Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

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WolfBear said:
Also, @sillygoose, what are your thoughts on this alternatehistory.com thread? :

Could the Treaty of Trianon ever have been made tolerable to Hungary?

The past weekend, I have been seeing more than a few notes commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon. This 1920 treaty, ending the state of war between Hungary and the allies, remains deeply unpopular in Hungary; a very common criticism is that the treaty was fundamentally...
www.alternatehistory.com
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Given that the treaty was to punish the losers and weaken them, I don't see anyone actually wanting to make it fair. All the talk about self determination was just justification to stick it to the losers, because ultimately the Entente dictated these treaties and the borders were invariably negative to the ex-Central Powers core ethnic groups.

WolfBear said:
What do you think that the CP war aims are going to be in this alt-WWI which breaks out in 1917? A restoration of A-H's territorial integrity, what else? A liberation of Poland, Lithuania, and Courland from Russian rule? Anything else?
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Depends on the situation. Of course they'll want to restore A-H's borders if possible and liberate some enemy territory to give themselves a buffer zone in the future, but much like OTL it will come down to how the fighting plays out to determine what the demands are. See the September Program; it was predicated on what it looked like they'd be able to grab militarily.
 
sillygoose said:
Given that the treaty was to punish the losers and weaken them, I don't see anyone actually wanting to make it fair. All the talk about self determination was just justification to stick it to the losers, because ultimately the Entente dictated these treaties and the borders were invariably negative to the ex-Central Powers core ethnic groups.
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The CPs did get some fairness out of this whole ordeal, though:






Possibly not enough fairness, of course. But still, five plebiscites. Better than nothing. Including at least two (the last two) in resource-rich areas.
 
Honestly, the more that I think about it, the more that I'm inclined to say that Hungary should have limited its World War II-era territorial expansion to other parts of the Carpathian Basin:

1280px-Pannonian_Basin.svg.png


Geomorpholigical-map-of-the-Carpathian-basin.png


Greater odds that it would have been allowed to keep these gains in the post-WWII peace settlement in such a scenario, especially if it would not have bloodied its hands with the Holocaust. Heck, Hungary might have even been able to remain neutral throughout World War II in such a scenario.
 
WolfBear said:
The CPs did get some fairness out of this whole ordeal, though:






Possibly not enough fairness, of course. But still, five plebiscites. Better than nothing. Including at least two (the last two) in resource-rich areas.
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They had the rough edges of the deal sanded off, though the Saar referendum was in the treaty initially.
By 1920 enough of the war hatred had dimmed, so the seconds thoughts on the harshness of the ToV were a factor in those plebiscites. That and the fallout between Britain and France was starting since the common foreign policy goal no longer existed to keep the British and French friendly. Also keep in mind the British and Germans were major trade partners, so Britain was also interested in rehabilitating Germany and keeping her favorable to help with restored trade, without which Britain couldn't really recover post-war economically. Same thing happened eventually after WW2 when Europe realized it couldn't survive without at least West Germany's economy recovering and reintegrating (and not going communist).
 
sillygoose said:
They had the rough edges of the deal sanded off, though the Saar referendum was in the treaty initially.
By 1920 enough of the war hatred had dimmed, so the seconds thoughts on the harshness of the ToV were a factor in those plebiscites. That and the fallout between Britain and France was starting since the common foreign policy goal no longer existed to keep the British and French friendly. Also keep in mind the British and Germans were major trade partners, so Britain was also interested in rehabilitating Germany and keeping her favorable to help with restored trade, without which Britain couldn't really recover post-war economically. Same thing happened eventually after WW2 when Europe realized it couldn't survive without at least West Germany's economy recovering and reintegrating (and not going communist).
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Yeah, fair points.

Also, off-topic, but does it strike you that Galicia was the part of Austria-Hungary was most of all did not belong there? It was located north of the Carpathians and was thus more difficult to defend and it was filled with former Polish subjects (Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians). And it, along with Bukovina, made the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary look rather funky.

