AHC: Hungarian Great Power

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have Hungary become a Great Power by the early 20th Century.

The 'rules' as they are:
  • This has to be Hungary, not Austria-Hungary. They can still be Habsburg ruled if you want, the lands of Austria can even be part of it, but it still has to be primarily Hungary.
  • An addendum to the above: if you must, you can have this be Austria-Hungary with Hungary as the dominant nation instead of Austria, but you get a "point deduction" for it.
  • It has to be a Great Power, it doesn't have to be a stable Great Power. It's fine it, by the 20th Century, it's a country that will likely begin balkanizing or go through civil war, soon.
  • While this is intended to be about Hungary as a European nation, if you want to go really far back and make a mini-TL where the Magyars somehow become the ruling class of Persia or something, I'll still be impressed.
  • You get bonus points if you provide a map, more bonus points if you make a flag for this alt!Hungary and a point multiplier if you bother to create a wikibox for it.
 
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have Hungary become a Great Power by the early 20th Century.

The 'rules' as they are:
  • This has to be Hungary, not Austria-Hungary. They can still be Habsburg ruled if you want, the lands of Austria can even be part of it, but it still has to be primarily Hungary.
  • An addendum to the above: if you must, you can have this be Austria-Hungary with Hungary as the dominant nation instead of Austria, but you get a "point deduction" for it.
  • It has to be a Great Power, it doesn't have to be a stable Great Power. It's fine it, by the 20th Century, it's a country that will likely begin balkanizing or go through civil war, soon.
  • While this is intended to be about Hungary as a European nation, if you want to go really far back and make a mini-TL where the Magyars somehow become the ruling class of Persia or something, I'll still be impressed.
  • You get bonus points if you provide a map, more bonus points if you make a flag for this alt!Hungary and a point multiplier if you bother to create a wikibox for it.

Crusade of Varna, 1443. Have that cripple the Ottomans, improve faith with the Pope, and ask if they can manage vassal states in the Balkans after the Ottomans are damaged, e.g. Serbia and Bosnia. Slowly, more successful wars against the Turks and maybe Poland could gain them Moldavia, Wallachia, and even up to Greece with Serbia. Basically, Hungary could become master of the greater Balkans and Galicia and Lodomeria. Harass the Venetians and try and take lands in Italy, and keep relations high with the Austrians.
 
I'd go earlier. Have Louis not inherit Poland and he'll focus south to the Adriatic. Andrew will probably survive and give Joanna an heir to Naples. Marry Maria to the ambitious Charles of Durazzo and then give him a great success against the Turks so he gets the Latin Imperial title. The Serbs, Bulgarians, and Wallachians are divided so could accept Hungarian overlordship for now.
 
Maybe another Basburg splitting of territories? Have Vienna be sacked and a joint HRE crusade regain it, though with the capital of the empire in Erfurt or somewhere. Later, if the Partitions of Poland are done as IOTL, then the areas gained by Austria under the excuse that they belonged to the King of Hungary get united with Hungary in personal union. Maybe there get to be problems in CarinthiaCarinthia or something, Austria becomes less important, etc. and the Habsurg branches split. Or they are split during the equivalent of a war of the Spanish or Austria Succession. Problem is getting enough Hnugarians for them to be a great power, especially if you count colonies as being needed for that.
 
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have Hungary become a Great Power by the early 20th Century.

The 'rules' as they are:
  • This has to be Hungary, not Austria-Hungary. They can still be Habsburg ruled if you want, the lands of Austria can even be part of it, but it still has to be primarily Hungary.
  • An addendum to the above: if you must, you can have this be Austria-Hungary with Hungary as the dominant nation instead of Austria, but you get a "point deduction" for it.
  • It has to be a Great Power, it doesn't have to be a stable Great Power. It's fine it, by the 20th Century, it's a country that will likely begin balkanizing or go through civil war, soon.
  • While this is intended to be about Hungary as a European nation, if you want to go really far back and make a mini-TL where the Magyars somehow become the ruling class of Persia or something, I'll still be impressed.
  • You get bonus points if you provide a map, more bonus points if you make a flag for this alt!Hungary and a point multiplier if you bother to create a wikibox for it.
Powerful Magyars dominate "Russia". Establish themselves as a great Power of Central Europe , Balkan area, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Magyar language heavely influences Slavic and Baltic languages. Bulgars and Magyars merge. Seljuk warriors are hired as mercenaries. Konstantinople is threatened by Magyar forces and their subsidies, who plunder Greece . The Byzantines have to pay tribute .Magyar Empire manages to survive until the next invasion from the East.
 
