Malê Rising

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Thanks, everyone. The update is on the previous page at post 2537.

I'm curious, to what extent has racism against the Irish differed from OTL? And what of temperate europes racial views of scandinavia?

Let's not forget scientific racism. How is phrenology seen ITTL?

Scientific racism is still around - this is the nineteenth century, after all, and it isn't that much different from OTL. Phrenology is mostly regarded as quackery by this time, but it still has its adherents, and more "sophisticated" forms of phenotype analysis are considered respectable.

One difference between OTL and TTL racism is that the "civilized" Africans - i.e., those who had state-level precolonial societies, and especially the Muslims - are considered a cut above pre-state African peoples. There's quite a bit of scientific-racist writing that attempts to explain this difference, usually by positing ancient Egyptian, Phoenician or Arab admixtures.

Scientific racism is also used to justify the Jim Crow regime in those parts of the South that use it, and an ocean of ink has been wasted explaining why South Carolina should be disregarded or why it's really a primitive Oriental hellhole.

Other oddball racial theories include the Carlsenists, followers of a pietist Christian preacher who believed that Europeans had become soulless engineers and clerks and that African blood was necessary to restore the poetry to their souls. Many of them settled in the Rift Valley in the 1860s and intermarried with the Masai; one of their first-generation descendants now rules the kingdom of Ankole.

I have no idea what other Europeans thought of the Scandinavians in OTL during this period, but I'd guess that TTL's opinion is much the same. Most of the Carlsenists were from Sweden and Denmark, BTW.

Anti-Irish prejudice, and Irish resentment of it, are both alive and well, and is about to come to a head in several ways.

Also at the turn of the century the concept of branded foods (ie Hovis) started to become common, is there much in the way of brand name west african food products? (obv not during wartime)

The West Africans don't produce food industrially yet, although their agricultural methods are more advanced than OTL. They do buy some branded foods from Europe and the United States but are not yet producing their own (although they do export some staple foods to the African communities in Europe).

Furthermore, war means rationing which tends to equalise the diets of wealthy and poor. Do we see a change in the proportions of white/brown bread consumed IOTL? What about adoption of wheat over barley in scandinavia (happened otl around this date)?

For the time being, certainly, "peasant" foods are more widespread due to wartime prices and rationing. I'd guess that Scandinavian agriculture isn't much different from OTL.

I assume that west africa farms more wheat and less 'savage' cereal crops, but what about east and south africa?

Actually, the West Africans have concentrated more on improving and hybridizing native crops like pearl millet, because wheat doesn't grow very well in West African soil. There's an agricultural institute in Ilorin which has developed higher-yield versions of native grains.

Wheat is more common in southern Africa and on the East African highlands where the climate and soils are more suitable.

Thanks for the food history link, BTW.

Glad to see Omar survives the war, albeit just barely.

Wow. The war is finally coming to a close. It has been nothing short of epic.

Yes, just one more update - the end in Austria, although not the end of Austria.

Omar will survive, and he'll understand his father's stories much better, but he'll have a hard time settling down.

But those individuals had been fighting already, they've already experienced hell so to speak and are now experieincing its aftermath.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the equivalent of an OTL Anglo-Irish or Transylvanian Hunagarian gentleman farmer / landowner. Or lower down the socioeconomic scale an OTL ethnic German miner / factory worker in Upper Silesia or Bohemia.

People who have not directly suffered during the war but for whom peace brings total upheaval.

Point taken. There will certainly be places like that - it should be obvious by now where some of them are - and we'll see them in some of the future updates.

 

[FleetMac]

Finally, the war seems to be drawing to a close. My fear at this point is whether the North Germans end up producing revanchist elements regarding the conduct of the war, and their allies of late (a case could be made, one way or another, for a "stabbed in the back" myth given recent events). Here's hoping one war like this is enough ITTL.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Qaa]

You're more than welcome, agentdcf's many works are a favourite of mine, and in fact were what got me interested in early modern history enough that I found this timeline.
On another note, did anybody hit on the idea of cutting underwater communication cables during the war ITTL?

