Austria doesnt have Galicia - how does this change WWI?

Austria doesnt have Galicia and Bukovina - the first went to Russia the second to Romania or Russia. I dont care why. Everything else is the same. This would mean that Austria instead of having an undefendable border with Russia would have a very easy to defend (mountains) border with Russia. The few passes are of course fortified.

How would this change early WWI? How would this change the warplanes?

My gusses:
1. Russia: there are 3 possibilities for Russia as i see it:
- throw a huge amount of man on the austrians and only maybe succeed with insane losses
- Austria is too costly so focus more on attacking Germany
- pull a Belgium on Romania: the passes to Romania werent fortified OT because they were allies - this didnt change. This would mean of course that Romania enters the war on the german side.
2. Austria:
- with Russia being a much less threat they can focus more on beating Serbia. Could this be enough for an early victory for Austria in this front?
3. Germany:
- if the russians go with focus more on Germany that could result in changing the Schlieffen plan - which would have huge effects on the outbreak of war. If the germans arent short of time they dont have to jump in early just because Russia is mobilizing or attack France. This would make them look less the agressor at least.
- could they decide to wait out how Austria fares against Russia? What i mean is that seeing how Austria has a strong defensive position they decide to jump in only if Austria is losing.

In last case could the war be reduced to Austria beating up Serbia after a time while russia cant break through the border? Germany, France and the others stay out and after 1-2 years of bloodshad and seeing that they cant beat each other make peace?

Any other ideas what results Austria not having Galicia could have on WWI?
 
Not to be that guy, but to be that guy... Austria not having Galicia suggests a larger shift in the continental body politic. It's not like just before WWI Galicia can be poofed away from Austria-Hungary and everyone's just goes, "Meh," and moves on. In part, WWI occurred as we know it because one of the lessons of history Austria and Germany had learned (from Bosnia, among other instances) is, that when challenged, Russia would back down. Russia, on the other hand, learned that it had to stand up. If Austria-Hungary no longer has Galicia, then at some point this pattern deviated, and thus WWI cannot have happened along the lines as we know it to have.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
If Austria were to have lost Galicia, perhaps Russia simply takes it in 1866 as compensation, then

The Polish Salient is much wider and secure. The Russians don't build their Southern Fortresses but Railroads across the Vistula. They would also be able to concentrate against Germany and safely ignore Austria. Even better for them, they would have no need to attack easily defended East Prussia and can go straight towards the heart of Germany

The Germans would never stand a chance against France and Russia and Austria would be left to its own devices. Probably no Austro-German alliance in the first place as even Bismark would know its hopeless
 
That would still depend on the diplomatic relations the German Empire ends up with, if Austria-Hungary ends up being their only friendly nation left, then they're pretty much stuck together.
 
Not to be that guy, but to be that guy... Austria not having Galicia suggests a larger shift in the continental body politic. It's not like just before WWI Galicia can be poofed away from Austria-Hungary and everyone's just goes, "Meh," and moves on. In part, WWI occurred as we know it because one of the lessons of history Austria and Germany had learned (from Bosnia, among other instances) is, that when challenged, Russia would back down. Russia, on the other hand, learned that it had to stand up. If Austria-Hungary no longer has Galicia, then at some point this pattern deviated, and thus WWI cannot have happened along the lines as we know it to have.

You are wrong about Bosnia. Russia backed dow because it wasnt really strong enough yet after the defeat of the japanese and the following revolution. Büllow thought at the time that Austria alone would have a good chance against Russia. I dont think Austria would come to a conclusion like what you suggested either. The reasons of WWI are much deeper than a misunderstanding like that - and i dont think there is only one reason either. As for Austria losing Galicia you can come up with a lot of earlier PODs - its just im interested in how this would effect WWI not in how exactly it came to be.

