49ersfootball
Well-known member
Ok. I'll check it out!
Alternate History Ideas and Discussion
- Thread starter AndrewJTalon
- Start date
Skallagrim
Well-known member
You're certainly right in your estimation.
The war goal of France, when it came to the Spanish succession, was to turn Spain into a Bourbon-led French ally. This would strengthen France, deny control of Spain to any given rival, and would grant France unfettered access to the vast Spanish colonial empire. (Britain forced such trade access for itself in OTL; denying it to Britain and giving it to France would economically deprive the former and enrich the latter.)
To be clear: the goal was never personal union into some Franco-Spanish Empire. Le Petit Dauphin gets France, and Phillipe d'Anjou has several sons already. Personal union would explicitly be allowed, of course, but it's not happening unless one of the two lines produces only daughters at one point (and even then, I believe all other viable male relatives have to be dead first).
In OTL, Spain also had to cede the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, Sardinia, Sicily, Menorca and Gibraltar -- to the benefit of Britain and Austria, first and foremost. That's not happening in a world where France comes out on top. Instead, Spain (having been in internal conflict, a meanful part of the nation having fought against France, and the winners owing it all to France) will have to make concessions to France. Not only access to the colonies -- that's a given -- but I rather think that all of the Spanish Netherlands will go to France. (The Dutch Republic will have to cede the Catholic bits South of the rivers, too.)
Bourbon Spain is still greatly strengthened compared to OTL Spain, and actually benefits from being tied into a grand economic system essentially headed by France.
Britain will be punished by having to cede certain Caribbean possessions, all claims significantly North of Boston and significantly South of Charles Town (Charleston), as well as all claims West of the Appalachians. Furthermore, Britain shall be explicilty forbidden from establishing any further settlements on the American mainland (North and South) outside its East Coast colonies. The Americas are defined as Franco-Spanish in perpetuity.
Austria will be hit even harder. I expect that in case of full victory, Louis will not hesitate to ensure that Hungary goes independent under Rákóczi. Furthermore, I think that everything on the near side to the Rhine (and some regions on the far side) will be separated from the HRE and turned into a league under the auspices of allied Cologne. Austria will have to make further concessions to Bavaria (which will be become enlarged as in OTL, but century earlier).
Lorraine and Savoy will both be gobbled up by France, mercilessly.
France will surely decide who gets the throne of Poland next time such a decision comes up.
The Bourbons might even be so utterly bold as to dictate an Austrian marriage entirely on their terms... and then proceed to force all the electors to choose their own scion (after all, a Habsburg on his mother's side!) as the new Holy Roman Emperor. Thus essentially ending the House of Habsburg as a significant factor, and gaining functional hegemony over most of continental Europe.
The 18th century of this world will be host to a series of wars in which the "losers" try to reverse the above outcomes, but this soon becomes a series of self-defeating endeavours. Each time, France wins -- and nibbles away further bits and pieces. I think France will drive Britain out of the Western hemisphere entirely. And there may be inverse expulsions compared to OTL: such as the Anglophone populace being mass-expelled from Jamaica, South Carolina, or Massachusetts.
On the other hand, with France (and Spain) so very busily engaged in monopolising nearly all of the Americas, I think Britain and Portugal (and to some extent the Netherlands-- surely driven from Suriname!) will actually have more of a free hand in India and the East Indies. Perhaps in Africa, too, since France will hardly have need of a "Second Empire".
We may ask ourselves whether Bourbon Europe has not, after all, over-reached. Colonial management will not suddenly become a thing that Paris and Madrid are good at. While their vast world-empire allowed their policy of protectionism to flourish in a way it didn't in OTL, they'd still mis-manage and mis-allocate the profits. Meanwhile, you have the British. The Dutch. The Portuguese. Even the Prussians, chafing under the dominance of a foreign emperor... a supposedly Holy and Roman Emperor, and what have they to do with such Catholic notions, anyway?
Russia won't be happy, either, since France is now its natural rival. And France is most probably still allying with the Ottomans, too-- to keep some pressure up in the East.
