Rush Tarquin
Gone Fishin'
The challenge is a superpower Hapsburg Empire which controls Mackinder's heartland. It should be the unrivaled continental power.
AHC: Superpower Hapsburg Empire
- Thread starter Rush Tarquin
- Start date
We're talking pre-1900, right? Because it would be a different kind of thread if we were discussing a resurgent 20th century Hapsburg dynasty dominating the Eurasian Heartland.
Rush Tarquin
Gone Fishin'
I meant 20th century. I considered putting this in pre-1900, but where's the challenge?
By the turn of the century A-H was doomed; with a lot of luck, a very clever ruler and the right international situation can survive some more in a form or another (but still severely gutted and basically a subsidiary of the German Empire)...superpower? Only with the aid of ASB bu that time
Rush Tarquin
Gone Fishin'
Well AH is obviously not superpower material at this point, so screwing the other powers is the best route. Any scenario's gonna be pretty out there, but as long as you fulfil the challenge and have the most plausible of the outlines posted...
AH federates and reforms, Russia goes red, AH gets Ukraine and a Hapsburg on the Polish throne, CP victory, Germany remains authoritarian and then goes red too, AH is the primary beneficiary of a coalition war against Germany and Russia. Admittedly, that's only half the job.
I'm sure many of you can do better.
AH federates and reforms, Russia goes red, AH gets Ukraine and a Hapsburg on the Polish throne, CP victory, Germany remains authoritarian and then goes red too, AH is the primary beneficiary of a coalition war against Germany and Russia. Admittedly, that's only half the job.
I'm sure many of you can do better.
Always, when I was thinking about AH as a greater power than she was I was going along the lines of "what would be her african colonies first?". Only thing that was on my mind was Egypt-Sudan as a direct, easy to get, across the sea location. Building on that she could have more dominance in ME when the oil discoveries strike in.
She could somehow, if she was out of the WW2 or some sort of its equivalent, lead a more powerful and cohesive Non-Aligned Movement that would give her some sort of legitimacy as well as a greater power and an alternative to USA/Britain and Russia lead blocks.
She could somehow, if she was out of the WW2 or some sort of its equivalent, lead a more powerful and cohesive Non-Aligned Movement that would give her some sort of legitimacy as well as a greater power and an alternative to USA/Britain and Russia lead blocks.
WWI become a stalemate, with status quo in the west and B-L in the east; OE collapse and still red revolution.
Civil war in A-H due to Hungary; rest of europe just wait and see with Italy and Romania snatching border zone and Serbian throw out the puppet king
Civil war end with fascist/nazi like regime in charge a crash industralization stalin style.
Red Russia under a more adventurous leadeship begin invasion of Europe
Russian defeated by grand alliance, A-H (who fit the role of OTL russia) use the occasion to regain lot of territory in the east at the expense and occupy great part of Poland and Ukraine who get some nice puppet leader at least in part hold by A-h (basically a cold war type division).
Some ethnic stability is obtained due to the holocaust analog this time directed to...everyone who can cause some problem, hungarian, jew etc. etc.
Go to the 21th century and A-H is a military power in europe but internally is much like NK, with the emperor seen as a good like figure and famine, corruption are rampant and the border extremely closed.
Civil war in A-H due to Hungary; rest of europe just wait and see with Italy and Romania snatching border zone and Serbian throw out the puppet king
Civil war end with fascist/nazi like regime in charge a crash industralization stalin style.
Red Russia under a more adventurous leadeship begin invasion of Europe
Russian defeated by grand alliance, A-H (who fit the role of OTL russia) use the occasion to regain lot of territory in the east at the expense and occupy great part of Poland and Ukraine who get some nice puppet leader at least in part hold by A-h (basically a cold war type division).
Some ethnic stability is obtained due to the holocaust analog this time directed to...everyone who can cause some problem, hungarian, jew etc. etc.
