Plausibility check: Austrian Empire (with Silesia, Bavaria) Germanises Hungary

If there was no miracle of Brandenburg, and Prussia gets crushed in the Seven Years War, Austria would regain Silesia and likely would have been successful in later attempts to annex Bavaria in the following decades.

In such a situation, how plausible is it that Austria wins out in the internal struggles with Hungary? During a Hungarian revolt, could they have broken the power of the Hungarian Kingdom, dividing it up into smaller principalities? Could they have flooded it with more German settlers to the major cities, eventually leading to German becoming the primary language?
 
Hardly can you make Germany the primary language, if that means majority, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility of it becoming plurality through various means(after all even Hungarian was only a plurality in its kingdom).

Without having the Ausgleich with Hungary you already are halfway through your goal, because the (re?)magyarization of those territories made Hungarian a majority again in cities and in the kingdom in general by the eve of the 1st world war.

IMHO the best place for German as an ethnicity or language to grow would be the Banat region, a region so divided linguistically and ethnically that I think a mix of urbanization and Germanization instead of Magyarization would assimilated different groups into the German in linguistic sense.

Another place is Bratislava/Preßburg(Pressburg?), Germans were basically dominating the city until the late 19th century, if you continue that it's possible that with even further urbanization the city remains firmly German.

Important is of course is Budapest, although the city/cities had a majority German population in 1850 I'm not exactly sure you could compare it to Bratislava, the city German share fell to 1/3 in 1880 and to 1/4 to 1890, wether Germans could feasibly remain the majority with the increasing urbanization depends and is up to debate but IMHO given the right circumstances it should be possible.

Looking briefly into the modern biggest Hungarian cities, I find that only Pecs and Gyor could become majority German as well, or at least a solid majority given their position near german settlement centers.

1280px-Ethnic_Germans_in_Hungary_and_parts_of_adjacent_Austrian_territories.JPG

You can see there is a big hole in this map, the hungarian plain east of the Danube and North of the Banat, I think this region is going to remain Hungarian to modern day, either both in the rural and (small) urban population.

Politically, a strong Austria would probably actively play using German nationalism given they effectively would control any sort of German Confederation/HRE-like structures. This would probably lead them to not accept any kind of Ausgleich with any of the groups, the Hungarian in this case would probably become actual easy ally to any Austrian enemy, in terms of the other ethnic groups.
I see Croatian as being loyal to Austria although I'm not sure if the card of the hungarian threat would be as evident or effective in this scenario.
Serbs it all depends but frankly I imagine them as easy target to either get assimilated, "not forcefully" ethnic cleansed(I mean coerced, still forced but not with direct use of violence) or simply stay low profile.
Romanians are going to be resilient to assimilation outside the German enclaves, although I imagine there is the possibility that those people would develop a separated identity from the Romanians of Wallachia and Moldavia depending on how things go.
Slovaks are probably going to be in a situation like the Croatians mixed with the situation of the Czechs, they would still be cautious of Hungary and at the same time they could or would probably follow the way the ATL Czechs(and also OTL) went, in the sense of resisting assimilation non militarily(although I doubt they would be that successful), interesting would be how Slavic Silesian would fit in all of this.

The Ruthenians would probably just follow whatever goes politically, they are not in the position to do much and neither I recall them being particularly conscious in a political sense, I can see Russia going to have the region as a targt but it really depends on what happens to Poland in the partition or if the partition happens at all without Prussian Silesia.
 
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I would say you need Maria Theresa and Joseph II reforms being pushed through 50 years earlier. Let's say that Charles VI are significant more competent and he use his reign to remake his possessions (outside his Swabian and Belgian domains) into a centralised state, make German the language of government, creating universal schooling in German, free the serfs, establish tolerance for Jews and Protestants and reform the army. And he succeed in all this without having a large scale civil war on his hands. If he also succeed in establish a Austrian Catholic Church it's a bonus.
 