In conclusion: there's a great war coming. Perhaps even a great revolution, of sorts. The once-defeated powers have risen again; have found new sources of profit; have not wasted their wealth. Not even a dime or a penny. As the French Century draws to a close, there is a promise of vengeance in the air. Unspoken, but certain. The great world-system of the Bourbons has fallen prey to the victor's arrogance, and will be punished for it. Like the Persians, they have built an empire that is now less sturdy than it appears.
The world waits for an Alexander to unite all the enemies of the Bourbons; to burn Paris like a later-day Persepolis. And there is such a man. Risen through the ranks in the pacification of India, he has made a name for himself.
That name is Wellesley.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
Timeline where Wellesley is as household name as Napoleon is OTL, is certainly an interesting one.
I like it,but such Wellesley would need another revolution in England to kill King for him.
About catholics - pope here actually would support it,Bourbons were infamous for making french catholic church more french then catholic.
The same goes for Poland - in OTL gentry was unhappy with tsar dictating us what to do,here they would be unhappy with King of France.
About catholics - pope here actually would support it,Bourbons were infamous for making french catholic church more french then catholic.
The same goes for Poland - in OTL gentry was unhappy with tsar dictating us what to do,here they would be unhappy with King of France.
TheRomanSlayer
Putang Ina Mo, Katolikong Hayop!
PC: Fascist Italy in a No Nazi Germany world.
In a scenario where the Nazi Party remains an obscure movement, or if Hitler was killed off during WWII, how would Fascist Italy function? Would they remain a Mediterranean pariah with its own collection of puppet states? I'm thinking that perhaps in this scenario, the Germans have their own successful socialist revolution, but in the midst of this kind of chaos, someone out there would replace Karl Liebnecht and Rosa Luxemburg with some left wing nutjob who's basically the communist version of Hitler and Stalin combined.
In a scenario where the Nazi Party remains an obscure movement, or if Hitler was killed off during WWII, how would Fascist Italy function? Would they remain a Mediterranean pariah with its own collection of puppet states? I'm thinking that perhaps in this scenario, the Germans have their own successful socialist revolution, but in the midst of this kind of chaos, someone out there would replace Karl Liebnecht and Rosa Luxemburg with some left wing nutjob who's basically the communist version of Hitler and Stalin combined.
Circle of Willis
Well-known member
Could perhaps see the rise of a Catholic 'Latin' bloc across the Mediterranean between this Fascist Italy, Salazar's Portugal and the Spain of Franco (or another caudillo, such as Mola Vidal) if the Nationalists still win there, plus Dollfuss' Austrofascist regime (which Mussolini tried to protect against Hitler IRL) too. Just need Charles Maurras' Action Francaise to turn the February 6 Crisis in 1934 into their March on Rome moment and these Latins may well vault from 'Mediterranean annoyance' to 'actual contender for interwar continental hegemony', methinks.
As to Germany, I don't necessarily think 'no Hitler' = 'Red Germany'. The Freikorps certainly didn't need the Nazis (who did not exist at the time) to stomp out the 1919 commie revolutionaries. I think the Prussian military aristocracy (Junker dudes like Von Schleicher, basically) supplanting the Weimar Republic with a non-Nazi but still hard-right, militarist and revanchist regime in the '30s is likelier than the KPD taking over, perhaps also coupled with a monarchist restoration as the likes of Von Papen tried to engineer. Ernst Thälmann, the historical KPD leader for much of the Weimar period, was a Stalinist lickspittle who prioritized fighting the 'social fascists' - the SPD, still hated by German Communists for suppressing the Spartacists - and thus made a united left-wing front impossible: I see no reason why he or his bosses in Moscow & the Comintern would've changed that strategy if confronted by ascendant Prussian militarists (as seemed the much likelier outcome for most of the Weimar years) than ascendant Nazis, who didn't exactly make a secret of not liking & actively fighting the KPD either.
A sane far-right Germany might find grounds for rapproachment with Britain against the Latin Fascist-Integralist team - a Protestant Anglo-German alliance (with some Balkan oddballs standing in the way of Mussolini's expansion, like Yugoslavia and Greece, thrown in - the former was a Little Entente member historically, but would no longer be such since Italy has ambitious designs on its territory and France would probably have to throw it under the bus to make nice with Mussolini) perhaps, or at least British acquiescence and quiet support for them in their quest to overturn Versailles to keep the Latins from screwing up Europe's balance of power? (Other Slavic countries, such as Czechoslovakia & Poland, will probably gravitate to the Latins to oppose Germany's territorial designs instead of course.) If they come to blows, Stalin waits to pick off the winner...
