No Russian intervention in Hungary

Ok with Nicholas on the throne its sorta out there but w/e. WI when Hungary revolts against Austria in 1848, Russia decides to just sit it out and let Austria take care of it them selves. So what happens?

Bonus question, WI Russia invades to take over Hungary? :p
 
Well, the whole reason Russia was in Hungary was because the Austrians asked them to. So, you need to address how Austria is going to avoid needing Russian help.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Ok with Nicholas on the throne its sorta out there but w/e. WI when Hungary revolts against Austria in 1848, Russia decides to just sit it out and let Austria take care of it them selves. So what happens?

First of all, given the Russian mentality of the time, this event is only plausible if either we assume a PoD that keeps Russia badly distracted during 1848 (e.g. a rebellion in Poland, Finland, a serf insurrection, the tsar bedridden by a crippling illness, a war with Sweden, Turkey, or Persia) or we radically change the personality of tsar Nicholas I. However, such a PoD is perfectly feasible.

Overextended Habsburg regime badly loses the two-front war with Hungary and Savoy, and collapses, with liberals making a victorious comeback in Vienna. Seeing the downfall of the Habsburg as a sign from Heaven, the King of Prussia reluctantly swallows his legitimist qualms and accepts the Imperial crown of Germany from the Frankfurt Assembly. Liberal revolutionaries in Vienna plead to join the newborn empire. Prussian troops "persuade" the Czech to join the Empire as well. Savoy kicks the Habsburg remnants out of Lombardy, Venetia, Trento, Gorizia, Istria, Dalmatia and annexes them. The resulting wave of nationalist entusiasm quickly topples the reactionary regimes of the other Italian states and Italy is unified under a federal constitutional monarchy much akin the German one. With German and Italian support, Hungary is able to establish its control over Croatia, but it is forced to concede it federal autonomy. Other minorities in the Kingdom of hungary are not so lucky, since the Magyars ruthlessly reaffirm their supremacy. Krakow and Galicia are ceded to Russia in order to appease it.

France gnashes its teeth, but it is powerless to do anything during the critical vulnerability window of the new states, since it is in the throes of its own revolution. Britain does not really care, it is focused on building its own empire, and it can do business with liberal Germany, Italy, and Hungary; besides, the liberal revolutions carry the sympathy of the British public. After the dust is settled, and Russia is recovered from whatever kept it busy, it realizes that it can do business with the new moderate liberal-conservative states just like it did with Austria, and they are not a radical Jacobin comeback by any means. France might try to reverse the outcome of the revolution by force in the next few years, a la 1870, but it does, it is going to suffer an embarassing stalemate at best, a 1815/1870-like kickdown at worse, since Britain and Russia are not going to be interested. Just as likely, it reluctantly accepts the inevitable. A quick war occurs between Denmark and the newborn German state, whcih results into Germany grabbing Schleswig-Holstein. If Sweden gives support to Denmark, this does not change the outcome of the war, but it inspires the unification of Scandinavia in the coming years.

The aborning colonial scramble for East Asia, and after the 1860s, for Africa becomes all the more frenzied since there are four main contenders (Britain, France, Germany, and Italy) from the start. Germany, Italy, and Hungary are natural allies, similar liberal-conservative constitutional monarchies with no outstanding geopolitical conflicts and complementary strategic and economic setups, and form a stable irontight Triple Alliance. France and Russia shall sooner or later pulled together to withstand the might of the CP block. Britain remains in splendid isolation for a long while, then joins the CP block out of mutual interest to keep Russia at bay. A more liberal Germany, especially if it finds itself early on in detente with Britain, is not likely going to pursue the naval buildupcraze that fatally aliened the British IOTL. Industrialization in Germany and much more so Italy is substantially accelerated in comparison to OTL by earlier national unifications. WWI either does not happen because the CP block looks too strong, or, if France and Russia ever get a kamikaze nationalist overconfidence phase (possible if they, accurately or not, assume that Britain is going to be neutral), ends in a crushing Entente defeat. You may insert your clichè Fascist/Communist Russia, with nasty revanchist French sidekick, and possibly opportunist Japan/China, causing WWII a couple decades later if you wish.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Well, the whole reason Russia was in Hungary was because the Austrians asked them to. So, you need to address how Austria is going to avoid needing Russian help.

