that would boost the economy as well.
Indirectly all of these mentioned matters could certainly play into the kickstart of the mechanisation of the agriculture, primarily in Hungary, which would be yet another thing that would improve Austria-Hungary's position and would bring it closer to France in terms of wealth.
This is only my opinion though.
The Austro-Hungarian steel production IOTL amounted to around 2,5 million tonnes in 1913, while the French was marginally above 4 million tonnes in the same year. In this ATL however, the increased military demand would be able to boost the Austro-Hungarian heavy industry. In my opinion, it would be not unreasonable to believe, that the Austro-Hungarian steel production ITTL could be about x1,5 the size of its OTL counterpart, which would be 3,6–3,8 million tonnes in 1913. This still falls short from the French numbers, but the gap is significantly smaller to say the least. Ofcourse, industrialisation is not only about steel production, but it's certainly a very important factor, since it could aid all the other fields of industry in the long run.
The high military budget furthermore could boost two other very important sectors: Railway building and oil industry. Galicia had some significant oil fields, which weren't completely exploited, while Transleithania had some oil too. If the army modernises or the navy is expanded, the development of these fields would be viewed positively and would be encouraged. Railway generally improves regions' connectedness to the overall economy, so that would boost the economy as well.
Indirectly all of these mentioned matters could certainly play into the kickstart of the mechanisation of the agriculture, primarily in Hungary, which would be yet another thing that would improve Austria-Hungary's position and would bring it closer to France in terms of wealth.
This is only my opinion though.
Nice seeing the opinion of a magyar/transleithanian, and all of that help to short the gap, as you say all of above done and well done AH would be the france of Central Europe..that way Russia would be wary of start a war
I'm happy to see, that my opinion is valued
What A-H would lack in industry compared to France, it could make up for it with manpower ITTL. Admittedly though, for such chain of events to actually occur, there's a need for an early POD, preferrably in the 1890s. To have a better financial environment, safer for investment, the decennial economic agreements between Austria and Hungary need to go smoothly. 1896 is a critical year in this aspect. IOTL, a new election law was adopted in Austria at the time, which threw the old political balance out of the window. To gain a majority, von Badeni, the then Austrian PM approached the Young Czech faction, and tried to gain their support by declaring an ordinance, which made the Czech language official language in Bohemia and Moravia. The problem with this was that it pissed off the German parties and population quite a bit. As a result, many German parties obstructed the work of the parliement, which thus failed to approve the due renewal of the economic agreements with Hungary.
The issue dragged on for years, which resulted in the so called Ischl Clause being accepted by the Hungarian Government, which more or less renewed the already existing agreement between the two countries. This pissed of the Hungarian opposition, since many of them believed, that the precedent created by this would later lead to the loss of the rights to renegotiate economic matters. As you might have guessed, this lead to the opposition obstructing the work of the parliament, which in turn resulted in the yearly budget not being accepted on time, and Hungary entered into a state of ex lex. The non-acceptance of the yearly budget of 1903 was a serious issue, which damaged the Hungarian-Croatian relations tremendously, since such thing heavily affected them as well.
Meanwhile, Hungarian governments were falling left and right, until Tisza István became PM and attempted to brutally suppress the oposition. The ensuing public outcry shaked the entire Hungarian political life. This led to the unified opposition winning a landslide victory in the elections of 1905. The problem was, that the majority of the opposition was comprised of Hungarian nationalist elements, who were opposed to the Compromise of 1867. This led to the king appointing an extra-parliamentary government led by Fejérváry Géza. This move seriously anatgonised the Hungarian public opinion and anti-Austrian sentiment became stronger. Meanwhile, the K.u.K general staff was beginning to draft up plans to militarily occupy Hungary.
In the end, the matter was resolved with a compromise, which allowed the unified opposition to take power, but they were basically forbidden from pursuing many of their declared goals. In the end, they couldn't even achieve what wasn't disallowed, because of their constant infighting. The successor of the old governing party came back to power after the next election, but the harm was already done. Through all these years, the opposition then opposition-turned-government kept sabotaging the army budget and even alienated first the Croatians, then the other minorities with that cursed Lex Apponyi.
So, to put it simply, the decennial economic agreement needs to be accepted by both parliaments before the Austrian legislation would turn into hell due to the new election laws. Ideally, that would prevent all these crap I wrote about above.
Hopefully yes, otherwise it's nowhere near garantueed. Russia wouldn't want to lose its last real foothold on the Balkans afterall.
IIRC the military budget for A-H was far below what it should have been for a nation of its size in the late 1800's-early 1900's, surrounded essentially on 3 sides by potentially hostile neighbors.
Deleted member 94680
Anything that results in an expansion of railways would be useful come 1914/alt-July Crisis. Even more so if a decent share of the expansion could be produced domestically, as opposed to being purchased abroad.
Does anyone know why OTL the railways were so underdeveloped? Was it simply a case of lack of investment, security concerns or something else?
Does anyone know why OTL the railways were so underdeveloped? Was it simply a case of lack of investment, security concerns or something else?
It has Austria-Hungary in its title, so of course I will appear...
Interesting premise, and considering just how much "heavy industry = Military Industry" at this point in time, it would be interesting indeed to see what may come out of it. Further knock on effects, such as a general increase in GDP would have caused a bit more money to go to the underfunded military, and then we really start talking. I mean, this is going a bit off subject, but can anyone imagine how different K.u.K Armee of 1914 could end up, when compared to its OTL counterpart? With a bit more money to go around, conscription intake could have been higher, we could be seeing artillery at least undergoing modernization, greater number of MGs or planes or whatever...