However if you must have a Red Germany, then I think you'd just end up with WW2 being fought between the Communist German-Soviet alliance and everyone else, including Italy, possibly as early as the mid-20s depending on how certain leadership struggles go (namely, whether Trotsky takes over the USSR and consequently is in a position to go all-in on his world revolution with the help of this Red Germany). Assuming Team 'Everyone Else' wins, you might then see the inversion of Fascism's and Communism's reputations in mainstream opinion, with the former being thought of as 'our (liberal democracies') ally in WW2' and the more 'acceptable' authoritarian/totalitarian extremist ideology for them zany youths to indulge in while the latter becomes thought of as utterly reprehensible & beyond the pale like Nazism/Fascism is today.
Last edited:
TheRomanSlayer
Putang Ina Mo, Katolikong Hayop!
Your scenario involving a sane, vanilla flavored right-wing German government coming to a rapprochement with Britain would be a lot more plausible than a Red Germany, given that the way the Freikorps had suppressed the socialist uprising was rather efficient in its own right. The inter-European squabbles would be something the communists would gladly take advantage of. Scandinavia on the other hand, might be vulnerable to Soviet antics, given that Finland almost fell to communist rule during the Finnish Civil War.
If the Soviets find Europe to be difficult to spread their revolution, there's always Asia, though I'm not sure how strong the leftist movements in Persia are, but India would be another story, as Subhash Chandra Bose at one point tried to seek Soviet help in India's fight against British colonial rule. A different kind of Chinese socialist regime dominated by the Xinjiang Clique would be a different animal from the Maoist regime that we have IOTL.
Back to Italy without the existence of Nazi Germany: I'm not sure if Yugoslavia and Greece would be more likely to approach the Anglo-German bloc, just so they can avoid giving up territory to the Latin Fascist-Integralist alliance, given that one of the unlikely candidates to join the Latin bloc, despite being Slavic as well, would be Bulgaria. The only thing in common between Italy and Bulgaria would be their joint claims on Yugoslav territory, with Bulgaria mainly getting Macedonia and parts of eastern Serbia, while Italy could get the rest, and create a Slovene state that's targeted for Italianization, a Croatian puppet state that is even more controlled by Rome, a puppet Kingdom of Montenegro with either Prince Danilo in power, or another candidate, a Greater Albania that includes most of Kosovo, and a reduced Serbian state that is territorially similar to OTL Serbia under Milan Nedic.
Fun fact: Nedic even tried to send a proposal to Hitler of all people for a so-called "Greater Serbian Federation" during OTL WWII, which kinda looked like this:
Hitler actually shot down that idea, as he didn't want Serbia to grow too strong, and it would have pissed off the Italians and Croatians, since a good chunk of SveSrbija's claimed territories are controlled by the Croatian government.
All german democratic goverment were mad enough to made secret deals with soviets,becouse they hated Poland.
As a result,we would have war against Poland,and later soviets would backstab their german allies and attack rest of Europe.
Germany without Hitler making bigger army would fall,France would eventually fall,too.
Result - fascist Italy could be only place except Spain,England and Sweitzerland which would be not genocided by soviets.
I would say,that it would be good for Italy.
TheRejectionist
TheRejectionist
Here's an idea I had, which probably won't manage to develop as soon as I wanted because of the lawsuit my father did against me, my sister and my mother but here it goes :
Part 1 : Endear
Entente : 🇫🇷🇺🇲🇹🇷🇷🇺🇮🇹🇷🇸 🇯🇵🇵🇹🇷🇴(last minute)🇦🇫 🇵🇱 and rebelling nationalities in the AH empire
Alliance : 🇬🇧(plus the colonies/dominions)🇩🇪🇦🇹🇳🇱🇧🇬
POD :Bulgaria barely manages to win the 2nd Balkan War. Last minute Anglo-German Alliance of convenience and they still piss off the US because there is no stop to the unrestricted submarine warfare. Wilson dies before OTL.
