The future of Austria-Hungary without WWI

I'm really struggling to find a way to save Austria from a major depression, but I'm open to hear your opinion and suggestions.

Then it sounds as if A-H may survive until something fractures it between Austria and Hungary, anything ranging from the losses of WW1 to the Great depression, that stress breaks it into an independent Hungary and the "Austrian" part disintegrates? Perhaps the Slovenes, Croats and Bosnia, maybe Dalmatian coast, all spin out to form a Southern Slav "Kingdom" (maybe uniting with Serbia or not). So the Slovaks and Romanians are not struggling for independence in Hungary? Or have enough "rights" to assimilate? And thank you for a Hungarian perspective on the thing.
 

Deleted member 94680

I would think that anything that causes the "Austrian minorities" to agitate for independence would also cause the "Hungarian minorities" to do likewise.
 
God damnit. The forum ate my reply. Let's try again.

@Fehérvári

My only issue with your interpretation, which I pretty much agree with, is that you're ignoring the terrible political situation in Hungary before the war. While I argue that the power of the Hungarian oligarchs is too often overstated and, more importantly, not representative of public opinion at the time (a recent invention anyways), they still very much dominated the Hungarian government at the time.

The big problem there is, of course, the limited electorate. The small suffrage kept power in the hands of the pro-Habsburg Liberals and the Nationalist Opposition and kept away a huge percentage of the population out of political life. Plus, they were growing increasingly conservative and even reactionary by 1914 as the period of massive growth was slowing down. After all, how many reforms did the Hungarian government pass after 1880 or 1890? In my opinion, the Oligarchs could not possibly hold onto power without reforms, including social reforms and, more importantly, expanded suffrage. There was no way they could keep the growing Left down. iOTL, this only exploded in 1919 but without war in 1914, who knows.

About Austria: just like Hungary, it needed reforms and it was well underway by 1914. The suffrage reforms were part in a serious experiment at democraticising Cisleithania and while they seemed worthless at a first glance, democracy takes time to take root and I seriously believe that it was starting to happeb even by 1914. For example, the Ukrainians and Jews of Galicia had allied together to fight the corruption and Polish-dominance of the crownland, an unlikely alliance considering the region's history with pogroms and the myth of the Habsburgs playing ethnicities against others. I believe, although it needed at least a couple of years to start happening, that a stable and democratically-elected coalition in the Reichsrat was going to be possible. It all depends on how well the different ethnicities can work together or how the political movements can create such an interethnic movement. After all, serious solutions on the 'minority question' were being formulated at the time throughout the political spectrum, only to be interrupted by the War.

Honestly, war being avoided in 1914 has so many butterflies for both halves of the Empire.
 
Then it sounds as if A-H may survive until something fractures it between Austria and Hungary, anything ranging from the losses of WW1 to the Great depression, that stress breaks it into an independent Hungary and the "Austrian" part disintegrates?
Well, we are discussing a sceniario when the Great War doesn't occur, thus the Great Depression doesn't take place either. So we have to look for other possibilities, if we want to save, desintegrate, split, smash or whatever the Monarchy. But if the July crisis still happens, we have definately more time until such problems spiral out of control.
If something breaks up the Monarchy internally, it is most probably an Austro-Hungarian breakup spiraling out of control, but in my opinion, in the end Austria and Hungary would always reach an agreement between them, since the external political environment would extremely menacing, you know... Russia. I think the breakup betwen Austria and Hungary is possible only if there's no Russia to worry about. We can play with the idea, when and how could we eliminate this menace.

But after the death of Franz Josef, what if somehow Austria becomes part of Germany, leaving Hungary with Galicia, Dalmatia and Bosnia?
Perhaps the Slovenes, Croats and Bosnia, maybe Dalmatian coast, all spin out to form a Southern Slav "Kingdom" (maybe uniting with Serbia or not). So the Slovaks and Romanians are not struggling for independence in Hungary? Or have enough "rights" to assimilate?
Desintagration would affect both Hungarian and Austrian economy pretty badly, so such a break could turn into a range of violent rebelions and/or revolutions, so it is also possible, but I doubt they would join Serbia, the Croats might even go to war with the Serbs or vice versa as a showdown between the Serb-lead yugoslavism and the Croat-lead Illyrism. Austria and Hungary might exploit from these differences.
Slovaks were quite ambivalent on these matters, since they were torn into three or four faction on this topic. Some embraced the idea of an union between Czech, Moravian and Slovak lands (Czechoslovakia), some wanted an independent Slovak nation-state, while some just wanted territorial autonomy inside Hungary, and there were the uninterested ones as well.
Romanians are a tougher subject, since there was a relatively high nationalist-separatist sense among them, but they could achieve something only if Hungary turns into a very serious turmoil, which is already a less likely sceniario.
Many of the minorities would not assimilate, I'm pretty sure about that, but their proportion would shrink compared to total population. That means most of the rural Romanian populated areas would remain Romanian, so assimilation is not the best description of this process. Maybe we could say the Hungarians "outbirth" them, thus making them less of a threat?
I would think that anything that causes the "Austrian minorities" to agitate for independence would also cause the "Hungarian minorities" to do likewise.
Ofcourse, withou doubt, but what I want to say here is that Hungary proper is much easier to hold together in such sceniario, because of the reasons, already mentioned above.
 
