Russia and Germany as allies in an alternate WW1

[Bones101]

... than you for ignoring me:

... but you're welcome to teach me different if you can provide some source(s) refuting recorded history.


... yeah ... good ole' coal depenmdency of Italy ...
Pls let me refer to my recent comment regarding this theme (for the felt umpteenth time) :

Your source shows that through the first 2 years of war, around 60% of Italys coal still came from exports, and in the final year, a good chunk still was exports. And your source on how Germany would supply Italy with coal doesn't really matter because Germany would need to occupy Austria for that, which I do not see happening. Italy can certainly join the war if that happens, but they aren't joining at the beginning when it looks uncertain.

 

[NoMommsen]

I agree on your mathematics about the relative amount of coal imported by Italy.
But in the linked post I talked about the absolute numbers regarding coal imported by Italy and also showed how much coal the german mining industry had - at least in the beginning - to spent:

- italian imorts about/below 10 million t​

- german 'freed' capacity about 12 million t​

How much would be delivered later during the war and its sources would have been subject of later agreements and economical processes (and also only if the war would last longer everybody hoped or even took as granted within the politics would not). ... like organising additional coal from elsewher like Sweden or Norway or even Russia.

No, they won't need the austrain railways, the swiss would have been suffice with their ... overall 6 crossings into Italy in 1910 already. IIRC there was a railtranit agreement between Germany and Switzerland from 1907 allowing free - free of custom fees - transit into Italy even of 'sensitive' goods in enclosed waggons.
As long as eventual swiss railways companies are paid or own rolling stock would be used.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

I'm come to the conclusion that AHs economic growth will come from the aristocrats bending the knee to Vienna at gunpoint leading to them stopping the growth of the middle class and general economic growth that they butchered in OTL on purpose, or their removal from power via full male suffrage.

Excuse me? The aristocrats will just randomly stop concentrating power on themselves? With a AH leadership similar to OTL?
The fact that AH is allied to France and Britain doesn't make them any less conservative, influenced by the nobility etc.

I don't see Germany alone being able to break AH, at least, not fast enough. Not when they have a significantly larger and better funded military, the German army was strong, real strong, the strongest in the world. In a 1v1 in 1914 OTL they would eventually beat any opponent you could theoretically put them up against. Key word eventually. I do not this my buffed Austro Hungarian army is stronger then the German army, and I do not think they would be able to win a 1v1 either if it came down a grind game.

You still have the same kind of commanders at the head of the armies (i.e. very bad ones) and military tech for AH has not changed dramatically, AH still has proportionately around half the artillery of their opponents.
And the wiki has something for you:

The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,[A. 1] was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (German: Gemeinsame Armee, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), the Imperial-Royal Landwehr (recruited from Cisleithania) and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd (recruited from Transleithania).
[...]
Common Army units were generally poorly trained and had very limited access to new equipment, because the governments of the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the empire often preferred to generously fund their own units instead of outfitting all three army branches equally. All Landwehr and Honvéd regiments were composed of three battalions, while Common Army regiments had four.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire often suffered from a lack of military interpreters, and this proved to be a major force in the partial dysfunctioning and blunders of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Nearly all officers of the upper ranks spoke German (specifically Austrian German), and because only a fraction of soldiers spoke German, this produced a logistical obstacle for organizing the military. Likewise the lack of mutual intelligibility between speakers of Hungarian and German led to a feeling of resentment by many non-Austrian soldiers. The delivery of orders was particularly ineffective, and the bureaucratic and dysfunctional system led to individual ethnic units becoming isolated from the overall high command.[15]

