Re: No USA involvement in WWI?

Mike stone wrote:
> "Robert Savage" <rbsavage@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:g93u5p0nfo@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
>>
>>Wilhelm seems to have always done his best to extend courtesy to Sophie.
>>I don't think it necessarily was only calculated. He and FF did have
>>similar world views. I had thought of his son as King, but dismissed it
>>given FF attitude toward the Magyars. But his son as king... A breakup
>>of A-H at least into A-H may be OK with Germany. Wilhelm as king-maker
>>seems to  suit him well, and the Crown of St Stephen to his friend's son
>>would be more than a fine exchange for Wilhelm keeping the Lothringen
>>title for himself...
>>
>>
>>This could solve some of the internal problems in the Dual Monarchy,
>>while keeping both Austria and Hungary in the German sphere. Is Germany
>>subtle enough in this TL to make this happen?
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
> My guess is it only happens if Germany, post-victory, is confident
enough to
> absorb the "German" provinces of Austria into the Reich - something
Bismarck
> had always been desperate to avoid for fear of weakening Prussian
hegemony
> within it.
> 
> However,their position might have been modified post WW1. There's some
> interesting stuff in Norman Stone's _The Eastern Front_, about the
> increasing amalgamation of the German and Habsburg armies. From 1916,
the
> latter was running low on NCOs and junior officers, and large numbers
(about
> 40% in the end, iirc) had to be seconded to them by their German ally. 
I
> think some Austro-Hungarian soldiers were seconded the other way to the
> _German_ army. According to Stone (regrettably he doesn't go into a lot
of
> detail) the AHian soldiers - Slavs just as much as Germans and Magyars)
> fought consistently better under "Reichsdeutsch" officers and NCOs than
they
> had under Austro-Hungarian ones, presumably because the former were
better
> at their jobs. This might have gone some way toward relaxing Prussian
> concerns about absorbing Czechs and Slovenes into the Reich "They're all
> right really. Put them under some good Prussian sergeants and we'll soon
> knock them into shape make perfectly good German soldiers out of them.
> They'll probably be less trouble than the Alsatians."
> 
> So if Max gets the Hungarian throne, maybe his brother Ernst gets the
> Austrian lands as "King of Bohemia" or some such title, forming a member
> state of the German Empire. Croatia, Dalmatia and Bosnia form a state of
> their own, under a Catholic Hohenzollern or something, while Galicia
gets
> tacked on to whatever Polish entity has been erected.
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
> 
> Q) In the Roman Civil Wars, why did all the bachelors fight for Sulla?
> 
> A) Because they weren't the Marian kind.
> 
> 
> 
> 

I can see Max as King of an independent Hungary, and probably Galicia to 
the Kingdom of Poland while Karl is still alive.(With another Habsburg 
on the throne?) But would Wilhelm really (in effect) depose Otto's 
regency as Austrian Emperor?

It would make good strategic sense to bring all teh Austrian crown lands 
into teh Reich, but how do you politely reduce an emperor to a king?

Wild thought: create an Empire of the Croats, Serbs and Slovenes for 
Otto to assume in 1930?

Otherwise, I could see a Catholic Hohenzollern as king of an independent 
Croatia/Croatia+