Austro-Hungarian Civil War

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.
Yeah... doing it the way i wrote would be the pleasant, friendly end to the empire, the less pleasant one looks more like the occupation of the Rhineland.

The bottom line is that without outside help (like a peace treaty and the French watching over it) secessions only can succeed in weak states where the power of the ruling body doesnt reach far even in peace time, A-H is fairly compact and any place can be reached within a day.
 
The western end of the Empire could become a cozy little multinational federation that serves as a Czechoslovakia analogue in a Central Powers' victory TL. This state would still have the industry of Bohemia as well the Viennese metropolis, the Austrian farmlands, and possible sea access along the Adriatic through Slovenia or Croatia.

Bohemia-Moravia had been under a separate kind of rule from Slovakia for several centuries, an Austro-Bohemian state would seem more likely going by the average world map of Europe for centuries previously. The same a-historicism and massive institutional gap goes for Slovenian lands being ruled from Belgrade. A few decades of late-Victorian pan-slavic sentiment can't erase 700 years of common Habsburg rule with Austria overnight.
 
Top