Most powerful Central Power in WW1

Most powerful?

  • German Empire

    Votes: 149 95.5%
  • Austria-Hungary

    Votes: 3 1.9%
  • Ottoman Empire

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 4 2.6%

  • Total voters
    156

BlondieBC

Banned
The Germans were nothing without the Ottomans who blockaded Russia and brought down the Tsar but the Ottomans were nothing without the Bulgarians linking them to the Austro-Germans. In the end, the Central Powers wee a coalition that managed to hold on for a few years. Withiut any of the members, they would have collapsed rapidly

What you say is true, but it is because it was a very close war. If you add any additional ally or remove an ally to either coalition, the war will quickly (18 months) swing to victory for the benefiting side.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Theoretically Austria-Hungary could have been powerful, but that would have required competent revitalized leadership willing to shed blood to implement centralized authority. Perhaps some kind of ideological or philosophical basis could have been used to justify. However AH was essentially paralyzed by the Hungarians, and it's economy was ineffective and non competitive because of subsidies and policies meant to appease the minority groups. For Example in the Austro-Hungarian Empire railway lines wouldn't run directly from city to city, but would stop to prevent direct connections to prevent intercommerce that would have been disadvantageous for the local mercantile classes, these policies were made as concessions to appease the minority groups.

AH also spent ridiculous amounts of money on attempting to appease the polls, instead they should have spent more on their decrepit army and less on their useless navy. Had they done so they could have easily used the army to dissuade the Poles and they wouldn't have performed so poorly in the first world war.

Your criticism of A-H is true, but IMO, you are being a bit too deterministic. It is not too hard to write an ATL where the A-H military is respected. In fact, POD that buff Germany will often have the side effect of making A-H look good. I learned this by accident writing an German win ATL. So lets go to a couple of simple changes that start with the same army and Conrad in charge.

Scenario 1: Conrad had many flaws, but he did focus heavily on training for a war of maneuver. The Austrians were in the process of surrounding the Russian 5th Army, when the Austrian General lost his nerve. Have the Austrians finish the process, and avoid all but the most obvious butterflies. The Russians will have lost or had maimed 3 of the 7 initial armies the Russians attacked with and 3 of the 10 that would arrive that fall. The effects are complicated, and we can spend days debating, the Russians likely fail to take Pemburg and Lemburg. The food, manpower, and food situation is much better. Then we can still have the Italians enter the war on time (unlikely), and give roughly the same result. The Austrians will not need the massive German assistance of May 1915. We get blood wins and losses by Austria, and historians give credit to Germany beating two powers (France and UK), and the Austrians holding off/beating two powers (Russia/Italy).

Scenario 2: Italy does not quite enter the war despite being generally hostile. The Italians wait for the opportunity that never comes. The rest is much like Scenario #1, but by summer 1915, we see the Austrians begin to regularly take the offensive, and generally speaking make modest gains versus the Russia. Here Austria will be the one who is given credit for beating the Russians, and if the post war diplomacy goes well, they will have a lasting victory.

Now all this being said, Germany clearly had the better army, but we can be too hard on the Austrians.
 
However AH was essentially paralyzed by the Hungarians
Why Hungarians? I would rather say the anti-Hungarian sentiment of some leaders of the Monarchy paralysed it, for example Franz Ferdinand. Even economically and railway-wise, the Hungarians were better of, than the Austrian side.
Coming from a Hungarian, it might sound biased, but you can believe me.
 
Why Hungarians? I would rather say the anti-Hungarian sentiment of some leaders of the Monarchy paralysed it, for example Franz Ferdinand. Even economically and railway-wise, the Hungarians were better of, than the Austrian side.
Coming from a Hungarian, it might sound biased, but you can believe me.

But some of the anti-Hungarian sentiment was also legitimate; Hungary controlled many territories that weren't Hungarian, Croatia for example. For a truly federalized Empire, you would have needed the Hungarians to give up their privileges, and I doubt that they wanted to do it.
 
But some of the anti-Hungarian sentiment was also legitimate; Hungary controlled many territories that weren't Hungarian, Croatia for example. For a truly federalized Empire, you would have needed the Hungarians to give up their privileges, and I doubt that they wanted to do it.
Well the federalisation was quite unpopular on both sides of the Monarchy, and among the Habsburgs themselves as well.
Actually Croatia enjoyed quite big autonomy within Hungary, while other minorities had their own rights as well, even though the forced magyarisation really started to appear from 1907.
In my opinion, what the Monarchy really needed was not federalisation or tripartisation, but more trust and understanding between the two member of the Monarchy.
 
Well the federalisation was quite unpopular on both sides of the Monarchy, and among the Habsburgs themselves as well.
Actually Croatia enjoyed quite big autonomy within Hungary, while other minorities had their own rights as well, even though the forced magyarisation really started to appear from 1907.
In my opinion, what the Monarchy really needed was not federalisation or tripartisation, but more trust and understanding between the two member of the Monarchy.