If Austria were to have lost Galicia, perhaps Russia simply takes it in 1866 as compensation, then

The Polish Salient is much wider and secure. The Russians don't build their Southern Fortresses but Railroads across the Vistula. They would also be able to concentrate against Germany and safely ignore Austria. Even better for them, they would have no need to attack easily defended East Prussia and can go straight towards the heart of Germany

The Germans would never stand a chance against France and Russia and Austria would be left to its own devices. Probably no Austro-German alliance in the first place as even Bismark would know its hopeless

But could the Russians ignore East Prussia? In Germany's place i would focus on defending french border, stop the russianslets say at the Odera and attack their back from East Prussia. But it true that Germany is much more open to a russian attack.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
But could the Russians ignore East Prussia? In Germany's place i would focus on defending french border, stop the russianslets say at the Odera and attack their back from East Prussia. But it true that Germany is much more open to a russian attack.

They do in World War II. Alekseyev's plans called for it in World War I. East Prussia is a minefield to attack. The land is broken by hundreds of lakes, the railway net is very dense and the fortifications strong. This allowed the Germans to pick off the Russian armies individually and mass superior forces against each one

The Polish salient was too narrow and the Russians needed to take out one or the other. They choose to do both because the Austrians were too strong to ignore and the French needed protection

Give the Russians the Carpathian line, and the salient isn't vulnerable to a pincer attack. Rather East Prussia becomes vulnerable as a long finger that the Russians can cut off anywhere from the Oder east. Chances are the Germans would just abandon it and try to form a defensive line in Silesia.

The Germans can't stand on the defensive in both the East and the West- they just don't have the forces for that. If they don't drive deep into France and cripple her industry as they do in 1914, the Germans are stuck trying to protect their Rhienish provinces with the Rhine at their back. An effective French push their, threatens to trap them against the Rhine

Giving the initiative to the Russians in the East means that they are fully mobilized and can strike anywhere on the Northern frontier. If they drive to the Baltic they can sever Prussia from Germany and trap any forces there. Without the Austrians in the south, the Russians have a wide frontier to attack in the north
 
I'm trying to think how they would NOT have Galicia. Congress of Vienna? Russia takes the whole of Poland. Prussia is compensated with Saxony and Austria with Bavaria. Germany develops along North/South lines (peacefully).
The 19th century becomes about containing Russia, not about containing Germany so yes, WWI as we know it doesn't happen. Maybe it's an Anglo-French financed and Austro-Prussian-Ottoman-Swedish implemented war to push Russia out of Finland, the Baltics, Poland and the Black Sea.
 
You are wrong about Bosnia. Russia backed dow because it wasnt really strong enough yet after the defeat of the japanese and the following revolution. Büllow thought at the time that Austria alone would have a good chance against Russia. I dont think Austria would come to a conclusion like what you suggested either. The reasons of WWI are much deeper than a misunderstanding like that - and i dont think there is only one reason either. As for Austria losing Galicia you can come up with a lot of earlier PODs - its just im interested in how this would effect WWI not in how exactly it came to be.
Please reread my post. Russia backing down over Bosnia because as you assert, "it wasn't strong enough yet..." doesn't disprove my point, if anything it proves it. Russia 'learned' it needed to be able to project strength in the face of aggression. As for your suggestion that Austria wouldn't come to the conclusion I put forward, your previous sentence seems at odds with that, though admittedly I maybe misunderstanding and am not intimately familiar with von Bülow's thoughts on the matter. Nor did I in ANY way assert that WWI was caused solely by Bosnia: "In part, WWI occurred as we know it..."

As to your last point, I'm very much saying that, how Austria lost Galicia is of interest because it informs a discussion on how Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, and likely Rumania would act in an alternate WWI. Thus, I return to my refrain, Galicia can't just be poofed away and everyone is okay with it, no questions asked.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
I'm trying to think how they would NOT have Galicia. Congress of Vienna? Russia takes the whole of Poland. Prussia is compensated with Saxony and Austria with Bavaria. Germany develops along North/South lines (peacefully).
The 19th century becomes about containing Russia, not about containing Germany so yes, WWI as we know it doesn't happen. Maybe it's an Anglo-French financed and Austro-Prussian-Ottoman-Swedish implemented war to push Russia out of Finland, the Baltics, Poland and the Black Sea.

