WI: A Peaceful Anschluss

[Eurofed]

After 1848, the achievment of liberal goals without giving any power to the liberals became the normal deal in most of continental Europe - even in Russia under Alexander II, up to a point. But how can we identify Nicholas I with Nicholas II (who is a much better example than either of yours, neither of whom were 'reactionaries') when his armies, you know, won? How sensible is sensible compromise when you don't need to compromise at all?

True, but I was answering to your general point with a general counter-point of mine. As it concerns Nicholas I himself, you know my own divergence advice on how to neutralize him during that critical year is of a different sort than expecting him to compromise.

 

[Eurofed]

Nearly every educated Pole was a potential revolutionary: the remarkable strength and solidity of Polish nationalism in a cold climate saw to that. But a lot of them at any given time saw no reason to have a revolution.

I remain convinced that a number of "easy" butterflies may sway many of them the opposite way without excessive difficulty when the continent is being swept by a revolutionary wave.

 

[I Blame Communism]

I agree that Friedrich Wilhelm would never accept the crown, so it couldn't really happen. But I still think that if it happened the best way to avoid a Russian invasion would be appeasing them with territory.

If intervening against the revolution means going to war with other great powers it's a different question (the Russians tended to overestimate Prussian strength at this time), of course. So either Nicholas and the Russian elite behave in a very unlikely way, or Friewi and the Prussian elite. Six and half-dozen, isn't it?

There seems to be a strong conviction that the 1848 revolutionaries somehow 'ought' to have won. Well, Hobsbawm put it best: this was not the moment when Europe reached the turning point and failed to turn. It just failed to turn towards a revolution. If the forces of reaction won, they were stronger as it stood. You'd think that to change this altogether would mean some sort of structural change - but that would mean a different kind of revolution.

 

[DuQuense]

Hohenzollerns

Also the Hasburgs faced a constant problem with German expansion the Hungarians. Hungarian nobles where incredibly resistant to any attempts to expand the number of German nobles in the empire because they posed a very direct threat to the status and power of the Hungarians.

?How about no '67 Anschluss with Hungary?*
The Hapsburgs revert to Dukes of Austria, and become Emperors of Hungary & points south.



*In all my years as a lurker/member, I have only seen one timeline with this POD.

 

[Eurofed]

There seems to be a strong conviction that the 1848 revolutionaries somehow 'ought' to have won.

No, that they 'could' have won, and that the world would have been a much better place if they did.

Well, Hobsbawm put it best: this was not the moment when Europe reached the turning point and failed to turn. It just failed to turn towards a revolution. If the forces of reaction won, they were stronger as it stood. You'd think that to change this altogether would mean some sort of structural change - but that would mean a different kind of revolution.

Typical Marxist determinist rubbish from a well-known Soviet apologist that ignores how radically some well-placed divergencies can change major event chains. Pick the right ones, and you can have any major revolution fail, or succeed, without any need for 'structural' changes.

 

[Eurofed]

Hohenzollerns

?How about no '67 Anschluss with Hungary?*
The Hapsburgs revert to Dukes of Austria, and become Emperors of Hungary & points south.

*In all my years as a lurker/member, I have only seen one timeline with this POD.

Well, I may have come close, since I once made a TL that creates Hohenzollern Greater Germany with a 1866 PoD (Italy's decisive victory in the Seven Weeks' War/Third War of Italian Independence).

 

[I Blame Communism]

No, that they 'could' have won, and that the world would have been a much better place if they did.

One link in the chain of destiny. Let us remember what the wonderful regimes of liberalism were capable of. We saw it in 1848 in Paris, to omit any reference to Java. The conviction that everything would be alright if only our lads had prevailed in history is very dangerous. People in the past were nobody's champions but their own, operating in terms of their own systems. And he system of moderate liberals in 1848 had a lot of room for ghastly anti-human savagery.

Typical Marxist determinist rubbish from a well-known Soviet apologist that ignores how radically some well-placed divergencies can change major event chains. Pick the right ones, and you can have any major revolution fail, or succeed, without any need for 'structural' changes.

