Lets say the Central Powers win in 1918 by not having the Americans come in. They win barely, and as a result people are fed up with the monarchy and want to go their own way. How would a civil war go? Especially if all of the major fighting powers are to exhausted to get involved or are having their own uprisings/civil wars?
Austro-Hungarian Civil War
- Thread starter wtw
- Start date
Some strike, somewhere, provides the spark; it has ti happen sooner rather than later, or the Government will recover some measure of stability. If it happens in Hungary or close to it, I can Imagine tension between Vienna and Budapest allowing malcontent to grow until it will be unstoppable. Then, it's only a matter of time until each National group starts claiming areas and wreaking havoc.
And the government has brunt so much men, material, and goodwill between themselves and the their people, once it starts it would be unstoppable.
The Harrisburgs can just unite the minorities of the Empire against the Hungarians. It would be a curb-stomp.
Even if their is no foreign intervention (and I can't imagine the Hungarians winning without it), Austria could still "purchase" the best equipment from a worried Germany at very low rates. Hungary on the other hand would be landlocked and would be stuck with the equipment they have.
It is not like the Magyar nobility was very popular either. They were the single most opposed group to universal suffrage in all of Europe. And that includes Russia.
Even if their is no foreign intervention (and I can't imagine the Hungarians winning without it), Austria could still "purchase" the best equipment from a worried Germany at very low rates. Hungary on the other hand would be landlocked and would be stuck with the equipment they have.
It is not like the Magyar nobility was very popular either. They were the single most opposed group to universal suffrage in all of Europe. And that includes Russia.
Those bloody Harrisburgs . . They should just stay in the people's Republic of PA
BigBlueBox
Banned
By 1918 no Czech, Pole, Italian, Romanian, or Serb would be willing to die to enforce Austrian rule over Hungary. The Romanians in Transylvania will secede with the goal of rejoining Romania, and the Serbs in Bosnia and Vovjodina will also attempt to secede. Hungary will focus on its own independence before fighting them. Italians are also likely to rebel against Austria. Any attempt to force the Czechs and Poles to fight against Hungary would lead to mass draft-dodging, desertion, and mutinies. There’s no guarantee that Slovenians and Croats will be loyal either. Before the war they most likely would have been, but after the war they are just as likely to carve out their own independent state or try to form a Yugoslavia with Serbia.
But this is after a CP victory. Romania has been crushed and has no ability to support Transylvanian Romanians against Hungary. Incidentally, those Romanians have never been part of a Romanian state, so they can't "rejoin" Romania. Serbia has been crushed, and is mostly occupied by Bulgaria.
I'll agree that Slovenians, Czechs, Poles, and Ruthenians would have very little interest in enforcing Austro-Hungarian union.
However, Croats, Slovaks, Vojvodina Serbs, and Romanians, and of course all the Danubian volksdeutsch would all be at odds with a Hungarian nationalist regime, and would prefer continued union with Austria.
In any case, I must dissent from the OP's premise, because I doubt that Hungary would rebel against the Ausgleich immediately after the war. The Ausgleich had to be renegotiated every ten years; it would expire in 1927. IMO, it would take a few years after the war before Hungary became that restive, and then Hungary would wait a few more years for the Ausgleich to expire, allowing Hungary to gain sovereignty without engaging in rebellion.
Hungarians might try secession before expire date if Austria-Hungary tries reforms itself soon after Great War. Hungarians not be accepting further federalisation of the empire.
Hmmm...the thing is, this kind of happened even with a defeat IOTL, in the form of Bela Kun's Hungarian People's Republic. ITTL, If returning German soldiers find no benefit in their victory, they may turn to the left, causing the Germans to actually have problems dealing with both their domestic Communists and to not be able to do much with the Whites. From there, is it possible for Lenin to actually support Bela Kun's government?
BigBlueBox
Banned
You’re assuming “be forced to join the new Hungary” and “continuing to remain in union with Austria” are the only two choices. That might have been true in 1848, but it definitely isn’t true 70 years later. If the Hungarians truly desire an independent nation-state then they can negotiate a partition and population exchange in Vovjodina, Banat, and Transylvania with Serbia and Romania in exchange for benevolent neutrality from Romania and co-belligerence from Serbia, which will fight Cisleithania for control of Bosnia. Sure, it might seem out of character for nationalists to cede land, but if the situation is bad enough that Hungary is willing to fight then the Hungarians have probably accepted that they cannot rule all of Transleithania. The Croats might stay loyal, but they could also try to join with Serbia to form Yugoslavia or go fight their own independent state.
So the Czechs would be ok with leaving the Slovaks under Magyar rule?
Except that the ones willing to fight would be the hardline Magyar nationalists, who would also be the least likely to make such concessions. Any Magyar who proposed to surrender half their country (including most of is mineral resources) to the Slavs and Rumanians would be torn to pieces as a traitor.