Hardly can you make Germany the primary language, if that means majority, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility of it becoming plurality through various means(after all even Hungarian was only a plurality in its kingdom).

Without having the Ausgleich with Hungary you already are halfway through your goal, because the (re?)magyarization of those territories made Hungarian a majority again in cities and in the kingdom in general by the eve of the 1st world war.

IMHO the best place for German as an ethnicity or language to grow would be the Banat region, a region so divided linguistically and ethnically that I think a mix of urbanization and Germanization instead of Magyarization would assimilated different groups into the German in linguistic sense.

Another place is Bratislava/Preßburg(Pressburg?), Germans were basically dominating the city until the late 19th century, if you continue that it's possible that with even further urbanization the city remains firmly German.

Important is of course is Budapest, although the city/cities had a majority German population in 1850 I'm not exactly sure you could compare it to Bratislava, the city German share fell to 1/3 in 1880 and to 1/4 to 1890, wether Germans could feasibly remain the majority with the increasing urbanization depends and is up to debate but IMHO given the right circumstances it should be possible.

Looking briefly into the modern biggest Hungarian cities, I find that only Pecs and Gyor could become majority German as well, or at least a solid majority given their position near german settlement centers.

You can see there is a big hole in this map, the hungarian plain east of the Danube and North of the Banat, I think this region is going to remain Hungarian to modern day, either both in the rural and (small) urban population.

Politically, a strong Austria would probably actively play using German nationalism given they effectively would control any sort of German Confederation/HRE-like structures. This would probably lead them to not accept any kind of Ausgleich with any of the groups, the Hungarian in this case would probably become actual easy ally to any Austrian enemy, in terms of the other ethnic groups.
I see Croatian as being loyal to Austria although I'm not sure if the card of the hungarian threat would be as evident or effective in this scenario.
Serbs it all depends but frankly I imagine them as easy target to either get assimilated, "not forcefully" ethnic cleansed(I mean coerced, still forced but not with direct use of violence) or simply stay low profile.
Romanians are going to be resilient to assimilation outside the German enclaves, although I imagine there is the possibility that those people would develop a separated identity from the Romanians of Wallachia and Moldavia depending on how things go.
Slovaks are probably going to be in a situation like the Croatians mixed with the situation of the Czechs, they would still be cautious of Hungary and at the same time they could or would probably follow the way the ATL Czechs(and also OTL) went, in the sense of resisting assimilation non militarily(although I doubt they would be that successful), interesting would be how Slavic Silesian would fit in all of this.

The Ruthenians would probably just follow whatever goes politically, they are not in the position to do much and neither I recall them being particularly conscious in a political sense, I can see Russia going to have the region as a targt but it really depends on what happens to Poland in the partition or if the partition happens at all without Prussian Silesia.

Thanks for this - what a great map! Reading up on populations, greater Budapest is 3.5m out of a total Hungarian population of 10m. If you get Budapest to become a German city where everybody needs to learn it to get by, throw in Banat and Slovakia too, it seems like a German-speaking majority should be possible in a larger Hungary.
 
Thanks for this - what a great map! Reading up on populations, greater Budapest is 3.5m out of a total Hungarian population of 10m. If you get Budapest to become a German city where everybody needs to learn it to get by, throw in Banat and Slovakia too, it seems like a German-speaking majority should be possible in a larger Hungary.
Although I would imagine that Budapest would not be as big in this situation, with less Hungarian migrating there and more migrating in some Eastern city, more so the protestant ones that might segregate themselves with the double layer of religious and linguistic difference.
 
If the Hapsburgs had abolished the rights Hungarian nobility and implemented universal suffrage, then the Magyarization that happened in OTL would be butterflied away. I think the Hapsburgs would have wanted to avoid doing that but if the nobility forces their hand by launching a rebellion, anything can happen.