 

[penquista]

this week I had a lot of free time so I read the wole TL and is even more amazing when the little details are fresh in your head.
JE a couple of Chile related questions (no need of an answear, just keep them in your head - sorry for the poor english)
1. You say that theer was a War of the Pacific between Chile and Bolivia, but Bolivia does better in it and still has a coastline after, but during the Great War Valparaíso and Chile are key to the nitrate commerce.
OTL the Litoral province of Bolivia was disputed between Chile and Bolivia and in 1866 a treaty established a share in tax revenau and in 1874 the province was divided the territorie under the condition that the Chilean companies wouldnt have their taxes aumented for some years, and the break of this was the Chilean excuse for the war.
Maybe from the 1866 system can be constructed one post-Westphalian territorie. Nitrate is ending, bit cooper is coming and whit it a lot of money can be maked there.
2. what will happend whit the Kingdom of Patagonia after the defeat of theirs french friends and the troubles in Argentina?
your job is really one of the best here, please carry on

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

North Tyrol, June 1897

Captain Marjan Rupel crouched in the bushes and looked down through his binoculars. Two hundred meters below, North German soldiers were feeding shells into the field guns they’d somehow dragged into the mountains. None of them were looking back at him, and he hoped that meant they didn’t know he was there.

I wish we’d caught them before they moved these guns into place. The North Germans were pushing hard along the road to Saalfelden, hoping to get around the flank of the defensive line that ran from Salzburg to Linz, and this battery was pounding the troops that held the mountain passes. It would have been so much easier if Rupel had found the guns when the mule trains were still moving them up in pieces. But better late than never.

He motioned for Salzmann to come over. “You’re sure of the way down?” he whispered. The soldier nodded, and Rupel could tell he was insulted even to be asked; he was a true Tyrolean from a village not far from here, and had grown up on these trails.

“You’re sergeant for the day, then. Form them up and lead the way. I’ll come with you.”

Silently, Salzmann obeyed, and moments later, the company crept carefully down a path on which a goat might have stumbled. It seemed at times that the trail disappeared, but Salzmann was always able to find it again, and the men were quiet as cats as they advanced.

We’re finally fighting an Austrian war, Rupel reflected. None of this slugging it out on the plains or trying to set up fixed defenses in the middle of the Alps – now we’re using mountain infantry the way it should be used. The North Germans thought they knew how to fight in the mountains, but a twelve-year-old Tyrolean – or even a mountain Slovene like him – could teach them lessons. Whenever the Germans tried to go through the back country to flank the troops on the roads, the Austrians were there before them, and now they were about to find that getting their artillery into place was the easy part.

Rupel raised a hand slightly for a halt, and the company came to a wary rest. They were barely thirty meters above the North Germans now, and this was the last chance to make dispositions; even with Salzmann as a guide, there was no way a company’s worth of troops could get much closer without being heard.

“Puhar,” he whispered. “Keep your squad up here, spread them out if you can. Give us a minute’s start and then start shooting.”

The other man nodded. “A mighty army,” he said, and the two exchanged a quick smile. All the Slovenes had heard of Wilhelm’s quip about how they and the Jews were the only Austrian minorities who were still loyal, and they’d turned it into a badge of honor, even as they wondered whether they really had a future in a kingdom dominated by ethnic Germans. Loyalty could be a strange thing – almost as strange as war.

“Give the sign,” Rupel said to Salzmann, and seconds later, they were creeping down the path again, waiting for the gunfire that would tell them that they’d been seen. It wasn’t impossible that they’d been marked already, and that they were walking into a trap. But when Puhar’s men fired into the artillery crews, the confusion was very real; the Germans milled around and shot back at the unseen enemy on the slopes, hardly noticing when the rest of the company stood up and sprinted the last fifteen meters down the trail.

The fight at the bottom didn’t last long. The artillery crews were confused, and Rupel’s troops were in among them before they could regroup; some tried to put up a fight, but within a minute, the ones who weren’t dead had surrendered.

“Spike the guns,” Rupel ordered; it was a shame to waste them, but he didn’t have any way to disassemble them and get them to the Austrian army, and he couldn’t risk them being put back into service.

The task done, he fired a flare into the air, watching as it exploded a thousand meters above his head. Hopefully there would be others soon. Once the North German batteries were taken out – if the batteries were taken out – that would be the signal for the army on the road to counterattack and push the Germans back into Bavaria. There were rumors that Franz Joseph had come out to take personal command of the counterattack; Rupel didn’t put much credence in them, but the emperor had taken the field personally during the Italian wars, and everyone knew he was soldier-mad...

“What do we do with the prisoners?” Feldwebel Schett broke in.

Rupel, brought back to earth, thought about it for a moment. “We can’t take them with us. Take their belts, boots and weapons and let them go.”

