WI: The Franco-Austrian alliance broken

The one they made in 1756. It was practical and could've been great, except they screwed it up. I'm wondering how to break it after the war, maybe some time in 1770s and bring back the good old days of Frenchmen killing Austrians or the other way around :eek:
 
Avert the Miracle of Brandenburg saving Prussia in the 7 Years War. Prussia is destroyed as a power and France-Austria-Russia are basically the only Continental Great Powers in a sea of Minor States.

Unless Russia expands so much that France and Austria are more worried about them than each other, the Franco-Austrian Rivalry will resume.

Although personally I think it would be more interesting to wind up with a British-Russian Alliance vs a Franco-Austrian Central Powers bloc.
 
Avert the Miracle of Brandenburg saving Prussia in the 7 Years War. Prussia is destroyed as a power and France-Austria-Russia are basically the only Continental Great Powers in a sea of Minor States.

Unless Russia expands so much that France and Austria are more worried about them than each other, the Franco-Austrian Rivalry will resume.

Although personally I think it would be more interesting to wind up with a British-Russian Alliance vs a Franco-Austrian Central Powers bloc.

In a Prussia-less, I think the latter is more likely than the former. France is mainly focused on attacking Britain at sea, so won't want to waste resources on the Eastern front, and Austria would have to be mental to face enemies on two fronts when Britain is such an unreliable ally.
 
18th Century Russia isn't 1914 Russia, relations with the Habsburgs weren't great, but they never fought a war against each other and were usually allies against the Ottomans (and France in the wars of Polish and Austrian successions).

Saying the Franco-Russia relations would mount a coalition against Austria is a stretch.
 
Well technically the alliance was broken, somewhat ironically, during the reign of Louis XVI. While it existed on paper, the alliance was dead by the accession of Josef II. France opposed Josef's attempts at gaining Bavaria, opening the Scheldt and war with the Turks. However, France's financial situation basically blocked any idea of a full scale war with Austria or any other continental power for that matter, at this time.
 
You could even go back earlier.

Basically, the alliance had become an empty shell as early as the first partition of Poland in 1772.

France did not want to support Austria's ambitions in the war of bavarian succession.

When the revolutionary troubles became so serious that Louis XVI considered asking help from his brother-in-law, the austrian emperor wanted french territories in compensation for a possible military help.

I could even add that Austria stayed neutral during the american revolution war, but this time it was quite understandable.
 
Avert the Miracle of Brandenburg saving Prussia in the 7 Years War. Prussia is destroyed as a power and France-Austria-Russia are basically the only Continental Great Powers in a sea of Minor States.

Unless Russia expands so much that France and Austria are more worried about them than each other, the Franco-Austrian Rivalry will resume.

Although personally I think it would be more interesting to wind up with a British-Russian Alliance vs a Franco-Austrian Central Powers bloc.

Well, in this case, the logic could also lead to a french-russian alliance : the "wings alliance" that Napoleon and Paul I were about to conclude.
 
So, if the alliance was practically non-existent, could we put these two on opposite sides of a war and have them fight again (but not the revolutionary wars)?
 
You have to find out what kind of situation could lead to such a conflict. It is not enough to have an alliance broken. You need the 2 countries to be in conflict and to estimate that they have an interest of going to war about this conflict. If they risk being isolated or if they think other powers may rally the enemy whil them not having enough allies, they won't go for the conflict.

Except if you have a revolutionary mess.

This makes many ifs.

The basis for the change of alliances of 1756 stood on 2 points :
- both France and Russia felt isolated and needed a new alliance (France had lost its prussian alliance and Austria did not trust Britain and needed to face the prussian threat).
- and both decided had an interest in the status quo in central Europe.

The second reason of this alliance, as I previously mentioned, was undermined as early as in 1772 with the partition of Poland.
 
In a Prussia-less world, I could see Austria and France dividing up major chunks of Germany and Italy as happened to Poland in our timeline. It could start with France getting the Austrian Netherlands and Austria Bavaria, and then go from there.
 
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