TL help: Conrad's War

Right now I'm working on the concept for a TL that I hope will be my first successful post 1900 TL (I've had successes with pre 1900 and ASB TLs but never post-1900), but I need a little help. The premise is that in 1910 Emperor Franz Joseph is assassinated by Bogdan Zerajic who OTL claimed he had the opportunity to kill the Emperor but did not. Franz Ferdinand becomes Emperor and Austria goes to war with Serbia. Russia stands down because the Serbs killed the sitting Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary and Germany declare war on Serbia; Montenegro allies with Serbia; Romania stays neutral. Though Serbia is a tougher nut to crack than originally thought, it and Montenegro fall to the Austrians. Fast forward year and Conrad convinces Franz to launch a preemptive war against Italy which is just as in OTL at war with the Ottomans.

This is where my question comes in. Would Germany support the Austrians? would they remain neutral? Even without German help could the Ottomans and the Austrians win against the Italians?
 
Really nobody has any advice?


well I've got one other question. While reading "The Origins of the World War" by Sidney Bradshaw Fay, I read that several people close Franz Ferdinand believed that had he acended to the throne he would have substituted Trialism for the existing Dualism. Is there marit behind this claim? Would Triaism simply fracture the empire more or heal it?
 

Thande

Donor
I think it's a really good and original POD idea, but I don't know enough about the period to give any detailed opinions.
 
mind you these opinions are only somewhat educated, but: I think that germany probably wouldn't support austria in the war and might even go so far as to withhold logistical aid from them, as the austrains would really be seen as the bad guys in that situation and will be so unless they have a really compelling casus belli. that siad, the austrians and the turks could certainly beat italy alone, but if italy aquires any major allies as a result of austrian aggression then the result becomes much less easy to predict.

as to the question of trialism as opposed to dualism, my opinion is that it would help but what austria-hungary really needs is full blown federalisation and in addition to that they need to break the power of the aristocracy.

there you go, my opinions sorry if they're no good
 
mind you these opinions are only somewhat educated, but: I think that germany probably wouldn't support austria in the war and might even go so far as to withhold logistical aid from them, as the austrains would really be seen as the bad guys in that situation and will be so unless they have a really compelling casus belli. that siad, the austrians and the turks could certainly beat italy alone, but if italy aquires any major allies as a result of austrian aggression then the result becomes much less easy to predict.

as to the question of trialism as opposed to dualism, my opinion is that it would help but what austria-hungary really needs is full blown federalisation and in addition to that they need to break the power of the aristocracy.

there you go, my opinions sorry if they're no good

They certainly help quit a lot, thanks. Now Franz was a reformer and looked to the future, but would it really be possible for him to Fedralize the Empire or would the Hungarians prevent this?

I think it's a really good and original POD idea, but I don't know enough about the period to give any detailed opinions.

Thank you for the compliment on the POD, it stems from the paper I am doing in for my History of Eastern Europe class.
 
They certainly help quit a lot, thanks. Now Franz was a reformer and looked to the future, but would it really be possible for him to Fedralize the Empire or would the Hungarians prevent this?

Franz was indeed a reformer and its at least supposed to have been people connected with him that came up with the original idea for the united states of greater austria (they'd have to find a different name though, united states is already taken :D). the hungarians as a gereral population could probably be brought around to the idea even if it did mean hungary shrank. the real barrier was the hungarian nobility, a nasty bunch of trogs that worked hard to keep a stanglehold on power and wealth in hungary at the time.
 
I'd suppose Germany would back Austria-Hungary. IOTL, Kaiser Wilhelm II saw the assassination of Franz Ferdinand as an act of regicide that needed to be punished, which he may likely believe if the Austrian Emperor were assassinated. Though, I'm not sure if he had the same personal relationship with FJ that he did with FF.

And, that certainly sounds like something Conrad von Hotzendorf would do. He was like Austria-Hungary's Dick Cheney. But I'm not sure if his little suggestions -- he pushed to declare war on Serbia more than a dozen times in one year, two or so years before the Great War -- would be taken seriously.
 
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BooNZ

Banned
An additonal consideration might be the secret 1904 alliance between Serbia and Bulgaria - technically it should have been triggered in 1908 when Austria Hungary annexed Bosnia Herzagovia, but without Russian support, Serbia and Bulgaria would have been monstered.

Even with Conrad's awful offensive doctrine, I doubt Serbia could have stood long against Austira Hungary in 1910. I doubt that Germany would want to get involved, but might have been dragged into it by Russia, which might want to preserve the Serbia-Bulgaria Alliance.

Selling an Italian war without a casus belli would be a big ask, but again, even with a flawed offensive doctrine, Austria Hungary would not need German assistance to defeat Italian forces- even if those were not in Africa.
 
Thanks for all the helpd everybody, I have another qustion based on some of my reading.