That task, too, was quickly done, and the prisoners shuffled away as the company started back toward the army. It was late afternoon by the time they got there, and Rupel could see that the North Germans were falling back down the road as the Austrians on the high ground poured fire into them. Then he saw a figure moving among the Austrian troops, and realized that the rumors were true after all: the emperor was there. The man is sixty-six years old, what the hell is he…

But then the question no longer mattered. The retreating North Germans’ heavy artillery had been silenced, but their mountain guns were still firing, and a 75-millimeter shell burst exactly where Franz Joseph was standing.

Marjan Rupel had returned victorious, and he’d seen his emperor killed in front of his eyes.

*******

​

Gerhard Edlinger, War and Peace in Austria (Salzburg: Rennhofer, 1977)

… To this day, nobody is really sure what motivated Franz Joseph to take personal command of the Saalfeld front and place himself in a position where he was virtually certain to become a target of the North German guns. No doubt despair over the death of the Empress Elizabeth, who had been killed by a stray shell the month before during a visit to a field hospital, was part of the reason. So was knight-errantry; it had been almost forty years since the emperor had commanded troops in the field, but he was of the generation that believed military virtues and monarchical virtues to be one and the same, and he had never really lost the sense of himself as a soldier in uniform. His country was in extreme straits, and if his final letters to his children are any proof, he believed that his place was with his troops in the field.

But the same letters also hint at another motive. Franz Joseph was well aware that Austria was fighting for its life, and if it lost that fight, it would be nothing more than a province of Wilhelm’s German empire. And with France and Russia out of the war, Austria faced long odds. The only hope for its continued independence was a negotiated peace – in effect, a surrender. But that was not something Franz Joseph could bring himself to do. He may have realized, on a level below the conscious, that Crown Prince Rudolph – a liberal and a man of a less severe generation – was more capable than he of making such a peace, and that he needed to remove himself from the equation in order to free Rudolph’s hands.

It is unlikely that anyone will ever know how much of Franz Joseph’s decision was based on impulse and how much on calculation; it is likely that even the emperor himself didn’t know. But his death on the battlefield – the last time a European monarch would ever die in battle – accomplished all that he might have hoped. Rudolph sued immediately for an armistice, and the British and Ottoman governments were receptive; they didn’t share Wilhelm’s imperial goals, and the only reason they were still fighting Austria was that Franz Joseph had refused to entertain peace talks. And Wilhelm himself was not immune to the symbolism of a monarch giving his life for his country. “The bravest German king was in Austria,” he said – a pointed rebuke to the North German princes who had forced him to end the war with France – “and his sacrifice should not go unrecognized.”

The talks proceeded quickly, and it was less than two weeks before an agreement in principle was reached. Rudolph agreed that, in five years’ time, Austria would hold a referendum on whether to remain independent or join its fellow German states. Given that the referendum would be administered by the Austrian government with no North German troops on the ground, its result was considered to be a foregone conclusion, but it saved enough face for the already-half-persuaded Wilhelm to agree. On 22 June 1897, the guns went silent on the Austrian front, and after more than four years of war and horror, the great powers were at peace.

And with that, Franz Joseph secured his place in Austrian legend. Over time, the image of the martyred emperor replaced that of the reactionary whose attempts to stand athwart history had fatally weakened his empire. “Franz Joseph ruined Austria in life, but saved it in death,” Bismarck would write in one of his last letters, and it is the death, not the life, that is remembered in thousands of Austrian public squares and songs. Such is the emperor’s monument, and perhaps it would not have displeased him. [1]

_______

[1] With apologies to Richard Adams.

 

[eliphas8]

You're really making up for the lack of Austrian updates before now. That's honestly probably the best way Franz Josef could have gone, Greater Germany has been averted for now, and probably forever.

 

[Hnau]

Well, I certainly didn't see that coming! I'm glad Austria will be independent. Wow, the war's over. Damn, what a wild ride. What are the next couple updates going to be like?

 

[Badshah]

Well. If that isn't a glorious death, I don't know what is. I do wonder what Victoria would have to say about this, given that FJ's been Kaiser almost as long as she's been Queen.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Finally, the war seems to be drawing to a close. My fear at this point is whether the North Germans end up producing revanchist elements regarding the conduct of the war, and their allies of late (a case could be made, one way or another, for a "stabbed in the back" myth given recent events). Here's hoping one war like this is enough ITTL.

The fact that the North Germans won the war, and that much of the pressure to end the conflict is coming from within, will hopefully mute any Dolchstosslegende, as will the need to maintain good relations with the British and Ottomans after the war.

