Quick TL: A liberal and anti-Nationalist Mitteleuropa

Background

When the Great War broke out at the end of 1914, the German concerns regarding fighting a war with two fronts (East against Russia, West against France) were very serious, until they were quickly dissipated when the Russian Empire, after several defeats in East Prussia and Galizia, started to be devoured by a wave of strong popular discontent which led to a period of different revolutions between 1915 and 1917, and a prolonged state of civil war between the White Republicans and Lenin’s Bolsheviks. The Central Powers occupied Congress Poland permanently, but they did not intervene in the Russian Civil War at its first stage.

The virtual withdrawal of the Russians from the War by 1915 allowed Germany to focus on the West front while Austria & Hungary were fighting the Italians in the Adriatic and the Serbs in the Balkans, with the helpful support of Bulgaria. Despite the insistent British pleas, the United States, following their policies of international isolationism, refused to intervene in the Great War as long as the Central Powers did not harm their international interests. The United Kingdom occupied, one by one, all the badly protected German colonies in Africa and Asia, but could not help France to avoid German invasion in 1916, while Austria & Hungary also invaded Northern Italy with German help right afterwards.

In 1917, realizing that there was no way to win the War in the continent without the Russian or the American involvement, the United Kingdom accepted the negotiation of a treaty of peace with the Central Powers if they compromised to liberate both France and Belgium.

The Central Powers and the United Kingdom agreed on a ceasefire to be enforced from 1st December 1917 and negotiated the terms of the Treaty of Calais, which would put an end to the Great War in the West. This Treaty, signed by both parts in March 1918, established the following points:

* From the Central Powers, they compromised to:


- Liberate most of France, excepting a wide buffer area comprising from Calais to Nice. The cities of Paris and Lyon would be divided between a Central Powers’ joint administration and a Free France’s/UK administration, while the area of Calais would be declared ‘international zone’ under common administration of the powers from both sides.

- The status of the occupied areas (French buffer and Northern Italy) would be reviewed after 25 years (in 1943).

- Liberate Belgium, restore its formal independence and withdraw all the troops from there. This had to be enforced immediately after the Treaty signature.

- Liberate Serbia, Montenegro and Albania before 1930.

- Cede all the German colonies in Africa and Asia to the United Kingdom (they were actually occupied by British forces) and abandon any colonial project outside Europe.

- No economic reparations would be claimed.



* From the United Kingdom, it compromised to:


- Accept the creation of Mitteleuropa, a new international organization controlled by the Central Powers which would administrate the occupied areas in France and Italy for 25 years, as well as it would establish a new economic, trading and security model in Central Europe, tied to German/Austrian interests.

- Accept the administration of the occupied areas in the French buffer and Northern Italy by Mitteleuropa for the following 25 years.

- Accept the incorporation of Romania and Belgium to Mitteleuropa; in the later case, its pre-War neutrality would be officially revoked. Accept other continental states incorporations ‘if they do it by their own interests’ (however, Norway was explicitly vetoed by the UK).

- Recognize the new borders of Romania (it had annexed Bessarabia after Bulgaria incorporated the Romanian Dobrudja) and Bulgaria (including all Macedonia and Dobrudja).

- Withdraw any British involvement in the Russian Civil War.

- No economic reparations would be claimed.

Once the Great War was over in the West and in the Balkans, the Central Powers launched a large-scale invasion of the ravaged western Russia and Ukraine. The White-controlled areas fell under the military occupation, but the Bolsheviks managed to halt the German advance towards Moscow (Saint Petersburg had been occupied though). A fragile ceasefire was agreed between the Central Powers and the Bolsheviks in the autumn of 1919 and the Bursow-Klimensky line was then fixed as an unofficial border between the former Russian territories now occupied by the Central Powers and the newly created Soviet Republic of Russia.

With the Great War also deactivated in the East (though not officially ended), the Central Powers demobilized their armies (excepting the ordinaty garrisons assigned to the administration of the occupied territories) and focused on the reorganization of their newly acquired political, economic and military sphere.