It was the Hungarian parliament that refunded the K.u.K armee, making it one of the least modern in Europe. The Hungarians also oppressed their minorities (Croatia not nearly as bad as the Romanians, Slovaks, and Ukrainians) which created resentment that really wasn't needed.
 
It was the Hungarian parliament that refunded the K.u.K armee, making it one of the least modern in Europe.

That was not that simple. Lets just say, that the army (and the navy) budget was misused by both parliaments (hungarian and austrian) pressuring the throne. Of course, the hungarian one made the bigger ruckus, but trust me, they were not alone in this enterprise :)
The Hungarians also oppressed their minorities (Croatia not nearly as bad as the Romanians, Slovaks, and Ukrainians) which created resentment that really wasn't needed.

Again, it was not that simple. Of course, the minority rights were not up to modern day's standards (and even that could be debated) and certain -rather ham-fisted - oppressive actions were indeed implemented (or rather tried to for the most part), however, the resentment was general and because of the economical/social situation for the overwhelming part. Sometimes i wonder, if the empire was eager for war because of that.
(And the ukrainian oppression was done by the austrian government and afaik for religious reasons mostly.)
 
That was not that simple. Lets just say, that the army (and the navy) budget was misused by both parliaments (hungarian and austrian) pressuring the throne. Of course, the hungarian one made the bigger ruckus, but trust me, they were not alone in this enterprise :)


Again, it was not that simple. Of course, the minority rights were not up to modern day's standards (and even that could be debated) and certain -rather ham-fisted - oppressive actions were indeed implemented (or rather tried to for the most part), however, the resentment was general and because of the economical/social situation for the overwhelming part. Sometimes i wonder, if the empire was eager for war because of that.
(And the ukrainian oppression was done by the austrian government and afaik for religious reasons mostly.)

The Hungarians refused on multiple occasions to raise the military budget. Without that opposition there is no question that the K.u.K army would have been far better trained, far better equipped, and significantly larger. That alone would have large repercussions during the first world war, in spite of Austro-Hungarian military leadership.

I was referring to Ukrainians in Carpatho-Ukraine which was in the Hungarian crown lands. Ukrainians in the Kingdom of Galicia Lodomeria were mostly under Polish administration under Austrian direction. In fact of all the non German peoples living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire the most loyal were considered the Ukrainians who were nicknamed the "Tyroleans of the East". This was because the Austrians were perceived as wanting to protect Ukrainians against polonification, magyarization, and Russification. Which I think was a genuine aim of the Austrian government despite some of F.F's personal opinions.
 
The Hungarians refused on multiple occasions to raise the military budget. Without that opposition there is no question that the K.u.K army would have been far better trained, far better equipped, and significantly larger. That alone would have large repercussions during the first world war, in spite of Austro-Hungarian military leadership.

Again, not that simple. The "meltdown" in AH politics which ended up in the underfunding of the army pretty much started with an austrian political crisis, followed by a hungarian one, and just when the hungarian side calmed down, the austrians torpedoed the army budget again. Not to mention the constant landwehr-honvéd-common army friction.
And yes, the army could have been larger, however, i do not think, that either side of the empire - apart from the army itself maybe - wanted that. Under the economic-social conditions, the development and the need of development the money had better place to be spent. And does not really seemed to be in need a bigger army: Germany, Italy, Romania was an ally (at least, nominally), Serbia was small and surrounded by enemies, Russia... well, that part was a wildcard as always.
Better trained? Maybe. The training situation of the AH army seemed to e chaotic: the situation was not nearly bad as "known" but not bright either, mostly in the officer corps. Do i have to mention Potiorek? But the issue was not budget-related.
Equipment: mostly the artillery department. The above mentioned little political game just delayed the artillery upgrade to be fatal. However, equipment-wise the army itself could have manage better its priorities and resources. (Khm, Przemsyl, khm).

I was referring to Ukrainians in Carpatho-Ukraine which was in the Hungarian crown lands. Ukrainians in the Kingdom of Galicia Lodomeria were mostly under Polish administration under Austrian direction. In fact of all the non German peoples living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire the most loyal were considered the Ukrainians who were nicknamed the "Tyroleans of the East". This was because the Austrians were perceived as wanting to protect Ukrainians against polonification, magyarization, and Russification. Which I think was a genuine aim of the Austrian government despite some of F.F's personal opinions.

Ah, Carpathian Rusyns. You refer to the Lex Apponyi in this case or the shameful behaviour during the war? Or something else?
 
About the Hungarian oppression of minorities: It wasn't that bad as some people try to imply it, or as most people think. Compared to the minority policies of Russia, Germany, France, they were actually quite mild. There are actually only two policies of Hungary, which were somewhat harsh: The renaming of the settlements to Hungarian and the unfamous Lex Apponyi, which made the availability of teaching of the Hungarian language compulsory in every school. But none of these two policies were introduced in Croatia or in Fiume. At these two entities of Hungary, only the names of governmental buildings became bilingual, which means they had to put signs in Hungarian on these buildings.
 
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