The premise of this story are different set of WW1 alliances done when I was studying a summary of Wolfang Reinhard's book :
Treaty of Marseille : The defeat of powers of the Quintuple Alliance of the German Empire, British Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Netherlands was considered perhaps the biggest power shift and shock the world had seen.
The victorious powers of the United States, France, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Portugal, Italy and Japan immensely rewarded themselves with the bounties of the the "Nordic" empires supposedly possessed. Africa saw the British colonies pass to an US administration in the case of Southern (Christian) Nigeria, Gold Coast and the Union of South Africa (which would incorporate Botswana and South Rhodesia), while it would also annex Uganda and Tanganyika it would also split a third of British East Africa (modern day Kenya/Chenia) with the Kingdom of Italy, who was also getting British Somaliland and the whole of Abyssinia (whose last king had betted on a swift Entente defeat), meanwhile the "young" Portuguese republic would avenge the humiliation of the Pink Map (as well as the proposed Anglo-German partition of Portuguese colonies) and get Northern Rhodesia as well German South West Africa, which together with Mozambique and Angola would be merged into the new colony of Portuguese Zambezia. The other republic, France, was instead given Gambia to merge with its colony of Senegal and British Guinea would be merged with French Guinea (today the Republic of Sierra Guinea) even though it took concessions with the administration of now president Thomas Riley Marshall (who succeeded Wilson after his lethal stroke before the conference).
Asia was also a big place for change : Anglo-German-Austro-Hungarian concessions in China were given mostly to Japan, with the exception of Hong Kong and Shangai who were taken to the United States, but it got compensated with most of the Dutch East Indies with the notable exception of West Timor who was unified into Portuguese East Timor and turned into Portuguese Timor. Malaysia was a whole topic of debate between the Japanese Empire and the United States, because even though the Empire of the Rising Sun already occupied British Malaysia the US administration wanted something as well, the Japanese relented and offered Sabah, a region long claimed by irredentist Filipinos and Dutch Guinea, like Australian and German Guinea was given to the US as a protectorate. Australia and New Zealand were likewise in a similar condition, with calls of total annexation from both a part of the US public and US Congress, but the president was disuassed from actually annexing the two entities just like with Canada and would instead become territories at least temporarily.
The former Ottoman Empire was very shaken to say the least, because it had suffered a serious defeat and subsequent occupation by Anglo-Austro-Hungarian-German-Bulgarian troops and fought a brutal war of independence against them and lost Konstantinye to Greece and a good portion of Eastern Anatolia to the First Republic of Armenia (which would be invaded by the Russian Soviet Socialist Union and turned into an "autonomous" "republic"), and could only mantain clearly Kurdish (at the time categorized as "Mountain Turks") Turkish-majority areas which could be connected with what would become the First Syrian Republic. Jerusalem and the land of Palestine remained a hotbed for heated discussion because of the differences between the victors and it was settled on being an international mandate with rotating "governors" with duties being split among American, French and Italian diplomats and with the Armenian, Christian and Jewish quarters of Jerusalem becoming the "Tangiers of the Levant" and the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem attached to the French-mandate Syrian Federation.
Europe was shaken up as well because of the amount of bloodshed had costed for to the French, Italians and the rebellions : Poland was reborn as a nation, Czechoslovakia became its own country, Italy gained the promised lands in the east that France had promised such as Istria,Dalmatia,Laibach,Kotor,Fiume and Trieste much to the dismay of the new Yugoslav government. France had planned to totally partition Germany but managed to only establish a Rhenish-Baden-Wuttenberghian buffer-puppet state republic in order to not border directly with Germany and take back Alsace-Lorraine as well as adding the Dutch-British Caribbean and South American possessions to its colonial empire, Brazil would gain the British and German Atlantic islands.
I haven't touch Canada or India for the simple reason I have no goddamn what would happen with them, India I can see the Kingdom of Afghanistan nabbing Kashmir, West Punjab (maybe even East Punjab?), Sind and Balochistan (or at least a land corridor that will connect them to the sea).
Canada for me would be awesome turning into a republic and not be annexed Harry Turtledove style (maybe only loosing access to the Pacific Coast?).
