Austria wins the Austro Prussian War

What would be the situation in Europe if the Austrians won the austro prussian war? Benedek had several opportunities to win the war early on and he didn't do so. So if he did win it and they annexed parts of prussia knocking it down to a second rate power, what would Europe look like? How would the French and the Russians act in response? Would the Austrians expand the german confederation and would germany unify under the Austrians as a single state?
 
Well, Austria would most likely take Silesia back. Beyond that maybe an Second Rhine Confederation?

Only if their victory is an outright curbstomp. Simply stopping the invading prussians would mean status quo in Germany, and possibly Austria keeping Veneto.
 
Lets say its an curbstomp and Prussia as a nation is destroyed.

Maybe Austria divides it up in puppet states?
Rhine Confederation
Brandenburg (all of the leftovers)
Prussia(West and East Prussia)
Austria takes Silesia. gives Posen to Russia.

Die Prussia.png
 
I doubt if the Russians would want Posen - they have enough trouble holding down the Poles they already have.

The rump Prussia is probably Brandenburg (perhaps minus the Altmark) Pomerania, East/West Prussia and Posen. It will be left out of the German Confederation (which it had denounced at the outbreak of war) with a ban on readmission for at least 20 years, by which time Austria will have the GC reorgansised its way.

Austria takes Silesia, in return for writing of Venetia, Lombardy, and the GDs of Tuscany and Modena. The bulk of the Rhine Provinces gets carved up into new principalities for the two GDs, the balance (plus maybe other Prussian territory west of the Elbe) gets shared out between Bavaria, Wurttemburg, Hanover and Saxony, the latter also getting those lands east of the Elbe which it lost in 1814. Schleswig-Holstein goes to the Duke of Augustenburg, with N Schleswig possibly going back to Denmark.

To appease France, the former Habsburg possessions in Italy are written off (see above), though a defeated Italy would be made to "buy" them for several times their value. France is also left free to annex Luxemburg if it wants to.

The newly installed Hohenzollern Prince of Rumania is probably forced to abdicate. The successor can't be a Habsburg (unacceptable to Russia) or a Romanov (ditto to Austria) so is probably from some minor German house.

Russia takes the opportunity to denounce the Black Sea clauses of the peace of 1856, as she would do OTL in 1870.

Prussia has to pay a heavy indemnity, to be held by Austria in trust for the GC. Any other German states looking for payment of their war expenses must come cap in hand to Franz Josef for them.

The minor German states which sided with Prussia are put under Federal occupation pending a final settlement. Princes who fought against the GC must abdicate or renounce rights of succession, but Franz Josef, as President of the GC, may set aside this penalty. IOW they are totally dependent on his goodwill and must vote his way in the Diet.
 
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I heard somewhere on the forum that defeat for the Prussians would be harder then defeat on the Austrians was. The Prussians had to go through the highlands of Bohemia to get back to Prussia, and the Austrians had a larger cavalry contingent, which would make retreat tricky for Prussia.
 

Anderman

Donor
Saxony was on the austrian/german confederation side, so will the Kingdom of Saxony get back the territories back it lost to Prussia after the congress of Vienna ?
 
I heard somewhere on the forum that defeat for the Prussians would be harder then defeat on the Austrians was. The Prussians had to go through the highlands of Bohemia to get back to Prussia, and the Austrians had a larger cavalry contingent, which would make retreat tricky for Prussia.

They also had to retreat across territory they've already marched through on the way in which means food would quickly become a major issue.

Anderman said:
Saxony was on the austrian/german confederation side, so will the Kingdom of Saxony get back the territories back it lost to Prussia after the congress of Vienna ?

Considering the Austrians very much wanted to break Prussia as a rival? I'd say so. Possibly get a bit extra if the winners thought they could get away with it ... and they most probably could.
 
I don't think the Prussians would be taken down too much- there is the balance of power in Europe to consider, and the fact the the French might intervene if Prussia is punished too much. Remember, everyone in Europe (outside of Prussia) was expecting the Austrians to win, so France could very well intervene to prop up the Prussians and in general enhance France's prestige.
 
The thing is, there's a very good reason why Prussia won IOTL- not just against Austria, but against nearly every other German state as well. Prussia was much more industrialised, had much more railroad, and had better weaponry and organisation. Unless Austria seriously gets its shit together decades before 1866, they're fucked. Completely.

You need to craft a reason why Austria would win, before really looking at the effects of an Austrian victory.
 
The thing is, there's a very good reason why Prussia won IOTL- not just against Austria, but against nearly every other German state as well. Prussia was much more industrialised, had much more railroad, and had better weaponry and organisation. Unless Austria seriously gets its shit together decades before 1866, they're fucked. Completely.

You need to craft a reason why Austria would win, before really looking at the effects of an Austrian victory.

Not to mention that Prussia weathered the events of 1848 slightly better than Austria. The latter had to call in Russia to deal with the Hungarians.
 
The thing is, there's a very good reason why Prussia won IOTL- not just against Austria, but against nearly every other German state as well. Prussia was much more industrialised, had much more railroad, and had better weaponry and organisation. Unless Austria seriously gets its shit together decades before 1866, they're fucked. Completely.

You need to craft a reason why Austria would win, before really looking at the effects of an Austrian victory.

Which is great in principle, but ignores the fact that the Prussians very nearly lost in OTL despite all those advantages. Moreover, their loss would have taken place in a situation where the likely outcome was the total capture of their offensive forces.

Now, that said, having Austria proceed to march to Berlin, with France already planning to enter the war if the Prussians were losing, probably does require what you're talking about. The Austrians mispent a lot of their time under Metternich doing an admittedly impressive job enacting self-destructive policies.

So I'd say that an Austrian victory is actually a fairly straightforward thing to arrange, but most of the decisive Austrian victories being discussed here ignore the facts on the ground in 1866.
 
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