France-Austria and Russia-Germany

OTL France and Russia allied against Germany and Austria.

What if France and Austria aligned in the 19th century against Russia and Germany?

Without easy access to French capital, how much weaker would Russia be?


Would this have positive knock-on effects for the Austrians? Might the French help to finance their industrial growth here?

Could the Ottomans perhaps end up as a natural extension of this Franco-Austrian bloc?
 
Austria won't ally itself with France. If Germany and Russia are allied, Austria will try to join them. Austria can only face either Germany or Russia but not both.
 
Turkey-Italy-France-Austria vs Germany-Russia?
Italy would join Germany-Russia or stay neutral. Austria would have massive border to defend along with having to keep troops at the Italian,Romanian, and Serbian borders. Austria will lose very quickly
 
Sorry, no dice. Austria can't surrender her one halfway decent Adriatic commercial port, or she's suicidally landlocking herself with an ally only made loyal by bribery on her windpipe. That's suicidal.
parts of Trentino border the Adriatic and Trieste lies in the Alps? That's news to me.
 
parts of Trentino border the Adriatic and Trieste lies in the Alps? That's news to me.

Sorry. Brain fart on my part. But another point stands: nation's don't just peddle off bits and pieces of their main body and still expect to be taken seriously. A-H NEEDS the shield of prestige to keep Germany and Russia from trying to create/exploit situations that would call for her dismemberment (And is Italy going to stick out her neck for Vienna? I doubt it if she's only brought into the alliance via bribery).
 
parts of Trentino border the Adriatic and Trieste lies in the Alps? That's news to me.

The Austrian goverment was not ready to give up Trentino (a region of limited economic and strategic value) to keep Italy neutral in OTL WWI...and with a border that will favor them in military term; so i'm not very confident that France will give up something and/or convince Austria to cede some territory (if Berlin failed i doubt that Paris will succeed). No, it's more probable that will be brought in the German-Russo alliance
 
OTL France and Russia allied against Germany and Austria.

What if France and Austria aligned in the 19th century against Russia and Germany?

Without easy access to French capital, how much weaker would Russia be?


Would this have positive knock-on effects for the Austrians? Might the French help to finance their industrial growth here?

Could the Ottomans perhaps end up as a natural extension of this Franco-Austrian bloc?
Russia-Germany is too strong on land. Assuming the neutrality of the Balkan States and Italy is somehow guaranteed and Austrian command adopts a Masada model they could potentially drag the war on for a year and a half or so, but then France falls sooner rather than later and the combined Russo-German Forces eventually break through the Carpathians and Alps and march out on to A-H's squishy innards. Almost any other scenario goes even worse.

People ask about this scenario a lot, but unless you really want a quick world war ending in German victory I'd suggest considering more balanced alternate alliances.
 
Given that OP already specified an 1800s POD (yes, in spite of the board), maybe it's a Habsburg Italy? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, considering Italy formed BEFORE Germany and the thread assumes Germany exisits... I mean, I can think of plenty of scenarios in which you could get this type of alliance, but it depends on France not losings it reputation for military supremacy on land to a Prussian-lead Germany; the most natural route for the proposed alliance structure would be a "Catholic Bloc" under Nappy III (and his son, eventually) and the Habsburgs who manage to finagle Italian nationalist sentiments away from Romantic Nationalism and into a more Catholic Conservative bloc (Probably more decentralized) who've strangled the NGF's attempt to unify with the southern German states. But that flock of butterflies is blinding.
 
This reminds me of The Union Forever. It pretty much had a Franco-Austrian-Ottoman Axis; the Italians were allied with the Germans and the Russians. Part of the differences were that Germany was still the NGF, and that Italy capitulated at the start of the war, and the French Empire maintained the South German States as their allies.
 
This isn't the 18th century. France would have to be a hell of a lot more powerful for Austria to put itself at risk against Germany and Russia for the sake of an alliance.

The balance of power against Austria was too strong and it would likely seek accommodation with either one or both of Germany and Russia, and as another poster in this thread said, would not be so unwise as to line up against both of them.
 
Russia-Germany is too strong on land. Assuming the neutrality of the Balkan States and Italy is somehow guaranteed and Austrian command adopts a Masada model they could potentially drag the war on for a year and a half or so, but then France falls sooner rather than later and the combined Russo-German Forces eventually break through the Carpathians and Alps and march out on to A-H's squishy innards. Almost any other scenario goes even worse.

People ask about this scenario a lot, but unless you really want a quick world war ending in German victory I'd suggest considering more balanced alternate alliances.
Even that sounds quite optimistic - with a German/Russian offensive you'd be able to cut off Bohemia through a German attack up the Danube valley and a Russian strike through Krakow to Brno, and then capture all of it. After that Vienna is toast, and it's dubious if A-H can form a line bridging the gap from the Alps to the Carpathians after losing so much of its industry.
 
Top