Did Franz Ferdinand ever consider giving Galicia and Bukovina to Hungary in order to further dilute the Magyar percentage in Hungary after he planned to impose universal suffrage in Hungary?
 
sillygoose said:
Depends on the situation. Of course they'll want to restore A-H's borders if possible and liberate some enemy territory to give themselves a buffer zone in the future, but much like OTL it will come down to how the fighting plays out to determine what the demands are. See the September Program; it was predicated on what it looked like they'd be able to grab militarily.
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That makes sense. As a side note, I wonder if Austria-Hungary would want to annex additional parts of Ukraine if an independent Ukrainian state is not going to be created. I know that Volhynia had a sizable German and Czech minority back then, for instance:


 
WolfBear said:
Also, off-topic, but does it strike you that Galicia was the part of Austria-Hungary was most of all did not belong there? It was located north of the Carpathians and was thus more difficult to defend and it was filled with former Polish subjects (Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians). And it, along with Bukovina, made the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary look rather funky.

Did Franz Ferdinand ever consider giving Galicia and Bukovina to Hungary in order to further dilute the Magyar percentage in Hungary after he planned to impose universal suffrage in Hungary?
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Map aesthetics are just that, no more. In reality the easy rail lines ran through the Austrian half of the empire and the Poles were pretty vital in balancing out the Czechs in Austrian parliament. The Habsburgs and other nobles didn't care about nationality because those peoples stayed in their lands for the most part and were poor, so they never would have to deal with them anyway.

No FF never considered that. He considered a Yugoslav kingdom, but quickly threw that out as it would simply compound the problems of the dual monarchy. He was much more for centralization. Also the Hungarian voting system would have made the plan to use the Slavs in Galicia to break the Magyar lock on parliament moot.

WolfBear said:
That makes sense. As a side note, I wonder if Austria-Hungary would want to annex additional parts of Ukraine if an independent Ukrainian state is not going to be created. I know that Volhynia had a sizable German and Czech minority back then, for instance:


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No, the Poles would never allow it given that they were already repressing the Ukrainians in East Galicia (the later ethnic conflicts between the Poles and Ukrainians started early) and ironically the Ukrainians looked at the Russian army as liberators from Polish tyranny.

As it was the A-Hs weren't looking to annex any more lands during WW1 due to their already serious ethnic problems.
 
sillygoose said:
Map aesthetics are just that, no more. In reality the easy rail lines ran through the Austrian half of the empire and the Poles were pretty vital in balancing out the Czechs in Austrian parliament. The Habsburgs and other nobles didn't care about nationality because those peoples stayed in their lands for the most part and were poor, so they never would have to deal with them anyway.

No FF never considered that. He considered a Yugoslav kingdom, but quickly threw that out as it would simply compound the problems of the dual monarchy. He was much more for centralization. Also the Hungarian voting system would have made the plan to use the Slavs in Galicia to break the Magyar lock on parliament moot.
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What was the Hungarian voting system and could FF have reformed it?

BTW, what do you think about this proposal made before the start of World War I? :


No, the Poles would never allow it given that they were already repressing the Ukrainians in East Galicia (the later ethnic conflicts between the Poles and Ukrainians started early) and ironically the Ukrainians looked at the Russian army as liberators from Polish tyranny.

As it was the A-Hs weren't looking to annex any more lands during WW1 due to their already serious ethnic problems.
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Wouldn't more Ukrainians to repress have been a good thing for Polish landlords? Or would it have simply been too much social trouble and social upheaval due to there being too many angry peasants?

Would A-H have even refused to annex Venetia even if the opportunity to do so would have ever arisen?
 
stevep said:
Problem is that the peasants were increasingly realising that the Czar despised them. Ditto with anyone who had any education. You could in theory keep an absolute monarchy reasonably popular by having a largely uneducated population but its never going to be any sort of superpower. Ditto with the way Nicholas did everything he could to go back on his word and remove all the concessions that made reform after 1905 possible.
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Look at Moscov now.Colonel Putin could not deliver anything,and they still follow him,althought postsoviets there are all educated.
Stołypin reforms made russians rich,so they would follow real tsar until he would lost big war.
And remember,that old russians,unless current postsoviets,really loved their rulers.And cared about their lands.
Freedom? such thing do not mattered for them,as long as they were rich and their tsar was strong.
 
WolfBear said:
I think that quality of life matters more than democracy, at least for Russians.
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For almost everybody, I'd say.

WolfBear said:
Russians liked Putin back when he was still able to provide a good quality of life for them
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I visited the Leningrad/Sankt Peterburg several times in the 80s and early 90s - it was a DUMP. I was very impressed by the clean, safe, tourist friendly city in c.2015. I'd had voted for Putin then.
 
Buba said:
For almost everybody, I'd say.


