AHC: Switch Great Britain and Austria-Hungary in early 20th century alliances

Challenge: Have Great Britain be in the *Triple Alliance with Germany and Italy and Austria-Hungary in the *Triple Entente with Russia and France.

What happens?

*Of course, these alliance names are probably going to be different.
 
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I've seen this one before. No way. Austria and Germany have no rivalry after 1866/1870, but Russia and Austria have plenty. Plus, given its geopolitical situation, Austria is of no use to Russia and France.
 
I've seen this one before. No way. Austria and Germany have no rivalry after 1866/1870, but Russia and Austria have plenty. Plus, given its geopolitical situation, Austria is of no use to Russia and France.

And neither of them are much use to it.

What interests are served here (by either alliance), honestly?

Whatever else was stupid about the OTL alliances, they did serve actual interests and calculations. This . . . I don't see what brings AH and Russia and France into common ground, but which has Britain pro-Germany at the same time.

Britain has no more interest than they do in "Germany is picking fights with the other Great Powers" Germany, after all, however Francophobic.
 
Well, then go for a POD before 1870.

OK, but in my rendition there are no "Germany" and "Italy" as we know them anyway.

Post 1848, Austria, France and Russia conspire to stymie the unification of Italy and Germany.

There is no Crimean War which was pointless anyway, so no hard feelings between St. Petersburg and Vienna.

With out French help, there is no Italy. But Austria and France take the initiative to create a Confederation (featuring an Austrian satrapy in Lombardy/Venetia under Ferdinand Max) under the Presidency of the Pope and susceptible to their meddling. Sardinia is a sulking member of this union.

In Germany, Prussia is isolated and cannot pull off unification of the German states in the face of the resistance from France, Austria and Russia.

So maybe the alliances that arise later in the 19th century are FAR (France, Austria, Russia) vs. Great Britain in league with Prussia, Sardinia and the nationalists in Italy and Germany.
 
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Well, I'd say that Austria-Hungary might seal up the continent for the entente more or less, creating a Napoleon-type situation for Britain sans Belgium
 
I've seen this one before. No way. Austria and Germany have no rivalry after 1866/1870, but Russia and Austria have plenty. Plus, given its geopolitical situation, Austria is of no use to Russia and France.

One could also posit the rise of nationalist party in Germany dedicated to the creation of GrossDeutchland.
 
Part of the problem is that the Austria-Russia rivalry was a major cause of WWI. I think you're going to have to do major changes to break Germany and Austria apart and have Austria make friends with Russia.

Maybe make the Ottomans much stronger so that they present a common threat to both?
 
Hmmmm....I can't think of anyone who might have this in mind for their TL...;)

Do you? Oh dear! I've been preparing a TL on this for months!

To put a very, very short and simplified version (I'm not posting the whole TL):

The Austro-Russian rivalry stems from the Balkans. Take away that source of rivalry and you take away Austria-Hungary's alignment with Germany. The easiest way to do it is to change the outcome of the Austro- and Franco-Prussian Wars, which humiliated the Austrians by completely removing their traditional sphere of influence (the German-speaking states) and made them believe that they were hopelessly overstretched. If you change those outcomes (i.e. you make some of the German-speaking states remain influenced by Austria, rather than uniting them all into the German Empire) then Austria is likely to accept the offer made to it by Russia in 1876: to invade the Ottoman Empire and partition the Balkans between the Habsburg and Romanov empires. (IOTL Austria-Hungary rejected the offer, so Russia invaded the Ottoman Empire without the support of any other great power; Russia got much but not all of what it wanted and then was slapped down by the United Kingdom.) So the Balkans are tightly divided into Bosnia-Herzegovina-esque Austrian territories and independent-in-name-only Russian puppet states (IOTL Russia wasn't permitted to be as blatant as this), with clear dividing lines between them. The United Kingdom protests furiously that its Ottoman semi-client state has been weakened and, more importantly from the British perspective, its Russian enemy has been strengthened and is moving into Europe (stopping Russia from approaching the Mediterranean is a key goal of British foreign policy at this time). Austria and Russia form an unofficial understanding to prevent the British from taking away their new gains. For reasons that are too long to explain in a summary as short as this, what ITTL is called the German Empire is smaller than OTL's German Empire but also much more aggressive and pan-Germanist in character, so it is Austria's natural enemy. This leads to an Austro-Franco-Russian alliance, and thus, in time, an Anglo-German one.
 
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