Franz was interested in building a proper navy, one that could atleast compete with the Italians. How would his being emperor earlier and supporting an even larger effort to build up the AH navy affect the relations between Austria and Britain?
 
Selling an Italian war without a casus belli would be a big ask, but again, even with a flawed offensive doctrine, Austria Hungary would not need German assistance to defeat Italian forces- even if those were not in Africa.

Well for Germany to help A-H to attack Italy, who by the way is his nominal ally, it need a good casus belli and not simple because the Austrian Emperor kindly ask them.
Austria-Hungary backstabbing Italy during the Ottoman war? Really possible, convince Germany to follow them for no good reason? Almost ASB.
The other problem is logistical, the alps are a difficult nut to crack even worse if you don't have a proper attack doctrine or plan, there is the risk of a repeat of the eleven Isonzo battle only with the A-H in place of Italy
 

Deleted member 1487

Really nobody has any advice?


well I've got one other question. While reading "The Origins of the World War" by Sidney Bradshaw Fay, I read that several people close Franz Ferdinand believed that had he acended to the throne he would have substituted Trialism for the existing Dualism. Is there marit behind this claim? Would Triaism simply fracture the empire more or heal it?

http://www.amazon.com/Archduke-Sarajevo-Romance-Tragedy-Ferdinand/dp/0316109517
The nature of FF has also been confirmed in several scholarly journals such as the Austrian History Yearbook, whose article titles I can try to find for you if you'd like. He was an autocrat that wanted to concentrate power in his own hands, not reform the empire to all for democracy. He HATED democracy and the Hungarian nobility and all the plans he solicited to reform the empire had to do with his goal of concentrating power in his own hands and destroying Hungarian power. The mythical "United States of Austria" by Popovic was an idea he IMMEDIATELY rejected, because it would mean too much power delegated out of his hands. He settled on keeping the Dual Monarchy because he could reinstate just the Austrian Empire. Anything that created new parliaments he would have to deal with was not in FF's plans.

FF was in no way a reformer. He abandoned Trialism in 1907 when he realized it would make the system worse, not undermine the Hungarians. He was also intensely anti-war and wouldn't go to war with Serbia over the assassination, because is no way to prove that this one man was in any way linked to Serbia. IIRC Bogdan Zerajic was a Bosnian, so all it would mean is a security crackdown. Russia would not back off if AH went to war with in this scenario, especially after the humiliation of the Bosnian Annexation Crisis, regardless of the death of FJ.

Also FF wanted to make his first act the dismissal of Tisza and the introduction of universal suffrage in Hungary, even if that meant a civil war. He planned to occupy Budapest through Plan U, which had been designed in 1905 after the Hungarians blocked some of FJ's plans. So what you'll end up seeing after the assassination of FJ is a massive crackdown in Bosnia, with hundreds jailed and tortured and all pro-Serbian/anti-Habsburg groups outlawed. The Bosnians would probably react as in OTL after FF assassination and riot against the local Serb population. But war is not in the cards. FF did not want war under any circumstance because he thought that even with Germany AH would lose. Instead he wanted to fix the internal issues by breaking the back of Hungarian opposition, which was the stranglehold the essentially feudal nobility of Hungary had in their parliament (only 5% of the country could vote, all hereditary nobles who were all Hungarian chauvanists). By allowing the Croats, Romanians, Slovaks, and 95% of Hungarians (poor farmers) to vote Hungary would stop opposing the build up of the army and would drop the opposition to the rule of the monarch.

FF was an absolutist and wanted to concentrate all power in his own hands. By 1912 the Reichsrat in Vienna for the Austrian half of the empire was already dismissed because it had become deadlocked, but the Hungarians still were able to check his power. Once Tisza and his clique of nobles were no longer in charge in Hungary, he could concentrate further power in his hands by playing divide and conquer in Hungary, as he could then play off the Slavs and Romanians against the Hungarians, who now would be represented by the poor farmers instead of the few rich land owners. It was actually an ingenious scheme that probably would have made AH much stronger in the short term, with uncertain prospects for the long.

For sure the Army would have been much, much better funded. Also it is likely that FF would have tried to organize a scheme to further the industrialization of the Empire to compete in the new European economy.

Thanks for all the helpd everybody, I have another qustion based on some of my reading.

Franz was interested in building a proper navy, one that could atleast compete with the Italians. How would his being emperor earlier and supporting an even larger effort to build up the AH navy affect the relations between Austria and Britain?
He did want something like this, but he had to choose between the army and navy. AH didn't have enough money for both, so once he broke Hungarian opposition, he could build up the navy a little, but he would have to increase the army by much more to compete with Russia, Romania (which in 1915 would turn against them after the death of their German monarch), Serbia, and Italy.
 
I believe that Italy alone would stand no chance against the Austrian and Ottoman Empires (I suppose Austria would receive some type of support from Germany, eg: weapons).
 
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