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God damnit. The forum ate my reply. Let's try again.

@Fehérvári

My only issue with your interpretation, which I pretty much agree with, is that you're ignoring the terrible political situation in Hungary before the war. While I argue that the power of the Hungarian oligarchs is too often overstated and, more importantly, not representative of public opinion at the time (a recent invention anyways), they still very much dominated the Hungarian government at the time.

The big problem there is, of course, the limited electorate. The small suffrage kept power in the hands of the pro-Habsburg Liberals and the Nationalist Opposition and kept away a huge percentage of the population out of political life. Plus, they were growing increasingly conservative and even reactionary by 1914 as the period of massive growth was slowing down. After all, how many reforms did the Hungarian government pass after 1880 or 1890? In my opinion, the Oligarchs could not possibly hold onto power without reforms, including social reforms and, more importantly, expanded suffrage. There was no way they could keep the growing Left down. iOTL, this only exploded in 1919 but without war in 1914, who knows.

About Austria: just like Hungary, it needed reforms and it was well underway by 1914. The suffrage reforms were part in a serious experiment at democraticising Cisleithania and while they seemed worthless at a first glance, democracy takes time to take root and I seriously believe that it was starting to happeb even by 1914. For example, the Ukrainians and Jews of Galicia had allied together to fight the corruption and Polish-dominance of the crownland, an unlikely alliance considering the region's history with pogroms and the myth of the Habsburgs playing ethnicities against others. I believe, although it needed at least a couple of years to start happening, that a stable and democratically-elected coalition in the Reichsrat was going to be possible. It all depends on how well the different ethnicities can work together or how the political movements can create such an interethnic movement. After all, serious solutions on the 'minority question' were being formulated at the time throughout the political spectrum, only to be interrupted by the War.

Honestly, war being avoided in 1914 has so many butterflies for both halves of the Empire.
I agree with you, some political reforms were indeed needed, but they wasn't that quickly needed as some might argue. I believe a long, slow, but certain reform period would take place somewhere after 1917, which could last for maybe a decade. This period would probably see some progression step-by-step, and shift the political power in favour of new powers, but we can't be sure about this, since the external factors might play in as well.
You are right about Austria as well, some moderate reforms were indeed underway, but those still didn't offer solution to the economical problems of the Austrian side, atleast according to my knowledge, feel free to educate me on this topic. :)
 
Then it sounds as if A-H may survive until something fractures it between Austria and Hungary, anything ranging from the losses of WW1 to the Great depression, that stress breaks it into an independent Hungary and the "Austrian" part disintegrates? Perhaps the Slovenes, Croats and Bosnia, maybe Dalmatian coast, all spin out to form a Southern Slav "Kingdom" (maybe uniting with Serbia or not). So the Slovaks and Romanians are not struggling for independence in Hungary? Or have enough "rights" to assimilate? And thank you for a Hungarian perspective on the thing.
Minorities in pre WW1 Hungary had always right to assimilate and even rise in Hungarian society. No minorities higher schools in Hungary were very helpful in this.

Sandor Petofi, Hungarian poet was of Slovak mother and Slovak or Serbian father. In Hungary it really paid off to assimilate.

Of course he is right that industrialization helped Minorities moving to bigger cities for jobs, without minoritie schools for their children quickly assimilated. At the end of 19th century Budapest was town with higher Slovak population in all Hungary! Over 100 000.
 
I agree with you, some political reforms were indeed needed, but they wasn't that quickly needed as some might argue. I believe a long, slow, but certain reform period would take place somewhere after 1917, which could last for maybe a decade. This period would probably see some progression step-by-step, and shift the political power in favour of new powers, but we can't be sure about this, since the external factors might play in as well.
You are right about Austria as well, some moderate reforms were indeed underway, but those still didn't offer solution to the economical problems of the Austrian side, atleast according to my knowledge, feel free to educate me on this topic. :)

Agreed. I doubt further reforms are possible while Franz Josef is on the throne. Like him or not, he only intervened in politics when there was no other option and when the debate had been done to death and only if it keeps the Monarchy together.