This is rather unlikely. If it avoids needing Russian help, Austria is already performing much better than OTL, is close to crushing Hungary on its own, and the scenario is largely moot. Focus instead on making Russia too distracted with its own problems, so it cannot or would not intervene.
 
Austria was already close to crushing Hungary on its own: after a few months the Hungarian rebels were reduced to a few strongholds in the eastern borderlands. The Russian intervention was just icing on the cake and a way for the rebels to save face because now did not have to surrender to the Austrians.

In fact, the Russian intervention was pretty lacklustre as it was, they only suffered a few hundred combat casualties (the Austrians and Hungarians each roughly 50,000) with an additional few thousands caused by a cholera epidemic.
 
Austria was already close to crushing Hungary on its own: after a few months the Hungarian rebels were reduced to a few strongholds in the eastern borderlands. The Russian intervention was just icing on the cake and a way for the rebels to save face because now did not have to surrender to the Austrians.

In fact, the Russian intervention was pretty lacklustre as it was, they only suffered a few hundred combat casualties (the Austrians and Hungarians each roughly 50,000) with an additional few thousands caused by a cholera epidemic.

Indeed. The Hungarians didn't even have the forces to decisively defeat Croatia or the insurgencies in Transylvania and the Banat. Once the superior Austrian forces had won in Italy (in July '48: Novara was a brief and, of course, doomed attempt to re-ignite the flame) and turned their attention to Hungary, the revolutionaries were for it. They had no way of raising the necessary equipment and funds to fight a modern war and were soon going to become a mere insurgency themselves.

It was only because temporary reverses were embarrasing, they wanted to free up forces to underwrite their diplomacy in Germany, and Nicholas I made a more suitable partner in victory than Romanian peasants that the Austrians called on Russia at all.

The German radicals in Vienna had already been smashed in November, and it was the Hungarian revolt which had prompted this: the radicals had tried to ally with the last force resisting the throne with arms and had briefly taken over thc city after an attack on troops going to Hungary. Windischgraetz promptly arrived from Prague to crush them.

I wouldn't bank on the assumption that the French are too hobbled by the revolution to do anything, either. Wessenberg certainly didn't. Obviously France isn't going to single-handedly invade everywhere and undo the national unifications (if the French government wants not to be hated by anyone calling himself a liberal, it can't take hard action against the revolution in Italy), but Germany and Italy leaping fully formed from the brow of Zeus is in any case an extremely unlikley hypothetical. France was quite capable of chasing the Austrians out of Italy by armed force or the threat of it: so the Austrians assumed, and their opinion was the important one. She didn't, because she didn't want to. First it meant underwriting Charles Albert while he went around being ambitious, monarchical, and in charge of Savoy and Nice. When the crisis came in Septermber as Radetzky besieged Venice, the French decided it wasn't worth it, and the Austrians were too wise to provoke them by invading Piedmont.
 
Last edited:

Eurofed

Banned
I agree that if one wants to rid Europe of the Habsburg :D in 1848, a second PoD besides no Russian intervention may be necessary to make the Empire collapse. IIRC, the Hungarian diet could withdraw its troops from the army earlier, causing Radetsky to lose the war in italy. This ought to make the whole house of cards go tumbling. :cool:
 
I agree that if one wants to rid Europe of the Habsburg :D in 1848, a second PoD besides no Russian intervention may be necessary to make the Empire collapse. IIRC, the Hungarian diet could withdraw its troops from the army earlier, causing Radetsky to lose the war in italy. This ought to make the whole house of cards go tumbling. :cool:

That would help, although the fact is that the Piedmontese were fighting a foolish war, from a military standpoint. They hadn't really had a choice: the revolution in Milan presented a very brief window of opportunity, and if they didn't take it, there would very likely be a revolution in Genoa (note how the Piedmontese radicals broke with the king after the August armistice).

