Imperial Germany backstabbes Austria-Hungary in the Crisis

How would Germany fair if Kaiser dishonored his alliance with the Austria-Hungary and instead fully annexes them when they are defeated by the Russians (under the assumption the Kaiser uses the "restore order" CB on the lands he annexes).

How would the world react seeing Germany nearly doubling in size in industry and military?

How would Adolf Hitler be shaped by this current of events?

WW1 be still in affect but with Germany attacking Russia with the "preemptive strike" CB?

How would the Entente respond when Kaiser stated that it was to secure the German Empire future and that he has no intentions to go to war with the Western states. :cool:
 
It isn't really backstabbing if you're not obliged to have someone's back in the first place. The terms of the Triple Alliance are that, in case one of its members itself starts a war of aggression (as in, Austria-Hungary in 1914), the other two don't have to join it, only to maintain "benevolent neutrality" towards it. Then, if the Habsburg monarchy attacks anyway and breaks down, Germany can swoop in and annex Austria. After all a large part of the local population would genuinely want to unify with Germany.

Germany probably wouldn't attack Russia after that, WWI was risky enough and without Austria-Hungary as an ally ("shackled to a corpse" or not) it would be even more risky and the Germans would be aware of that. The logical step for Berlin would then be to get closer to one or more members of the Entente, although I don't know if that would actually happen and how hard it may be.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
Why are the Russians allowing the Kaiser to annex all of Austria-Hungary?

And the French aren't going to let Germany attack Russia either. What Britain does won't really matter- the Germans are going down to a rapid defeat. After all, Conrad saves the Germans in August 1914 by drawing off five Russian armies

Partitioning the AH Empire is a rather easy thing for the Russians to accept but the conquest of it all by Germany? No way and the Germans aren't strong enough to do it.

But a division of the spoils? The Russians are your best friends. So are the Italians, Serbs and Romanians. Of course, this leaves Germany as a Russian protectorate
 
Austria may be a little has-been now, but it wasn't back then. Even as late as the end of the war, if there was an Austria-Hungary to save then the Allies would have saved it. Because it was a fellow Great Power. It would be like the UK and Germany splitting France today.
 
Considering the German military at the time feared Russia's growth and believe that 1914 was their best chance at defeating them before it was too late, I can't see them abandoning Austria-Hungary in the first place, let alone let Russia invade it. They probably wouldn't accept a partition either not only because of what BigDestiny said, but they would see it as Russia getting even stronger and any German gains from it would be too little to compensate.

But yeah, without Germany's Blank Check, Austria-Hungary wouldn't have risked war with Serbia and Russia. They knew they needed Germany to help with Russia or else all their neighbours would happily backstab them and go for land grabs. Hell, internal opposition to the war was pretty strong in the Monarchy's political class (despite the Hawks like Hötzendorf).
 
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