With a POD of sometime after 1867 and the establishment of the Dual Monarchy, how could you get an Austro-Hungarian colony in North Africa? Seems to me one potential scenario is a more outward looking Austro-Hungary seeking to justify its fairly sizable navy as well as pursue a pan-imperial project by trying to take over Libya instead of Italy OTL. Going further, what if the empire decides to send colonists to Libya given it being relatively lightly populated and having a fairly moderate climate?
Austro-Hungarian Colony in North Africa
- Thread starter Marius Mazzini
- Start date
Dave Shoup
Banned
The Austrians, presumably, had plenty of unhappy Muslims in Bosnia-Hercegovina already.
This would be a pretty huge change to their colonial policy (which iOTL amounted to "No."). They had a number of other opportunities in the 1800s to pick up other colonies, so they could put together a respectable* colonial empire.
*by the German/Italian standard of "I'm late to this and there's only scraps left"
The annexation of Bosnia could well be butterflied by a colonial Austria, as colonial expansion would likely satisfy its need to superficially expand so as to regain prestige and legitimacy which had been lost due to the consolidation of Germany and Italy.
On another note, the after the initial pacification campaign in 1878 the Bosnian Muslim population was pretty loyal and well behaved.
An Austro-Hungarian Libya would've been governed differently to how other parts of the empire were governed. In OTL, the Austro-Hungarians governed Bosnia in a way that took into account the fact that there was no organization of the disparate communities resembling the organization of the churches in other parts of the Empire. In OTL's Bosnia, the mufti of Sarajevo, Hilmi Hadžiomerović, was made mufti of the whole of Bosnia and was given control of the sharia court. On the initiative of the Austro-Hungarian authorities, this court was to be presided over by a four-man council – like an episcopal synod. The Muslim communities were granted autonomy in their financial administration and organization of educational establishments and religious institutions. The structure of the Islamic communities was based on the Christian bishoprics and parishes. This was an attempt to organize the region's religious life into a church-like organization under Austro-Hungarian control.
As for legal jurisdiction, allowance was made for the specific situation. As citizens of the Habsburg Monarchy, Bosnian Muslims were subject to Austro-Hungarian civil law, but questions of family and inheritance law were left to the sharia. The Muslim legal scholars were not only appointed and paid by the Austro-Hungarian administration but also constrained to cooperate with the civil jurisdiction, also in terms of court procedure. To provide training in both legal traditions, a state Islamic school of law was established in Sarajevo in 1887.
So a mufti, through a four man sharia court, would rule over an AH-Libya, with autonomy in financial, religious and educational institutions, with Imperial legal jurisdiction only affecting areas outside of family disputes. Libya would effectively have more autonomy in it's affairs than anyone else in the Empire, except for the Dual Monarchy of course.
As for legal jurisdiction, allowance was made for the specific situation. As citizens of the Habsburg Monarchy, Bosnian Muslims were subject to Austro-Hungarian civil law, but questions of family and inheritance law were left to the sharia. The Muslim legal scholars were not only appointed and paid by the Austro-Hungarian administration but also constrained to cooperate with the civil jurisdiction, also in terms of court procedure. To provide training in both legal traditions, a state Islamic school of law was established in Sarajevo in 1887.
So a mufti, through a four man sharia court, would rule over an AH-Libya, with autonomy in financial, religious and educational institutions, with Imperial legal jurisdiction only affecting areas outside of family disputes. Libya would effectively have more autonomy in it's affairs than anyone else in the Empire, except for the Dual Monarchy of course.
After 1867 it's borderline ASB. There are two main issues here:
1 - Austrian naval capabilities are very limited, especially if they try to antagonize Italy and/or any other major power, given that a blockade of the Adriatic is a obvious problem, especially before the invention of u-boat warfare.
2 - All North African territories that are on the table are nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire (being Morocco the only exception). If a conflict with the Ottomans is desirable, the strategic goal of the Austrians will be, without a doubt, the Balkans. If they can get Salonika, somehow... Then it'd be possible to fight for colonies. However, given 1867 borders, a colony that isn't reachable during wartime is pretty much a nuisance to say the least.
