Alternate Interbellum borders

Looking at the map of post-WWI Eastern and Central Europe, I get the feeling they were a factor of instability by themselves. After examening the etno-linguistic maps of Europe at the time, I couldnt think of any sensible alternative.

So Im wondering if there were other plausible alternatives to the borders of Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany, Austria, the Balctic states and the USSR.
 
To be honest, I think simply drawing steight lines would have caused similar problems between ethnic groups. As it is the boarders were mostly drawn on historical boarders, not taking into account that the villages especially in the boarder regions what was Austria-Hungary were very mixed.

As I am Austrian myself I will try to go over those boarder possibilities, but don't hold me to it. I ain't no expert.

South Tirol staying with Austria would be a possible alternative, if the Italians would back down on their claim. That region was unified a long time and sentiments of even the local italian speaking minority were to stay as a unified Tyrol. A few people from the area told me that there were serious talks about reuniting with Austria up into the 80's.
Yet those areas would prove among the easiest to devide among ethnic boarders. That one would run somewhere south of Bozen and north of Trento.
Carinthia could have lost or gained more land. If memory serves right there were referendums about the Gailtal area. Could have been after WWII as well though. To be honest it would have made more sense if Carinthia would have lost more territory to Slovenia (Or better the Kingdom of Croats and Serbes or however it was named) than it did.
Styria was seriously cheated on territory. Austrian mainorities down to Marburg/Maribor as well as quite a few kilometeres into Hungarian territory. The problem, especially with the Hungarian territories was that those were historical part of Hungary and not Austria. Same is true for the area around Lake Neusiedl, Pressburg here to name a well known example (42% German, 40% Hungarian, rest others mostly Slowaks).
The boarders on the north to Czechoslovakia were a lot in favour of the new state and gave a lot of German dominated territories away. I'm not talking about Silesia or North-Bohmia there, but the areas on the fring of the new Austrian state.
Of course there was no way in hell that Austria would keep the German dominated areas in the Gottschee, Transylvania or around the Danube in the Hungarian core lands, or any other of the encaves for the matter.
As it is the only really likely areas to go to Austria would be the area around Lake Neusiedl, depending on Hungary, and the South Tyrol, depeding on Italy. The areas in the north were quite happy with garantees of autonomy within the new Czechoslovakia (what didn't quite work out later on) and as said the ability to claim enclaves is very unlikely.

Don't know really much about the other countries to talk about those.
 
Maybe Poland could get more of Upper Silesia? IIRC, everything east of Oppeln were areas with Polish majorities (not counting the Industrial area). Poland also had claims on parts of Slovakia and the western parts of Zaolzie. Of course, if you want a wank, Poland could always end up with western Belarus and Wolhynien. Alternatively, you could take most of the Kresy away.

I think you could also make Soldau stay in West Prussia, and draw the borders in West Prussia and Posen more German-friendly, like pushing the border a bit further south of the Netze, and giving Germany that awkward salient near Konitz (along with the city). You could also give Germany the cities of Brinbaum, Lissa and Rawitsch, which had a German majority.
 
With Silesia you have the problem that the majority of the population is German (mostly urban), the majority of the land is Polish (mostly rural). With this population distribution wherever you draw the boundary you are going to have Polish rural areas and German urban areas on the wrong side of the line causing trouble, unless you have a bit of 1945 style ethnic cleansing.
 
With Silesia you have the problem that the majority of the population is German (mostly urban), the majority of the land is Polish (mostly rural). With this population distribution wherever you draw the boundary you are going to have Polish rural areas and German urban areas on the wrong side of the line causing trouble, unless you have a bit of 1945 style ethnic cleansing.

Which isn't entirely out of the question, but unlikely. Another possiblity is no Poland at all, if the Soviets win the Polish-Soviet War. No Miracle on the Vistula, Soviets win, no Poland.

I don't know very much about the rest of the Balkans; maybe you could break up Yugoslavia? If there was a harsher Treaty of Versailles, France could annex the Saar, and maybe the Danes could be cajoled into taking all of Schelswig-Holstein. Poland could get more of Upper Silesia, I suppose. Other than that, you have to look t the Balkans for alternate borders.
 
With Silesia you have the problem that the majority of the population is German (mostly urban), the majority of the land is Polish (mostly rural). With this population distribution wherever you draw the boundary you are going to have Polish rural areas and German urban areas on the wrong side of the line causing trouble, unless you have a bit of 1945 style ethnic cleansing.

Well, by the end of the 1930.`s all the areas given to Poland where the Germans formed a majority pre-WWI were more or less wiped clean of Germans. Of course, they werent drawn out by bayonettes, but it was ethnic cleansing nonetheless.
 
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