The "stab in the back" myth may actually be most prevalent among Prussian reactionaries, who would argue that the non-Prussian princes and the allies imposed a peace which denied North Germany - and therefore Prussia - a "complete" victory. However, these reactionaries were decimated during the war and no longer have the political power they enjoyed in the Prussia of the 1850s or even the 1870s. A Dolchstosslegende may be a persistent theme within the Prussian far right which adds to the polarization of German politics, but it will be more a fringe issue than a widespread national rallying cry.

On another note, did anybody hit on the idea of cutting underwater communication cables during the war ITTL?

Would that even have been feasible with 1890s technology? In any event, I doubt that anyone would have cut the lines that originated in the United States, so communication through America would still be available.

1. You say that theer was a War of the Pacific between Chile and Bolivia, but Bolivia does better in it and still has a coastline after, but during the Great War Valparaíso and Chile are key to the nitrate commerce.

OTL the Litoral province of Bolivia was disputed between Chile and Bolivia and in 1866 a treaty established a share in tax revenau and in 1874 the province was divided the territorie under the condition that the Chilean companies wouldnt have their taxes aumented for some years, and the break of this was the Chilean excuse for the war.

Maybe from the 1866 system can be constructed one post-Westphalian territorie. Nitrate is ending, bit cooper is coming and whit it a lot of money can be maked there.

2. what will happend whit the Kingdom of Patagonia after the defeat of theirs french friends and the troubles in Argentina?

The Litoral/Atacama idea is a very interesting one. TTL's Chile is smaller and militarily weaker than OTL, but has a strong economy; Bolivia is bigger and somewhat stronger but poor. The two could definitely make money by developing the province together - Chile would have more resources to put into the development than Bolivia - and that would also help both countries keep the profits local rather than having them expatriated by British or German companies. Some kind of shared arrangement could develop from that, especially if there are examples elsewhere in the world. There may not be enough mutual trust to make such a thing work in the 1890s, but I'll certainly keep it in mind as the twentieth century unfolds.

As for Patagonia, it's been on its own since the beginning of the war - France didn't have any resources to spare for it once the big conflict began - and is outnumbered by the Argentines and Chileans who contest most of its territory. It may actually be in better shape now that the war is over and it can make a play for French patronage again - it could use that possibility as leverage to make a better deal with Chile or one of the Argentine states. It might also be able to play the Chileans and Argentines off against each other. It will eventually be absorbed into one or the other - it isn't really viable without economic and military support - but could preserve a good deal of autonomy and some control over the traditional Mapuche lands.

You're really making up for the lack of Austrian updates before now. That's honestly probably the best way Franz Josef could have gone, Greater Germany has been averted for now, and probably forever.

Well. If that isn't a glorious death, I don't know what is. I do wonder what Victoria would have to say about this, given that FJ's been Kaiser almost as long as she's been Queen.

It certainly ends the war with a bang - a literal one.

Victoria isn't about to go rushing off to the battlefield, but the strain of being a monarch during the war has taken a toll on her too. She may see Franz Joseph's death as a sign of the passing of her generation.

Well, I certainly didn't see that coming! I'm glad Austria will be independent. Wow, the war's over. Damn, what a wild ride. What are the next couple updates going to be like?

The next few updates will be as follows:

One narrative update during the peace conference - someone asked for a scene with Clemens and Verne together, and I'll throw in TR, Tolstoy and maybe Harriet Tubman;

One "academic" update detailing the peace settlement; and

Two or three academic updates, and three to five narratives, covering 1898-99: the politics of the great powers and the African states; the brushfire conflicts in eastern Europe, northern Italy and other areas; and cultural and economic developments.

Then it's on to the twentieth century.

 

[Some Bloke]

So what are France's peace terms?

 

[Badshah]

Victoria isn't about to go rushing off to the battlefield, but the strain of being a monarch during the war has taken a toll on her too. She may see Franz Joseph's death as a sign of the passing of her generation.

Well, I didn't mean in a rush off to the battlefield, though that would be entertaining.

 

[eschaton]

It occurs to me there may be an almost Canadian-like dynamic going on in Austria. Like Canada, it will be overshadowed by a nearby colossus where most people speak the same language. Furthernmore, in the same sense that Anglo-Canada in some sense "needs" Quebec to differentiate itself from the U.S., the Slovenes and Dalmatian Croatians will let Austria pretend that it is still a multi-ethnic empire, and not some German rump state which survived by historic accident.