Is that me or Hobsbawm to whom this charming reference is made? Because the stuff about structural change is all mine, although I would hazard a guess that the big man would agree with the outlines of what I'm saying. Hobsbawm's endorsement is on the back of my copy of A People's Tragedy, and if somebody told me that magisterial book was a piece of Soviet apologia I suppose I'd just open it at the pictures. Or remind them of the title.

Either way, the Soviets have sweet fanny adams to do with 1848, and I suspect they are a stick with which to beat a historian whose insight and breadth of knowledge has been praised from all around the political spectrum - or, as the case may be, AH.com's nicest Morningsider - with something irrelevant to the actual questions at hand.

But what is it to be a 'Soviet apologist'? Suppose I believe that Stalin personally killed half of all Soviets. I've seen people say it. Now, how is this person to be disabused? In his opinion, no doubt, people who deny the death of 50% of all Soviets are Soviet apologists, and so their views are entirely worthless and nobody need listen to them. In Soviet historiography or any historiography there is one cardinal sin and that is lying about sources. If it was wrong to draw different conclusions from the ones we like, how far we'd not have come since 1912!

Come to think of it I seem to recall you advancing the absurd and unsupportable thesis that the Soviets somehow 'hid' their top-secret genocides in the WW2 casualties. You appear to have stopped; well done. But how would your mind have been changed without 'Soviet apologia'?

Onywey, as to your thesis, well, obviously. If it can't be shown to be true, the revolution wasn't 'major'! I mean, nobody even knows whether or not the French revolution succeeded, which is pretty damning of your thesis. But I'd be interested to know how the '48 revolutions are to succeed.

 

[Eurofed]

One link in the chain of destiny. Let us remember what the wonderful regimes of liberalism were capable of. We saw it in 1848 in Paris. The conviction that everything would be alright if only our lads had prevailed in history is very dangerous. People in the past were nobody's champions but their own, operating in terms of their own systems. And he system of moderate liberals in 1848 had a lot of room for ghastly anti-human savagery.

Better does not need to equate perfect, and a TL does not need to be perfectly utopian to be substantially better than our own.

Is that me or Hobsbawm to whom this charming reference is made?

Hobsbawn, of course.

Because the stuff about structural change is all mine, although I would hazard a guess that the big man would agree with the outlines of what I'm saying.

Well, then let's say that I radically disagree with your own conclusions (as far as I'm concerned, 'structural change' may be *one* possible way, but certainly not the only one, to make 1848 succeed), and I'm quite unfazed that you invoke quotes from a Marxist determinist that rose-colored Stalinism to support them.

 

[Eurofed]

Come to think of it I seem to recall you advancing the absurd and unsupportable thesis that the Soviets somehow 'hid' their top-secret genocides in the WW2 casualties. You appear to have stopped; well done. But how would your mind have been changed without 'Soviet apologia'?

I have not been able to track down and check the paper I once read and based those claims on, so I've become wary of trusting my memory and using it in a discussion, that's all. Maybe I'd change my mind when I re-read it, maybe I won't. Can't say unless I check the source.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Better does not need to equate perfect, and a TL does not need to be perfectly utopian to be substantially better than our own.

And I cam questioning the basis on which any TL can be declared to result in a 'better world' with the aid of a few particular examples.

Hobsbawn, of course.

But I'm much more of a Stalin-loyalist than that filthy deviationist!

Well, then let's say that I radically disagree with your own conclusions (as far as I'm concerned, 'structural change' may be *one* possible way, but certainly not the only one, to make 1848 succeed), and I'm quite unfazed that you invoke quotes from a Marxist determinist that rose-colored Stalinism to support them.

Of course, in that particular quote, he's putting forward the controversial radical view that the 1848 revolutions didn't actually succeed. What cheek!

As for the rest, I'm a Marxist if he is and you don't, I hope, dismiss everything I say; the historical mainstream remains relatively uninterested by AH, but I do recall a very approving reference to the possibilities of counterfactuals in AoR, so possibly 'determinist' means the same thing about him as about me, vis, 'one who disagrees with Eurofed'; and whereas I have never seen any evidence of his apologising for Stalin more than all historians 'apologise' for something, I don't see what it tells us about 1848.