That would be one, there are others. The Russians could have taken in 1859 by joining the French and Italians or they could have taken it in 1866 by joining Prussia

There are periods of trying to contain Russia, particularly from 1848 to the Crimean War.

After 1870, France loses interest in containing Russia but Britain, Italy and Austria don't. The Turks lose interest in it after the British occupy Egypt. Russiaand Turkey reconcile very quicklyafter the Congress of Berlin. By Nicholas II's reign they are pretty much allied against the British. The Germans retain an interest up until the end of the World War.

So, yes, we can see a war along the lines we see in 1914. Russia deciding to cut down Austria once and for all and the Germans trying to protect it while the French seek revenge against Germany for 1870

Britain may join the German side, she may not. There are good reasons she sides with France during WWI that aren't butterflied away by Russia having Galicia.

Of course, its hard to see a Franco-Russian vs. Austro-German war lasting very long if the Russians start with Galicia.
 
To say it again -things like :All other is unchanged don't work - neither in history nor in alternate history.

Aside from that there are several ways Austria could lose those provinces.

If we sart with that the Habsburgs don't participate at the rape of Poland (make it a Russian/Prussian matter only), the next opportunity is russia gets it during the napoleonic wars - different possibilities.

A POD after 1866 would require a war between Russia and Austria - thís would change the worlds dynamics

Russian intervention in the 1866 war would probably trigger a french and maybe a British intervention

Russian intervention in the 1859 war would probably trigger Prussian intervention.

A POD might be that the Austrians trade away thiose provinces at the Congress of Vienna for more of Italy. Eintehr Sardinia Piemont or the Two Sicilies.
 
An old soc.history.what-if post of mine, though not for the most part directly related to World War I, might be of some interest here:

***

I have recently been reading Andrew Wilson's *The Ukrainians: Unexpected
Nation* (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 2000). In chapter 7
he has an interesting discussion of what would have happened to the idea of
a Ukrainian nation if Russia had seized Galicia (or at least predominantly
Ukrainian eastern Galicia) either in 1772, when Austria annexed the region
after the first partition of Poland, or in 1813-15, when Alexander I
attempted to secure it before and during the Congress of Vienna.
Solzhenitsyn in particular has criticized Alexander I for failing to press
home Russia's advantage after the defeat of Napoleon in 1812:

"Was [Alexander] seeking territorial rewards for Russia after such a bloody
and victorious war? No, he did not put forward any preconditions whatever
for aiding Austria and Prussia in 1813. The single wise move he could have
made was to *return* [my emphasis--DT] Galicia to Russia, thus uniting the
Eastern Slavs (and from what disastrous problems would he have rid our
future history!) Austria was not particularly bent on retaining Galicia at
the time, seeking rather to regain Silesia, annex Belgrade and Moldo-
Wallachia--thus stretching herself between the Black and Adriatic Seas.
But Alexander did not make use of this opportunity, although it was then
easily within his grasp." *The Russian Question at the End of the 20th
Century* (1995)

According to Solzhenitsyn, Alexander only compounded the mistake by seeking
instead the "rebellious nest" of Poland (i.e., the Grand Duchy of Warsaw),
"not seeing if only through Austria's example, how harmful it is for the
dominant nation in a state to create a multiethnic empire." In other
words, to Solzhenitsyn, as to many other Russians, "returning" Ukrainians
to Russia (unlike annexing Grand Duchy Poland) would *not* have made Russia
more multiethnic. Essentially, this view sees Russia as the successor to
Kievan Rus', and the Ukrainians and Belarusians as Russians who had been
artificially cut off from their fellow Russians by the Mongolian invasions
and subsequent Lithuanian/Polish conquest. According to this point of
view, it is unfortunate that the Ruthenes of Galicia and Bukovina were left
outside the Russian sphere when all the other East Slavs (such as the
Dnieper Ukrainians and the Belarusians) had been "reunited" with their
Russian brethren in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Wilson thinks it
conceivable that if eastern Galicia had been absorbed into
Russia in 1772 or 1815, "modern Ukraine might then have become more like
modern Belarus, with a much weaker sense of national identity." (p. xii)