I do wonder what will happen, however, with the German populations scattered around Hungary. Even presuming Austria gets Burgenland, there are large German enclaves in Central Hungary, Banat, and Transylvania. I don't think Austria has capacity to absorb this population ITTL, and if too many of them settle in non-German parts of Austria there might be trouble. Of course, IOTL they didn't really leave their homes until the forced ethnic relocation following World War 2, so maybe they will all just stay put.

 

[Qaa]

Oh yeah,

On August the 4th 1914, Britain declared war on Germany, setting off what would be the greatest change in the world of wireless telegraphy. Within hours of Britain's declaration, the cable steamer Alert was sent out to find and cut German transatlantic undersea cables.

It seems to have been routine to do so by 1914, so I think it would be reasonable to attempt it at the least. Just laying anchor on the cable could do it. (It happens at least once a fortnight somewhere on Earth IRL.)
Is it reasonable to assume the RN did the cutting of any French cables? Also I might have missed it, but who owns the Azores and do any other powers get a say?
Edit: If anything good comes of this war that would not have come without, (hopefully) art nouveau gets butterflied away. Mind you, I'm no art historian.

 

[B_Munro]

1900 map coming very soon (I hope) after we get the details of the peace settlement.

Bruce

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

So what are France's peace terms?

You'll find out soon - generally not bad for them, but with a couple of twists.

Well, I didn't mean in a rush off to the battlefield, though that would be entertaining.

Maybe "Victoria: Warrior Queen" will be a semi-satirical television drama in TTL. (She will be one of the "Monarchial Avengers," a squad of crimefighters that also includes Franz Joseph, Wilhelm II, the Meiji Emperor and Napoleon V as comic sidekick.)

It occurs to me there may be an almost Canadian-like dynamic going on in Austria. Like Canada, it will be overshadowed by a nearby colossus where most people speak the same language. Furthernmore, in the same sense that Anglo-Canada in some sense "needs" Quebec to differentiate itself from the U.S., the Slovenes and Dalmatian Croatians will let Austria pretend that it is still a multi-ethnic empire, and not some German rump state which survived by historic accident.

You're assuming that the Slovenes and Dalmatians will want to stay under the current arrangement. On the one hand, the Slovenes want protection from Italy and the Dalmatians want to be protected from Hungary, so there will be some incentive to stay under the Habsburg umbrella. On the other hand, though, postwar Austria will no longer be a multiethnic empire which is culturally dominated by Germans but in which everyone is a minority; instead, the Germans will be an outright majority, and many of them will look down on the Slavic peoples. Also, while Austria probably won't vote to join Germany in that 1902 referendum, do the Slovenes and Croats really want to take a chance?

Slovenia and Dalmatia may well stay in some kind of alliance or confederation with Austria - for instance, they might be willing to become kingdoms with Rudolph as their king. But at the same time, they'd want to be independent states rather than provinces of a German-majority empire, and would want to have their own foreign policy. I expect that Rudolph would probably go along with such a plan, because the alternative would be to lose the Slovenes and Dalmatians altogether, and having them in personal union would still increase his standing vis-a-vis Germany and Italy.

With that said, the economies of all three states would probably become very closely tied to Germany, and I could easily see Austria having the kind of postwar identity crisis you describe. I'm not quite sure how it would play out, but there's plenty of time for things to develop.

I do wonder what will happen, however, with the German populations scattered around Hungary. Even presuming Austria gets Burgenland, there are large German enclaves in Central Hungary, Banat, and Transylvania. I don't think Austria has capacity to absorb this population ITTL, and if too many of them settle in non-German parts of Austria there might be trouble. Of course, IOTL they didn't really leave their homes until the forced ethnic relocation following World War 2, so maybe they will all just stay put.

I'd imagine most of them would. They won't be targets - the Slovaks, Croats and Romanians will all go after the Hungarians and vice versa, so the Germans will probably do all right if they keep their heads down. I'd imagine that the number of emigres will be small enough for German-Austria to handle.

It seems to have been routine to do so by 1914, so I think it would be reasonable to attempt it at the least. Just laying anchor on the cable could do it. (It happens at least once a fortnight somewhere on Earth IRL.) Is it reasonable to assume the RN did the cutting of any French cables?

I guess it would be, then. According to the linked article, the British in OTL even cut the cables linking Germany to neutral countries, so that evidently wasn't considered a violation of custom or the law of war. There's no reason why the RN wouldn't do the same thing in TTL.

On the other hand, I doubt the British would cut the cables going to Spain, so the French would at least be able to send and receive messages through Spanish stations. (Were the Germans in OTL able to communicate through the Netherlands? I assume that allowing telegraph messages through wouldn't count as a violation of neutrality, although I could be wrong.)