I also forgot to address the Austrian economy. You're right, but I have doubts about the infrastructure being a problem. I swear I read that the Austrian infrastructure itself was good except in Galicia (which is its own issue altogether). Plenty of railroads, Bohemia was well industrialised and Austria fairly so. Shipbuilding was booming in Istria, Croatia and Dalmatia, too.

Austria and Hungary badly needed to dislodge their conservatives, but who would replace them? Hungary has a history of competent Liberals and Liberalism, but not so much Austria at that point. Would the Social Democrats, whom could become of political powerhouse if thet reunited, push for the needed economic reforms or ignore them in favour of social reforms? Knowing Austro-Hungarian and Habsburg history, what is more likely is the Emperor, likely Karl or Otto's regency, appoints a moderate reformer to unite moderate SDs and Centrists.

Then, the German-speakers of Austria still have to solve their identity crisis that has been happening sincr 1866. iOTL this only happened after 1955 with Dolfuß briefly attempting it before he was shot. The Pan-German vs Austrian debate will probably last well into the 30s.
 

Deleted member 94680

I agree with you, some political reforms were indeed needed, but they wasn't that quickly needed as some might argue. I believe a long, slow, but certain reform period would take place somewhere after 1917, which could last for maybe a decade. This period would probably see some progression step-by-step, and shift the political power in favour of new powers, but we can't be sure about this, since the external factors might play in as well.
You are right about Austria as well, some moderate reforms were indeed underway, but those still didn't offer solution to the economical problems of the Austrian side, atleast according to my knowledge, feel free to educate me on this topic. :)

Maybe started during the Ausgleich negotiations scheduled for 1917?
 
Maybe started during the Ausgleich negotiations scheduled for 1917?
There's no such thing. They had a yearly commitee to decide the financial burdens of the two halves. Every ten years they renegociated the terms of the customs union, which neither wanted to get rid of anyways. The Union itself was never renegociated.
 

Deleted member 94680

There's no such thing. They had a yearly commitee to decide the financial burdens of the two halves. Every ten years they renegociated the terms of the customs union, which neither wanted to get rid of anyways. The Union itself was never renegociated.

Those are the negotiations I was referring to. I'm well aware that the Union (never heard it referred to as that before) was non-negotiable, but as part of the Ausgleich there were 10 yearly negotiations. I was implying that Kaiser Karl could push for some political concessions in return for a favourable financial agreement. That's all, nothing more.
 
Those are the negotiations I was referring to. I'm well aware that the Union (never heard it referred to as that before) was non-negotiable, but as part of the Ausgleich there were 10 yearly negotiations. I was implying that Kaiser Karl could push for some political concessions in return for a favourable financial agreement. That's all, nothing more.
I see. Sorry I misunderstood. It's just one of those myths that keep being spread.
 

BooNZ

Banned
Yes it is, there are not too many Hungarians on this forum, so I wanted to present a new perspective from our point of view.

You have.

The shift in population proportion was mainly because the urbanisation affected the Hungarians more, than most of the minorities and if minorities moved into cities they were very likely to assimilate to the overwhelming majority of Hungarians. The Jews soon integrated into the society and they considered themselves Hungarians in the first place. The Germans on the other hand were more urbanised than the Hungarians, but they still were assimilating quickly, phenomenon, which I can't explain.

Your posts are the first I have read anything positive about Magyarization and it is actually rather interesting.

You might be right, but according to my knowledge, the problems in Austria took root in deeper depths. While in Austria there was a better environment to exploit the first industrial revolution, it always struggled to adopt to the second industrial revolution.

The A-H Empire was the fourth largest manufacturer of machine tools prior to WW1, which I assume were predominately produced by Austria.

Austria ofcourse was still the dominant side in the Monarchy, but the time didn't work for them. There were a couple of reasons why the Austrian economy was lagging behind. Most of which can be explained by the political or infrastructural situation in Austria. The Emperor had a much more firm grip on the Austrian internal affairs, than on the Hungarian, which made the Austrian government more reactionary and anti-reform in nature. It hindered the establishment of ideal climate for business and made state support for enterprises less likely and I'm not even mentioned the disfunction of legislature from 1907.

Hungary may have been going through a sweet spot in terms of economic growth, but around 1900 the Austrian GDP per capita was almost twice that of Hungary. Further, Agriculture featured prominently in the Hungarian economy and in a concurrent thread on Anglo v German economies of the period, it is apparent the prominent role of agriculture in the German economy dragged down its productivity significantly compared to the UK.

