Austro-Hungarian declaration of war to Serbia

[Petrucci]

Let's all be slaves of Hapsburg! This could only be said by person who don't love freedom.
You are using your knowledge of history to strength your personal opinion . You can't be objective and subjective at the same time. Either describe situation and remain at distance or espouse it with all your heart, but don't use history as cover for your perspective.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

"so perverse is mankind that every nationality prefers to be misgoverned by its own people than to be well ruled by another" -Charles James Napier

[diegis]

Blah, people love to say that, but the fact in First Balkan War already showed Great Powers could restrain themselves and even worked together. It hence is strange that in 1914, despite all Great Powers agreed Serbia needed to be slaped hard so it would know its place, could not/unwilling to come out an alternative proposal of how to slap Serbia together, but rather just let the whole incident ran into Armageddon.

I think AH empire and even Russian empire were on the verge of implosion. They were outdated multiethnic empires, with a bad social structure too (in Russia especially), in an era of full rise of nation states (and even democracies, parliaments and such).
In the same time Germany was the rising power but because it was united not long ago it missed the rush for colonial empires and in such regard she was nervous to get into empire like phase too so make it in the France and UK league.

Sooner or later a war would have broke out. I think as well Japan would take her chance too in Far East, against China or Russia, in that alternative start of WW 1

In 1848 pretty much every ethnic group within the empire backed the Hapsburg against the Hungarian Revolutionary Government.

The leaders of those groups were aware that their nations were too small to keep their independence against Prussia, Russia or the Ottomans. They hoped that in return for their support the Hapsburg would give them equal political rights. In their view that was the best solution - a "federation of equals" with a Hapsburg on the throne, large enough to fend off Prussia, Russia or the Ottomans.

Franz-Ferdinand wanted to do exactly that (or so he said repeatedly). If he would have delivered, it is less certain most of the nationalities of the empire would still have wanted to be independent, and thus to become easy picks for Russia or Germany.

We can easily consider the options those nationalities had inside a reformed Austrian empire:

1) Without WW1, one third of Poland would be part of Germany, with the German Poles having no political rights. Another third of Poland would be part of Russia, with the Russian Poles in a similar if not worse situation than the German Poles. The Austrian Poles would have had their own local parliament, their own local government while some Poles would sit in the imperial parliament and in the imperial cabinet. Quite hard to believe they would have traded it for what Germany or Russia had to offer;

2) As a result of the reforms the Croats would have been happy to be extracted from the Hungarian rule and allowed to have their own parliament, government and share in the imperial structures of power. Would they want to trade that for the risk of being annexed by the politically unstable Serbia (2 kings killed, 2 kings abdicated, several coups and political assassinations in 70 years)? Or for the risk of being annexed by Italy?

3) Same for the Muslim Bosniaks. The Ottoman Empire would have been far from their borders, so they would have had to choose among several alternatives: be annexed by the Orthodox Serbia, be annexed by Catholic Italy or have their own kingdom within the Austrian Empire, just like everybody else. What o you think they would have chosen?

4) The Transylvanian Romanians and the Serbs from Voivodina were the only nations which could get united to two already existing countries. However if they were to get their own kingdoms within the Austrian empire, a lot of local politicians and businessmen would have been against joining two much less developed states. If anything, those politicians would have pushed for annexing Serbia and Romania, as a means of achieving the national unity inside the empire.

Without the First World War starting in 1914 it is quite likely the Serbs would have ended up into the Austrian orbit again since their economic development was completely dependent on good relations with that empire while Russia could help them with nothing in terms of trade.

Romania was already in the Austrian orbit, being member of the Triple Alliance and having on the throne a member of the German imperial family. Her economy also depended a lot on trading with Austria.

Just like nowadays Romania was "gobbled up" by the EU while Serbia will go the same way in a few years, it is quite likely both countries would have had hard time resisting a smaller version of the EU - the reformed empire of Franz-Ferdinand.

Allow me to disagree with you here Dromikaites
I for one dont think that AH empire would have survived longer even in the reformed way you say. It was simply something outdated and unnatural in that era, and sooner or later would have breake down. Especially in the cases when some people there already have nation states around, in the already full started era of nationalism and nation states.

It didnt really had any central ideology or idea to unite all people. Hungarians didnt agree anyway with that reform proposed, they were still dreaming to a sort of idealized and unrealistic medieval era Hungary and wanted the maghyarization of everyone around.
You had there Austrians, Slavs, Romanians and Hungarians, to mention just the main ethnicities. Slavs werent a united ethnicity however, some where Orthodox, some Catholic, some Protestant, some Greek-Catholic, speaking different languages in different parts of the empire. Same differences (or even more) were betwen Romanians, Hungarians and Austrians. Different nations, different histories, different languages, different cultures, nothing to really unite them and in some cases a real hate, rivalry or mistrust betwen some of them.

