The year is 2017,
and that means that next year will mark the 100th anniversary since Austria-Hungary ceased existing as a country.
But what if for whatever reason, this old empire was suddenly recreated today with the exact same borders
that it had in 1914 just prior to the first World War?
What exactly would Austria-Hungary look like if it existed today...
And could it actually survive for very long?
To start with, 14 different countries would lost all or some of their territories to the newly created empire
This would make the empire the 39th largest country in the
modern world roughly the same size at Myanmar
in Asia but Austria-Hungary would be
the second largest country in Europe
behind only Russia. In terms of
population, however, the Empire would be
home to 68,763,000
people which would place
it as the third most populous nation in
Europe behind both Russia and Germany
but ahead of France. Taking the entire
world into consideration, though, and
Austria-Hungary would have the 20 of the
largest population larger than Thailand
but remaining behind turkey this
population would also be outrageously
diverse, just like the old Empire in 1914
was. In a sense the struggles of
nationalism within the Empire throughout
its history contributed significantly to
the Empire's downfall 100 years ago and
this would continue to be a major
problem today like the old Empire, Germans
and Hungarians would make up the two
largest and most powerful ethnicities
within the empire but even combined they
would only make up about one-third of
the total Imperial population the other
largest ethnic groups would be the
Ukrainians, Czechs, Romanians, Poles, Croats
into a lesser degree Serbs, Bosniaks
Slovenes, Italians and Roman people.
As youcan see there's not a single ethnic
group with any clear majority in the
country while power would be invested
almost entirely with the Germans and
Hungarians alone. Austria-Hungary was
rather unique in the fact that the
Empire had two capital cities, Vienna and
Budapest since these two cities would remain as
the largest cities in the Empire today
and are already the capital of Austria
and Hungary it is highly likely that
they would become the dual capitals of
the modern Empire as well. The top five
largest cities in the Empire would be
Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Zagreb and
Krakow. Despite the fact that there
were dozens of languages spoken in the Empire
in 1914. The only official languages were
German and Hungarian. This policy would
likely continue today since these two
languages would be the largest languages
spoken within the country with Hungarian
being understood by 17.5% of the
population and German by 16%
together adding to just over one out of
every three people in the empire but
this would be very problematic for the
other two out of every three people who
wouldn't speak either language and would
serve as another massive problem to
keeping the country together. Czech would
be the third-largest language while
Ukrainian and Russian would also be
major languages understood by over ten
percent of the population to just get to
a point where 75% of the
population could understand each other
you would have to go through seven
languages by also adding Romanian and
Polish since the population that speaks
Ukrainian is also largely the same
population that speaks Russian the
remaining 25% would be
six other various languages meaning that
there would be 13 major languages spoken
within the Empire. All of this land and
people would mean that the modern Empire
would have a GDP of 1.18 Trillion Dollars
which would make the Empire the world's 15 largest economy
ahead of Mexico but remaining just behind
Spain, Australia and Russia
this also means that the Empire would
have a respectable GDP per capita of $17,160.00
which would place it at the 39th
highest in the world ahead of
present-day Estonia and an independent
Slovakia but just behind Trinidad and
Tobago and an independent Czech Republic
with a moderately powerful economy the
Empire would also be estimated to have a
modest military budget of 11.97 billion dollars.
This would be the 19th largest military budget in the world
ahead of Spain but keeping behind the
budgets of both Colombia and the United
Arab Emirates the Imperial budget would
be funding a military with 188,000
active-duty soldiers the 30th largest
military in the world ahead of Germany
and Syria but remaining smaller than
both Morocco and France. Pretty much all of
the Empire's territory will be located
inside Europe except for this tiny tiny
chunk of China less than one square
kilometer insides in the city of Tianjin.
Austria-Hungary occupied this tiny piece
of land at sovereign territory briefly
between 1901 and 1917 when it was
return to China but since we're
recreating the Empire to exact borders
in 1914 this area would have to be
returned. About 30,000 Chinese citizens
living here what suddenly find
themselves to be citizens of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire as a result. As
far as religion goes Catholics would
account for the majority of the
population at 44.37%
of the population while Orthodox
persons would be the second-largest at
18.2%. Protestants would only be
4% while Sunni Muslims would
be just 3.3%
Austria-Hungary today would also have a
very large Atheist population accounting
for nearly 20% of the entire
population for nearly one out of every
five people finally we would have to
settle on somebody to become the
present-day emperor of the Empire. This
guy named Otto Von Habsburg was the last
crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, born in 1912 is the son of the
last real emperor. He didn't renounce his
claim to the throne of Austria until
1961 and died somewhat recently in 2011
at the age of 98.
His son, Carl Von Habsburg who is still alive today
therefore would likely become the
Emperor of this new empire, the direct
grandson of the last reigning emperor in 1918.
But would this Empire actually be
able to last very long with all of its
difficulties or would it collapse into
the dustbin of history just like the old
Empire did in 1918?
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