I visited the Leningrad/Sankt Peterburg several times in the 80s and early 90s - it was a DUMP. I was very impressed by the clean, safe, tourist friendly city in c.2015. I'd had voted for Putin then.
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You're Russian? Or Polish?
 
Polish.
I meant to say - had I had a vote in Russia I would had voted for Vladimir Vladimirovich :)
 
Buba said:
Polish.
I meant to say - had I had a vote in Russia I would had voted for Vladimir Vladimirovich :)
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Depends on who the alternative to him is. I might prefer Prokhorov over him but would certainly prefer Putin to either Zhirinovsky or Zyuganov.
 
WolfBear said:
What was the Hungarian voting system and could FF have reformed it?
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Heavily property based, so something like 95% of people couldn't vote. No it was locally based unless he invaded and imposed a new constitution.

WolfBear said:
BTW, what do you think about this proposal made before the start of World War I? :

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Interesting but political unfeasible.

WolfBear said:
Wouldn't more Ukrainians to repress have been a good thing for Polish landlords? Or would it have simply been too much social trouble and social upheaval due to there being too many angry peasants?

Would A-H have even refused to annex Venetia even if the opportunity to do so would have ever arisen?
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No? Too many extra people to create issues.
Yes no one wanted more Italians in the empire.
 
sillygoose said:
No it was locally based unless he invaded and imposed a new constitution.
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But that was going to happen had he lived, right? Since the Hungarian elites did not want universal suffrage, right?

Interesting but political unfeasible.
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So, if FF lives, then there would be no hopes at all of Romanian unification, ever? Not even with (southern) Bukovina?
 
@Ricardolindo How exactly would you have realistically gotten Spain and Portugal to be one country by the present-day? After all, some Russian nationalists might say that Spain and Portugal deserve to be one country because their languages and cultures are so similar.
 
WolfBear said:
I think that quality of life matters more than democracy, at least for Russians. Russians liked Putin back when he was still able to provide a good quality of life for them, and Putin is essentially a present-day Russian Tsar without the crown.

This article is rather optimistic about Russia's pre-World War I prospects:

daviskedrosky.substack.com

Twilight Imperium?

Modern Economic Growth in Tsarist Russia
daviskedrosky.substack.com daviskedrosky.substack.com
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Quality of life will matter more, especially when the current quality is appallingly bad as even small improvements will be considerable in terms. Also in general an autocratic state which seeks to keep its population as ignorant peasants simply can't succeed in a modern society. You need educated and motivated people to do the brain work necessary for such a society. That's why Thatcherism was so terrible for Britain with the abandonment of the idea of a modern advanced society.

Russians liked Putin because of a facade of real improvement and a hell of a lot of propaganda. In reality living conditions for the bulk of the population have improved little if at all. He brought the squabbling oligarchs into line more by nationalising corruption - making sure he gets a huge cut in the process of course - than suppressing it. That's why Russia is increasingly running on empty apart from the continued status as a oil/gas exporter.
 
FF can introduce universal male suffrage to Hungary.
All it takes for the King - i.e. FF - to initiate legislation to the effect and make this public. If (minimally) coordinated with mass parties - be these parties representing the middle or lower class - the limited franchise Parliament will pass it - or it will face a King-led rebellion of the Lower Orders.
At least this is how I see things :)

This is what FJ could had done, had he cared to. FJ killed the Habsburg Monarchy, it is known.
 
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sillygoose said:
Yes no one wanted more Italians in the empire.
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To be fair, though, Venice is a nice port, but then again, A-H already had Trieste nearby for this purpose.

Buba said:
FF can introduce universal male suffrage to Hungary.
All it takes for the King - i.e. FF - to initiate legislation to the effect and make this public. If (minimally) coordinated with mass parties - be these parties representing the middle or lower class - the limited franchise Parliament will pass it - or it will face a King-led rebellion of the Lower Orders.
At least this is how I see things :)

This is what FJ could had done, had he cared to. FJ killed the Habsburg Monarchy, it is known.
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FJ strikes me as being the kind of guy who enjoyed being lazy and letting things go on autopilot for decades! ;) :D :(
 
WolfBear said:
Yep. Do you disagree with his premise?

And FWIW, this won't necessarily only occur in an era of Malthusian industrialism. Even a hyper-advanced society could still select for breeder genes, after all.
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I find some aspects of it interesting, certainly, and some of his suggestions do seem to explain aspects that other arguments don't sufficiently with regards to current fertility issues.
 
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