Go to the 21th century and A-H is a military power in europe but internally is much like NK, with the emperor seen as a good like figure and famine, corruption are rampant and the border extremely closed.
austro-hungarian libya, of course.
after ww1 a-h was unwilling to take back venetia and lombardia - far too many italians, so it settled for the italian colonies instead. libya did not have many people, so it was easy to raise the austrian and hungarian population to such high levels that the decolonialisation movement had no impact on it, leaving it as an integral part of austria-hungary.
the mild peace treaty with italy proved to be a good decision as oil was found decades later in "this useless strip of land", as some unsatisfied ww1 generals said, leading directly to the foundation of the OPEC, with its headquarters in vienna, making a-h one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
an intersting side effect of this wealth (and the italian wealth redistribution from north to south) was that it created a strong movement in northern italy to rejoing austria-hungary
BlondieBC
Banned
It takes a lot of PODs, and lot of luck, so here is outline of TL.
1) A-H needs to win WW1, and emerge strong.
A) POD #1 -Conrad needs to use War Plan Russia. Wiking has a short TL on this idea, but you probably also want an additional major mistake by the Russians. POD #2 -So for example, after the 1st and 5th Army is captured along with the 2nd Army mauled, have the Tsar panic, and have all his forces retreat to a new defensive line 50-100 to the east. With the extra land for food, and extra land to trade for time in any future attack, Russian forces never set soil on A-H land again for the war. This fixes a lot of domestic issues for the duration.
B) Italy stays out of the war. Really more butterfly than POD.
C) POD - 3: Bulgaria enters mid 1915. Serbian retreat is cutoff, and 1/2 instead of 1/4 of Serbia dies in the war. And since the initial forces in the occupation Southern Slavs, the idea of Yugoslavia dies. You can see my TL for details. But if I was doing A-H want, then A-H would keep northern Serbia, Montenegro and Albania after the war, but not during the winter where the Serbs die.
D) POD 4: In mid-1915, the Entente meet, and decided to follow an Germany first, Ottoman second plan.
E) Parts of Poland added as third crown to A-H. Butterfly.
F) War goes largely like OTL, Russia collapses into civil war 1917, USA enters mid 1917. But France is so weak, that it falls apart under a much, much larger Spring Offensive 1918. France's army will to fight breaks, and the USA is too late to save the French. France loses major territory to Germany. UK and USA lose nothing. A-H gains chunk of Ukraine including Kiev. Butterfly.
2) POD 5 - Dual Monarchy is reorganized without massive civil war. Lets go modified United States of Greater Austria. USGA now withdraws from international affairs to large extent to focus on internal effects.
3) Butterfly. We have WW2 in the 1950's. USGA sits out the war due to internal issues. The war is long, brutal and heavily uses NBC weapons. USA, UK, Germany, Russia, Japan have their cities gutted. You might be able to use OTL allies, but you could may need to flip a few countries to different sides. USGA picks up some land in the chaos after the war. Small things like maybe Greece or Romania who desperately join as the 4th and 5th crowns of the Hapsburg empire.
Now with only 5 POD, each plausible, and the totality more likely than Hitler life story, you have the USGA as one of the top 2 powers. You could do USA/USGA cold war.
1) A-H needs to win WW1, and emerge strong.
A) POD #1 -Conrad needs to use War Plan Russia. Wiking has a short TL on this idea, but you probably also want an additional major mistake by the Russians. POD #2 -So for example, after the 1st and 5th Army is captured along with the 2nd Army mauled, have the Tsar panic, and have all his forces retreat to a new defensive line 50-100 to the east. With the extra land for food, and extra land to trade for time in any future attack, Russian forces never set soil on A-H land again for the war. This fixes a lot of domestic issues for the duration.
B) Italy stays out of the war. Really more butterfly than POD.
C) POD - 3: Bulgaria enters mid 1915. Serbian retreat is cutoff, and 1/2 instead of 1/4 of Serbia dies in the war. And since the initial forces in the occupation Southern Slavs, the idea of Yugoslavia dies. You can see my TL for details. But if I was doing A-H want, then A-H would keep northern Serbia, Montenegro and Albania after the war, but not during the winter where the Serbs die.
D) POD 4: In mid-1915, the Entente meet, and decided to follow an Germany first, Ottoman second plan.
E) Parts of Poland added as third crown to A-H. Butterfly.