But I think that if we have a greater state of confusion in the Danube part of the monarchy, a prompter and more determined effort by the Italians to press their initial advantage, and perhaps Radetzsky choking on a schnitzel, Piedmontese victory is just about plausible. The Austrians withdraw most of their field armies, their fortresses are besieged, the other regimes on the peninsula start going under, and at this point Britain would step in, since the Italians winning by themselves was our dream scenario. We'd mediate and give Lombardy-Venetia to the Piedmontese, and get the king's realist regime to chuck the claims made on South Tyrol by the Venetian republic.

It's doubtful whether this would in fact lead to Hungarian success. Nobody else wants this except the German revolutionaries, and by this point the first armistice has been signed in Schleswig, which began the reduction of Frankfurt to irrelevance. Britain doesn't: the point of booting the Austrians out of Italy was to make them an adequate bulwark against Russia (and likewise the Ottomans won't support the revolutionaries, although they're not very relevant at this point). Russia obviously doesn't, although we can assume that something is preventing them from taking action (the intervention was a matter of interest, however, and indeed the Russians were perhaps keener on it than the Austrians: the Hungarians had Poles in their ranks, and the Russians had already used the revolutions there as an excuse to occupy Romania while nobody was watching).

As I said, Hungary was a poor country without military infrastructure experiencing multiple pro-Hapsburg insurrections. It has no way of winning a war mano-a-mano, and nobody's going to save it.

The interesting thing here, though, is that the Prussians told Austria in May 1849 (when the Magyar revolutionaries had their second wind) that they would crush Hungary on her behalf if she admitted Prussian supremacy in the rest of Germany. The Austrians had no desire to do this and so called on Russia instead. If Russia is out of the picture for whatever reason and Austria is reeling from defeat in Italy, she might not be in a position to refuse the offer. Britain will likely accept it if we can get a satisfactory conclusion to the Schleswig affair, since Palmerston wants the Hungarians beaten as much as anyone and could probably convince himself that Germany was a distraction for the Hapsburgs just like Italy. There's not much the French can do. Lamartine had said he wasn't going to fight for Poland and lose Alsace: I doubt Napoleon will lose it for Hungary.

So, Kingdom of (Northern, for now) Italy, Kleindeutschland, majorly pissed Russia, and whoops, it's almost Crimean War time... this is an interesting scenario.
 
Last edited:
First of all, given the Russian mentality of the time, this event is only plausible if either we assume a PoD that keeps Russia badly distracted during 1848 (e.g. a rebellion in Poland, Finland, a serf insurrection, the tsar bedridden by a crippling illness, a war with Sweden, Turkey, or Persia) or we radically change the personality of tsar Nicholas I. However, such a PoD is perfectly feasible.

Overextended Habsburg regime badly loses the two-front war with Hungary and Savoy, and collapses, with liberals making a victorious comeback in Vienna. Seeing the downfall of the Habsburg as a sign from Heaven, the King of Prussia reluctantly swallows his legitimist qualms and accepts the Imperial crown of Germany from the Frankfurt Assembly. Liberal revolutionaries in Vienna plead to join the newborn empire. Prussian troops "persuade" the Czech to join the Empire as well. Savoy kicks the Habsburg remnants out of Lombardy, Venetia, Trento, Gorizia, Istria, Dalmatia and annexes them. The resulting wave of nationalist entusiasm quickly topples the reactionary regimes of the other Italian states and Italy is unified under a federal constitutional monarchy much akin the German one. With German and Italian support, Hungary is able to establish its control over Croatia, but it is forced to concede it federal autonomy. Other minorities in the Kingdom of hungary are not so lucky, since the Magyars ruthlessly reaffirm their supremacy. Krakow and Galicia are ceded to Russia in order to appease it.