Also I might have missed it, but who owns the Azores and do any other powers get a say?

They're Portuguese as in OTL - they've been so since long before the POD - and are thus outside the scope of the peace settlement.

1900 map coming very soon (I hope) after we get the details of the peace settlement.

Cool! After the peace-conference updates, I'll also do maps of Africa and South America in 1900.

 

[wannis]

I do wonder what will happen, however, with the German populations scattered around Hungary. Even presuming Austria gets Burgenland, there are large German enclaves in Central Hungary, Banat, and Transylvania.

I doubt that Austria will get the Burgenland. As Jonathan has stated previously, nobody is implementing Wilsonian principles ITTL, and while the BOGs may be willing to anger the Hungarians in order to reward Romania and Serbia for their war contribution (and for switching earlier than Hungary), none of them owes Austria any favours. It would only work if the Hungarians were willing to let the Burgenland go, but letting areas settled by national minority go would set a bad precedent.

I've been offline travelling for a few weeks and have caught up only now (lots of excellent writing and great plot twists to catch up with!), so please excuse me for commenting on some older issues:
1) Shevek23 asked whether Russian used to continue to call Leningrad "St. Petersburg" during the Soviet period. I've not come across such usage, but people continued to use the short form "Piter" colloquially.
2) I was puzzled by this:

Which is another weak point. He can't just declare himself Emperor - he has to get the title from someone, and as in OTL, that someone will be the Reichstag

The Reichstag was only marginally involved in the elevation of Wilhelm I to Emperor IOTL - all it did was sending an address to Wilhelm recommending him to accept the crown. There was no election or proclamation by the Reichstag, and the Reichstag hadn't even voted on the constitution when Wilhelm was proclaimed in January 1871. The proclamation was orchestrated by Bismarck, done before a crowd consisting of representatives of the German states, the army, and other dignitaries, and had been agreed beforehand by the German princes due to Bismarck's diplomacy. During the HRE, the Emperors had been elected by, well, the Princes Electors, and the Diet was not involved at all. The only precedent of a parliamentary body offfering the crown to a would-be German Emperor was in 1849, when the National Assembly had offered the Crown to Wilhelm's predecessor and brother. That had gone spectactularily wrong, with Friedrich Wilhelm IV not willing to accept that "crown with the stench of revolution on it". The official reason given was the lack of agreement by the German princes and free cities. The NGF and later the Empire were constituted not based on popular will expressed by parliament, but as federations of German states; the idea that the German people express their sovereignty through the states still has its reflection even in the preamble of the current German constitution iOTL. So I assume what Wilhelm and many Germans at that time would expect and see as legitimate would be a proclamation by the members of the NGF (augmented by the Southern German states) or an election by a collegium of princes and representatives of the cities / republics.

3) On Polish claims in the East: even in the areas "East of Curzon" where the Poles were in the minority, they were in the majority in many cities and also among the big landowners. IOTL, the national movements of the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and (least of all) Belorussians becam well-organized and significant players only in the last few decades before WWI; the fact that Great War starts 20 years erlier ITTL makes them probably much weaker. So I'd imagine that they would not be able to raise much protest and resistance if the city-dwelling and land-owning elites in these areas would declare for Poland, and if Polish troops would enter these cities as "liberators". I have a question concerning the Jewish population here - how many of them have emigrated from Tsarist prosecution? If they still form a significant part of the city populations, I'd assume they'd prefer belonging to an independent Poland to being part of a Russia they won't trust; even if Tolstoy himself will probably plead for tolerance and integration, I would imagine that the revolution and subsequent conflicts will also see some pogroms and a lot of antisemitic rhetoric. If, OTOH, most Jews have left and been replaced by Russians from the core territories, that would change the balance. Whatever happens in Western Russia, I'd expect Polish nationalism to carry the day in Eastern Galicia.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I doubt that Austria will get the Burgenland. As Jonathan has stated previously, nobody is implementing Wilsonian principles ITTL, and while the BOGs may be willing to anger the Hungarians in order to reward Romania and Serbia for their war contribution (and for switching earlier than Hungary), none of them owes Austria any favours. It would only work if the Hungarians were willing to let the Burgenland go, but letting areas settled by national minority go would set a bad precedent.