F) War goes largely like OTL, Russia collapses into civil war 1917, USA enters mid 1917. But France is so weak, that it falls apart under a much, much larger Spring Offensive 1918. France's army will to fight breaks, and the USA is too late to save the French. France loses major territory to Germany. UK and USA lose nothing. A-H gains chunk of Ukraine including Kiev. Butterfly.
2) POD 5 - Dual Monarchy is reorganized without massive civil war. Lets go modified United States of Greater Austria. USGA now withdraws from international affairs to large extent to focus on internal effects.
3) Butterfly. We have WW2 in the 1950's. USGA sits out the war due to internal issues. The war is long, brutal and heavily uses NBC weapons. USA, UK, Germany, Russia, Japan have their cities gutted. You might be able to use OTL allies, but you could may need to flip a few countries to different sides. USGA picks up some land in the chaos after the war. Small things like maybe Greece or Romania who desperately join as the 4th and 5th crowns of the Hapsburg empire.
Now with only 5 POD, each plausible, and the totality more likely than Hitler life story, you have the USGA as one of the top 2 powers. You could do USA/USGA cold war.
Why would the Austrian massacre the Hungarians?
I don't see this occurring, no A-H without the Hungarians. At most I can see uppity separatists hauled over to the labour camps.
Also, industrialisation was well under way until the allies forcefully divided A-H up and caused the disaster that forced Fascists and Stalinists alike into power.
Because the A-H empire not only survive in the 21th century but even be a superpower, short of a nuclear war that for some miracle leave untouched Austria, Hungary and the Balkans is so ASB that only a ridicolous and over the top thing like the one i wrote make that possible
But how can A-H be A-H without Hungary?
And yes, serious ASB is required to make countries like A-H survive into the 21st century.
(Other examples in that regard are Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire)
Snake Featherston
Banned
I think post-1900 is too late to save the Empire primarily because by this point in time nationalism has produced ossification of the political system. The Habsburgs can keep their state able to guarantee its borders by military force or they can have an intact empire, they cannot do both.
But A-H cannot be a functional nation if Hungary stay (ok there were a lot of other great problem, but this was the most evident)...so the only logical solution is eliminate the Hungarian and keep the territory; but as i said it was a solution so extreme and absurd that is not really serious, just to make the over the top scenario
Maaaybe you can get a working federal Empire with a post-1900 POD: let's start by having Franz Ferdinand die in a horrific, yet somehow hilarious airship accident in 1900. If you can get a _working_ federal empire (which, alas, almost certainly necessitates a Hungarian revolt and the messy crushing thereof), there's some potential for expansion, if all their cards are played right.
Bruce
Bruce
The problem is that the moment the blood is in the water, the various sharks (Italy, Serbia, Romania, Russia, plus some various minority of the empire that can join the fracaz) will pile up to the corpse.
German aid and support during the crisis I think will greatly alleviate that, and if Russia is otherwise busy with internal problems, I don't think Italy or Romania are really going to give it a shot when it means pissing off Germany. I doubt France will go to war with Germany over Italy's right to unprovoked land-grabs against Austria. Anyway, with a 1900 POD we can avoid the bone-stupid 1908 Austrian grab of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was the biggest beef Serbia had and was a major cause of cooling relations between Austria and Russia.
Bruce
Or precipitate a world war; a civil war in the A-H is a too big event for the big power to remain outside it. France can and probably will go to war with Germany as they want a rematch, Germany can take the occasion for attacking Russia before industrialize and to prop up the Serbian...basically the old show but with a different premise. Sure A-H can win (with luck and a lot of German helps) but he will face the same problem of the OTL WWI victors and i doubt that she will survive it.
And with Italy
whitecrow
Banned
Guys, the OP is asking for a superpower Hapsburg Empire, not necessarily superpower Austria-Hungary. So perhaps there is a way for a Hapsburg to become an emperor of another power (Spain? Italy? Britain? Germany? Russia?) and than have his empire conquer Mackinder's heartland at some point down the line (potentially decades after the initial POD). Not saying this is easy, but it does open up more options than just superpower Austria-Hungary.