Now the empire may end up looking like a version of the Ottoman empire with one ethnic group have supremacy over other ethnic groups. However nationalism would still become a problem and we might still see something like the Dual Monarchy as a way to preserve the empire against the tide of nationalism. Instead of the Austrians sharing power with the Hungarians, it would be the Slavs in the empire. ALL of the Slavs. Maybe in this timeline Austroslavism would have a chance of preserving the empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Slavism
 
If the Hapsburgs had abolished the rights Hungarian nobility and implemented universal suffrage, then the Magyarization that happened in OTL would be butterflied away. I think the Hapsburgs would have wanted to avoid doing that but if the nobility forces their hand by launching a rebellion, anything can happen.

Now the empire may end up looking like a version of the Ottoman empire with one ethnic group have supremacy over other ethnic groups. However nationalism would still become a problem and we might still see something like the Dual Monarchy as a way to preserve the empire against the tide of nationalism. Instead of the Austrians sharing power with the Hungarians, it would be the Slavs in the empire. ALL of the Slavs. Maybe in this timeline Austroslavism would have a chance of preserving the empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Slavism
An Austria with Silesia and Bavaria is an Austria that dominates Germany, more so when they have Belgium still rather than Venetia-Lombardy, this means they don't need to bend over to the demands of the minorities.
 
But... why?

The Hungarians were basically, if not completely the key to Austria's survival during the Austrian Succession War. Without them, Maria Theresia would never have been able to succeed the Archduchy and her husband wouldn't have become HREmperor. Likely, an Austrian victory over the Prussians in the SYW is dependent on Russia not abandoning the alliance, but Austria wouldn't have been able to wage an offensive war in the first place without Hungarian military and economic help. The loyalty of the Hungarians (and I use 'Hungarian' in the non-ethnic, Kingdom-wide sense and not the ethnic Magyar sense) was incredibly important and I don't see why the Habsburgs would abandon them so easily despite these massive and, in my opinion, untenable conquests.

As for internal struggles with Hungary: Historically, the revolts in Hungarian territory in the 18th was due to the fuzziness caused by the Reconquest when it came to autonomy and noble privileges+rights (esp. with the end of Transylvania as an 'independent' state), as well as the Catholic vs. Protestant tensions and the generally-poor governance in reconquered territory (after all, the switchover from Ottoman to Austrian administrations was far from an easy task). In other words, they were more akin to civil wars (see Kuruc vs. Labanc) with a mix of a Noblemen's and religious revolt. Meanwhile, the 1848 Revolution was also more like a civil war (as revolutions tend to be) and was so much more complicated than a mere anti-Austrian revolt.

If the Hapsburgs had abolished the rights Hungarian nobility and implemented universal suffrage, then the Magyarization that happened in OTL would be butterflied away. I think the Hapsburgs would have wanted to avoid doing that but if the nobility forces their hand by launching a rebellion, anything can happen.

Now the empire may end up looking like a version of the Ottoman empire with one ethnic group have supremacy over other ethnic groups. However nationalism would still become a problem and we might still see something like the Dual Monarchy as a way to preserve the empire against the tide of nationalism. Instead of the Austrians sharing power with the Hungarians, it would be the Slavs in the empire. ALL of the Slavs. Maybe in this timeline Austroslavism would have a chance of preserving the empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Slavism

You are aware that the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary adopted universal male suffrage in 1906, right? You'll need butterflies to apply it not only earlier, but throughout the Empire. Remember that if you want to weaken the Hungarian nobility, then the nobilities of the other crownlands (esp. Austria proper) need to be weaken as well.

Austroslavism was just as likely, if not less likely, to succeed in the long term as Dualism with the Magyars. First of all, the Slavs of the Empire were far from united. After all, there's a reason why the Austrians negotiated with the Hungarians only: They make a stronger power bloc on their own than the Czechs, Poles, or Southern Slavs on their own.