If Jiohn Hunyadi's Long Campaign is more successful, and cohesive and manages to deal a significant blow against the Ottomans that brings Bosnia and Serbia into the Hungarian Sphere, you've got a start. If we assume his son Matthias Corvinus still forms the Black Army, and continues the push into the Ottoman Empire by virtue of 'Protecting the Emperor of the Greeks', you could see Hungary sitting quite comfortably and looming over the Ottomans/Byzantines from their territories in Bulgaria and Wallachia. With complete control over the Danube, and an Adriatic coast - Hungary is in a good place to demand Byzantine concessions in Constantinople in exchange for military support (rather than having to invade Constantinople), which, if done, could also include dropping Venetian privileges - who with Hungary looming over them, may either go to war, and be defeated, or be much weakened, allowing Hungary to push its Danubian and Dalmatian traders into dominating the trade.

After that, besides sending some forces to assist the Byzantines, or just flat out invading Anatolia themselves, Hungary can sit quite comfortably developing itself economically - and pushing into Italy. It is as good a candidate as any to try and become HRE, and sits with a good old mountain range to protect the core of their Empire being invaded by Poland - leaving them able to dedicate more of their forces to attacking via Moldavia and Bohemia.

TL;DR Hungary had a good hand going on, and then got throw aside by the Ottomans. If the Romans can be a bulwark in the East, then Hungary can dominate eastern Europe.
 
Got to go earlier -- you have to avoid the Mongol devastation of Hungary, which killed a good half of the population and probably would have erased it entirely if not for the canny leadership of Bela II.

Nerf the Mongols or have them focused elsewhere, and Hungary has a decent base, both in population and land, to dominate the Haemic Peninsula and Eastern Europe more generally, particularly if it can spin Bohemia and or Poland into marital unions.
 
if you want to go really far back and make a mini-TL where the Magyars somehow become the ruling class of Persia or something, I'll still be impressed.

Magyars migrate south into Persia. Co-opt the Mongols when they invade and become the ruling class. Successfully push the Mongols out. Visionary kings maintain control over the Persian populace and assimilate. Successive advances from the northern hordes are beaten off. Much as the Mughal Empire was named after its ruling class, the Magyar Empire- or Hungary as it is known today- maintains rule over millions of loyal Iranians and the entirety of the oil-rich Hungarian Gulf.
 
Louis I of Hungary gets a male heir. You now have Poland-Hungary. Tie Bohemia into the mix through some Luxemburg dynasty shenanigans and turn the union into a single state and you basically get the Visegrad Group united into one country in the Late Middle Ages, with Hungary as the leader.
 
Got to go earlier -- you have to avoid the Mongol devastation of Hungary, which killed a good half of the population and probably would have erased it entirely if not for the canny leadership of Bela II.

Nerf the Mongols or have them focused elsewhere, and Hungary has a decent base, both in population and land, to dominate the Haemic Peninsula and Eastern Europe more generally, particularly if it can spin Bohemia and or Poland into marital unions.

You are mostly right except that it was Bela IV.

My best bet would be something like this:
Avoiding the Mongol invasion could go a long way because of the reason you said. OTL before mongol invasion Hungary was already sending missionaries and settlers outside the carpathian basin - see the csangos. However a higher population would mean that the plague would hit the country harder so who knows how big a boon that would be in the long run.

Another very important step would be the better use of the heaps of gold during Louis I reign. OTL he spent most of it in north Italy and on his Italian wars. The nobles spent it mostly buying cloths and other manufactured stuff from the west. Im not much of an economist but maybe spending part of it to bring in craftsman from flanders etc would really bolster the economy and things would be much better when the gold production goes downhill not even a century later.

What you absolutly have to do something about is the Ottomans. Avoid them and Hungary is set to do much better.
 
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Got to go earlier -- you have to avoid the Mongol devastation of Hungary, which killed a good half of the population and probably would have erased it entirely if not for the canny leadership of Bela II.

Nerf the Mongols or have them focused elsewhere, and Hungary has a decent base, both in population and land, to dominate the Haemic Peninsula and Eastern Europe more generally, particularly if it can spin Bohemia and or Poland into marital unions.

Indeed, Mongol Invasion is good point. During its conquest Mongols often sought some alliance with local power. For example, they allied with Song against Jin, Allied with Abbasid against Kwarezm, and tried to ally with France against Mamluks. So it is not impossible if Hungary and Batu makes alliances against Poland and HRE.

If joint Hungary-Mongol forces devastates Poland and Bohemia and weakens HRE, Hungary will dominate Bohemia, Poland and Galicia-Volyhnia. When Mongols inevitably go back to settle internal strife, expand in Balkan.The Mongols will devastate and harass Poland (maybe Lithuania too) good for a century. This will make Northern border secure, so Hungary can focus on Balkan and Danube valley building Empire from Adriatic to Black sea. Build good navy and dominate in Eastern Mediterranean trade. Only threat will be Ottomans. If they can deal with them there is little threat for Hungarian Empire till German and Russian Empires became juggernauts in XX century.
 
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