Austro-Hungarian Survival

Now this is a TL!
Theoretically communism shouldn't care about nationalisms so the creation of a truly multiethnic communist state makes perfect sense.

Fascinating, yes, but Austrian socialists had already split along nationality lines by that time.
 
Austria-Hungary would have had a better chance at survival if Italy hadn't entered the war, or if the Italians had waited or even if they had proved even more militarily inept. Italy in the war made it much more difficult for Austria-Hungary to deal with the Russians and Serbs.

If you're into weird variants, how about this: the Central powers controlled most of the Ukraine for a while late in the war after the Russians collapsed. What if the CP had put into place a Hapsburg princeling as monarch of the new kingdom of the Ukraine, or made it a third kingdom of the Triple Monarchy? It probably wouldn't have survived long, but then again with the Russians in civil war and no other strong surrounding states the main opposition would have been internal. Allow a reasonable amount of reform and make the government not as awful as the Tsar's and who knows?
 
If you're into weird variants, how about this: the Central powers controlled most of the Ukraine for a while late in the war after the Russians collapsed. What if the CP had put into place a Hapsburg princeling as monarch of the new kingdom of the Ukraine, or made it a third kingdom of the Triple Monarchy? It probably wouldn't have survived long, but then again with the Russians in civil war and no other strong surrounding states the main opposition would have been internal. Allow a reasonable amount of reform and make the government not as awful as the Tsar's and who knows?

They planned to, set up a Hapsburg in an independent Ukraine (where independent means: not all that independent). Problem is, Skoropadsky's Ukrainian State had next to public support and fell apart the moment CP forces were no longer providing him with support. So, in order to have the state survive ... you'd need the CPs to win the war and be willing to be involved in the mess that's Russia. They probably would for the Ukraine, but the Russians will want it back ... after all, everyone (even the Ukrainians) considered it a part of Russia at the time.
 
You need a POD somewhere in the 1800's to make this happen. Now if there was no Austro-Hungarian Empire and it remained the Austrian Empire, its possible that the Austrians could've survived but only if they had a far more competent military and a far more opressive regime.
 
Even then, the best option for Austria-Hungary, even with a long war, would require a much better performance early in the war (no Galizian disaster, no Carpathian offensive, possibly no offense in Serbia), certainly sending both A and B Staffel to Galizia (rather than the weird half-and-half that cost the Austrians so much) ... you'd need to remove von Hotzendorf and that requires a somewhat earlier PoD.
Austria-Hungary would have had a better chance at survival if Italy hadn't entered the war, or if the Italians had waited or even if they had proved even more militarily inept. Italy in the war made it much more difficult for Austria-Hungary to deal with the Russians and Serbs.
Well doing much better during the invasion of Serbia and against the Russians might be possible with a fairly easy PoD. The head of Austro-Hungarian counter-espionage Alfred Redl was working for the Russians where along with selling out the agents they had in the Russian Imperial Staff he also gave them Plan III, the Austro-Hungarian mobilisation and invasions plans of Serbia, which they passed on to the Serbs. Now he apparently took some precautions to keep from getting caught but not great measures so as the PoD how about he somehow gets discovered earlier on in his career before he's passed the really vital plans on and betrayed the Austrian agents?

Seeing an opportunity he's kept in place as a figurehead with only a very small circle of people knowing that he's been quietly removed and they use him to pass on a mix of correct information to gain the Russian's trust and disinformation, including a fake Plan III. Since they'll keep some their best agents in Russia even if allowing Redl to betray the rest to lull the Russians into thinking that they've discovered all of them and he wont be overstimating their strength this will give them a much better intelligence picture of their capabilities, and if and when the invasion of Serbia kicks off the Serbian army will be set up and expecting the main attacks in completely the wrong areas.
 

Deleted member 1487

Well doing much better during the invasion of Serbia and against the Russians might be possible with a fairly easy PoD. The head of Austro-Hungarian counter-espionage Alfred Redl was working for the Russians where along with selling out the agents they had in the Russian Imperial Staff he also gave them Plan III, the Austro-Hungarian mobilisation and invasions plans of Serbia, which they passed on to the Serbs. Now he apparently took some precautions to keep from getting caught but not great measures so as the PoD how about he somehow gets discovered earlier on in his career before he's passed the really vital plans on and betrayed the Austrian agents?

Seeing an opportunity he's kept in place as a figurehead with only a very small circle of people knowing that he's been quietly removed and they use him to pass on a mix of correct information to gain the Russian's trust and disinformation, including a fake Plan III. Since they'll keep some their best agents in Russia even if allowing Redl to betray the rest to lull the Russians into thinking that they've discovered all of them and he wont be overstimating their strength this will give them a much better intelligence picture of their capabilities, and if and when the invasion of Serbia kicks off the Serbian army will be set up and expecting the main attacks in completely the wrong areas.

The Austrians changed their war plans after the Redl affair anyway, so not leaking the information changes nothing. In fact the early Austrians successes in the war were directly related to the Russians putting their forces in the wrong place, which allowed for short-lived victories that poor Habsburg leadership threw away.
 
thanks for all your input so far, and i look forward to more in the future :)

ive been doing some research into it myself, but what does everyone think would be the best POD for austria to become strong enough to remain unified after WW1?
 

Deleted member 1487

thanks for all your input so far, and i look forward to more in the future :)

ive been doing some research into it myself, but what does everyone think would be the best POD for austria to become strong enough to remain unified after WW1?

Changing their leadership before WW1 wouldn't hurt. But honestly going for the national parliament based on ethnic composition before the Ausgleich is the best option with a clause that a deadlock allows the Kaiser to make decisions by decree, even on taxation or budget issues. Of course that would require Franz Josef to make the right call at the right time, something he was notoriously bad at. Honestly it would be to have a different Kaiser beside Franz Josef and make him a liberal one. FJ did have a liberal brother I thought, but I don't have his name right now. So kill of Franz and have his brother run the show.
 
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