In my opinion, the Austrians should've negotiated a federal model by bringing the Hungarian and Austroslavic liberals together instead of pushing them apart. Of course, they didn't since the Austrians wanted to limit decentralisation and keep Vienna relatively strong. Hindsight, though, and I'm straying away from OP's question.

An Austria with Silesia and Bavaria is an Austria that dominates Germany, more so when they have Belgium still rather than Venetia-Lombardy, this means they don't need to bend over to the demands of the minorities.

This, in my opinion, is unlikely (except the part about Venetia, that is definitely something to consider). I seriously doubt that the conquered Bavarians and the other German states are going to make it easy for the Austrians to maintain what, like I said earlier, was untenable. I believe Vienna would be even more dependent on the minorities in order to keep the Bavarians subjugated and any resurgent Prussia/Northern Germany at bay.

In such a situation, how plausible is it that Austria wins out in the internal struggles with Hungary? During a Hungarian revolt, could they have broken the power of the Hungarian Kingdom, dividing it up into smaller principalities? Could they have flooded it with more German settlers to the major cities, eventually leading to German becoming the primary language?

Chances of victory: Very good for the Austrians unless external forces take advantage, which puts them at a massive disadvantage.
Could they have broken the power of the Nobility? No. Not before the Austrian nobility herself is weakened as well. Destroying the Hungarian nobility would be tantamount to Radicalism. You need a much different Austria for that (which might even butterfly a Hungarian revolution away).
Could they have partitioned Hungary? They did iOTL and it failed miserably.

Hungary1850.png


After 1848, Hungary was divided, as the map shows, into five Military district while Transylvania, Croatia, Slavonia and the Military Frontier had their autonomy restored (directly under Vienna this time) with Vojvodina and the Banat formed as a new one. It failed miserably as the Hungarians, for the most part, refused to cooperate. Without much support with the Magyars, the Military occupation was untenable in the long run, weakening the Empire as a whole and partly allowed Prussia to crush her in 1866.

Could they have flooded the cities with settlers: I really don't think so. If I'm not mistaken, there was no real force to drive Germans to migrate en-masse into Hungary. After all, it was deemed better to just cross the Atlantic instead and I doubt you can turn Hungary into some kind of Land of Opportunity like you can with the New World. Especially not in the 19th century. The last big wave of German migration into the region happened directly after the Reconquest, but the social and political circumstances of the time made it possible.

I think the best you can hope for is for German to become a widespread second-language throughout the Empire, including Hungary, without replacing Hungarian as the crownland's administrative language. Or make it bilingual, which would be a really neat idea in a TL.


Also, I want to point out that a massive Austrian victory in the SYW has just-as-massive butterflies and assuming that the 19th century would be the same/similar as OTL is butterfly genocide. Case in point: The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars could go entirely differently, which would butterfly away the creation of the Austrian Empire, keeping Hungary and Bohemia effectively separate states in personal union. In other words, I believe it's more likely that an Austria that dominates the other German states by the end of the 18th century is more likely to focus on centralising the HRE and keeping the Habsburg crownlands outside of the Empire, well, outside, and maintain the personal unions instead. In that case, the Hungarian Revolution is entirely butterflied away. In that case, the main question becomes: What happens to the Czechs? Bohemia was part of the HRE, so they didn't have the same freedom and independence as the Hungarians and are then more likely to suffer from and fight back Germanisation.
 
This, in my opinion, is unlikely (except the part about Venetia, that is definitely something to consider). I seriously doubt that the conquered Bavarians and the other German states are going to make it easy for the Austrians to maintain what, like I said earlier, was untenable. I believe Vienna would be even more dependent on the minorities in order to keep the Bavarians subjugated and any resurgent Prussia/Northern Germany at bay.
Why would they need Hungarians or other minorities of all people to keep what effectively are fellow Germans under control?

In any case a Prussia that never got Silesia is a Prussia that has almost no power at all, so on that front Austria is secured as well. Such Prussia would have no major industrial ares, it would probably still be limited to Brandenburg,Pommerania and East Prussia at best, not sure why Austria would be threatend by that as if it was 1866 Prussia.