1 - Austrian naval capabilities are very limited, especially if they try to antagonize Italy and/or any other major power, given that a blockade of the Adriatic is a obvious problem, especially before the invention of u-boat warfare.
2 - All North African territories that are on the table are nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire (being Morocco the only exception). If a conflict with the Ottomans is desirable, the strategic goal of the Austrians will be, without a doubt, the Balkans. If they can get Salonika, somehow... Then it'd be possible to fight for colonies. However, given 1867 borders, a colony that isn't reachable during wartime is pretty much a nuisance to say the least.
The Austrian Navy was debatably stronger than the Italian navy, and was actually developing considerable global reach having completed a circumnavigation of the globe in 1857 and operating a small naval force from German Tsingtao. Austria's prospects for a colonial empire really weren't any worse than those of Italy.
Outside of an OTL-esque scenario where the naval might of Italy, France and the UK are arrayed against Austria, not really, and with a PoD in 1867 OTL's alliances aren't set in stone.
Austria vs just Italy, Italy has to commit so much of its navy to blockading the strait of Otranto that it doesn't have much striking power to go after Austria's theoretical colonies.
Austria and [Britain/France] vs Italy and [France/Britain] the Mediterranean would be contested for quite a while.
What if there is no WWI or delayed WWI, Italy discovers the Libyan oil early, and AH crushes Italy in a war and demands Libya?
The Belgians had the Belgian Congo and didn't even have a navy. The Germans started picking up their colonies during the 1880s when their navy was extremely marginal indeed. The Portuguese navy was certainly nothing home to write home about. All formed or had reasonably respectable colonial empires by the later 1800s. A strong navy and a colonial empire generally go together, but it isn't per se necessary. The Austro-Hungarian navy was certainly strong enough to be able to support operations in such a limited space as the Mediterranean to take Libya, given the problems of the Ottoman Navy despite its size, and once ashore the Austro-Hungarian army was certainly better than the Italian one. I'd expect that they'd be able to take it. Holding it in a war might be much more difficult, but then if Austria-Hungary wins a war it would probably get it back easily enough at the bargaining table, and if Austria-Hungary loses they'd have much bigger worries to think about. I just doubt severely they have any political interest in doing this.
ASB because other countries had slightly better capabilities. We really devalue that acronym around here.
Dave Shoup
Banned
Fair points; my presumption is after Max ended up against the wall in 1867, the Austrian ruling classes appetite for overseas adventures was probably sated.
Nephi
Banned
Simón Bolívar just takes it later.
But Patagonia on the other hand, that's relatively empty.
On the subject of other potential acquisitions that Austria let slip away, the consul for Austria in Hong Kong acquired Northern Borneo in in the 1870s.
AH had plenty of opportunities of acquiring colonial territories, but denied most of them due to the Hungarian parliament refusing and vetoing most of these offers, they fear that the naval aspirations of the Austrians might be a huge burden on the national tax income of the empire. Rio de Oro or West Sahara as it is known nowadays was almost bought up by the Austrians and only turned down by a last-minute veto of the Hungarians.
AH also had crappy luck with the Nicobar Islands of India. Multiple expeditions simply failed and once they noticed that the British already colonized the islands in the 1880s, they just gave up.
Overall, the main problem of AH was that they simply didn't want or need colonial possessions outside of maybe prestige. They gained a small concession in Tianjin, but that's it, and honestly, they didn't need more as they were more often than not preoccupied with domestic problems as such a vast European empire may develop. I don't you could have an Austrian colonial empire that stretches from sea to shining sea, but rather some scattered small territories that were so uninteresting for other major naval powers like Britain, France or even the German Empire that they do not contest their claim.
The problem is that the Spanish Sahara was very much an "on-paper" colony, with very little real control of the interior, and there was constant conflict with the Berbers and other tribesmen that refused to submit necessitating a constant military presence. I suppose Villa Cisneros (or Dakhla as its now known) could have served as the Austro-Hungarian Navy's port in the region, though I'm unsure of its capacity, and I don't know if that would offset the territories disadvantages.