France gnashes its teeth, but it is powerless to do anything during the critical vulnerability window of the new states, since it is in the throes of its own revolution. Britain does not really care, it is focused on building its own empire, and it can do business with liberal Germany, Italy, and Hungary; besides, the liberal revolutions carry the sympathy of the British public. After the dust is settled, and Russia is recovered from whatever kept it busy, it realizes that it can do business with the new moderate liberal-conservative states just like it did with Austria, and they are not a radical Jacobin comeback by any means. France might try to reverse the outcome of the revolution by force in the next few years, a la 1870, but it does, it is going to suffer an embarassing stalemate at best, a 1815/1870-like kickdown at worse, since Britain and Russia are not going to be interested. Just as likely, it reluctantly accepts the inevitable. A quick war occurs between Denmark and the newborn German state, whcih results into Germany grabbing Schleswig-Holstein. If Sweden gives support to Denmark, this does not change the outcome of the war, but it inspires the unification of Scandinavia in the coming years.

The aborning colonial scramble for East Asia, and after the 1860s, for Africa becomes all the more frenzied since there are four main contenders (Britain, France, Germany, and Italy) from the start. Germany, Italy, and Hungary are natural allies, similar liberal-conservative constitutional monarchies with no outstanding geopolitical conflicts and complementary strategic and economic setups, and form a stable irontight Triple Alliance. France and Russia shall sooner or later pulled together to withstand the might of the CP block. Britain remains in splendid isolation for a long while, then joins the CP block out of mutual interest to keep Russia at bay. A more liberal Germany, especially if it finds itself early on in detente with Britain, is not likely going to pursue the naval buildupcraze that fatally aliened the British IOTL. Industrialization in Germany and much more so Italy is substantially accelerated in comparison to OTL by earlier national unifications. WWI either does not happen because the CP block looks too strong, or, if France and Russia ever get a kamikaze nationalist overconfidence phase (possible if they, accurately or not, assume that Britain is going to be neutral), ends in a crushing Entente defeat. You may insert your clichè Fascist/Communist Russia, with nasty revanchist French sidekick, and possibly opportunist Japan/China, causing WWII a couple decades later if you wish.
If the end justifies the means, you just got a scenario pretty much identical to Ich bin ein Frankfurter.
 

Eurofed

Banned
If the end justifies the means, you just got a scenario pretty much identical to Ich bin ein Frankfurter.

Which is a quite fine TL realization of the scenario, :D which I am rather fond of, so I nominated for the TA. Too bad the author got sever writer's block. :(
 

Eurofed

Banned
That would help, although the fact is that the Piedmontese were fighting a foolish war, from a military standpoint. They hadn't really had a choice: the revolution in Milan presented a very brief window of opportunity, and if they didn't take it, there would very likely be a revolution in Genoa (note how the Piedmontese radicals broke with the king after the August armistice).

True.

But I think that if we have a greater state of confusion in the Danube part of the monarchy, a prompter and more determined effort by the Italians to press their initial advantage, and perhaps Radetzsky choking on a schnitzel, Piedmontese victory is just about plausible. The Austrians withdraw most of their field armies, their fortresses are besieged, the other regimes on the peninsula start going under, and at this point Britain would step in, since the Italians winning by themselves was our dream scenario. We'd mediate and give Lombardy-Venetia to the Piedmontese, and get the king's realist regime to chuck the claims made on South Tyrol by the Venetian republic.

True as well, and I see the problems with Italy getting South Tyrol, and economically all-important Trieste. But I see no problem, from British PoV, with Italy getting Trento and Gorizia. It makes Italy a more satisfied power.

It's doubtful whether this would in fact lead to Hungarian success. Nobody else wants this except the German revolutionaries, and by this point the first armistice has been signed in Schleswig, which began the reduction of Frankfurt to irrelevance. Britain doesn't: the point of booting the Austrians out of Italy was to make them an adequate bulwark against Russia (and likewise the Ottomans won't support the revolutionaries, although they're not very relevant at this point).

