The Historical Assumptions of Victoria II

[Valmy]

Russia was not exactly incredibly stable in 1914. The Tsar was terrified after the massacre in the Siberian Gold Mine enraged the workers and his regime was getting attacked from the right because he was always selling out the Serbs. He felt like going to war was necessary to strengthen his regime. So long as Nicholas and Alexandra were in charge Russia was always going to be on the brink of disaster, war or no war. Remember they were just sort of in a lull after 1905.

I think Austria-Hungary might have been more stable, at least in areas where Germans or Hungarians were the majority, but I might just think that because I know comparatively less about it.

[Sheilbh]

I think Austria-Hungary might have been more stable, at least in areas where Germans or Hungarians were the majority, but I might just think that because I know comparatively less about it.

Yeah I think there's been a big revisionist push on Austria-Hungary in the last 20 years, that actually it may have been more stable and there were movements and ideas around to build out the institutions that might have stabilised it in the long-term. It seems like the image that I've always had of the ramshackle, Ruritanian Empire Without Qualities is a bit unfair.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well, Germany was a top tier country and Russia and Austria-Hungary were experiencing explosive economic growth before the war. If the war hadn't happened, it's hard to say who things would have went.  Austria-Hungary would probably still have fell apart, but would Russia have?

Germany was not an autocracy; it was a federal state with a real parliament with universal male suffrage.  A parliament whose leading party was the Marxist-inspired SPD for much of the latter part of this period.

I would not call Russian economic growth "explosive" unless the intent was to refer to the political radicalism of the industrial workers.  Russsian GDP per capita grew 63.4% between 1885 to 1913, a good performance that was slightly lower than neighboring Germany (64.4%) but higher than France (57.9%).  Of course Russia had the benefit of growing from a much lower base and with big infusions of foreign capital.  Perhaps a more comparable example was Finland, which grew per capital GDP by 71.5% in the same period.

[Tamas]

I think Austria-Hungary might have been more stable, at least in areas where Germans or Hungarians were the majority, but I might just think that because I know comparatively less about it.

Yeah I think there's been a big revisionist push on Austria-Hungary in the last 20 years, that actually it may have been more stable and there were movements and ideas around to build out the institutions that might have stabilised it in the long-term. It seems like the image that I've always had of the ramshackle, Ruritanian Empire Without Qualities is a bit unfair.

Yugoslavia had far more factors keeping it together than A-H look how that turned out.

The war accelerated things that were already there. e.g. one of the big reason for wanting to punish Serbia was to counter the uppity Serbian citizens of Hungary. They (internal Serbs) were being dealt quite harshly. Romanian citizens had a fairly lenient approach because of the alliance with Romania, which still made it easier for ideas of joining up with Romania spread, so wasn't exactly a solution for the regime, either.

Perhaps more importantly, while Czechs and Croats were fairly easy to "cut out" as an autonomous part if wanted, all other minorities were inside Hungary, the political unity of which was of utmost importance to the Hungarian ruling class and I am pretty sure for the population as well (or at least could be easily riled up for it). Ethnic Hungarians were slightly below 50% of Hungary's population there was intense paranoia around something what ended up happening with the country happening.

How A-H fell apart was decided by the war and probably 5 million ethnic Hungarians would not have ended up on the wrong side of their nation state's border if A-H was let to disintegrate on its own, but still it would have probably happened in a Yugoslavia-style ethnic-cleansing heavy civil war.

[Threviel]

Would it be conceivable for Hungary to go federal on its own? A federal state within a federal state?

[Josquius]

It would have been nice to better balance regimes and give more strengths and weaknesses to them, making a few desirable paths to try to follow.
Its been eons since I played. IIRC going down the dictatorship route does reduce war exhaustion to an extent? Albeit not enough.

[Tamas]

Would it be conceivable for Hungary to go federal on its own? A federal state within a federal state?

István Tisza, who was the dominating Hungarian leader of the ww1 and prior years, was arrogantly dismissing representatives of the Serbian community even in late 1918 as the Entente armies were coming up the Balkans with no resistance.

There was absolutely no political appetite for any such compromises.

[jimmy olsen]

Would it be conceivable for Hungary to go federal on its own? A federal state within a federal state?

Didn't Franz Ferdinand have some plan for a federalized Austria-Hungary?

[Tamas]

Would it be conceivable for Hungary to go federal on its own? A federal state within a federal state?

Didn't Franz Ferdinand have some plan for a federalized Austria-Hungary?

All I remember he had plans for a more centralised state unst4d of having to please the Hungarians. Needless to say few regretted his death.

[grumbler]

FF had an ambition to raise the Slavs to be equal to the Germans and Magyars in the Empire.  Not a hit with the Magyars or Serbs.

[The Minsky Moment]

Robert Allen wrote about the performance and prospects of the late Tsarist economy.  In summary although the output statistics were good from 1885-1913, the structural development of the economy was limited: the share of labor (85%-->81%) and value added output (59%-->51%) declined very slowly.  And although value added output increased in heavy industry from a very low starting point, much of that was railway construction, heavily foreign financed, built for the principal purpose of transporting grain for export.  Russian growth for the period appears strong because wholesale grain prices rose significantly in the period and because Russian crop yields were extremely low in the 1880s - while Russian agriculture was still relatively inefficient in 1913 compared to other leading grain exporters, productivity increased significantly from a very low base.

The 1913 Russian economy looks quite a bit like a poorer version of Argentina, led by a strong agricultural export sector and with a lagging industrial sector that the state was attempting to prop up using import substitution strategies.  That model performed very poorly after WW1.

In short I think to the extent Victoria's model operates from the premise that autocratic regimes that do not prioritize mass education and literacy will lag significantly behind more flexible polities that invest in mass education (like Germany or the western democracies) in terms of industrial development it is well grounded.

[jimmy olsen]

Part II - "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"

https://acoup.blog/2021/08/20/collections-teaching-paradox-victoria-ii-part-ii-the-ruin-of-war/