Compartmentalisation is a fact of life: all historians have weaknesses. Bear in mind that I'm Scots, so until quite recently enormously respected and respectable historians were allowed to pretend that my country didn't exist, or that it existed in some shadowy otherworld ('Charles II was a good king, because he saved England from the Scottish fate!'... except he was also Charles II of Scotland); or that it was just a shithole. Trevor-Roper, say, or Thomson about Nairn ('A Marxist kirk-elder'), or indeed Hobsbawm, who somewhere reflects on what Carlyle's work tells us about the state of England in the 1840s, which is not exactly untrue but is still a pretty unfortunate phraseology.

By these rules I can poo-poo their conclusions about England, because they hurt my delicate national sensibilities. But I don't.

I have not been able to track down and check the paper I once read and based those claims on, so I've become wary of trusting my memory and using it in a discussion, that's all.

But if you found it, I'd be allowed to dismiss it because the historian was a Nazi apologist, or possibly because he took sugar in his tea.

 

[Eurofed]

Of course, in that particular quote, he's putting forward the controversial radical view that the 1848 revolutions didn't actually succeed. What cheek!

I'm only radically disagreeing with the view that a counterfactual 1848 can't succeed without 'structural changes' starting decades before, as opposed to say, liberal radicals seizing control of Berlin for good and forcing FWIV to abdicate, liberal radicals seizing control of Vienna for good and joining hands with the Hungarian revolutionaries, Radetsky being handed his butt on a plate at Custoza, and Louis Napoleon falling down the stairs and the Roman Republic surviving. That's what I regard as typical Marxist determinist... well, stuff I don't have much respect for.

 

[I Blame Communism]

I'm only radically disagreeing with the view that a counterfactual 1848 can't succeed without 'structural changes' starting decades before, as opposed to say, liberal radicals seizing control of Berlin for good and forcing FWIV to abdicate, liberal radicals seizing control of Vienna for good and joining hands with the Hungarian revolutionaries, Radetsky being handed his butt on a plate at Custoza, and Louis Napoleon falling down the stairs and the Roman Republic surviving. That's what I regard as typical Marxist determinist... well, stuff I don't have much respect for.

I'm not a determinist and neither, I think, was Hobsbawm. I recall also, thinking of it, him counterfactualising in interviews I read, about New Labour.

Now, some of these. Radicals did seize Vienna. How do you think Blum died? The halt of the Hungarian campaign in Austria was very close to the storm of Red Vienna. Then the Austrians losing at Custoza because, apparently, battles are besides by coin-toss and not military circumstances. The Romans Republic surviving and sending its armies to defeat those of the tsar, I presume. The people of Berlin being able to do what the people of Dresden - or Paris or Vienna - alas, weren't and fight off professional soldiery. Abdication changing everything, as it didn't in Austria.

 

[Eurofed]

Now, some of these. Radicals did seize Vienna. How do you think Blum died? The halt of the Hungarian campaign in Austria was very close to the storm of Red Vienna.

I said, 'for good'. Assume that halt never happens.

Then the Austrians losing at Custoza because, apparently, battles are besides by coin-toss and not military circumstances.

Circumstances may change.

The Romans Republic surviving and sending its armies to defeat those of the tsar, I presume.

To stop them (for a while) is the business of the Pole revolutionaries.

The people of Berlin being able to do what the people of Dresden - or Paris or Vienna - alas, weren't and fight off professional soldiery.

The people of Milan did it.

Abdication changing everything, as it didn't in Austria.

Things may change a lot (such as, accepting the Paulskirche Constitution) if the throne goes to this guy. He's second into line, and given the circumstances, his father may easily be forced to renounce his rights as well.

 

[I Blame Communism]

I said, 'for good'. Assume that halt never happens.

Because they tossed a coin for Schwechat?

Circumstances may change.

We never hear which ones or why.

To stop them (for a while) is the business of the Pole revolutionaries.

But my point is that by the time of the Roman Republic everything was going to hell for the prospects of the revolution.

The people of Milan did it.

They fought an army into retreat with another army over the shoulders. They and the Venetians couldn't repeat the feat when, as in Germany and France, it was a matter of storming, not holding.