Following the 1867 constitutional arrangements, the Reichsrat was dominated by German Liberals, who generally regarded the army as a relic of feudalism. In Budapest, legislators were reluctant to authorize funds for the joint army but were generous with the Hungarian branch of the army, the Honvédség. In 1867 the military budget accounted for about 25% of all government spending, but the economic crash of 1873 hit Austria-Hungary hard and foreign observers questioned whether the Dual Monarchy could manage a major war without subsidies.[17] Despite increases throughout the 1850s and 1860s, in the latter half of the century Austria-Hungary was still spending less on its army than were other major European powers.[17] While the budget continued to rise—from 262 million crowns in 1895 to 306 million in 1906—this was still far less per capita than for other major European states, including Italy, and about on par with Russia, which had a much larger population.[18] Further contributing to the monarchy's military weakness was the low rate of conscription: Austria-Hungary conscripted only 0.29% of its population annually, compared to 0.47% in Germany and 0.75% in France. Attempts to increase the yearly intake of recruits were proposed but repeatedly blocked by officials in Budapest until an agreement was reached in 1912.[10]

In the emerging field of military aviation, Austria-Hungary lagged behind other European states. While balloon detachments had been established in 1893, they were mostly assigned to the fortress artillery, except for a brief period from 1909 to 1911 when they were under command of the multifaceted Verkehrs Brigade.[19] Realization that heavier-than-air machines were necessary or useful came late, and Austria-Hungary acquired only five airplanes by 1911. In 1914 the budget for military aviation was approximately 1⁄25th the amount spent by France. Austria-Hungary entered the war with only 48 first-line aircraft.[19]

Explain me how all of the problems listed above are solved ITTL?

But I absolutely think a coordinated Austro French effort at the beginning of the war could put some serious, *temporary* pressure on Germany that could lead to domino effects ending up in an Entente victory. The 2 should outnumber and outgun Germany, AH has the defensive advantage, and its really easy for armies to get stuck in the alps or the bohemian mountains, creating openings for a Tannenberg style victory for the Austrians.

I already told you that the Germans have an easy time repelling the French in Alsace. The AH aren't able to Tannenberg the Germans because their leadership is very incompetent, a problem that is far from solved.

And since I think AH is significantly stronger here, I still think the Schlieffen plan would be aimed at France. Why? AH has a significantly larger population then France, it should be around 60 million in TL as a more industrialized Hungary avoids the mass emigration waves that happened in OTL. Around 2 million ethnic hungarians left just from 1890-1900 in OTL, things like that should be avoided, then theres also more urbanization, etc, the domino effects basically. A larger economy, and they should have a larger military too.

Explain me how German commanders will envision moving all of their armies trough Belgium to go to Paris when AH is there to attack them? They can't do like OTL since the border is much larger, so moving all of your troops to Paris is a quite dumb idea IMO.

Basically, there is no way I see AH being labelled as the "weaker" of the 2 here, and since they have better defensible borders then France, I still see the main German effort being directed at France. So AH should end up occupying some German land at the end of the opening offensives, not the other way around.

Remember me how did their invasion of Serbia go? Does it seem they're anything close to defeating Germany with any realistic improvements in their military capabilities?

The Russians will not have a standing army of 1.4 million here, or 5.9 million total. because they are not as industrialized and therefore likely lack the capital to front such a massive army. That massive army came around after Russian industrialization reached its peak, I believe those numbers were put into place in 1913. So without that industrial boom, they should not have such a massive army. Using there numbers from 1900 is closer to what I expect them to have. I can't find a reliable source on those, but regardless they should be far smaller then 1.4 million. So they shouldn't have 2.5 million to fight against AH either. You're right, saying the Russians can't do anything at the start of the war is ridiculous, but they shouldn't have to manpower or gunpower to do things like conduct a serious offensive against AH in the opening stages of the war. A month or a month and a half later? Sure, but not at outbreak.

Pure speculation.

There are 2 ways I can see this going down, either the aristocrats are forced to bend the knee to Vienna at gunpoint since AHs geopolitical situation is quite scary, and Vienna absolutely cannot tolerate the Hungarians doing things like kneecapping industrial, economic and military development. Why would this work? Because there were serious calls for reform in the Hungarian system after the 1867 compromise, there was mass emigration, the middle class was Austrian immigrants, and the rest of them were kept afloat by payments of family members who immigrated. So if there was *ever* going to be a standoff between the Crown(Austria) and the aristocratic government, the crown would win every single time. They would have the support of Transylvania, Croatia, the other minorities in Hungary, the Hungarian peasantry who were basically kept in serfdom, whatever middle class of ethnic Hungarians there was, and probably some liberal aristocrats too. The only people who support the aristocracy would be the violent nationalists and the rest of the aristocracy themselves. So they would have no support essentially. The army would also support the crown, as Habsburg soldiers were quite loyal to the dynasty and they were also drafted from the classes the aristocracy kept down. Phrase this takeover of power in the right way and the aristocrats are dead.

