After putting down the Hungarian Revolt in 1848 Russia wanted Austria to repay them. They wanted this repayment to come in the form of aid in the Crimean War. In OOT the Austrians declined, but what if this never happens and the Austrian Empire intervened in the Crimean War on the side of the Russians?
What if Austria joined in the Crimean War?
- Thread starter TectonicAttack
- Start date
-
- Tags
- austria crimean war russia
the OTL arrangement of Emperor Franz Josef and Schwarzenberg's ally von Boul taking up the leadership of his government after his death in 1852 is basically maximum arch-conservative fuck liberal constitutions ra-ra-Russia already. The problem was that fundamentally Austria's impulse was that intervening in the Crimean War was against many of her interests, that the appreciation of Russia was worth next to nothing compared to the animosity of France and Britain, the Empire's troubled finances being burdened with a military buildup, the threat of Kossuth Lajos and other nationalists just showing up for '48 revolutions round two while Austria was distracted (remember Franz Josef was attacked by a Hungarian assassin just this year), and Austria's own desires for the balance of power in the Balkans. I think more then the Austrian side of things a change would have to come from the Russian side. For Austria to accept Russia either needed to force a treaty of military aid on Austria back when they saved the Empire in 1848, or offer enough sweeteners in exchange for Austria's support that it outweighs her natural interests against. Not the blithe and overconfident assumptions Russia OTL went with.
Austria probably could have gotten by with benevolent neutrality but they came off badly by allying with France (but not doing enough) and angering Russia.
if they joined on the Russian side they’d be knocked out pretty quickly. Could see a bombardment of Trieste and an offensive in Lombardy—which they lose in the peace.
if they joined on the Russian side they’d be knocked out pretty quickly. Could see a bombardment of Trieste and an offensive in Lombardy—which they lose in the peace.
Well, with the main Franco-British effort on the land and sea being against Russia, I don't see how exactly would they be able to spare any significant force against Austria. It is also not quite clear if at that time Piedmont would be able to kick the Austrians out of Lombardy on its own: in OTL during the 2nd Italian War of Independence there were 128,000 French troops and only 56,000 Sardinians against 198,000 Austrians. So Piedmont is hardly in a good position to start a new war in Italy and definitely not in a position to send troops to the Crimea (not that they played any significant role other than as a moral factor).
Austrian friendly neutrality would mean that there is no Crimean War: Russian troops are not forced to evacuate the Principalities and the Allies are needed to stop their further advance into Bulgaria and beyond at a risk that otherwise their contingents could be cut off from the Straits or at least their base at Varna is in a very realistic danger. Not to mention that at any point more Russian troops could be moved to the Crimea (even with the OTL lousy logistics this was possible).
Austrian direct participation on the Russian side makes things much worse for the allies because the Ottoman defenses on the Balkans are going to crumble well before the French and Brits manage to bring any significant forces to the theater. Probably the allies would have to concentrate on defending the Straits and some raiding operations on the Black Sea.
As far as bombarding any major port is involved, its efficiency depends upon the coastal defenses. In OTL the allies managed to burn some port installations in almost undefended Odessa (6 batteries with 40 obsolete guns) and to take two isolated coastal fortifications, unfinished fort on Aland islands and obsolete fort of Kinburn without heavy artillery but a following attempt to attack Nikolaev failed. During 3 days of attack on Sveaborg the allies fired more than 20,000 shots killing and wounding less than 200 and putting some wooden buildings on fire but not doing any significant damage to the fortifications (of course, Dundas sent overly optimistic report in a reasonable expectation that nobody is going to check it
). In other words, a naval attack on Trieste would produce some results only if the port did not have adequate defenses.
Last edited:
Right now Kossuth Lajos is in Britain with plenty of other failed revolutionaries attempting to get his Hungarian Legion off the ground. If Austria did not bend to allied demands and maintained a benevolent neutrality to Russia, or even joined them militarily, then suddenly Lajos may get some of those sweet sweet British subsidies needed to become a proper expedition into occupied Hungary. Vienna has to be well aware of the threat of this this as seen with the prior Polish Legions and Garibaldi's Redshirts, and they have to be asking themselves if they do commit to Russia- can Archduke Albrecht of Teschen really hold off the rising Hungarian nation when his greatest black mark was his failure in the Viennese street fighting of '48?
I’m curious how exactly this “legion” would end up anywhere close to the Hungarian territory (AFAIK, the Croats were not sympathetic to the Hungarian cause, to put it mildly) with or without the British subsidies. And, of course, how many people would he be able to raise in Britain?
Analogies with the Polish Legion and Garibaldi is not applicable:
The Polish Legion had been fighting for years anywhere From the West Indias to Egypt as a part of the French Army and got to the Polish territory only in 1807, again, with the French army.
Garibaldi and his Redshirts are irrelevant because, unlike Hungary, Italy is not landlocked and the Hapsburg monarchy was military much stronger than the Bourbons of Naples.
To make a long story short, while a fear of Kossuth marching to Hungary with a mighty army seems to be on a rather fantastic side as a major factor of the Austrian policy, control over the Principalities and freedom of navigation on the Danube were quite real considerations and these considerations were in a direct contradiction with the Russian interests: immediately after the Russians left Principalities Austrians occupied them and started creating an infrastructure to support a long-term occupation (did not happen because the French and Brits did not see any reason for ousting the Ottomans from the region).