True, although it must be remarked that Grossdeutchsland + Hungary + Italy can be an ever better anti-Russian bulwalk in the Balkans than Kleindeutchsland + Austria.

Russia obviously doesn't, although we can assume that something is preventing them from taking action (the intervention was a matter of interest, however, and indeed the Russians were perhaps keener on it than the Austrians: the Hungarians had Poles in their ranks, and the Russians had already used the revolutions there as an excuse to occupy Romania while nobody was watching).

Indeed, but it is not too difficult to imagine something that is seriously holding Russia back in 1848.

The interesting thing here, though, is that the Prussians told Austria in May 1849 (when the Magyar revolutionaries had their second wind) that they would crush Hungary on her behalf if she admitted Prussian supremacy in the rest of Germany. The Austrians had no desire to do this and so called on Russia instead. If Russia is out of the picture for whatever reason and Austria is reeling from defeat in Italy, she might not be in a position to refuse the offer. Britain will likely accept it if we can get a satisfactory conclusion to the Schleswig affair, since Palmerston wants the Hungarians beaten as much as anyone and could probably convince himself that Germany was a distraction for the Hapsburgs just like Italy. There's not much the French can do. Lamartine had said he wasn't going to fight for Poland and lose Alsace: I doubt Napoleon will lose it for Hungary.

It is an interesting scenario, although I prefer the Grossdeutchsland + Italy + Hungary unification, it neatly settles all the loose ends in central Europe and Italy for good. It requires a greater nationalist leap of insight from Prussian leadership, of course.

So, Kingdom of (Northern, for now) Italy, Kleindeutschland, majorly pissed Russia, and whoops, it's almost Crimean War time... this is an interesting scenario.

If the Savoy come back from the war with Lombardy, Veneto, Trento, and Gorizia in their pocket, the lifespan of the other Italian regimes can be counted in numbers, although if they are quick to swear loyalty to their new Savoy overlord, they may keep their thrones as dukes in the new Federal kingdom of Italy, a federal unification plan was much discussed before 1848, and there would be the german example. I doubt that the other Italian princes would grasp the opportunity, as a rule they were a reactionary, hidebound bunch of Habsburg toadies.
 
Looking at my scenario, the really important question as to what happens next is Schleswig. I doubt much can be done with the extradition crisis that was the epilogue to the Hungarian revolution.

Britain and Russia both wanted Prussia to ditch Augestenborg and the German liberal program. Napoleon was playing everyone against everyone.

Now, let's say it's the winter of 48-49. The Austrians are out of Italy. Britain is to mediate between Austria and the rebels, and everyone knows what the result will be. Napoleon has just taken over France. Austria is massing her forces for a new campaign in Hungary. Russia is for some reason not capable of serious military action abroad (although I think this needs to be given more attention: a less reactionary Tsar Nick may have schemes of his own; a Polish revolt, besides being unripe in 1848, will serve to bring the partitioning powers together; I have trouble seeing a serf rebellion at this stage).

The initial armistice is just coming apart, and the Prussians are ready to roll. If we assume the military situation is the same, the Danes only stop the German advance in May outside Aarhus.

In May, in this scenario, Austria exchanges help in Hungary for ascent to the Prussian ambitions presaged by the Alliance of Three Kings, and Radowitz starts canvassing the conservative union among the princes.

The Danes, holding their lines and backed by Sweden, won't give in until the powers tell them; the Prussian-led Germans, who hold all Schleswig and more, are likewise. In OTL, Prussia gave in because a Danish collapse was not forthcoming and the Russians told them that whoever was more reactionary would have Russian support in Germany.

Since Prussia doesn't urgently need Russian support in Germany (let's assume the Hessians sign on to the Erfurt Union like good boys rather than make a nuisance of themselves and the Bavarians see the writing on the wall), a bit of German good luck off Heligoland and elsewhere may be enough to get Britain and France to shut up. France had no objection of principal, they just wanted something out of the situation. If Austria looks like a spent force and the Danes are getting the worst of it, France may do she did in 1866: cosy up to Prussia with a program of "Re-ordering Europe on national grounds is pretty cool, do you not think? Speaking of which, we're gonna annex Belgium now."

