Deleted member 1487
What is after the '48 revolution, Franz Josef decides to punish the nobility of Hungary, the leaders of the revolution, by confiscating their land and ending their privileges? OTL from the years 1890-1900 over 1 million Hungarian peasants left the country for the US because of the repressive system that kept them as serfs and denied them basic political rights.
So, I'd imagine that the Habsburgs break up the large plots of land and sell them off to the smaller farmers, ends the default serfdom that exists, and enacts something like universal suffrage, as getting the masses on the Austrian side gets them away from the self-aggrandizing Hungarian nobility. So now much of what holds the Hungarian development back is gone and the country is able to industrialize on time with the rest of Europe. Not only that, but much of the political compromises that the empire would have to make as a result of the power of the Hungarian nobility, like the dual monarchy, are not as likely to occur. And there will be far less immigration out of Hungary of ethnic Magyars as well as probably less Magyarization of the fearful nobility.
Thought? How does this affect the empire?
So, I'd imagine that the Habsburgs break up the large plots of land and sell them off to the smaller farmers, ends the default serfdom that exists, and enacts something like universal suffrage, as getting the masses on the Austrian side gets them away from the self-aggrandizing Hungarian nobility. So now much of what holds the Hungarian development back is gone and the country is able to industrialize on time with the rest of Europe. Not only that, but much of the political compromises that the empire would have to make as a result of the power of the Hungarian nobility, like the dual monarchy, are not as likely to occur. And there will be far less immigration out of Hungary of ethnic Magyars as well as probably less Magyarization of the fearful nobility.
Thought? How does this affect the empire?