DBWI: Balkan Crisis of the 1990's

A while back, I was talking to a war veteran from the Balkan war in the 1990's, and my history teacher told me it was getting pretty nasty, when the Balkan peoples were no longer fighting against Hapsburg rule, but the different ethnic groups started fighting EACH OTHER!!! As you all know, this led to the 1999 dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the foundation of several republics and the Kingdom of Austria.

From what I've read, nationalism seems to be almost ingrained in the psyche of these people, a prime example being that terrorist group active in the 1910's, and some guy tried to shoot Emperor Franz I, but his pistol locked up lol.

Anyway, my point is, would (an) independent Balkan state(s) still lead to some sort of crisis in that part of the world?

OOC: Sorry if this is kind of an epic fail...
 
I remember reading that there was some sort of plan for a Pan Slavic nation of Serbs and Croats in early 20th Century which struck me as been a recipe for disaster. The Balkans has always been a tinder box with divisions going at least as far back as the Byzantine Empire. If that wasn't bad enough there are three religions in the area each with a long history of hostilities to the others.

It's a good thing that the Serbian terrorists missed the Arch Duke and his wife in 1914 the network of treaties and understandings could have triggered a general European war. It was close enough when the French and Germans both held mobilisation drills in 1926, and when Tsar Nicholas died during the Finish War of Independance. Then again the Finns had just liberated Murmansk.
 
Well, it wasn't just the Balkans, you know. We narrowly averted a civil war over here as well. Once they told us "federalization will solve everything, trust us". We trusted that opinion, it seemed logical at the time and still seems logical now. But the folly of secesionism, that... temptaton... is too strong at times, so it seems. Well, yeah, the Galicians seceded to the Polish Republic, we Slovaks didn't and there were lots of arguments over this in the post-crisis years. It was like when Milan Hodža warned us in the 1930s : "Federalization by itself is not a miraculous cure. It is hard to maintain and authoritarians would love to get rid of it again. On the other hand, it gives rise to further urges for complete self-determination - and even though many of these might be justified, there is no denying that they are also highly emotional, spontaneous and rarely conducted with the future and well-being of everyone in mind."

He was right ! Falusi's and Hrabovský's provisional rebel governments really botched it, nearly killing off the Federated Kingdom ! I mean, okay, Transylvania went its own way in the 1950s, and there's been long talk about possible scenarios of the Crown's complete dissolution or just separation into completely independent countries. But that's something wholly different to declaring an unrecognized state and defying the wishes of the rest of the populace for nearly three months, acting like warlords-cum-national-messiahs ! Falusi's "Hortobágy-Puszta Free State" and Hrabovský's "Democratic Slovak Republic of Váhland and Orava-Kysuce" ? Puuuhlease ! It got so bad that the armed forces had the helicirks* and yagers** at the ready 24/7 and everyone in the country proper was murmuring about an iminent civil war ! As if it wasn't enough that we had to undergo a painful divorce with the Austrian part of the empire barely a few weeks before that ! True, I didn't live in any of the seceding territories, but imagine if any of the rebel armies tried to conquer my region, my village... Awful thought !

In the aftermath, the gov was pissed and many people became paranoid for years to come, even after the whole secesionist craze died down and seems to have vanished for now. But during the Great Panic, the gov was so pissed, that it nearly took away all the hard earned minority rights we've gained in the past decades. It was déja vu - some of the national unity fanatics were even screaming about putting in motion that unsuccessful 1907 law proposal. The one that thankfully tanked in OTL, when the new pro-reformists took the parliament by storm. It was only their second year in office back then, IIRC. Could you imagine an ATL where that law would come into motion ? It would be an even bigger clusterf*ck than OTL turned out to be.

Nah, for the time being, I fully support staying within the Crown. We have it good and a divorce - no matter how smooth - would be complicated, particularly on an economic and border-related level. It was an already rocky enough divorce with the Austrians and most of Cisleithania.


(OOC: * helicopter gunships, abbrev. from the Hungarian helikopter cirkáló - "helicopter cruiser"; ** fighter planes, from the German word Jäger(n) - "hunter(s)")
 
Wow Petike, that's really interesting, I'm sorry you had to live through all that...

Nah, for the time being, I fully support staying within the Crown.

Yeah, I used to be anti-monarchist, but when my home country of Newfoundland declared itself an independent republic in 1991 after the Cold War and collapse of the British Empire, things got a bit messy over here. Without support from Mother Britain, we simply couldn't handle the collapse of the cod fishery that coincided with it. We've been plagued with political instability, left- and right-wing extremists, terrorists, border clashes with Quebec (Labrador is OURS damn it!), and it's heavily censored in our media, but I have read on the Internet rumours that our government may be testing nukes.

*sigh* We need a strong, powerful, monarch to guide his/her nation's people. Too much democracy results in instability and the people are simply too irrational to handle it. I support Canadian reunification (minus Quebec, nothing against them, it would just lead to Austrianization*) under the (former) British crown.

*OOC: ATL term for Balkanization
 
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