WI: Serbia and Romania annexed to Austria-Hungary after an alternate WWI

So, assume that the Central Powers win WWI.
How likely would it be for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to annex Serbia (minus Macedonia) and Romania? And perhaps also Montenegro? Did the austro-hungarian leadership consider such actions?
For what reason would they do such? To remove outside actors from interfering with ethnic minorities within Austria-Hungary? For resources, given that Serbia had food and Romania had oil and the mouth of the Danube?
Would holding such regions be feasible for Austria-Hungary in the short term?
 
A-H specifically and purposefully declared war with the presupposition that Austria-Hungary would not under any circumstances acquire more territroy in the Balkans. If the Austrians tried it the Hungarians would throw a fit that could cause serious problems.
 
I am glad to see a place to discuss this. It has come up a few times on here, sometimes needing the same things to be discussed or for arguments over government policy, etc. Anyways, I would say that Serbian Sandzak (The Serbian half of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, the area that connected Ottoman Albania, Herzovigina, and Macedonia before or between the Balkan Wars) goes to Montenegro (which probably doesn't get the expanded coast they got after WWI here) while Bulgaria gets Macedonia and half of Northern Serbia as per their treaty with Austria-Hungary, while Albania likely gets what remains of Kosovo. Just as well, as the Kosovo remnant (the Bulgarians get a bit of it) is basically cut off form Serbia with the rest of the land changes. We can also see a strengthening of any pro-Austrian government or party in Albania, a change in the Serbian monarchy, plus possibly a change to the Montenegrin one, depends if the Austrians follow the OTL Serbian claim that the King of Montenegro went to war with Serbia despite being pro-Austrian or something. Then again, that may have just been an excuse to annex their oldest of neighbors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulga...le:Bulgarian_acquisitions,_treaty_IX_1915.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandžak
 
Yes, many in the Austro-Hungarian leadership wanted to annex Serbia (and preferably Montenegro as well). The Hungarian faction led by Istvan Tisza was the chief opposition to such plans, instead advocating for smaller annexations.

The motives of the extreme-annexationists varied, but they combined similar ideas:
-desire to directly control potential bases of irredentism, by devouring the Yugo-slavs (and/or Romanians) as a whole
-desire to use the annexed regions as a springboard for economic and political penetration into the Balkans and Anatolia
-fear of Bulgaria
-schemes of colonization and ethnic cleansing as a further measure against irredentism
-and last but not the least, a simple hunger for "prestige".

Some also had the same designs on Romania. Strangely enough, the same Hungarian faction, which opposed annexing Serbia, was strongly in favor of annexing Romania/Wallachia.

Austria-Hungary probably couldn't hold on to one (let alone both) of these regions, except in the very shortest of terms.
 
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Romania is definitely not feasible. The Hungarians would throw a fit since it would severely weaken their position and will definitely look like Vienna trying to give the Romanian-speaking lands in Hungary to the Romanian crownland.

Serbia is a little feasible, but not that much. You'll have a massive problem now that the vast majority of southern Slavs are now able to organise within the Empire. The Serbs will likely be pro-independence Yugoslavs while the Croats will initially be more pro-autonomy Illyrians, but the longer A-H waits to combine Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia and then maybe even Bosnia and occupied Serbia (and Montenegro?), and give it autonomy, the more they will drift to the Yugoslav movement.
 
Austria-Hungary would not want to make large annexations in the Balkans. Things it might consider annexing is a small bite of Serbia that includes Bor which had the largest copper mine in Europe at that time. Mt. Lovcen would also be tempting.
 

BooNZ

Banned
Romania is definitely not feasible. The Hungarians would throw a fit since it would severely weaken their position and will definitely look like Vienna trying to give the Romanian-speaking lands in Hungary to the Romanian crownland.
I expect the Germans would also have firm opinions about Romania being in their sphere of influence.
 
I expect the Germans would also have firm opinions about Romania being in their sphere of influence.
They'd still have Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, the Baltics, and possibly Finland in their hands ITTL to serve as buffers against Russia, so maybe they could allow the austro-hungarians to get Romania as a consolation prize.
 
Austria at most was getting Montenegro, some minor cessions along the Romanian border to make it more defensible, and potentially their former gains from the third partition of Poland-Lithuania if the Polish State was not able to be established. If the Polish State did work, then Austria was going to cede all of Galicia-Lodomeria to it, which would mean it would have lost land as a whole from the War.

Austria-Hungary simply wasn't in a position to make large or sizable annexations anywhere, and the Germans were already taking away Poland, the Ukraine and Romania from the Austrian sphere, and were making motions to do the same with what remained of Serbia and Albania. If the Austro-Hungarians performed much better in the war then we could see the Germans willing to allow them an extensive expansion of their sphere of influence, mainly the aforementioned areas, but I don't think actual annexations were really in the cards anywhere.
 
Austria at most was getting Montenegro, some minor cessions along the Romanian border to make it more defensible, and potentially their former gains from the third partition of Poland-Lithuania if the Polish State was not able to be established. If the Polish State did work, then Austria was going to cede all of Galicia-Lodomeria to it, which would mean it would have lost land as a whole from the War.

Austria-Hungary simply wasn't in a position to make large or sizable annexations anywhere, and the Germans were already taking away Poland, the Ukraine and Romania from the Austrian sphere, and were making motions to do the same with what remained of Serbia and Albania. If the Austro-Hungarians performed much better in the war then we could see the Germans willing to allow them an extensive expansion of their sphere of influence, mainly the aforementioned areas, but I don't think actual annexations were really in the cards anywhere.

Austria wanted Ukraine and Poland to be ruled by Habsburgs, if that was the case, Galicia-Lodomeria would likely be partitioned at a later date under pressure from both of those regimes. Frankly, war between them is likely despite them likely being ruled by brothers in my opinion. However, in the near future I highly doubt Austria would cede territory if it didn't have to, however, that sort of thing is frankly inevitable.
 
Austria wanted Ukraine and Poland to be ruled by Habsburgs, if that was the case, Galicia-Lodomeria would likely be partitioned at a later date under pressure from both of those regimes. Frankly, war between them is likely despite them likely being ruled by brothers in my opinion. However, in the near future I highly doubt Austria would cede territory if it didn't have to, however, that sort of thing is frankly inevitable.
I personally believe that ceding Galicia to friendly regimes would've been an 'acceptable' option since it wasn't particularly considered 'core' Habsburg territory unlike, say, the lands claimed by Italy, Serbia and Romania.
 
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