Though, if everything else fails, we could always go ASB, and ISOT a single A-H Infantry Division from 1918 Italian Front back before the 1914? That would have been a nice sharp shock, to wake them up and have them pay more attention to the needs of their military. Hmm, @Fehérvári how about it? A dedicated thread with that premise, so that the two of us can uplift A-H Monarchy somewhat?
Interesting premise, and considering just how much "heavy industry = Military Industry" at this point in time, it would be interesting indeed to see what may come out of it. Further knock on effects, such as a general increase in GDP would have caused a bit more money to go to the underfunded military, and then we really start talking. I mean, this is going a bit off subject, but can anyone imagine how different K.u.K Armee of 1914 could end up, when compared to its OTL counterpart? With a bit more money to go around, conscription intake could have been higher, we could be seeing artillery at least undergoing modernization, greater number of MGs or planes or whatever...
Though, if everything else fails, we could always go ASB, and ISOT a single A-H Infantry Division from 1918 Italian Front back before the 1914? That would have been a nice sharp shock, to wake them up and have them pay more attention to the needs of their military. Hmm, @Fehérvári how about it? A dedicated thread with that premise, so that the two of us can uplift A-H Monarchy somewhat?
The thing is they weren't. The mobilisation was just fucked up. Partially because of the reshuffling of the deployment of the 2nd Army, but also because of the policy of all trains having to go by the speed of the slowest lines.
Austro-Hungarian Army
Peace-time size: 600 000, 16 corps, 80 divisions
Upon mobilisation: 1 500 000
Further mobilisation: 2 000 000
Machine Gun in Division: 24
Artillery in Division: 72
Artillery numbers (OTL counterpart model in barckets):
Infantry and Mountain:
Skoda 75 mm Gebirgskanone M 8: ~500 (Skoda 75 mm Gebirgskanone M 15)
Skoda 100 mm Gebirgshaubitze M 8: ~100 (Skoda 100 mm Gebirgshaubitze M 16)
Field, Medium and Heavy:
Skoda 80 mm Feldkanone M 4/6: ~4000 (Skoda 80 mm Feldkanone M 5, but made from steel)
Skoda 100 mm Feldhaubitze M 10: ~300 (Skoda 100 mm Feldhaubitze M 14)
Skoda 104 mm Feldkanone M 12: ~200 (Skoda 104 mm Feldkanone M 15)
Skoda 150 mm Feldhaubitze M 13: ~100 (Skoda 150 mm Feldhaubitze M 14)
Skoda 150 mm Autokanone M 14: ~10 (Skoda 150 mm Autokanone M 15/16)
Superheavy and Siege:
Skoda 305 mm Mörser M 11: ~35 (Skoda 305 mm Mörser M 11)
Skoda 420 mm Küstenhaubitze M 13: ~4 (Skoda 420 mm Küstenhaubitze M 14/16)
Austro-Hungarian Navy:
Ships of navy(1914 August):
Dreadnoughts: 6
Semi-dreadnoughts: -
Pre-Dreadnoughts: 9
Battlecruisers: -
Coast Defence Ships: -
Armoured Cruisers: 4
Protected Cruisers: 4
Scout Cruisers: -
Light Cruisers: 6
Destroyers: 30
Torpedo Boats: 20
Small Torpedo Boats: 60
Submarines: 22
Well, this is how I imagined it would look like ideally
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A-H had a pretty robust and serviceable rail network, except for in the south.
I think Austria-Hungary's repeated failures to economically vassalize the western Balkans created a bit of feed back loop where they didn't invest much in the empire's southern infrastructure because they didn't do much trade there, and then they didn't have the infrastructure required to do much trade there, and then they didn't invest much in the empire's southern infrastructure because they didn't do much trade there, and then they didn't have the infrastructure required to do much trade there, and then...
Interesting proposal, but I personally would prefer taking a more grounded approach, which doesn't rely on magic. Admittedly though, those kind of threads can be fun too, however I'm currently knees deep in my own TL's development. With that being said, if you decide to create such thread, I would be glad to participate in the discussion, I just lack the will to commit myself to the development of yet another TL.
In regards to that map, lumping together long time travel and no direct service is a bit misleading imo. On the other hand, Serbia was in fact quite close economically to Austria-Hungary prior to the May Coup. The ensuing trade war did some considerable damage to the Serbian economy afterall.A-H had a pretty robust and serviceable rail network, except for in the south.
I think Austria-Hungary's repeated failures to economically vassalize the western Balkans created a bit of feed back loop where they didn't invest much in the empire's southern infrastructure because they didn't do much trade there, and then they didn't have the infrastructure required to do much trade there, and then they didn't invest much in the empire's southern infrastructure because they didn't do much trade there, and then they didn't have the infrastructure required to do much trade there, and then...
Meanwhile, Bosnia did receive a few major investments as well, especially Sarajevo. Dalmatia was kinda neglected though, I agree. I don't know much about the situation with Montenegro to confidently comment about it, but if I'm not mistaken, Kotor was one of the major ports which Montenegro's trade relied on.
I think it still illustrates the point fairly well. Rail lines are somewhat sparser in the south and there's a huge unserviced gap between the empire's main rail network and Dalmatia's tiny rail network.
Deleted member 94680
But wasn’t part of the reason the mobilisation plans were “fucked up” that the transport networks couldn’t carry a large enough bulk of troops to support anything else?
Already posted, your participation would be very much appreciated.
From Vienna, which is quite a bit West from the geometric middlepoint of the Monarchy. I think a similar map calculating the travel time from Budapest instead would be more useful at determining the developedness of the railway network in the East compared to the West.
From what I know, the idea behind this was that it would be easier to manage the troop movements and deployment. It wasn't a measure dictated by need, but rather by convinience.