Could they have partitioned Hungary? They did iOTL and it failed miserably.
Why exactly do you call it a failure? It failed because Prussia and Italy overrun Austria and the later lost any position in Germany, it didn't exactly fail by itself.

After 1848, Hungary was divided, as the map shows, into five Military district while Transylvania, Croatia, Slavonia and the Military Frontier had their autonomy restored (directly under Vienna this time) with Vojvodina and the Banat formed as a new one. It failed miserably as the Hungarians, for the most part, refused to cooperate. Without much support with the Magyars, the Military occupation was untenable in the long run, weakening the Empire as a whole and partly allowed Prussia to crush her in 1866.
I can see why the main kingdom of Hungary wasn't exactly stable, but I don't see why the part of the plan that included restoring direct contrl over the peripheric areas of Hungary can be called a failure, ideally the Austrians could do something similar but expand it to Fünfkirchen/Pecs, Ödenburg/Sopron and Slovakia-Ruthenia as well. In such areas the Hungarian nobilty has not exactly the strongest hold on power considering the ethnic situation.

The occupation was untenable because by 1867 Austria lost control of the German states, effectively making Cislethania and the German population the only strictly loyal population(and that was a fifth of the population, let's say a bit more of a third adding the Czech), but the entire point of this scenario is to see what Austria would do with Silesia and Bavaria(and Belgium I guess)

Could they have flooded the cities with settlers: I really don't think so. If I'm not mistaken, there was no real force to drive Germans to migrate en-masse into Hungary. After all, it was deemed better to just cross the Atlantic instead and I doubt you can turn Hungary into some kind of Land of Opportunity like you can with the New World. Especially not in the 19th century. The last big wave of German migration into the region happened directly after the Reconquest, but the social and political circumstances of the time made it possible.
Not exactly flooding but like the Prussians did with Posen/Poznan in the 18th and 19th centuries you can have German settlers settle some fringe areas or adminstrative centers.
Even without big migration, cities like Bratislava and Budapest had a German majority than can be maintained given a butterflied Magyarization.

I think the best you can hope for is for German to become a widespread second-language throughout the Empire, including Hungary, without replacing Hungarian as the crownland's administrative language. Or make it bilingual, which would be a really neat idea in a TL.
Hungarian can maybe remain the administrative language(or co-official) in a smaller core Hungary but I doubt in any scenario where Austria actively is trying to Germanize Hungary that the whole kingdom of Hungary is going to survive as a primary Hungarian state when Hungarian are a minority/plurality in it. Hungarian is not going to have any privileged position IMO, it either would be accepted or oppressed as other minorities are in general.

Also, I want to point out that a massive Austrian victory in the SYW has just-as-massive butterflies and assuming that the 19th century would be the same/similar as OTL is butterfly genocide. Case in point: The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars could go entirely differently, which would butterfly away the creation of the Austrian Empire, keeping Hungary and Bohemia effectively separate states in personal union.
This assumes that OTL was the only way that Austria would centralize, and that seems highly unlikely to me.

In other words, I believe it's more likely that an Austria that dominates the other German states by the end of the 18th century is more likely to focus on centralising the HRE and keeping the Habsburg crownlands outside of the Empire, well, outside, and maintain the personal unions instead.
I can see Austria trying to juggle between both, there is little reason in trying to centralize the HRE under Vienna when the backyard of Vienna(Hungary) is left as a potentially breakaway state, but I'm starting from the assumptions that most societal trends like the growth of nationalism are going to happen in some form or another in most scenarios, it's debatable but I don't feel like it's important to discuss that right now.
 
Hardly can you make Germany the primary language, if that means majority, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility of it becoming plurality through various means(after all even Hungarian was only a plurality in its kingdom).

Yeah I agree with this. I should add that Austria wasn't interested in Germanizing the whole country, but making the Hungarian nobles more supportive and complementary to Hapsbrug power was on the agenda.
 