Serbia that is on the losing side of WWI is a hollowed-out wreck and the idea that it would be taking anything from anyone in 1918. after such a defeat is silly. And the Croats only joined with Serbia IOTL because the Serb Army was running rampant post-war with nothing to stop it and it was hoped that joining with them would stop the Italians from gobbling up the whole Adriatic coastline. Neither of these apply after a CP victory.
The aftermath is probably something like this. Though Croatian-Bosnian unity is a bit far fetched and Galicia is a hot potato and gets its own civil war, and Austria is bound to keep some coast, lower Triest + lower Istria maybe.
Hungary and the magyars were just as war weary as the rest of them so there should be something really major to get the people to rebel. If the nobles try to pull something for themselfs without popular support it will end swiftly. Actually I can only come up with 1 idea how you could get them to rebel in that situation.
This option would be if the Emperor announced the federalization of the empire with a plan of it that is very unfavorable to Hungary - which is very likely if this happens even though it would still likely be much better for them than OTL borders. At that the people would feel betrayed - they have fough through hell for years to finally be stabbed in the back. Its important that this should not be a vague thing and should clearly inflame people - a vague text is not enough for that. However that would not only lead to hungarian rebellion but rebellions all across the empire. A federalization would have to solve question really hard to solve and trying to do that when the legitimacy of the dynasty is at its all time lowest with a just resurged Poland is a recipe for disaster. I cant imagine you could peacefully resolve the Galician and Bohemian questions and there might be uprisings in the slovenian territories or by the Italians of the Empire. At that point it would be really hard to avoid a total collapse followed by a free for all by all the sucessor states.
This option would be if the Emperor announced the federalization of the empire with a plan of it that is very unfavorable to Hungary - which is very likely if this happens even though it would still likely be much better for them than OTL borders. At that the people would feel betrayed - they have fough through hell for years to finally be stabbed in the back. Its important that this should not be a vague thing and should clearly inflame people - a vague text is not enough for that. However that would not only lead to hungarian rebellion but rebellions all across the empire. A federalization would have to solve question really hard to solve and trying to do that when the legitimacy of the dynasty is at its all time lowest with a just resurged Poland is a recipe for disaster. I cant imagine you could peacefully resolve the Galician and Bohemian questions and there might be uprisings in the slovenian territories or by the Italians of the Empire. At that point it would be really hard to avoid a total collapse followed by a free for all by all the sucessor states.
I take it that the alt-Austria is now part of Germany, since those borders are impossible otherwise. In that case, though, how would a Czech state be able to remain independent?
Probably not, Otl Anschluss became popular only after the peace treaty went "and the rest is Austria", here it's Austria having the final say, even in case of chaotic break down it's at an advantage as it has the guns and army the newly emerging states lack and plenty of loyal minorities in the secessionist regions. Mountais are not that much of an issue even at that time, or example the railway between North and South Tyrol goes through terrain a lot worse than the mountain around Bohemia and was build in 3 years, i'd also guess Austria would take parts of the flat land that are majority Czech as well for strategic reasons, Czechoslovakia did the same OTL. After ww1 the Czech part of Czechoslovakia emerged as 60 % Czech or so and Austria as 90 % Austrian, here it's the opposite.
How it stays independent... Very carefully. For example it's the OTL WW1 peace which guaranteed Czechoslovak access to harbors in Germany, obviously with WW1 ending differently there's no one to force Germany to do that, the new Czech republic would have to rely on the neighbors good will to keep the spiece flowing otherwise there's a huge collapse of industry. Looking closer at the map... there's a very real chance it becomes either fully enclosed by post war Austria taking a small strip of Moravia to connect to Austria-Silesia or by Austria and Germany that annexes Cracow as part of the Polish land strip they planned to take.
The map is just something i pulled from google, there's bound to be other places with greater change, off the top of my head i can think of Bratislava which at that time had more than enough German speakers to justify keeping it.
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Galicia would likely degenerate into a binational conflict like Cyprus or Northern Ireland between Poles and Ukrainians, with Yiddish-speaking Jews caught in the middle. Lviv was a mostly Polish city before WW2, but the country-side around it was strongly Ukrainian majority.
Well, maybe; but personally I find it very hard to picture an Austria strong enough to impose that and yet not strong enough to simply reconquer Bohemia/Moravia.
Well, some things need sorting out in the background. If the CP have won, is there a puppet Habsburg Poland which can have Galicia-Lodomeria ceded to it?
In victory, and with the fruits of victory being linked to the victors, a federation of the crowns of Bohemia, Austria, and Croatia might work, if Hungary leaves
Hungary might try to retain Croatia, but its probably going to bargain Slovakia for that, holding Slovakia being more important to its integrity
In victory, and with the fruits of victory being linked to the victors, a federation of the crowns of Bohemia, Austria, and Croatia might work, if Hungary leaves
Hungary might try to retain Croatia, but its probably going to bargain Slovakia for that, holding Slovakia being more important to its integrity