AH empire was doomed to fall, Franz-Ferdinad would have ruled over a sort of Frankestein like mini-empire that couldnt live too long in that era.

Yes, EU today try in a way to copy the AH empire, which in my opinion is stupid and will doom EU as well, and with that even the most developed countries there. Those will suffer more as they will fall from a higher position and will be hurt more bad. The only good thing is that Russian empire appear to be too in its last phases of existance (at macro-history scale).
The Roman empire (well, except the emperor thing) is the model to follow, but that is harder for various reasons now. But if accomplished, then EU will really become a force to be recognized, and aiming to be number one in the world.

[Dromikaites]

Let's all be slaves of Hapsburg! This could only be said by person who don't love freedom.

Well, that's exactly what happened in 1848. Everybody sided with the Hapsburgs against the Hungarians.

You are using your knowledge of history to strength your personal opinion . You can't be objective and subjective at the same time. Either describe situation and remain at distance or espouse it with all your heart, but don't use history as cover for your perspective.

I am sharing my knowledge of history with the rest of the members of TWC.

The idea everybody wanted to break out of Austria-Hungary in 1914 is unsupported by the situation between 1848 and 1914. At the time the war started, only the Italians, the Serbs and the Romanians were seriously contemplating leaving because only those ethnic groups had a state to join. Everybody else (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Muslim Bosniaks, Slovenes, Croats) wanted to stay as part of a reformed empire.

We also need to be specific about the cause of the discontent: the main tensions inside the empire were caused by the stupid forced Magyarisation policies of the Hungarian Kingdom, which held control over most of the territories inhabited by the other nationalities. Franz-Ferdinand saw the Hungarian politicians as the main reason of the ethnic strife within the empire and he vowed several times to break the Hungarian Kingdom into its ethnic constituents.

It is extremely unlikely that if the Slovaks and the Croatians would have got their own kingdoms, escaping the Hungarian oppression, they would have insisted for independence. The best indicator is 1848, when they fought on the Austrian side instead of proclaiming independence.

The same goes for the Czechs and the Poles, who feared the Prussians/Germans and the Russians and who have sided with the Austrians in 1848 precisely because otherwise their short-lived independence would have led straight to a Prussian and Russian annexation.

The opinion changed only after the reputation of the empire has been destroyed by the inept military performance during WW1. And even that might not have been enough (in 1866 the military has demonstrated similar "skills" but the empire survived) without the collapse of the Russian empire and the defeat of Germany.

With Russia disappearing from the area (back then the independent states of Ukraine and Poland formed a large buffer between Russia and Central Europe) and with Germany on its knees, it looked like the smaller states may have a realistic chance to survive on their own in Central Europe and in the Balkans.

It is wrong methodology to superimpose the mood of 1918 over 1914.

[Dromikaites]

Allow me to disagree with you here Dromikaites
I for one dont think that AH empire would have survived longer even in the reformed way you say. It was simply something outdated and unnatural in that era, and sooner or later would have breake down. Especially in the cases when some people there already have nation states around, in the already full started era of nationalism and nation states.

The only people within AH having nation-states to join were the Romanians, the Serbs and the Austrians.

For the Croats, Poles, Slovenes, Slovaks and Muslim Bosniaks independence would have been extremely short lived. Because of that none of their leaders considered it a viable option as long as the German and Russian empires were around. And in 1914 nobody could imagine those empires would be shattered within 4 years.

So if Franz-Ferdinand would have survived to become emperor in 1916, the Croats, the Czechs, the Slovenes, the Poles and the Bosniaks would have quite likely obtained what they wanted: self-governance with Franz-Ferdinand as the head of state and with the protection the empire could offer.

The Serbs of Vojvodina, the Italians and the Transylvanian Romanians would have probably considered their newly gained autonomy as a weaker option compared to joining Serbia, Italy and Romania. But as long as the German and Russian empires would have continued to exist, Italy, Serbia and Romania would have had to wait for a major crisis before making a move on their Austrian neighbor.

As for the Hungarians, as much as they would have hated losing control over Transylvania, Vojvodina, Slovakia and Croatia as the result of Franz-Ferdinand's reforms, they would have had no realistic alternative to staying inside the empire.

