Even with Austria’s political issues, it had overtaken France in population and was almost caught up to France in GNP. Austria also had a higher fertility rate than France and more economic growth leading up to the war. Austria-Hungary of course has far less global influence, has worse internal issues, more enemies, and less willingness to spend on their military than France.
But this almost reminds me of Russia vs Germany, only the countries are weaker. We constantly talk of the possibility of Russia being able to equal or surpass Germany as a military power on the continent.
If Austria has a greater willingness to spend money on their army, could or would they have surpassed France as continental power in the next decade or two after 1914? The population discrepancy would have widened quite a bit in Austria’s favor and Austria would stand a good chance to continue towards convergence in terms of per capita. They would have likely overtaken France in GNP by 1920.
If WWI didn’t happen and Austria embarked on an aggressive modernization of their army around 1920, could they have caught France as the third greatest army in the world?