Austria Hungary, "crushing" the hungarians

how would this work ? what would be the consequences of crushing the hungarians and because the hungarians were even more against reforms than the austrians.

I guess, a big majority of the people in the kingdom of hungary would not support the hungarian aristocrates, the croats, slovaks, and romanians would like more autonomy, and a big part of the population would most likley want Universal suffrage. So i doubt the hungarian aristocrates would get lot support, maybe some uprising of the minorities would support the Austrians, germany might support Austria aswell.
the hungarians would most likely give up, their power being somewhat restricted. this would open a path for reforms, or atleast making reforms easier.
 
Slovaks supported Vienna in 1848 against Hungarians and it didn't help them much. ;) Maybe if Vienna dusted old request of Slovak representatives for Slovak Grand Duchy under direct Vienna control? Almost up to October 1918 part of Slovak nationalists supported cooperation with Vienna but not Budapest. Some of them hoped liberation of Slovaks will come from Imperor.
 
i mean what would be the consequence of crushing the hungarians ? will it make the situation easier to reform or make everything worse ?
 

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You'd get rid of one of the biggest obstacles for sure. And perhaps you by crushing them is able to scare other troublemakers such as the Czechs and the German Liberals. This is the time to risk it. Bring in the troops and dissolve the parliaments. Long Live the Autocracy!
 
i mean what would be the consequence of crushing the hungarians ? will it make the situation easier to reform or make everything worse ?

Depends, if you want to reform the Empire well is a risk but frankly it's way better to do nothing and bring themself in a corner as OTL. If it's quick enough you get rid of a really big problem and finally there is a real shot to make lasting reform, and that's is the catch, more time pass and more the are possibilities that external factor influence the situation or that other minorities try to revolt.
If instead the Hasburg use the Hungarian revolt and crushing to try to make their dream of return to absolute rule a reality, it will be just a short term patch and a nasty civil war/revolution will now on schedule.
 
it's not about crushing the hungarians - it's about crushing the hungarian nobility.

not as hard as it sounds.

consequences would be a larger army before the war (if there is a war?) and industrialization of transleithania, as the land owners really didnt like factories.
 
It's not about crushing the Hungarians - it's about crushing the Hungarian nobility.
Agreed. The Hungarian magnates owned something ridiculous like half or more of all the productive land in Hungary from what I can remember, that number might go up if you include the Church as well, and they were pretty ruthless about keeping the voting franchise highly restricted. In the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 the Slovenes, the Croatians, and the Transylvanians all fought for the Habsburgs against the Hungarians.

If the Austrians are able to crush the Hungarians then the best policy in my opinion is to mostly pardon the low and middle-ranking rebels and use the opportunity to strip the magnates of a large percentage of their land and money, even if you only take half of their land that still gives you twenty-five percent of the country to play with. Use their position of strength to force through electoral changes similar to Austria's to give more commoners the vote and share out the confiscated land in a more equitable fashion - that should get a lot of them on their side. The situation of Croatia and Slavonia and Transylvania under Hungary was a bit complex so take the opportunity to definitively split them off as reward for their loyalty, also discourages actions in the future as any independent Hungary will then be landlocked and surrounded on three sides by the Austrian Empire and the other by the Ottomans. Offer free land and cash incentives from the spoils to the small ethnic Hungarian population in the middle of Transylvania to help clean up the borders and makeup of the place. I'd also suggest trying to get the newly elected parliament from the expanded franchise to make the monarchy hereditary rather than elective as happened with Bohemia, that would help remove a large lever the magnates used to threaten the Habsburgs. This will also of course mean no Ausgleich.
 
ok how long would such a war last ? It would be the best to get this down as fast as possible. about 20 days perhaps ?
 
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Well it depends on what the point of departure is - better commanders/strategy, larger and better trained armed forces beforehand, all the good luck goes to the Austrians and anything that can go wrong does for the Hungarians etc. In our timeline in 1848 with the Russians it took roughly a year IIRC to put down the revolution, having the Austrians take just twenty days would be quite an improvement.
 
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