Austria would continue to wear the pants in that relationship, and Hungary would continue to be 'high maintenance'.
 
the general impression one gets reading about AH society is that it was the subjects of the Magyars who were most resentful and least conciliated, whereas Bohemia for instance seems fairly easy to keep included in the Empire with just a few mild concessions.

This is a skewed picture. Or, at the very least, highly debatable.
The empire's most overwhelmingly dissatisfied and separatist community were the Serbs (who were not Hungarian subjects, for the most part). The separatist activities and tendencies of the Czechs (who were also not Hungarian subjects) were just as serious as those of any nationality under Budapest's rule...more serious, arguably. What kind of concessions would be needed to placate them, would they really be "mild", and whether Vienna would be ready to make those concessions is another question. But there is no ground to single Hungary out from the rest of the monarchy in terms of resentment and potential for future conflicts.

That's not to say that everything was fine and dandy in Hungary. Just a few months before the start of WWI someone blew up the Vicar of Hajdudorog. The minorities resented Hungarian assimilation measures and administrative monopoly, domination of the aristocracy over the countryside, the restricted political system...and judging by the Hajdudorog incident, things were escalating. On the other hand, many of those problems also existed in the other Habsburg domains, and Budapest did show some willingness to compromise. On the other other hand, the Kingdom of Romania is going to get a massive boost in prestige and attractiveness after 1915 or so, and will be leaving the Triple Alliance at the same time; so at least some separatism in Hungary can be expected to take more serious and radical forms.
 
Slovaks were quite ambivalent on these matters, since they were torn into three or four faction on this topic. Some embraced the idea of an union between Czech, Moravian and Slovak lands (Czechoslovakia), some wanted an independent Slovak nation-state, while some just wanted territorial autonomy inside Hungary, and there were the uninterested ones as well.
sceniario.
Not surprise. Slovaks had probably one of lowest rate of University educated people in A-H. Not that they were idiots. But voluntary Magyarized, part emigrated either in Europe or directly to US and part which stay couldn't just freely developed but needed to fight Hungarian government. At least in their speeches they were once for autonomy as not to bring power of Hungarian state in times of war on themselves.

The babyboom and growth in Hungarian areas were still at a relative early stage, so I don't think the minorities outpace Hungarian growth-rate for atleast two more decades. Together with the bigger migration rate and assimilation, I think we are safe to say that the Hungarians would maintain their advantage.
Assimilaton would keep Hungarian rates higher. However I have seen historical works which claimed for example Germans but also Hungarians complained Slovaks in predominantly Slovak areas were assimilating them. Which is quite possible.

The Hungarian percentage in Hungary with Croatia-Slavonia was ~49%, without it, it was ~54% in 1910. So until the end of the rapid population growth period, the Hungarian percentage could raise with Croatia-Slavonia to ~55-60%, without it to ~60-65%, in the following two-three decades. After that, it's uncertain what could happen.
Interestingly we are talking about 1910 census which can give as some orientation but also is pushing to favor Hungarians.
To be fair for example first after WWI Czechoslovak census was tricky too. Czechoslovaks offered to Jews to count themselves as such and they actually preferred that. Many who spoke Hungarian and proclaimed themselves or were proclaimed Hungarians claimed now Slovak nationality. Interestingly total number of Slovaks in Slovakia in 1921 census are in app same hight as it was in 1910 in whole A-H. High reproduction as well as decrease in emigration seems to be reason. by 1930 it increased by additional 15%. In 1939 Slovak republic had some 2.6 million people of Slovak nationality. Additional 276 000 Slovaks stayed on territories regained by Hungary in 1938 or occupied in March 1939. Increase against 1910 by some 1 million. And we are not counting Slovaks still living on territory of Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary. My guess is additional 250 000! With assimilation it was not so easy.

I guess emigration and Magyarization combined was main reason why minorities numbers seemed to stagnate. At least by Hungarian census.

Interestingly before WWI emigration from Hungary was so high the Government was trying to regulate it. Especially after pressure from military as many young men who didn't serve their term in A-H Army or Honved were emigrating to US and Canada. The passports were not issued to young men who didn't serve in the Army! Seems it had huge hit on A-H army and Honved if they went to such a length.

From year 1880 to 1898 emigrated from Hungary to US some 380 000 people. App. 100 000 of them were Slovaks.
Since 1898 to 1919 additional 480 000 Slovaks left for US! (Since 1898 US in their census started to count Nationality and not country of origin. That's almost 20% of Slovak population of A-H empire.
 
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