Another thing about Otto, IOTL he absolutely despised and opposed the Nazis and Hitler. Here's a quote I found online.
Wouldn't take that much to rework that quote to fit the story.
Also on the subject of not wanting to spoil whether Austria will lose the second world war, considering that the story is called The Rise and Fall of The Austrian Fuhrer, I don't think things are going to go any better for Hitler ITTL. Especially considering he's going to get Britain, the US and the USSR against at the same time and that didn't work out for him when he controlled a much larger country.
Edit: Oh and congrats about the marriage, have a great honeymoon.
That’s a very good quote that could definitely fit here. I don’t see Otto von Hapsburg being pro-Sozinat, but that’s doesn’t mean a family member in the line of succession wont be.
As for WW2 and Hitler’s fate that is spoilers so can’t reveal much at this time.
Hmm, could we see an Austrian anti-fascist resistance using Otto von Habsburg as the figurehead? If that happens, monarchist feelings, which simmered in Austria even till the mid 1970s OTL, would be even more pronounced.
That is very possible, whether he wants to be or not. Dang, until the ‘70s? That’s really cool.
There were numerous resistance movements that used the Habsburgs as a symbol, two of Otto's cousins were actually arrested and sent to concentration camps.
There will be resistance to Hitler’s regime/Sozinat Party.
It's not an impossible way to go about it. I'd just recommend that you keep two things in mind, first, that if a public diplomatic incident is the thing that kicks of the escalation, surprise will be a lot harder to achieve. Second is that it is impossible for the Japanese to pull off a Pearl Harbor on the British. Not because of some sense of RN superiority but rather due to basing positioning. The only area that the Japanese could acquire total surprise at is Hong Kong, which if the RN commander has half a brain will not be where the fleet is stationed.
The most likely place for the fleet would be Singapore, which if the French don't hand over Vietnam to the Japanese and the Japanese do not take the Philippines, would be incredibly hard to get to without being detected.
Hong Kong is fucked though.
Regarding the IJN, since you can't exactly rush shipbuilding, a 1940 war will mean they start it without the Yamato, nor the Shokaku and Zuikaku aircraft carriers. Considering they were part of a shipbuilding schedule, you'd probably need to change that schedule well back into the early 30s if not late 20s.
If you want to start a war in 1940 with Japan, the absolute best way to do it would be to get pride involved so that they go in ill-prepared but unwilling to back down.
Very true. Japan would start the war off weaker and depending on how things in Europe develop Britain may be in a stronger starting position than OTL or equivalent to OTL. But having three carriers available by the next year would help replace the losses from the beginning of the war but once the losses start to mount Japan can’t replace them at a fast enough rate, especially if more than one major power is fighting them.
For a surprise attack, I wasn’t envisioning a Pearl Harbor like attack but more of a few squadrons on patrol are ambushed and Hong Kong plus much of Indonesia and Vietnam are taken fairly quickly. And the British fleet I imagine would be at Singapore mainly. The Philippines would a dagger to Japan’s empire so the Japanese would want to take it soon if the United States gets involved in the war.
So what will Adolf Hitler's cabinet of the Austrian Social National State or the Osterreichischer Sozialer Nationalstaat look like. My guess is that it will be OTL's Fatherland Front and Austrofascists that will be part of it such as Engelbert Dolfuss. By the way, I came up with that name for what Sozinat Austria would call itself.
A lot of that is spoilers, but I will say Sozinats won’t be the only members in government when Hitler comes to power and the Fatherland Front/Dollfuss will play a major role in 1930s Austria.
What’s the name? The Austrian Social National State/Österreichischer Sozialnationalis
You know considering that the war is going to start because of the Balkans again, Germany will be able to power it's war effort just from the sheer energy generated from Otto von Bismark spinning in his damn grave.
That wouldn’t be a half bad idea. WW2 starts over the Balkans due to an aggressive Austria. Bit of a World War theme.
I suspect there'd be genuinely serious arguments about demilitarising the whole Balkans and having the world's major powers serve as guarantors of peace simply to avoid WW3 post WW2 and that'd probably be one of the more reasonable solutions offered considering some of OTL post WW2 plans... I could see some crazies going "Kill them all or there'll be another war."
Some of OTL plans were just ridiculous. Churchill’s and Morgenthau’s were noticeably wacky.
If anything this Alt-WW2 will cement The whole “Balkan Powder Keg” belief even mkre