Chapter 106: Establishing Relations with the Habsburgs
The feast was prepared well throughout the day, so that the evening time came, food was on the tables, and beer was served in a multitude of glasses of varying sizes. Being a man of culture himself, Bruno would not settle for any cup smaller than a liter.
As the representative of the Kaiser, Bruno was given the honor of sitting with the Habsburg family. However, there were a few generals who he took note of sitting at other tables. All of which wore extravagant uniforms of the latest design. Thanks to Bruno's influence on the timeline, nations had begun adopting earthly tones for their uniforms as far back as the winter of 1904.
Which was around the time the German Army began displaying their signature feldgrau uniforms. The Austro-Hungarians had rather wisely simply copied the German color palette when it came to their new uniforms, even if the uniforms themselves were of their own distinctive cut and style.
See, Bruno wanted to take advantage of this opportunity the Kaiser had sprung on him to establish friendly ties with the Habsburgs. And of course, there was a very good reason for this. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a complex nation, one that would inevitably collapse on itself, even if Bruno brought victory to the Central Powers during this time.
Like the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarians suffered from two very distinctive weakness, ones that were shared by the collapsing democracies of the west during the 21st century that Bruno had lived long enough to see them all enter their final days during his past life.
And those weaknesses were the fact that both the Ottoman Empire and the Austro- Hungarians were multicultural and multi-ethnic societies. Which throughout history had proven to be among the weakest and least stable societies ever built.
Especially when one considered that the Austro-Hungarians had built their empire on the powder keg that was the Balkans. A region well known for its fierce diversity of cultures and rampant ethnic nationalism.
While Bruno was highly approving of ethno-nationalism, and was a major supporter of it, especially within the boundaries of the German Reich. He did so under the condition that it existed in an ethno-state.
The problem was that this ethno-nationalism in the Balkans primarily took place within multi-cultural and multi-ethnic societies. Thus, it had the exact opposite effect as it did in Germany, for example, where the nation was an overwhelming majority of the same people, culture, language, and heritage.
While Germany was strengthened and bound together by this unity. The Austro-Hungarians were torn apart by their differences. As these various nationalistic minorities all competed with one another, and the majority in power.