Yeah I agree with this. I should add that Austria wasn't interested in Germanizing the whole country, but making the Hungarian nobles more supportive and complementary to Hapsbrug power was on the agenda.
Yes, an Emperor even if juggling with German nationalism hardly wants the same thing as German nationalist and liberals want.
 
The point about different types of Austria are interesting. Bavaria had a major liberal movement, which could strengthen Joseph II's popular support in this timeline. A more liberal German nationalism.
 
The point about different types of Austria are interesting. Bavaria had a major liberal movement, which could strengthen Joseph II's popular support in this timeline. A more liberal German nationalism.
Technically German nationalism was in its first wave liberal until Bismark and the more nobility-centred nationalism was the driving force.
 
So, Austria is regaining Silesia in 1763 instead of retaining it in the first place in 1748. So this is achieved in conjunction with France and Russia instead of Britain. This, I think, is important because not only is Austria beholden to the Hungarians (and thus must give them a fair amount of space), but also to France and Russia. Austria will have to tread carefully because this is not going to be smooth sailing.

Russia wins big against Poland and the Ottomans. What is Austria to do? France can't be much help. Britain certainly won't help. There's no powerful Prussia to mediate. Austria and Germany will soon be on the defensive against Russia much as they were against France previously. With this state of affairs Austria is unlikely to annex Bavaria or extend its influence in Germany effectively for the rest of the century.
 
The idea is an interesting one but I think you have too late of a date. Hungarian elites provided the bulk of Maria Theresa's armies and finances during the Succession and were rewarded with privileges and great wealth; neither had a reason to break faith. Josef II was all over the place and seemed t lack the attention span needed to focus on one problem or region, so no real luck there. By the time of the Hungarian revolution in 1848 the idea of successfully germanising half the Monarchy was well and truly dead. So if your goal is germanisation you have to go back much farther. However, if the goal is braking up the Magyar dominance that's much more doable in the 19th/early 20th century.

Now I'm going to assume that Germanisation is the goal here. In that case you should look at the reign of Josef I, Karl VI's brother and Maria Theresa's uncle. The man was basically the Habsburg version of the Sun King, a proto German nationalist and could have completely changes the face of the Empire had he lived longer. His reign coincided with the Spanish Succession war and Rákóczi's War of Independence, the last major Hungarian uprising before 1848. You could have Josef live longer and not make peace with the Hungarians: OTL he signed a ceasfire but a peace treaty wasn't negotiated until the accession of his brother Karl later in the year. So have the war continue until the Spanish succession ends (it was winding down by 1711, with the electoral victory of the pro-peace Tories in Britain, and would probably still end in 1713, regardless of Josef I's survival) and frees up resources for Hungary. You could have the veteran Habsburg army crush the Hungarians, cease major estates across the Kingdom and hand them out to German settlers. Not sure if that's realistic or not but I know that Hungary was depopulated during this era and settlers were brought in from other parts of the Habsburg realms, so it could be possible.

One other thing for this idea: Emperor Josef I sequestered a number of states whose Princes had sided with the French. These included Mantua, Montferrat, Mirandola, Cologne and Bavaria. At the end of the war the Italian fiefs were annexed directly to Austria while the German states saw their Princes restored. Here is the part I found interesting: after Bavaria was sequestered Emperor Josef gave Upper Bavaria to his uncle the Elector Palatine, keeping lower Bavaria under imperial occupation. reading between the lines it's pretty obvious Josef intended to annex the rest of Bavaria to the Monarchy. I actually did a threat on this topic a few months back if your interested but anyway something with Josef I could give you everything you want: Austria with Silesia and Bavaria Germanising Hungary.
 
"Without much support with the Magyars, the Military occupation was untenable in the long run, weakening the Empire as a whole and partly allowed Prussia to crush her in 1866."

Remember this if you want a PoD for the Prussian-German war.
 
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