What would entail a better congress of vienna for Austria ?

The 19th century was a pretty bad century for the Habsburgs and they didn't even last 20 years in the 20th. I guess the easiest way to change the challenges Austria faces is changing the outcome of the congress of vienna which set the tone for the following century and redesigned the map of Europe.
I think it would be better for Austria if Germany stayed divided with the Habsburgs as the ceremonial head. It would probably help if Austria looses some meddling minorities like the Poles or the Italians but I don't know why they would want that and what they would gain in return. What are your thoughts about this?
 
Trading Galicia to Prussia in exchange for the Rhine territories and managing to hold on to or reclaim the Austrian Netherlands might be enough to get Grossdeutschland up and running down the road. Especially if a pan German army wrecks the Magyars at some point (1848)
 
Trading Galicia to Prussia in exchange for the Rhine territories and managing to hold on to or reclaim the Austrian Netherlands might be enough to get Grossdeutschland up and running down the road. Especially if a pan German army wrecks the Magyars at some point (1848)

Well would Prussia even want that? In OTL they wanted Saxony and give the rhineland to the wettins instead so maybe prussia could emcompass east germany and an half of poland which gets redivided between Prussia and Russia. While the OTL Rhineprovinz and Westphalia are also differently divided by Wettins Hanover and Bavaria. I don't know where Austria benefits from this though. But what would trigger this I mean there would have to be point of divergence.

Does anyone else have thoughts about this?
 
OTL Congress of Viena was certainly the best deal that Austria would want in that specific moment. They got back their nominal supremacy over Germany with the German Confederation and maintained Northern Italy in its sphere of influence, pretty much trying to reestablish the HRE. The problem for them is that type of old-fashioned power dynamics wasn't very effective in the 19th century, but Austrians did get the best deal that they were looking for.
 
I think it would be better for Austria if Germany stayed divided with the Habsburgs as the ceremonial head. It would probably help if Austria looses some meddling minorities like the Poles or the Italians but I don't know why they would want that and what they would gain in return.
Maybe Lombardy gets established as an independent state, while Austria gets the Rhineland? Prussia would probably demand Saxony in exchange though, which Austria would not want (as it gives Prussia a long border with Bohemia).
 
OTL Congress of Viena was certainly the best deal that Austria would want in that specific moment. They got back their nominal supremacy over Germany with the German Confederation and maintained Northern Italy in its sphere of influence, pretty much trying to reestablish the HRE. The problem for them is that type of old-fashioned power dynamics wasn't very effective in the 19th century, but Austrians did get the best deal that they were looking for.

Yeah that's why I want to know how the Austrians can get a deal that may be bad in the short term but beneficial in the long run
 
Yeah that's why I want to know how the Austrians can get a deal that may be bad in the short term but beneficial in the long run

I see. In a long term, I think it's better to avoid Prussian expansion in Saxony and the Rhine by giving the Prussians all of their former Polish territory. The Russians can be appeased by getting Galicia and then the Austrians can possibly claim at least a part of the Rhineland, giving more of the Rhineland to Bavaria would probably create a third power inside Germany, what can spice up things a little bit.
 
The reason why the Austrians were keen to keep the Prussians out of Saxony and gave them land in the Rhineland in compensation was that they didn't want Prussia to be a large contiguous block in Eastern Germany with those military implications but be divided and thus potentially military weaker and it's hard to critise them. But if they had taken more of Bavaria in the peace at the expense of some Italian lands German Austria would be bigger and unlike Italy Germanic Catholic Bavaria is unlikely to rebel. Plus of course the Wittelsbachs had been Hapsburg enemies for centuries and had been one of Napoleon's most willing and useful collaborators.
 
Would this badly drawn divison be possible? Would Metternich even consider this? Is this actually better for Austria? I mean it obviously positions Austria as the protector of Germany against France. So in this map Austria got Bavaria while the Wittelsbacher got an enlargened Pfalz, Prussia annexed Saxony and got her share of Poland back while Russia took Galicia instead. The Wettins got Westphalia for Saxony although I used the borders of the prussian provinces so that would probably be different wiener kongress 2.jpg


Oh and it looks like I am extremely bad at including pictures in my posts I'm sorry
yggalBh
 
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Too little for Bavaria. They broke with Napoleon in 1813, that's why they got a good share. If you gave them the whole Rhineland, maaaybe...
 
Too little for Bavaria. They broke with Napoleon in 1813, that's why they got a good share. If you gave them the whole Rhineland, maaaybe...

The Bavarians were in a really weak position in Vienna, while they did break with Napoleon they stuck with him longer than almost anyone else and were considerably more useful. I personally am surprised they came out as well as they did. @LeCHVCK of completely annexing Bavaria is very unlikely as an ancient Electorate it wasn't going to disappear from the map the fact that it grew so much from it's 1789 position was incredible.
Bayern_von_1800_bis_heute.png


I think you could very easily see them kicked out of the Rhineland and also not gain "western contiguous Bavaria" but instead only the pre 1789 enclaves and if they do gain "western contiguous Bavaria" they lose everything south of Munich to Austria.
 
Bavaria went really smooth in the Congress. Maximilian retained the Royal title and got the Palatinate, but still was punished ceding Tyrol and Salzburg.

And besides the Haspburg lead Confederation lasted 50 years. Thinking of it, considering it went through 1848, it could have worked more if the Austrians developed better dominance strategies. In short the construction made in Wien could have hold - more than Prussian expansionism the fall was more fault of the Austrian mistakes.
 
Uh, maybe a stupid remark, but when the real struggle for dominance started, almost all German states took the Austrian side in the conflict with Prusia. Wouldn't that imply a pretty succesfull diplomatic control by Austria over Germany?
 

raharris1973

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Uh, maybe a stupid remark, but when the real struggle for dominance started, almost all German states took the Austrian side in the conflict with Prusia. Wouldn't that imply a pretty succesfull diplomatic control by Austria over Germany?

Yes it would. Great point.
 

raharris1973

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In short the construction made in Wien could have hold - more than Prussian expansionism the fall was more fault of the Austrian mistakes.

What Austrian mistakes? Mistakes relative to intra-German relations? Or mistakes outside that context (their handling of the Crimean War and second Italian independence) war leaving them weaker in German affairs?
 
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