On the other hand, the Burgenland might try to secede - Hungary will definitely face Croat and Slovak rebellions, so the Germans in the Burgenland might try to throw their weight into the scale. Austria might even help, depending on whether it sees a prospect of victory and how much of a grudge it has against Hungary. This would be a much more intense version of the conflict that occurred there in OTL in 1921.

If the Burgenland becomes a conflict zone, I may have to revise what I said above about the Germans in Hungary not being targets - if the Burgenlanders are rebels, many Hungarians might tar all Germans with the same brush. That would mean a substantial number of refugees coming to Austria and Germany.

I've been offline travelling for a few weeks and have caught up only now (lots of excellent writing and great plot twists to catch up with!), so please excuse me for commenting on some older issues: [...] The Reichstag was only marginally involved in the elevation of Wilhelm I to Emperor IOTL - all it did was sending an address to Wilhelm recommending him to accept the crown.

Welcome back!

According to Winkler (pages 189-90), the Reichstag had somewhat more of a role than that: on 10 December 1870, it approved a constitutional amendment replacing the North German Confederation with the German Empire and replacing the NDB's presidency with the title 'German Emperor.' The resolution asking Wilhelm to accept the crown was passed on the same date.

Nelson Case's European Constitutional History (pages 139-40) gives the same sequence of events.

Of course, as you say, the empire was already a done deal by then, and had been approved in advance by the princes. The OTL Reichstag vote was something of a formality - Winkler says that there were only six dissenters. But it seems to have been a necessary formality - it stands to reason that the NDB couldn't simply dissolve itself and be replaced by another entity without the consent of its legislature.

In TTL, the vote won't be such a formality. It's 1897, not 1870, and both the liberals and the socialists are quite a bit stronger. Germany is coming off a four-year industrial conflict, the wartime rationing and labor controls are resented, and the veterans have become politically assertive. Baden and Bavaria are controlled by fairly radical governments and will give many more of their votes to the SPD than their OTL counterparts. Wilhelm is personally popular - he led the country to victory, after all - but this Reichstag isn't going to give him the imperial title for free.

Wilhelm may have some trouble in the Bundesrat as well - given that the other princes had to drag him to the peace table kicking and screaming, they'll want to put some restrictions on the monarchy to prevent him from unilaterally starting or continuing a war. Not to mention that the representatives from Baden and Bavaria (assuming that the southern German states join the NDB before the empire is proclaimed) will want a liberal constitution and will also want to prevent Prussia from dominating the new state.

The would-be Kaiser will have to bargain very hard for his title.

The NGF and later the Empire were constituted not based on popular will expressed by parliament, but as federations of German states; the idea that the German people express their sovereignty through the states still has its reflection even in the preamble of the current German constitution iOTL.

This will still be the case, I think - the member states will demand internal autonomy and a strong Reichsrat in order to keep from becoming de facto Prussian provinces, so the idea of the German Empire as a federation of states will still prevail. This will also mean that democratic reforms within the states will be a major issue during the early twentieth century, especially with Baden, Bavaria and possibly the Hanseatic cities providing examples.

3) On Polish claims in the East: even in the areas "East of Curzon" where the Poles were in the minority, they were in the majority in many cities and also among the big landowners. IOTL, the national movements of the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and (least of all) Belorussians becam well-organized and significant players only in the last few decades before WWI; the fact that Great War starts 20 years erlier ITTL makes them probably much weaker. So I'd imagine that they would not be able to raise much protest and resistance if the city-dwelling and land-owning elites in these areas would declare for Poland, and if Polish troops would enter these cities as "liberators".

They might not, but Russia would, and I doubt Poland would want to take on Russia alone. It will probably get Lviv and Eastern Galicia, though.

In the long term, the Polish-majority cities in Belarus or Ukraine might become another post-Westphalian data point.

I have a question concerning the Jewish population here - how many of them have emigrated from Tsarist prosecution? If they still form a significant part of the city populations, I'd assume they'd prefer belonging to an independent Poland to being part of a Russia they won't trust; even if Tolstoy himself will probably plead for tolerance and integration, I would imagine that the revolution and subsequent conflicts will also see some pogroms and a lot of antisemitic rhetoric. If, OTOH, most Jews have left and been replaced by Russians from the core territories, that would change the balance. Whatever happens in Western Russia, I'd expect Polish nationalism to carry the day in Eastern Galicia.

I haven't worked out the numbers, but I'd imagine that most of them left before the war due to the greater-than-OTL persecution of 1878-93. If there are pogroms during the revolution - which there probably will be, although the new government will put them down firmly once it gets control - some of the remaining Jews might emigrate to Germany, Salonika, the Ottoman Empire or the United States. I doubt they'd trust the Polish state much more than Russia, at least until it has a track record, and they'd probably opt for emigration rather than staging a rebellion they can't win in support of a country they aren't sure about.