Things may change a lot (such as, accepting the Paulskirche Constitution) if the throne goes to this guy. He's second into line, and given the circumstances, his father may easily be forced to renounce his rights as well.

I am, to use a favourite phrase of yours, not convinced either that he can do as he likes or that dad will be so easily chucked: this amounts to the same thing, which is that the junkers and the soldiery who stormed all the revolutionary cities are still there.

 

[M79]

I think it could be done, but if it starts a POD between 1630-1730 it would be better. Have the Prussians marry into the Hapsburgs earlier or maybe create a rival state, perhaps have Bavaria or Saxony marry into Bohemia and slowly expand. One scenario might be to have a Saxony-Brandenburg marriage and a Bavaria-Bohemia marriage around 1650 with those marriages combining about 1680. By 1700 you could generate a state within the HRE to rival the Hapsburgs, and just have smaller wars and marriages unite the rest. By 1780 a Germany running along the modern border with the Netherlands to Emmerich then down the Meuse and Franche-Comte in the West to Switzerland and the Venetian border (maybe including the city under the right/wrong circumstances) in the south with the whole of modern Austria and Dalmatia in the Southeast along the eastern border of modern Czech Republic to include most of Western and Northern Poland. Such a state would have linguistic unity and could pose a real threat to Bonaparte if properly led, maybe leading to the French and UK unifying early to defeat "the hun". IT could also lead to Hungary and much of the Balkan Peninsula becoming German-controlled and in some cases German-settled, causing a GrossDeutschLand running across the whole of Germany, Poland, Austria, old Czechloslovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Venice, eastern Belgium, modern Alscace, modern Lorraine, chunks of Denmark, and modern Franche-Comte. Or anything in between.

 

[Snake Featherston]

The biggest problems in 1848 is that the revolutionaries were a tiny minority of the politically aware classes divided into different goals involving different, irreconcilable ends, and that the factions opposed to them have much simpler goals involving a single, simple end: keeping their heads/power. Unless this fundamental issue changes all the broader spread in the world won't let it outlast reaction.

 

[I Blame Communism]

I wouldn't say the people in favour of change in February were a tiny minority of the political population. The people who didn't get off before the stop marked 'Jacobin war' and/or 'socialism' probably were.

 

[Faeelin]

I wouldn't say the people in favour of change in February were a tiny minority of the political population. The people who didn't get off before the stop marked 'Jacobin war' and/or 'socialism' probably were.

I'd also caveat that this depends. Baden managed to keep fighting for months after other places, and raise citizen soldiers which gave the Prussians a bloody nose (before everyone died).

This doesn't seem like a place where revolutionaries were in the minority...

 

[I Blame Communism]

I'd also caveat that this depends. Baden managed to keep fighting for months after other places, and raise citizen soldiers which gave the Prussians a bloody nose (before everyone died).

This doesn't seem like a place where revolutionaries were in the minority...

Hungary neither; and when the Poles did revolt they didn't do it by halves.

 

[Eurofed]

Because they tossed a coin for Schwechat?

ATL military butterflies that tighten the noose around the reactionaries' neck are just as good as the ones that saved their skins IOTL.

But my point is that by the time of the Roman Republic everything was going to hell for the prospects of the revolution.

True, but I was simply quoting the untimely death of Louis Napoleon as an hypothetical example of an "easy" butterfly that would greatly change the course of events in France. I'm very well aware that the success of the revolution in Germany, Italy, and the Habsburg empire is primarily and critically dependent on political and military butterflies that foster or damn the victory of the liberal-nationalist forces in those lands during 1848. Events in France, Poland, Russia, etc. may substantially help a revolution otherwise already headed to victory on its own, but nothing more than that.

I am, to use a favourite phrase of yours, not convinced either that he can do as he likes or that dad will be so easily chucked: this amounts to the same thing, which is that the junkers and the soldiery who stormed all the revolutionary cities are still there.

To agree on a liberal-ish constitution and stick to it was certainly within the powers of a far-sighted king of the age. Ask Victor Emmanuel II. When abdication happens in such exceptional circumstances, it was far from unheard for succession to jump a generation and a place in the order; it also happened in Austria.