I guess Bohemia-Moravia gets Kingdom status under personal union of the Kaiser, with their own parlament and lenguage autonomy. And Slovenia maybe gets autonomous pronoce/duchy status but still under the Kingdom of Austria (I guess now that Austria is part of the german empire, the Habsburg emperor would downgrade Austria to Kingdom to show equallity with Prussia and that he is first German emperor and then austria King).
Status of Czechia and Slovenia in a Habsburg lead Greater German Empire?
- Thread starter EnvarKadri
- Start date
Is this the boundaries of the German Confederation or is this the giant version of "Germany" that the Habsburgs wanted?
Most unlike Bohemia-Moravia, the lands populated by ethnic Slovenes were never unified in a single territory. Arguably Slovenia only came about after the Second World War with the formation of the Slovenian republic within Yugoslavia. There were areas, like Carniola, where Slovenes were the overwhelming majority of the population, but most Slovenes did not live in such territories but rather lived mixed with Germans (Carinthia, Styria) and Italians (the Coastland, Istria).
I guess it would include cisleithenia minus lombardy-venetia, dalmatia and galicia-lodomeria. As for the rest of the german states all of their territories would be included. No idea about Alsacia Lorena and Luxemburg.
I don't think either Bohemia-Moravia nor Slovenia would get any autonomy, they would be ruled like Posen and all the other Polish territories were under the German Empire, potentially with no resettlement programs or same kind of discrimination but with assimilation programs.
Admnistratively Slovenians would be divided in various provinces while Bohemia-Moravia could be one or 2 provinces and Czechs mostly living in those 2.
Admnistratively Slovenians would be divided in various provinces while Bohemia-Moravia could be one or 2 provinces and Czechs mostly living in those 2.
The Habsburgs would consider Bohemia-Moravia and Slovenia as German entities, though Bohemia- Moravia might get autonomy (but also might not, since that could be seen as betraying the German speaking minority). Slovenia is situated in what Austria considered core Austria so no luck for them. Czech and Slovene national awakenings would still happen, so things would be very tense in these areas.
If anything I'd think the Czechs would be more prone to be assimilate identity-wise considering their position while Slovenians would be like Poles, rural and peripherical.
Why is Slovenia core Austria territory? Economically it really isn't and strategically outside the Littoral is not a pressing territory either and AFAIK pretty rugged terrain and rural as well.
This map kinda shows its peripherical position despite long ties to the Austrian monarchy:
The difference are that the Czech already had a rather developed national identity even before their national awakening, while the Slovenians hadn’t. They had been treated like any other Austrians for a millennium, while the Czech thanks to the political structure of Bohemia had been treated different. The Poles are also a bad comparison as a strong Polish identity already existed
It’s core part of the Austria, because it have been in union with the rest of Austria for so long. You could just as well ask why Styria or Carinthia was core parts of Austria.
Assuming that this Habsburg empire doesn't get curb-stomped in a future World War (always possible) I don't see Czechia becoming independent or even having a particularly strong independence movement - German nationalists definitely aren't going to allow them to take the Sudetenland with them, and leaving it behind would put the country in an untenable position. I can imagine considerable autonomy being granted to the entire Kingdom of Bohemia-Moravia, as this version of the German Empire is likely to be even more decentralized than IOTL.
Strange, why does Prussia get to keep its land outside of the German Confederation but not Austria?
Anyways as others have stated Bohemia probably gets a fair amount of autonomy.
The Slovene national awakening is already underway so I don't see them being assimilated. However, like Lusatia, I don't see it gaining any formal autonomy despite their distinct and geographically contiguous culture. Unless of course this Germany's constitution had some goofy provision that would make that desirable for cynical reasons (like if there was some sort of representative body where each member kingdom got one vote, in which case a Slovene kingdom would increase the Habsburg vote by 50%).
This doesn't really matter as Slovenians were already developing an identity as well and the Czechs weren't really that "developed" as they also experienced similar things to many other nationalities during the late18th and 19th century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_National_Revival
I'm not sure how much the different political structure matters, if anything Bohemia was ruled pretty strictly during the 17 and 18th century.
Well ruled 2 centuries more than Bohemia, but I don't think that's really what makes something a core territory.
Also yes, I would say both Styria and Carinthia are not core territories of the Austrian state, even if just taking Cislethania in consideration, the core of the Austrian states was "always" the Danube valley, Pannoia, Czechia and Slovakia.
Prussian territory had a large portion of Germans and a relatively small amount of minorities, a relevant portion of which was still Protestant, in this case Austria could probably take Ödenburg/Sopron and Preßburg/Bratislava and push the border eastwards but even the territory inside the Gemran confederation have a lot of non-Germans. The 2 situations are not comparable for this reason.
But why would Bohemia get autonomy over Slovenians? There are substantial amounts of Germans in the region(1/3 of the population), the religion is catholic and the area is a core industrial and economical regions surrounded by German land.
The Prussia territories beyond the borders of the GC contained many large swathes of Polish majority land. Sure it's not the same situation as Austria's but I doubt the Habsburgs would willing give their arch rivals any sort of leg up.
Because they're already a kingdom and that's how OTL's German Empire worked. I don't think it'd get special treatment, only whatever rights this Habsburg German Empire accords to its federal subjects.
In contrast "Slovenia" was a part of the Archduchy of Austria.
Where as Bavaria was 100% German, yet it still received broad autonomy within the Second Reich.
There is no large territory in the Austrian Empire outside the GC that had the same amounts of Germans as even the most Polish provinces in Prussia(Posen) did, it's completely different and I think that the Austrians can feasibly only take part of the territory and make the rest part of a parallel Hapsburg branch or a vassal state.
But the monarch of Bohemia-Moravia would remain the same as the one of Austria, in the German empire that was never the case, if anythign I think the Austrians would handle their internal territories like the Prussians did and not make them formally distinct.
Bavaria got autonomy because it was ruled by another king and had to be convinced to become part of the empire, Bohemia doesn't.
Yeah, but it's not about being fair it's about punishing a rival, and the borders of the GC provide a legal means to do just that.
So why then are we assuming that "there's no OTL comparison" translates into "no".
Entirely possible, but that would depend on the details of the German constitution, as I mentioned earlier, depending on it, there could be benefits to having multiple separate crowns.
Why Northern Ireland and not Wales/Scotland or Vasconia and not Galicia? Even within the UK and Spain you have the example of relaltively large minorities not exactly going full terrorism or insurgence.
They really don't, if anything the Austrian would seek to dismantle Prussian Western territories which had to some extent separatist tendencies(at least the Catholic Rhinelanders) rather than purposefully make your future country smaller for no reason at all and for no gain at all considering you are removing what is already mostly rural land which problematic minorities which would benefit Prussia less than the industrial and urban Ruhr-Rhine region.