Challenge: The Danubian Confederation

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy

Banned
In May 1862, Lajos Kossuth announced a project to create a Danubian Confederation made up of Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Croatia. The capital of the new confederation would rotate between Pest, Bucharest, Zagreb, and Belgrade, with the head of the host state presiding the government. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have such a state come into existence by the present day with a POD no earlier than the announcement. The borders should at least comprise the constituent entities as they were in 1862.
 

Kabraloth

This is very compatible with a Greater Germany established in the 1860s, almost naturally so.

This calls for a map, I think.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Nah, there would be great frictions of where the borders between the Magyar and the Romanian state would be, and the same between the Magyar and the Serb state. The Danubian Confederation would fail before it was created.
 

Matthais Corvinus

I would propose 1848 as an excellent POD for the creation of this Danubian Confederation, but that is, alas, outside the bounds of this challenge.

So with 1862 . . . wasn't this before the Dual Kingdom was established? It was established in '67 in the aftermath of the Six Weeks' War, IIRC.

Franz Josef refuses the Hungarians' demands in the aftermath of the Six Weeks' War, leading to a Hungarian rebellion. The rebellion convinces Bismarck that a Greater Germany is possible and he attacks Austria in support of the Hungarians.

The result is an independent Hungary. And Austria is forced into some kind of half-way Reich under Prussian authority.
 

Nekromans

Kabraloth said:
This is very compatible with a Greater Germany established in the 1860s, almost naturally so.

This calls for a map, I think.
Click to expand...

Some sort of alternate Austro-Prussian relationship in the 1860's - they reconcile (perhaps an early Bismarck death for the POD?) and unite the German Confederation. The non-German Habsburg territories are released into personal union, rather than direct administration, and the Confederation forms from the Union.

You'd have to carve Hungary up, of course - they're just too dominant in this scenario. The following states are in the Confederation:

  • Croatia
  • Serbia
  • Hungary
  • Slovakia
  • Galicia (w/Sub-Carpathian Rus)
  • Transylvania
  • Wallachia
  • Moldavia
 

Xenos

This would be nearly impossible to acheive. The Balkans are just too ..... Balkanised and always will be.
 

ImperialVienna

Nekromans said:
Some sort of alternate Austro-Prussian relationship in the 1860's - they reconcile (perhaps an early Bismarck death for the POD?) and unite the German Confederation. The non-German Habsburg territories are released into personal union, rather than direct administration, and the Confederation forms from the Union.
Click to expand...


I think this is your best bet. Perhaps Bismarck doesn't die but Franz Joseph's Monarch to Monarch diplomacy is more effective with Wilhelm I resulting in Prussia and Austria dividing Germany up along North/South Lines.
 

Analytical Engine

Nekromans said:
Some sort of alternate Austro-Prussian relationship in the 1860's - they reconcile (perhaps an early Bismarck death for the POD?) and unite the German Confederation. The non-German Habsburg territories are released into personal union, rather than direct administration, and the Confederation forms from the Union.
Click to expand...

Now, if only they had managed this in OTL... ;)
 

General Zod

Banned
Oh joy, a TL that uses one of the most preferred PoD of mine ever. :D

Two possibilities:

either the Ausgliech fails in 1867, or Hungary rebels as a result of the Hapsburg defeat in the Seven Weeks' war.

Anyway, Hungary becomes an an independent nation which incorporates Slovakia, Croatia, and Transylvania. Austria, Bohemia-Moravia and Slovenia join the newly-united (Greater) German Empire as a subject kingdom of the empire, in personal union with Hungary.

Italy becomes an utterly loyal ally of Germany and Hungary, since it gets awarded Trento, Trieste, Gorizia-Gradisca, and Dalmatia as well.

With the added resources that the alliance of Italy provides or frees up, the CPs most likely win WWI (also it is quite possible that in this scenario, UK is butterflied to neutrality or CP). Serbia and Romania are annexed to Hungary or set up as protectorates.

Eventually it becomes too troublesome to keep all those Slavs and Romanians as second-class citizens, so Greater Hungary gets reformed as a federal state.

My future North American USA-Grossdeutchsland TL will likely incorporate this scenario.
 
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