The first Mitteleuropa organization was topped by the German Empire, the Empire of Austria & Hungary and the Tsardom of Bulgaria, as the victorious powers after the Great War. Under their common influence, there were two kind of ‘associated’ members: the ones still militarily occupied by the Powers (Serbia, Montenegro and Albania) and the ‘free’ states, which in reality all of them were either explicitly forced to join by the peace treaties (Belgium and Romania) or more subtly coerced to join (the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Denmark joined between 1919 and 1924).

It was expected that the new countries to be formed out from the area conquered from Russia (Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine…) would also join Mitteleuropa in the future, but the chaotic situation caused there by the Russian Civil War and its aftermath prevented it for many years after the end of the Great War. The first Mitteleuropa was officially in charge of the administration of the occupied territories in France, Italy and Russia, even if de facto Germany administered the occupied France, Austria & Hungary the occupied Italy and the two Powers the occupied Russia together.

However, the first years of relative peace in the continent will prove that the authoritarian model imposed by the German leaders to the rest of members of Mitteleuropa would not work. The economic prosperity brought by the post-war industrial boom was not matched by the conquest of more political and social freedom and the level of frustration gradually rose in the emerging urban middle-classes across the Mitteleuropa sphere.


* Map of Mitteleuropa in 1925:

Mittel_00.png


Red: Areas occupied by Germany.
Dark purple: Countries and areas occupied by A & H.
Light purple: 'Free' associated members.
Dark green: Areas annexed by Bulgaria.
 
Honestly it's seem neither liberal or anti-nationalist, just your (and i mean your personal as frankly every scenario that you create go down to this almost exact map) usual germanwank scenario were the UK accept eternal control by the mighty Germany of the European continent included Belgium, for shit and giggle.
 
how is this alliance liberal or anti-nationalist by any means though?
It is just the beginning of the TL.
In theory something push political liberal(or economical liberal) both are far different beast, but ironically i can see it more nationalist, the polish and ukranians will push for an own identity and avoid issues with SU and not become germans, ditto the remainder balkans but more peaceful
 
CHAPTER 1: THE WEAKEST LINK


The aftermath of the Great War greatly favoured the ruling elites of the German Empire, as well as its industry and commerce, despite the loss of the colonies. However, the other big 'Central Power', the Empire of Austria & Hungary, quickly resumed their long-lasting internal conflicts which handicapped their blooming industrial development.

As soon as in 1921, Emperor Charles I tried to promote a deep reformation of the Empire in order to implement a federalist model inspired in its German neighbour, but the 'ethnic lobbies' (i.e. the Czechs) were actually pushing for the recognition of their nation states 'inside the sphere of Mitteleuropa'. The German Empire feared the breakout of nationalistic conflicts in their Imperial neighbour which could damage the construction of their continental project, so they launched an interventionist policy in order to discourage the diverse Austrian-Hungarian ethnic groups to pursue the creation of their own nation states, under the threat of being excluded from the Mitteleuropean 'sphere of prosperity'.

220px-Charles_I_of_Austria.jpg


The last Austrian Emperor, Charles I.

This German interventionism was not welcome by the most liberal factions of the urban mid-to-high classes of Vienna and other cities. These wealthy classes were very upset on the German-fabricated false dilemma of either embracing German interventionism or accepting the disgregation of the Empire. Republican, anti-Habsburg movements started to arise with some strength by 1923, when it became excessively obvious that Charles I and some monarchist politicians were acting under the agenda of Berlin. The Emperor and his political allies were increasingly questioned to the point that the German chancelor, Paul von Hindenburg publicly called for a 'common answer to the Austrian problem' in a Mitteleuropean summit in Maastricht (November 1925). Shortly after, in January 1926, the First Republic of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in Prague, but the German diplomacy managed to bringing it down.

During the spring of 1926, Germany secretly offered to Charles I to replace the Empire by a sort of confederation where he could retain their titles, at least at symbolical level. Charles I refused the offer, but this was maliciously manipulated and leaked to several newspapers. The public outrage against Charles I was difficult to appease and the political situation inside the Empire became unsustainable by the summer. Fearing of his own safety, on August 10th the Emperor moved to the Wittelsbachs court in Munich, but refused to abdicate. After the departure of the Emperor and the subsequently vacuum of power, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia-Moravia proclaimed their own independent states during the month of September.