If all of you said is true why didn't they do it IOTL? The only logical explanation would be that Franz Joseph didn't want to, which gets us back to square one.

Or better yet Vienna could just force full male suffrage which would be even easier to do, as they would have support from even the nationalists in the middle class and have the aristocracy completely backed to a wall. That's the route I see them going personally, but you can achieve the same results and keep the aristocrats in power too. Doesn't matter.

First where the hell did Franz Joseph become liberal?
Second that seems an awful idea, you would unleash all of the problems AH has at the moment in an instant, they're not going to increase military budget they're going to demand better conditions for workers and peasants, more rights for minorities etc. Imagine how happy the Southern Slavs are?

You might already be able to tell but I've gone back on this as my first response shows. Most of the development should come from the aristocracy's power being broken.

You do know that the entire AH system relied on the nobility? How are you going to break the nobility when it is controlling every state organ?

They do not need as large loans as Russia, maybe some to kickstart it but they should have the capital to do the rest themselves.

The loans are just an extra help, but industrialization/reforms need to be something desired internally; a thing that AH completely lacking. French loans were there since 1890's but Russian industrialization only really kicked off after 1905, because at that point the Imperial government realized the need to industrialize.

Austria would have to keep larger then a 400k standing army no matter what. 6-700k is what I think would be the standing army here.

AH was the one who proportionately mobilized less soldiers in peace time out of all the GPs, how is that exactly changed?

France in OTL spent the most out of the great powers on its army, kept it as large as it possibly could through large drafts and inflating service time as much as possible. With a population of 44 million they managed to have an army not too far off from Germany in size at mobilization and for the entire war. If France can front a giant army with less population and a smaller economy, AH should have no problem front a giant army too.

Not really relevant, in France there was a real will to fight the Germans; AH has internal problems and doesn't have an unifying enemy. And the French were far from having about the same soldiers as the Germans during the war, the Germans were supplying AH, fighting the Russians, the British and the French.

An AH first plan would be seen as just as risky, if not more so, and just as time tight.

???
Unlike the Schlieffen plan it doesn't require everything to go your way, it only requires the French being repelled from the Franco-German border (a thing they already planned IOTL) and attacking AH, not some operation that needs a perfect execution from the beginning to the end.

The Germans completely rejected a defensive plan against France, they weren't familiar with the absurd advantage trench warfare would give to the attacker, but regardless they completed rejected a defensive plan and thought it would confirm their defeat. So I don't see them committing to a defensive plan against France here either.

They didn't rejected a defensive plan against France, they rejected a defensive plan in general because of the cult of the offensive and decided to attack France and not Russia because the same operation is not possible on the Russian border and because they considered France weaker.
The Germans won't stay on the defensive but the question is who they are going to attack. They took a defensive strategy on the Eastern Front IOTL 1914, I don't see why they would be unable to do so with the French.

Good thing the army isn't anything close to OTL.

The AH leadership is completely different from OTL? Language barrier is suddenly lifted? The Common Army is suddenly funded properly?
AH army is similar to what it was IOTL.

Defending in Galicia once the Russians come in numbers shouldn't be so hard as AH will outgun them. Artillery ruled the battelfeild, and Russia like AH in OTL, wouldn't have modern artillery here

The AH problem was that they didn't have enough of it since they had proportionately less guns, which is still the case here. Russia still has modern artillery and is more than capable of producing it for a smaller army than OTL.

And by the time they do modernize theres a high chance they'll have been beaten back across Poland already.

OBVIOUSLY, AH is going to attack both Russia AND Germany, and WIN against both. This is probably the silliest thing I've heard in the entire month. Occupation of Poland is impossible, the Russians aren't impacted enough by the lack of French loans to change the fact that AH has to fight both Germany and Russia + Italy, Serbia, Montenegro and Romania in some order.
Occupation of Poland by AH is beyond ASB.

