No WW1, and there you have it.
Nationalism was and would be a problem, but the internal security organizations, the bureaucracy and the population at large were loyal to Hapsburgs. And none of the nationalists within the Empire really had viable alternatives - for Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians, breakup with Vienna would lead to domination from either St. Petersburg or Berlin. For Balkan Slavs, Romanians and Italians, their external patron states were too weak to truly threaten the integrity of Empire, and too divided to form an united front.
The way many completely sensible people look to OTL and view the demise of large multiethnic continental empires as inevitable puzzles me.
It took years of industrial war, millions of casualties and complete defeat to disintegrate them - and even still the first instict of many breakaway areas was to look for autonomy under a reformed Empire.
Without a major WW1-level war and a complete defeat in it, Austria-Hungary would remain in existence. Why wouldn't it?
Nationalism was and would be a problem, but the internal security organizations, the bureaucracy and the population at large were loyal to Hapsburgs. And none of the nationalists within the Empire really had viable alternatives - for Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians, breakup with Vienna would lead to domination from either St. Petersburg or Berlin. For Balkan Slavs, Romanians and Italians, their external patron states were too weak to truly threaten the integrity of Empire, and too divided to form an united front.
The way many completely sensible people look to OTL and view the demise of large multiethnic continental empires as inevitable puzzles me.
It took years of industrial war, millions of casualties and complete defeat to disintegrate them - and even still the first instict of many breakaway areas was to look for autonomy under a reformed Empire.
Without a major WW1-level war and a complete defeat in it, Austria-Hungary would remain in existence. Why wouldn't it?