Austria Hungary annexing Lombardo-Venetia ?

Thats quite an generalisation you made.

Especially the "Younger" Habsburgs (Franz Ferdinand among them) were driving for "modernisation".

FF don't really strike me as a 'liberal' more on 'divide et impera' type, favoring modernisation of the country from the economic pow but from the political i can see him promise things but not really be ready to give up power.
Karl seem more pliable but with less drive, more a reactive one than someone with a clear plan.
Rudolf, i don't know enough about him to say anything, except that a man who commit suicide will hardly resist the enourmous stress of be a head of state (but this his my personal and professional opinion regarding who commit that act that a clear analysis of the Rudolf characther)


Unfortunately you are right for Franz Josef.

If he suppress the Magyar will be probably as an example for all the other to shut up and to as they are told, good in the short time and very bad on the long term.


Rudolf actually was leaning towards liberal views and Hungary. making Rudolf emperor in 1887(?) would give Austria time to solve some issues - especially the nationalities - a liberal emperor might give more rights to minorites and the major nations. In addition if his inclination for Hungary might allow him to steer clear from Prussia.

Its hard to see where his reign would have steered, but you might assume he would stter a differennt course than his fatherm so austria would have 25 years to get modernized before OTLs First world war.

Assume he steered a pro French and pro British course (no interest in colonies) while maintainigt a "distant" friendship to Germany. This in turn might enable Germany to maintain more cordial relations to Russia.

Russia would still be somewhat hostile to Austria. In effect you would have a less rigid system of alliances which would help to "defuse" conflicts.

If you like you could come up with an Austrian/Russian conflict (over Serbia) that triggers a greater war

Russia
Germany (Rückversicherungsvertrag prolonged)
Italy (friendly to Germany and opposed to France)
vs.
Austria
UK (concerned by Germanys naval programme, allied to Japan which is still hostile to Russia)
France (opposite Italy)
Turkey (enemy of Russia ;))

Just for fun.

Well with this kind of alliance there are a lot of possibilities of conflict, regarding Austria, assuming Conrad or a man with similiar view being in charge, the possibility of a war with Italy are big (Conrad hitched for a fight with Italy) so things can go down from there. The Balkan war or the Ottoman-Italian war can escalate, hell even the Russo-Japanese war can bring the conflict in the open and in this case a German-Russo alliance is an hard one to beat in a land war in Europe

But at the end of the war (assume US joins in on UKs side) with the Austrian side victorious (though Austria would be hard pressed - enemys on all sides :D) the victors could demand the spoils of war... Austria COULD want Venetia and create an Lombardian puppet/buffer state...

COULD is on thing, and sure Vienna will want it plus maybe a the Lombardia buffer, but as the aftermath of WWI demonstrated what you want and what you can realistically achieve and keep are two different things; expecially after a long and difficult conflict.
 
I did not mean that FF was a liberal (though Rudolf was). Karl was weak OTL, but when he came to power Austria effectively was "driven" (dont want to say run) by Germany, so evebn he is hard to analyze.

AFAIK Rudolf was an intelligent young man with "ideas" that was kept away from power - you can assume BECAUSE of his ideas.

I am not Mr Freud, but if you have your energy suppressed you will break - I think a Rudolf with responsibilities might "Work off" his enrgies (As Emperor) and thus not break (Commit suicide)

Aven if he was a weak emperor he would listen to advisors - and as he was Hungary leaning those advisors would largely be hungarians - leading to an Hungarian dominated empire - and this certainly would lead to a "different Austria Hungary - not necessaily better AH ;))

BTW Austria Hungary had one of the best public administrations in the world at the beginning of the century. Schooling was also quite good, so there IS a base to build on. - Military was not up to date (though AH did have nice hardware in some fields), but that (with 25 years time) could be changed...

A nice bit of the military "failures" of AH - Austrian gnerals felt oblieged to "preserve" the Venetian "Arsenal" as it was historical "Valzuable", so they did not bomb and shell it. The Italians recognized it and put their supplies there... Austria still did not shell it - even today, if you "use" a protected area, it beciomes a legal target in war.. stoopid Austrians ;)
 
I did not mean that FF was a liberal (though Rudolf was). Karl was weak OTL, but when he came to power Austria effectively was "driven" (dont want to say run) by Germany, so evebn he is hard to analyze.

AFAIK Rudolf was an intelligent young man with "ideas" that was kept away from power - you can assume BECAUSE of his ideas.

I am not Mr Freud, but if you have your energy suppressed you will break - I think a Rudolf with responsibilities might "Work off" his enrgies (As Emperor) and thus not break (Commit suicide)

The big problem of a (don't wanna say correct but at least reasonable) prediction of what they will do is that all of three have only given glimpse of what they will do. Hell from what i know (aka not very much) Rudolf can be the exact contrary of FF and try to normalize things with Italy or at least value enough the CP to try to keep relations civil

Aven if he was a weak emperor he would listen to advisors - and as he was Hungary leaning those advisors would largely be hungarians - leading to an Hungarian dominated empire - and this certainly would lead to a "different Austria Hungary - not necessaily better AH ;))

And that in the long term can cause some serious problem as the German and Slav will not appreciate much. Basically you need someone with a lot of charisma and at least a close adviser of the type of Bismark or Cavour
 
Can't say something else except: you are right...

PS - I also don't think that Austria would fet (or want) Venetia and Lombardia back. But I could see a "ethnic" exchange between Austria and Italy (Italy "buying" the Trentino and Italians in AH who want to become Italian subjects may move to italy - and Italy renounces all further claims (leaving South Tirol, Görz, Triest and other territory with Austria).

That wiould "defuse" one problematic minority problem :D
 
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