Poll: During which era did Austria/Austria-Hungary become impotent as a great power?

During which era did Austria/Austria-Hungary become impotent as a great power?


  • Total voters
    176
Mind I wouldnt call Austria impotent but one must admit that its relative strength to the other GP's decreased significantly after 1867-71. It was than that embracing nationalism became the norm and adopting prussian style mass armies became a must. Those were the 2 things that severely disadvantaged Austria with the added benefit of the Hungarian side of the Empire refusing to found the already disadvantaged army.
 
If Austria regain Silesia it radical changed the entire demography of the Austrian Empire. Let take the last Austrian census the population there increase from 51 to 56 millions. The German population of Austria increases from 12millions to 16 millions, while the Polish population increase from 5 to 6 millions. This ignore the fact that if Austria win in 1866, Austria stay Austria instead of becoming Austria-Hungary. That would mean no Magyarization policy, which would mean at least Bratislava stay a German speaking city, we likely see German majorities in Backa and Banat. The Hungarian Jews would adopt German instead of becoming Hungarian speaking that alone would raise the number of German of the empire by a million people. Budapest itself could very well have ended up German speaking a quarter of the population was Jews. So let’s say that without Magyarization we roughly get a million German more. This bring the Germans of Austria up to 18 million or slightly below one third of the population.

Those are pipe dreams. Bratislava was about a third german. The Banat had a significant german populace but not a majority and the Bacska barely had any to begin with. Also if you propose a centralised empire that completly disbands Hungary as a state that will mean that the hungarians wont cooperate - just like the czech did refuse after a while OTL. So for about 4 million added germans (according to your not thrustworthy calculations) you can rely on you antagonized about twice that number of hungarians. The czech will be even more antagonistic. OTL even their nationalists supported Austria for a time because it helped to keep them out of a unified Germany.
And just to add one last point: its hard to imagine that this Austria would have any kind of pairlament that could work. The germans will be a minority if the hungarians and czech decide to send delegates.

The army will still consist mostly of non german units who wont be to loyal to the empire and in a great war would be just as week as the foundations of the empire are even more shakey than OTL.
 
Mind I wouldnt call Austria impotent but one must admit that its relative strength to the other GP's decreased significantly after 1867-71. It was than that embracing nationalism became the norm and adopting prussian style mass armies became a must. Those were the 2 things that severely disadvantaged Austria with the added benefit of the Hungarian side of the Empire refusing to found the already disadvantaged army.
Eh Austria embraced the mass army without too much difficulty. Conscription was in full force and units were formed on a linguistic basis with German as the command language (minimizing the effect of AH's diversity). The Empire's real military weakness was underfunding. Pre-war funding after all determined how modern the artillery was, how fast the trains moved, how many people were conscripted, and the size of the pre war officer corps.
 
Eh Austria embraced the mass army without too much difficulty. Conscription was in full force and units were formed on a linguistic basis with German as the command language (minimizing the effect of AH's diversity). The Empire's real military weakness was underfunding. Pre-war funding after all determined how modern the artillery was, how fast the trains moved, how many people were conscripted, and the size of the pre war officer corps.

Yes the too small officer corps was a huge problem. During the war when you had to find officers to the enormously swollen army and substitute for the casualties the language barrier became a problem. Multinationality also affected the troops loyalty and the leaderships view of the troops (and nationalities) as disloyal which actually helped to turn them disloyal. See the czech troops during the war. There were other problems as well for example war refugee's. In germany refugee's from East Prussia were helped and accepted by the other parts of the country. Ukrainian and polish refugees were not allowed to enter Hungary and were received with hostility in Vienna and other parts of Austria. What I mean is Austria not beinga nation state at the height of nationalism heavily disadvantaged Austria especially when they had to rely on a mass army while they felt (in some cases justly) that they cant rely on the masses. Proper founding, better doctrine and especially a much bigger officer corps among others would have helped immensly. But in the end it would still be disandvantaged comapred to nation states. This doesnt mean that this disadvantage couldnt be owercome but Austria was very far from it.
 
Multinationality also affected the troops loyalty and the leaderships view of the troops (and nationalities) as disloyal which actually helped to turn them disloyal. See the czech troops during the war.
Generally I agree, but seeing as how many the most dramatic mutinies and defections coincided with military disasters I think a better performing army would mitigate even this to some extent.
 
Eh Austria embraced the mass army without too much difficulty. Conscription was in full force and units were formed on a linguistic basis with German as the command language (minimizing the effect of AH's diversity). The Empire's real military weakness was underfunding. Pre-war funding after all determined how modern the artillery was, how fast the trains moved, how many people were conscripted, and the size of the pre war officer corps.
Well the only nation that a lower mobilization rate at the start of ww1 was Russia but it was probably more to do whith how under funded the army was then agenst any mass army.
 
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