The food stockpiles your talking about does not exist. There was no food stockpile because they never expected a long war.

???

one of their major grain suppliers joined the war(Romania, also 1917)

They joined August 1916, don't be ridiculous.

Germany is going to starve within a year.

Completely ridiculous prediction.

The Russians victories are only because of mismanagement of AH early in the war

And why does AH not mismanage anything ITTL? Conrad von Hötzendorf suddenly is a genius?

and AH being technically behind in things like artillery which created a massive advantage even an idiot commander couldn't lose.

Russian commanders weren't all idiots you know?

And the brusilov offensive was because by 1916 AH had exhausted most of its manpower due to its early losses, and was currently fighting another offensive in Italy

It was lost because of over confidence of AH generals, the AH soldiers were capable of fighting and were not fatally outnumbered*. Now must I remember you that the Brusilov Offensive was meant to be a distraction and that the main offensive was blocked with little effort by the Germans? It will make you see the difference between Germany and AH.

*633 000 Russians vs 480 000 AHs, which is normally not enough to conduct a successful offensive; but surprise! The AHs were so incompetent they suffered 50% casualties and needed German help to survive.

Before the provisional government took over the army was already starving and demoralized.

It started getting bad under the Provisional Government, under which all discipline broke down, industrial output plummeted etc. And by the February revolution the frontlines looked like this after 2 and a half years of fighting:

There was still a long way to go to arrive at military defeat, something in which the Provisional Government and Bolsheviks weren't outsiders.

It was becoming less and less of a fighting force with each passing day, with or without the provisional government the army was going to collapse sometime around 1917. After 1914 it existed off the prestige of its early victories alone.

Repeat yourself that, the army collapsed because when the PG took over discipline broke down and because the Bolsheviks sent everyone home, its collapse wasn't inevitable. Prestige from victories a long time ago are irrelevant for the fighting capabilities of the Russian army.
And just to remember you the AH on the Eastern Front continued to exist only thanks to German support from 1915 onwards.

Without the massive capital brought about by the industrial boom, which was brought about by the entente loans, Russia will not have the money to equip its army with modern artillery throughout.

There were loans from the 1890's, the reason Russia grew so much post-1905 was because the leadership finally accepted that Russia needed to modernize, the Entente loans only helping that but not being the only reason. The Russians would still see the need to industrialize. Plus part of the investments will be done by Germany.

Some units yes, but not definitely not the majority.

Let me remember you that much less troops are needed to fight AH than to fight AH, Germany and the Ottomans; these soldiers would be much better supplied than IOTL even if Russia was lagging 20 years behind, which she isn't.

They absolutely are, they couldn't seriously win while outnumbering their opponent 2 if not 3 to 1 past 1914, whatever victory they did get was against an army on crutches.

Excuse me?? The AH wasn't an army on crutches in 1916, it was not the greatest but far from being completely unable to offer serious resistance at the soldier level, leadership was another story.
The Brusilov Offensive was a secondary offensive from the Russians which didn't receive much extra supplies, meanwhile the AHs had two fronts to care about and had German support; its defeat was an absolute humiliation.
And if AH's army was on crutches by 1916 with German support how in hell are they fighting and winning when every one of their neighbors is attacking them? If Italy and Russia are enough to make the AHs that weak how are they fighting Germany on top of that?

And now they're 15 years behind.

Stop being ridiculous, I already repeatedly explained why they aren't backwards.

Even if you lowball AHs army quality to match France

That would be unbelievable boost for AH.

they still wipe the floor with a Russia 15 years behind.

Obviously they're fighting on 4-6 fronts but will be able to hold the line (or even win) on 3 of them and crush the Russians in the meantime, remember OTL when they had to rely on German help the entire time to not collapse in front of the Russians? How are they going to survive the Germans alone?

Nice! I'm sure the farmers are going to carry the war industry and the cities freezing certainly won't be a problem for the Italian war effort!

@NoMommsen already explained you why they aren't without coal at all. My point is entirely on debunking your ridiculous statement that all Italians are going to freeze by November.