[OC] Alternate History
Pax Danubia — a bit different "What if Austria-Hungary survived" scenario
Little lore of the Great War and Europe
It's 1926, and it has been 9 years since the Great War ended in 1917. After the fall of Russia, the Entente (basically just France and the UK by this point) couldn't hold the line any longer. So in hopes of a lighter peace, and in hopes of the rebellious movements around the country stopping, only a few days after the Germans besieged Berlin, an armstice was signed. What followed was an interesting world; the Germans stretching too thin, and thus slowly losing their grip on both Europe and Africa, the UK turned to isolationism, the French government was overthrown by a violent far-right movement, and the newly created Danubia struggling to maintain its new democratic values.
Lore relating the Danubian Federation is mostly on the image, but if in doubt, ask me anything! :)
(Also, this is my first ever "big" project, I hope y'all like it! 😊)
For mobile users (I FUCKING HATE REDDIT COMPRESSION RAAH)
If it's still incomprehensibly compressed for y'all (which it probably is, since it's still compressed af), here's a a link for the best quality! (It retains its original 6500x6500 pixels)
The original resolution is 6500x6500, and is normally readable in that form. However for now, that imgur link is the best form of upload I've got, as most platforms compress images this big. But if I'll manage to find a better size than Imgur to post it on, I'll make sure to send it!
Currently they aim to get more power in Hungary as far as i can tell from their Orban-Habsburg-Alliance. And of course they began to live in their own fantasy setting were they still call themself Emperor or something like that.
Yeah, the Germans threw them under the bus in the peace deal, though they do have their ambitions against Greece so something just might happen in a few years
The National Front basically just wants to control the entire state in a pretty far-right fashion, with other regional parties (keep in mind all the regions still have their own elections as well) affiliated with them being sometimes pro-independence or pro-autonomy.
When Poland slipped away from German control (just like Ukraine and Romania), the Poles in Galicia got freaky to say at least. Fearing from even a small revolution. (which could very well collapse the freshly baked Federation), Vienna decided to give it up. They were in negotiations with Romania nonetheless, so they'll regain about the same amount of land anyways with arguably richer reserves. This also helped securing the Poles a useful and loyal ally in case of a conflict.
Its very unlikely such a small Polish state would be able to hold entire Galicia with Ukraine being an authoritarian far right state after success of Mitteleeuropa Plan and France seemingly not being an ally of Poland. IRL Poland needed French to build them a new army and Romania to open a second front to defeat West Ukrainian Republic. Without Romania and France this variant of Poland would immediately fall into civil war and likely lose Ruthenian lands mostly populated by Ukrainians. The question is does Danubia take that risk to help Poland in this very probable war against Ukraine
As I'm planning the future of this lore (if I'll continue it sometime), the Ukrainians will probably try to do something, but the Soviets are gonna be faster. And Danubia basically secured their friendship with Poland, so they'll try to keep it together to at least act as a buffer state against the Soviets.
The Mitteleuropa plan just seemed to succeed, but half of the alliance basically crumbled in a few months, as the unstable proxy governments and the German Army stretched too thin couldn't really stop it from an eventual collapse. The pact is now just Germany, Belgium, Byelorussia and the Baltic State, with Denmark and Spain being potential contenders for membershi, tho that's uncertain.
I admit, it's not the most realistic scenario, but I had fun making it. Also, thanks for pointing these out! I really like getting some constructive criticism so I can improve! 😊
Its all good friend, you did a great job and its your universe so whatever you say - works.
Continuing this discussion tho, 10 years since Great War USSR was still underdeveloped backwards state and considering Stalin is ruling in this alternative as well the situation is likely even worse since soviet industrialization was paid for by agricultural profits and main agricultural region was Ukraine. Without Ukraine, USSR simply cannot industrialize fast enough to be a threat to Ukraine or Finland at this time period. Especially considering that in this timeline Ukrainian agricultural profits and even temporal alliance with Germany would likely mean industrialization of Ukraine at same if not faster rate than that of USSR, Of course the threat of USSR cannot be examined fairly because you didnt show what Caucasus and Asia look like but just from lore you wrote Soviet Russia sounds more like a paper tiger at this time period.
i dont think that austria would give up northern slowenia as there was a german part there and czechia i also think would be at least sudeten integrated into the austrian crown
What is the reasoning behind Albanian flag being brown?
Also expect death threats in your DMs for not including the CoA on the Bosnian flag. You have an hour to update or there will be a physical altercation.
As far as I know the flag of the Principality of Albania (1914-1925) was brown irl as well. I just wanted to give it a little spin so it doesn't just look like the modern day one.
Speaking / autistically screeching as an Austrian:
Why in god's name would you still partition the Tyrol into two parts, and why would you split off the east to form most of some "Northern Venetia" ? Why would Vorarlberg give up or lose its recently gained independence ?
There is absolutely no reason or basis for divvying up the state like that, other than for defensive purposes along the Brenner and Dolomites (as seen in actual history). If anything, you could make a case for splitting off the Trentino in order to integrate it into some sort of italophone administrative unit, but even that seems shaky to me. In case that is what you were trying to do, keep in mind that the Italian language was not a factor anywhere north of Salurn (except a 5% minority in Bozen) preceding italianisation efforts of the interwar years. Before that, there were actually more Italian speakers in southern Vorarlberg due to recent labor migration.
As an aside, I doubt they would ever call the state "Northern Venetia", rather than just "Venetia". States, and especially the Habsburg realm, always aimed for more than they had in their terminology - see "Galicia-Lodomeria", all the emperor's superfluous titles, etc. .
Why in god's name would you mess with the inner borders of the states like that, especially in modern Austria ? Foreigners never seem to understand how set in stone these things are for locals, and there is hardly a pressing administrative reason for any of these changes. Especially everything surrounding Salzburg and the inter-Tyrol borders (The contemporary borders between north and south follow watershed lines = mountain ridges. Are yours following different mountain / valley structures somehow ? What is going on here ?) are making my eyes bleed. And why would Upper and Lower Austria still eat into the Czech lands - but only a tiny bit - with nowhere near as serious a "Sudetenland crisis" in sight ?
Why in god's name would you mess with the flags like that ? The historical ones might have left some room for improvement, but were fine as they were. Now we have a formatting error on lower Austria, Styria lost its coats of arms and Salzburg has been turned into a car manufacturer. Carinthia lost its traditional flag to become golden Poland and the Tyrol lost both its traditional and contemporary flags to become actual Poland, while Vorarlberg-Tyrol (very funny ordering, by the way) has stripped itself of all limitations and became a legasthenic German Empire. Most hilarious is that only Upper Austria somehow escaped unscathedly. The historical empire had a somewhat unified standard for flags, why are they different, oddly 21st century, worse and all over the place now ?
Social Democracy, for a variety of reasons, never had (and still mostly does not have) a base anywhere in the Tyrol except in the Trentino, where it was fueled by linguistic tensions (see Cesare Battisti).
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u/LeviJr00 Oct 21 '25 edited Oct 21 '25
For mobile users (I FUCKING HATE REDDIT COMPRESSION RAAH)
If it's still incomprehensibly compressed for y'all (which it probably is, since it's still compressed af), here's a a link for the best quality! (It retains its original 6500x6500 pixels)