Once again, the German intervention imposed a different solution in order to avoid a large-scale interethnic conflict in its backyard. Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia-Moravia (any reference to 'Czech' in the name was forbidden) accepted a confederal formula with the rump Austrian territories (German Austria, Slovenia, Dalmatia, Galizia and Bosnia-Herzegovina), the new Confederation of the Danube. Charles I would not rule the three new states anymore as Emperor, but would be the President of the Confederation instead. Charles I furiously refused the German formula, and the day before Christmas he and his family departed again by surprise, leaving Europe and moving first to Brazil and finally to Argentina, where he would die in 1929 without having formally abdicated.

Germans then replaced Charles I by the Hungarian prime minister, Pál Teleki de Szék as President of the fictious Confederation. This move intentionally made the German Austrians very angry; the purpose of Hindenburg was providing excuses to the German Austrian nationalists to demand the annexation to the German Empire and leave the Confederation only for non-German groups. But the consequences would be very different from those expected ones.
 
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CHAPTER 2: MODELLING A NEW EUROPE


The dissolution of the Habsburgs Empire finally triggered the pending reorganization of the Mitteleuropa sphere. The German Empire consolidated his undisputed condition of central power inside the Central European commonwealth, but this also required to invest more efforts in controlling countries previously under the Austrian area of influence.

The model of the Confederation of the Danube, led by Hungary since 1927, was successfully replicated in the south with the sister Confederation of the Balkans, led by loyal Bulgaria, which comprised Romania and the recently liberated (even if only formally) states of Serbia, Montenegro and Albania. The two Confederations were indeed loose associations inside Mitteleuropa which helped the Germans to better surveillance these regions.

In the East, Hindenburg scrapped the original idea of implementing unpopular monarchies tied to the Kaiser overlordship and promoted the creation of 'Protectorates' under (officially) the joint sovereignty of the Mitteleuropean countries (even if they were controlled basically by Germany alone). Thanks to the dissolution of the Austrian realm (which even closed the Cisleithanian parliament after in late 1926), Germany detached Galizia from the Confederation of the Danube and created the Protectorate of Poland there, along with the former Congress Poland and some other Russian territories. The capital was moved to Cracow, were many ethnic Germans lived at that moment, because the administration of the Protectorate was widely barred to ethnic Poles. Bukovina was not included in Poland, but annexed to Romania in 1928.

In 1929, new Protectorates were created in Ukraine, Lithuania and the Latvian/Estonian Baltic. Hindenburg decided to create a new one for the administration of occupied Saint Petersburg, the Protectorate of Ingria, in 1930, something which enraged the Soviet Russian Republic (a power technically still at war with Mitteleuropa). Bolsheviks have made their minds about the loss of the Baltic, Poland and Ukraine, but aimed to recover the area of Saint Petersburg, where many White Russians had shelter under the German protection. In the vicinity, many Baltic German elites had moved to the new and magnificent residential city built around the palace of Oranienbaum, so the administration of the Protectorate of Ingria was established in this new city next to Saint Petersburg.

Regarding the remainders of Austria, in 1929 the Confederation of the Danube put the territories of Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina under the common sovereignty of Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia-Moravia. Croatia, declared free state that year (until then, Charles I was considered absent King in Croatia), was pushing for the formal annexation of both Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, but Germany did not want to trigger new interethnical conflicts with neighbouring Serbia and Montenegro.

Austria proper (the German Austria, including Slovenia and Tyrol) was reduced to an unorganized sum of the former crownlands, ruled from the capital cities of each crownland, but without an effective common government. From an official consideration, it was still 'the Empire of Austria', but without Emperor or even Austrian ministers; the Austrian representatives in the Confederation were appointed directly by the Social-Democrat mayor of Vienna and the officers of the former Imperial army had been transferred to the new joint Confedeal Army, with headquartes in Fünfkirchen (Hungary). However, this vacuum of power will not last for long, as the Austrian people were ready for getting the political initiative again.

Map of Mitteleuropa in 1930

Mittel_10.png


Pink: Confederation of the Danube
Purple: Confederation of the Balkans
Dark blue: Eastern Protectorates
Red: Occupied territories
Pale yellow: Other Mitteleuropean members
 
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