WW2 and Austria-Hungary

Let's suppose this: by 1916 the new ruler of Austria-Hungary, Charles and other leaders of the double monarchy realise that the only way to save the country is by leaving the war. Well, I am sure many of them realised it but things did not work out in their favour. Now they do.

They negociate an armistice with Italy. Maybe give up some territory, like South Tirol and some of the Austrian littoral. But this is not too big of a price for saving the house of Habsburg. France and Russia will actually be happy with this. Russia is on the brink of revolution, the Germans have already given them some good thrashing at Tannanberg and other places. France realises that she is fighting for her own survival and some fresh Italian troops in France would go a long way in helpin the war effort. Germany loses her main ally, so the entente powers decide to spare the double monarchy.

The UK do not really have any serious matter to settle with the Habsburgs so they agree, the war is over for Austria-Hungary.

Serbia is basically left alone, already devastated by the Austro-Hungarian invasion, the big powers will not keep fighting Germany's main ally for the small Blakan country.

The monarchy will not attack the Germans though, because that is the whole point: avoid war. The Germans are outraged but they will not attack Austria-Hungary becase they already have their hands full on two fronts.

The course of war stays the same for Germany. They lose the war of attrition. They get punished at Versailles. And now they feel very much stabbed in the back. By their own socialists, and by their two former allies, Italy and Austria-Hungary.

In Germany history will play out as in OTL: economic crisis, hurt national feelings, nazis, Hitler, etc.

Austria-Hungary will carry through some minor reforms just enough to save the monarchy. The Magyars will not be particularly happy but they got a glimpse of a disintegrating monarchy and they want to stay part of a regional great power. So Austria-Hungary will become a bit like a federation, maybe they even change the name too.

Now, by the 30s Germany and Austria-Hungary realise that they have a big common problem: the Soviet Union. So after more than a decade of cold relations the colourful crowds of Vienna cheer on Hitler as he arrives in the Kaiserstadt to be received the Emperor Charles. They sign a military pactum and a zollverein agreement as well.

Later on Mussolini joins the club so its 1882 all over again. But this time Germans really do want that war. Hitler wants to punish the West, the Poles, the Russians, everybody. And this time he seems to have two major allies on his side. He does everything in his power to shakle them to his country. Germany once again has the largest economy in Europe so it is not too hard to gain influence in Italy and Austria-Hungary (? name) through various German businesses and investments.

The Habsburg realm seems to be a reasonably stable country now. There are nationalists and separatists in it but by means of modern propaganda, modest but stable economic growth the peoples of the realm are in agreement with each other and their Kaiser more than ever. Charles proved to be a shrewed politician and clever leader so we can say that he saved the more than thousand years old legacy of his ancestors.

1st of September 1939. Hitler invades Poland, and shortly after the invasion the UK and France declare war on Germany. Through secret pacts the Habsburgs are bound to back their ally so they declare war on the Allies. In 1940 Mussolini decides it was time to have some fun. So war is on. Big time. And this time the Habsburg realm is one of the major players in the second largest conflict the world has ever seen.

Okay... What do you think guys? Is the above plausible?

How would the war play out? What military, navy and airforce would the monarchy have? I am very much interested in your input. Maybe we could take the story a little further and see how things play out this time. Both for Europe and the Habsburg dinasty.
 
Key question: without exploiting Austrian resources and skilled manpower, how does Hitler build up a strong enough army to invade Poland? That's just some of the butterflies instigated by no Anschluss, let alone a surviving Austria-Hungary.
 
eeh, how do you keep the german nationalists in austria from going "germany plz annex!!"?

in this scenario A-H loses its coast to italy, the yugoslav parts to serbia, the romanian parts to romania and after the war poland will grab its own part. you're left with modern austria and modern hungary, the empire has completely failed and it's cut off from its former main industrial heartland which provided all the hard cash.
 
That is a good point, Tom Colton. Well, with an intact Austria-Hungary Hitler would have an ally of 60-70 million people. That could mean a lot of fighting men and a reasonably modern army fighting on his side.

Come to think of that maybe the monarchy could do its share in the invasion of Poland. Actually there were plans in OTL during WW1 of giving the whole of Poland to Austria-Hungary. Fritz Fischer the German historian wrote about it in his books on Germany's war aims in WW1. The reasoning was that the already multi ethnic double monarchy's political structure would have been able to integrate the Poles.

Back to our scenario maybe the Austro-Hungarians join Hitler in invading Poland and carve out a nice juicy chunk from southern Poland.

Galicia-Lodomeria is already in the monarchy so maybe they get Lublin or something.
 
eeh, how do you keep the german nationalists in austria from going "germany plz annex!!"?

in this scenario A-H loses its coast to italy, the yugoslav parts to serbia, the romanian parts to romania and after the war poland will grab its own part. you're left with modern austria and modern hungary, the empire has completely failed and it's cut off from its former main industrial heartland which provided all the hard cash.

In this scenario Austria-Hungary remains intact. Yes, the Italians take some land, South Tirol and some of the littoral, Istria, something like that. But Croatia definately stays in the monarchy. Maybe Dalmatia too.

As for the Serbs, they did not get anything because the Entente let the Austrians away in return fo their abandoning their German ally in 1916 or 17.

So maybe there is some Yugoslavia but I would think it is much smaller than in OTL. It will not include Bosnia and the southern parts of the Hungarian kingdom.
 
As for the German nationalities of Austria. In OTL they wanted to join Germany because they lost their empire due to the dissolution of the monarchy. But with the Habsburg realm intact they have their own empire.
 
As for the German nationalities of Austria. In OTL they wanted to join Germany because they lost their empire due to the dissolution of the monarchy. But with the Habsburg realm intact they have their own empire.

the italians did want half of croatia. and the nationalist obsession with the anschluss predates austria-hungary itself. hitlers teacher was a rabid pan germanist and taught his students accordingly.
 
But 1916 is too late for A-H to survive as a coherent monarchical state. It started to fall apart in 1914 after the defeats on the frontier at the hands of the Russians. The disaster of the Siege of Przemyśl in 1915 is the icing on the cake and the cake is then squashed in 1916 by the Brusilov Offensive. Even if you have A-H giving up and ceding territories all over the place to get a half-decent peace then all that happens is that all of a sudden Russia gets a economic breathing space (the Allies can ship supplies via A-H) plus a military shot in the arm as the troops from Galicia all entrain and go to Poland and Western Russia.
 
There's one point already in your intial scenario.
Austria will never give up South Tyrol. They might negotiate over Trentino/Welschtirol if the situation is dire enough, but South Tyrol will stay Austrian. Period.
IIRC 1916 Austria might not even be in such a bad position to negotiate with Italy. They might even get away with minor border adjustments to their loss. Like, say letting go of Triest.
However a civil war will likely follow. Depending on who kicks it off and what rebellion is most prominent more or less big parts of the army will be loyal.
I know for example that my grand-grandfather came home with his equipment in 1918 and burried it in the garden behind the house. It's probably still there, since nobody knows quite where he put that. So I expect that quite a few veterans will return home with more or less intact equipment and certainly with their military training.
Even without outside factors to consider it will be a powder keg.
I fully expect land grabs from whatever eastern neighbours are stable enough to do so themselves. (Probably not Poland or other newly created countries)
It depends on how long it takes to find an unifying enemy internal or external, if it is possible to keep the empire together. If it does break apart though, I do expect different fracture lines than OTL borders.
 
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