It is certainly true that Ukrainian nationalism had far greater opportunity
to develop in Galicia and Bukovina than in "Dnieper Ukraine." This is not
due simply to Austria (eventually) having much greater freedom than Russia;
Vienna actually had an interest in utilizing Ukrainian nationalism as a
counterbalance to Polish nationalism in Galicia, and also to discourage the
Russophile orientation among the East Slavs of Galicia (in 1882 there was a
major treason trial of Russophile leaders). When Ukrainian nationalists
were persecuted in Kiev, they could find refuge in Lemberg/Lwow/Lviv; when
printing in the Ukrainian language was banned in Russia, Ukrainian-language
books were smuggled in from Galicia. Ukrainian nationalists in Galicia
viewed Galicia as the "Piedmont" of a future free and united Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Russophile orientation was in decline; in the 1907 elections
to the Vienna parliament the Russophiles won only five seats to 22 for the
Ukrainophiles.

To be sure, in 1914-15, when Russia did occupy most of Galicia and
Bukovina, it viewed it as a golden opportunity to Russify the area. But by
then it was too late. If Tsarist Russia had won the war and annexed
Galicia, by that time it would indeed have been a "poisoned gift"--the
higher Ukrainian consciousness of the area would exercise a pernicious
(from the viewpoint of Russia's leaders) influence on Dnieper Ukraine--just
as it did after 1945. (As Durnovo said in his famous memorandum warning
Nicholas II against a war with Germany: "It is obviously disadvantageous
for us to annex, in the interests of national sentimentalism, a territory
[Galicia] that has lost every vital connection with our fatherland. For,
together with a negligible handful of Galicians, Russian in spirit, how
many Poles, Jews, and Ukrainized Uniates we would receive! The so-called
Ukrainian, or Mazeppist, movement is not a menace to us at present, but we
should not enable it to expand by increasing the number of turbulent
Ukrainian elements, for in this movement undoubtedly lies the seed of an
extremely dangerous Little Russian separatism which, under favorable
conditions, may assume quite unexpected proportions.")

As Wilson says, all this does not mean that one has to accept
Solzhenitsyn's views about avoiding Russia's "disastrous problems" with
Ukraine if only Galicia had been annexed in 1815. This assumes that there
were no significant differences to eradicate in 1815, whereas in fact there
were already plenty. "Nevertheless, with nearly all significant Ukrainian
territory under Russian control, Ukraine might have been in the same
situation as Belarus and any nineteenth-century Ukrainian national
'revival' might have looked more like its much weaker north-western
counterpart. The Greek Catholic Church would have been almost completely,
rather than only partially, abolished in 1839, apart from some tiny
remnants (assuming its other outpost in Transcarpathia was also under
Russian control). On the other hand, in the Ukrainian territories already
under the Tsars...there was already a much stronger national tradition than
in Belarus. The nineteenth-century Ukrainian national movement began in
Kharkiv. It would have had to stay there rather than transfer to Galicia,
so it would have developed differently. But it would still have existed."
(p. 121)

It has btw even been argued that Russia might have secured Galicia during
the diplomatic maneuverings at the Congress of Berlin in 1876. I don't
know how realistic that was, but 1772 or 1813-15 were real possibilities:
Russian armies occupied Lviv (or however you want to spell it...) in 1769-
72 and part of Ternopil was temporarily annexed between 1809 and 1815.

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