Palmerston will probably just have to take it.
 
Which is a quite fine TL realization of the scenario, :D which I am rather fond of, so I nominated for the TA. Too bad the author got sever writer's block. :(
I was going to nominate it too...:p
Yes, twas a great TL, but some of these idead here in this thread are promising too...
 
True as well, and I see the problems with Italy getting South Tyrol, and economically all-important Trieste. But I see no problem, from British PoV, with Italy getting Trento and Gorizia. It makes Italy a more satisfied power.

True, but the national principal and programme weren't yet so clearly defined, and the king didn't always get on with his radical allies. Britain's OTL proposal for mediation was that Austria should surrender "Lombardy and parts of Venetia", with Palmerston affirming privately that "these parts, of course, would be the whole".

True, although it must be remarked that Grossdeutchsland + Hungary + Italy can be an ever better anti-Russian bulwalk in the Balkans than Kleindeutchsland + Austria.

Britain, however, was often more interesting in avoiding war than in winning it. Greater Germany was seen as the cause of revolutionary radicals who were being put down all over Germany, and when they had control of Prussia in the person of Arnim, their Master Plan had been to blow up Poland and fight a war against Russia which would mobilise German sentiment as in 1813 and end with Poland as a bulwark for Germany and Europe against the Evil Russkies. In 1848, Palmerston was more interested in the idea of Russia being told off by Austria in the Danube valley than a revolutionary war stretching from Black to Baltic Seas, thus his endorsement of a kleindeutsch solution.

In the Crimean War, when he decided that if there was going to be a war with Russia, it should be done properly, ie: Sweden should invade Finland, Austria should invade Ukraine, Prussia should invade the Baltic, the Poles should rise up, the serfs should rise us, the Ottomans should amass the armies of Islam, the moon should be bathed in blood for three nights, etcetera... that's an interesting time for a radical anti-Russian scheme to be floated in Germany,

Indeed, but it is not too difficult to imagine something that is seriously holding Russia back in 1848.

Sure, but I do think that exactly what it is had ramifications. If we can keep them out of Hungary, though, that's enough. Once the Erfurt Union is rolling and the Prussians are getting the better of Denmark, Russia is pretty much never going to persuaded to actually fight Prussia. Paskevich thought Prussia could beat Russia and Austria at the same time! Suggestions that Russia was going to invade any minute now always came from Britain.

It is an interesting scenario, although I prefer the Grossdeutchsland + Italy + Hungary unification, it neatly settles all the loose ends in central Europe and Italy for good. It requires a greater nationalist leap of insight from Prussian leadership, of course.

And a greater catastrophe for the Austrians. It's not impossible, but it requires everything to unfold right for the German liberals.

If the Savoy come back from the war with Lombardy, Veneto, Trento, and Gorizia in their pocket, the lifespan of the other Italian regimes can be counted in numbers, although if they are quick to swear loyalty to their new Savoy overlord, they may keep their thrones as dukes in the new Federal kingdom of Italy, a federal unification plan was much discussed before 1848, and there would be the german example. I doubt that the other Italian princes would grasp the opportunity, as a rule they were a reactionary, hidebound bunch of Habsburg toadies.

Well, Leopold of Tuscany had promise: he sent his men to the Sardinians and created a tricolour flag. It was ony in February '49 that he high-tailed it. By February, the Austrians should ITTL be gone and he may reach an arrangement with the new Italian Kingdom.

With Tuscany on the wagon, I doubt anyone's going to restore the power of the Pope. Austria can't, and France doesn't therefore need to steal a march on Austria. Appeasing the clericals was only a secondary concern for Napoleon. So Mazzini brings his republic and by default all of the cnetre of the peninsula to Italy.

The revolutionary government of Scily also still exists, and is a nice casus belli to polish off Naples.
 
Top