The stability of a reformed Austrian empire depended largely on the stability of Russia.

At the time baby steps were made to reform the Russian empire, and without WW1 those reforms might have gained momentum.

The only serious source of ethnic instability within the Russian empire was the Russian part of Poland. However if the Russian reforms would have had advanced, the Russians themselves might have decided to imitate Franz-Ferdinand and offer Poland a similar status to that enjoyed by the Grand Duchy of Finland inside the Russian Empire. (The Grand Duchy of Finland itself might have been a Russian political experiment to see how Poland might be handled some time in the future).

With the Poles having a proper self-rule in Russia, it's highly unlikely they would have wanted to rock the boat and end up under German rule, where the Poles had no political rights. And once the Polish question was out of the way, the rest of the nationalities in Russia would have been extremely easy to handle: Ukrainians were on the verge of assimilation and everybody else was too small to pose any problem.

Russia, even reformed, would have continued to push for an exit into the Mediterranean. Or might have even restarted the Great Game (the push into Asia).

If Russia would have aimed for the Mediterranean, that would have pushed the German and Austrian empires closer together while risking to alienate Britain. And since Romania was in Russia's way towards the Bosporus, Romania would have sticked with the Triple Alliance.

If Russia would have returned to the Great Game, then Germany might have befriended Russia again while Britain would have been extremely pissed.

In either scenario the smaller nations of the Austrian empire would have been forced to stick with the empire because of lack of alternatives. In either scenario Britain might have wanted not to antagonize Germany any further, thus making France unlikely to enter any war on Russia's side (since the British help would be lacking).

This is why the demise of Franz-Ferdinand's empire was actually rather unlikely, and it took a war nobody thought it would happen in order to cause it.

It didnt really had any central ideology or idea to unite all people. Hungarians didnt agree anyway with that reform proposed, they were still dreaming to a sort of idealized and unrealistic medieval era Hungary and wanted the maghyarization of everyone around.

Yes, the Hungarians hated Franz-Ferdinand with passion. And they would have hated him even more after the reforms. But where would the Hungarians have gone without Transylvania?

'Cause it would have been extremely naive to assume that what didn't work in 1848 might work after 1916. There was no way for them to rage-quit the empire when Romanian-dominated Transylvania would have been elevated to the status of autonomous kingdom. And then to hope to conquer it fighting both the Austrians and the Romanians. Or to preemptively rage-quit before Transylvania becomes autonomous, only to see a joint Austrian-Romanian victory parade on the streets of Budapest.

As much as the Hungarian politicians would have hated losing control over Transylvania, Croatia and Vojvodina, they really had no other option than to swallow the bitter pill.

You had there Austrians, Slavs, Romanians and Hungarians, to mention just the main ethnicities. Slavs werent a united ethnicity however, some where Orthodox, some Catholic, some Protestant, some Greek-Catholic, speaking different languages in different parts of the empire. Same differences (or even more) were betwen Romanians, Hungarians and Austrians. Different nations, different histories, different languages, different cultures, nothing to really unite them and in some cases a real hate, rivalry or mistrust betwen some of them.

The Poles, the Croats, the Czechs, the Slovenes, the Slovaks, the Bosniaks and the Hungarians were all united by the fear of being annexed if they don't stick together.

The only ones with credible alternatives were the Serbs form Vojvodina, the Romanians from Transylvania and the few Italians still under Austrian rule.

As I have explained above, those 3 nations successful break-away depended mostly on...Russia. The thing is that barred the anomaly of WW1, Russia's logical moves would have made their breaking-away very unlikely no matter what they wished.

AH empire was doomed to fall, Franz-Ferdinad would have ruled over a sort of Frankestein like mini-empire that couldnt live too long in that era.

It could, if Russia would have survived as an empire. See above the reasons why.

Yes, EU today try in a way to copy the AH empire, which in my opinion is stupid and will doom EU as well, and with that even the most developed countries there. Those will suffer more as they will fall from a higher position and will be hurt more bad. The only good thing is that Russian empire appear to be too in its last phases of existance (at macro-history scale).

I think the EU is learning form mistakes faster than AH did.

The Roman empire (well, except the emperor thing) is the model to follow, but that is harder for various reasons now. But if accomplished, then EU will really become a force to be recognized, and aiming to be number one in the world.

It depends what you consider the key differences between the Roman Empire and AH were.

Both were multinational empires. The main shortcoming of AH was the minorities lacked the possibility of a successful career in the Hungarian part of the empire. But that was something Franz-Ferdinand was eager to fix first thing after ascending to the throne.