And speaking of emigration to Germany, one difference between postwar Germany and Austria is that Germany will become more multiethnic. I've mentioned already that some of the Indian and African troops will settle there, and there will also be labor immigration from eastern Europe, the colonies and maybe even Hungary. I wonder if the Canada-like identity crisis that eschaton mentioned will lead to the Austrians thinking of themselves as the 'pure' Germans, as opposed to the Germans in Germany who are being adulterated by millions of immigrants. Hopefully not, because that could get nasty for the remaining minorities in Austria, but it's one possible means for the Austrians to distinguish themselves.

 

[eschaton]

You're assuming that the Slovenes and Dalmatians will want to stay under the current arrangement. On the one hand, the Slovenes want protection from Italy and the Dalmatians want to be protected from Hungary, so there will be some incentive to stay under the Habsburg umbrella. On the other hand, though, postwar Austria will no longer be a multiethnic empire which is culturally dominated by Germans but in which everyone is a minority; instead, the Germans will be an outright majority, and many of them will look down on the Slavic peoples. Also, while Austria probably won't vote to join Germany in that 1902 referendum, do the Slovenes and Croats really want to take a chance?

I don't really expect that the Slovenes and Croats want to stay in Austria. However, I do think that the Austrians will be inclined to make substantive concessions (similar to Canada) to keep their restive minorities in. You might even see the Austrian government going officially trilingual.

Also, the 1902 referendum gives the Austrian government further incentives to try and hold onto these areas. Presuming they're going to offer a fairly free vote, being able to bank all of those Slavic votes would allow them considerable leeway against pan-Germanists.

Again, I do think it's like Canada, insofar as the majoritarian culture needs the minority in some existential sense, even if the minorities are indifferent to hostile to the whole national endeavor.

Slovenia and Dalmatia may well stay in some kind of alliance or confederation with Austria - for instance, they might be willing to become kingdoms with Rudolph as their king. But at the same time, they'd want to be independent states rather than provinces of a German-majority empire, and would want to have their own foreign policy. I expect that Rudolph would probably go along with such a plan, because the alternative would be to lose the Slovenes and Dalmatians altogether, and having them in personal union would still increase his standing vis-a-vis Germany and Italy.

I could actually see such a federation expanding. If Austria and Hungary do end up in a dust up due to Burgenland, Austria will have every reason to side with Hungarian Croats. Presuming Austria won such a war, I could see the unified Croatian state deciding to remain in confederation with Austria, given the other local alternatives would likely be considered unpalatable.

 

[Falecius]

Some points:
a) Dalmatia is going to be a mess, even worse than OTL's post WWI. Croatia at large will be problematic, to say the least, to the Hungarians. If there is something close to an independent Croatia, many Dalmatians will be interested in joining in, even if it implies some sort of personal union with Hungary (which, after all, had been the usual state of affair for mny centuries as far as Croatians are concerned.)
b) Italy will want as much of Dalmatia as she can keep. This probably means not very much - Zadar/Zara is a possiblity, but most likely with borders not much different from the ones of OTL in 1924. Some more coastal outposts in Italian majority areas are possible, but not very likely. The area will be a mess.
c) Slovenes, or at least a very signifcant part of them, are quite likely to be willing to accomodate into a binational Austrian state. After all, this Austria might end with less German lands than OTL ( Tyrol could be very problematic, and the western part of Salzburg is very likely to end up German) and the Slovene lands might get a viable "dual monarchy" status. This assumes that Dalmatia is not in the cards, though.
d) no matter what the final agreement of borders will be, Italy is going to have some Slovenes (she did since 1866, both IOTL and ITTL). In all likelyhood, Rome will get all of the former Austrian Riviera (Kuenstenland, the Slovenian Primorie) which means a relatively substantial Slovenian minority within Italy. Early Italian track record with Slovenians is embarassingly bad, though TTL's Italy might maybe prove a little less nasty. Quite a lot of Slovenians might migrate from Italian and Hungarian controlled Slovene lands into Austrian controlled ones (which might prove more welcoming, but it's not a given).

 

[Scientist Shan]

Aside from giving Franz Joseph a noble death you've done similar to Empress Elizabeth.

And butterflied the Mayerling tragedy.

I've always felt a little sorry for the OTL Franz Joseph so what you've done is quite touching.