Part 1 : Endear
Entente : 🇫🇷🇺🇲🇹🇷🇷🇺🇮🇹🇷🇸 🇯🇵🇵🇹🇷🇴(last minute)🇦🇫 🇵🇱 and rebelling nationalities in the AH empire
Alliance : 🇬🇧(plus the colonies/dominions)🇩🇪🇦🇹🇳🇱🇧🇬
POD :Bulgaria barely manages to win the 2nd Balkan War. Last minute Anglo-German Alliance of convenience and they still piss off the US because there is no stop to the unrestricted submarine warfare. Wilson dies before OTL.
The premise of this story are different set of WW1 alliances done when I was studying a summary of Wolfang Reinhard's book :
Treaty of Marseille : The defeat of powers of the Quintuple Alliance of the German Empire, British Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Netherlands was considered perhaps the biggest power shift and shock the world had seen.
The victorious powers of the United States, France, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Portugal, Italy and Japan immensely rewarded themselves with the bounties of the the "Nordic" empires supposedly possessed. Africa saw the British colonies pass to an US administration in the case of Southern (Christian) Nigeria, Gold Coast and the Union of South Africa (which would incorporate Botswana and South Rhodesia), while it would also annex Uganda and Tanganyika it would also split a third of British East Africa (modern day Kenya/Chenia) with the Kingdom of Italy, who was also getting British Somaliland and the whole of Abyssinia (whose last king had betted on a swift Entente defeat), meanwhile the "young" Portuguese republic would avenge the humiliation of the Pink Map (as well as the proposed Anglo-German partition of Portuguese colonies) and get Northern Rhodesia as well German South West Africa, which together with Mozambique and Angola would be merged into the new colony of Portuguese Zambezia. The other republic, France, was instead given Gambia to merge with its colony of Senegal and British Guinea would be merged with French Guinea (today the Republic of Sierra Guinea) even though it took concessions with the administration of now president Thomas Riley Marshall (who succeeded Wilson after his lethal stroke before the conference).
Asia was also a big place for change : Anglo-German-Austro-Hungarian concessions in China were given mostly to Japan, with the exception of Hong Kong and Shangai who were taken to the United States, but it got compensated with most of the Dutch East Indies with the notable exception of West Timor who was unified into Portuguese East Timor and turned into Portuguese Timor. Malaysia was a whole topic of debate between the Japanese Empire and the United States, because even though the Empire of the Rising Sun already occupied British Malaysia the US administration wanted something as well, the Japanese relented and offered Sabah, a region long claimed by irredentist Filipinos and Dutch Guinea, like Australian and German Guinea was given to the US as a protectorate. Australia and New Zealand were likewise in a similar condition, with calls of total annexation from both a part of the US public and US Congress, but the president was disuassed from actually annexing the two entities just like with Canada and would instead become territories at least temporarily.
The former Ottoman Empire was very shaken to say the least, because it had suffered a serious defeat and subsequent occupation by Anglo-Austro-Hungarian-German-Bulgarian troops and fought a brutal war of independence against them and lost Konstantinye to Greece and a good portion of Eastern Anatolia to the First Republic of Armenia (which would be invaded by the Russian Soviet Socialist Union and turned into an "autonomous" "republic"), and could only mantain clearly Kurdish (at the time categorized as "Mountain Turks") Turkish-majority areas which could be connected with what would become the First Syrian Republic. Jerusalem and the land of Palestine remained a hotbed for heated discussion because of the differences between the victors and it was settled on being an international mandate with rotating "governors" with duties being split among American, French and Italian diplomats and with the Armenian, Christian and Jewish quarters of Jerusalem becoming the "Tangiers of the Levant" and the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem attached to the French-mandate Syrian Federation.
Europe was shaken up as well because of the amount of bloodshed had costed for to the French, Italians and the rebellions : Poland was reborn as a nation, Czechoslovakia became its own country, Italy gained the promised lands in the east that France had promised such as Istria,Dalmatia,Laibach,Kotor,Fiume and Trieste much to the dismay of the new Yugoslav government. France had planned to totally partition Germany but managed to only establish a Rhenish-Baden-Wuttenberghian buffer-puppet state republic in order to not border directly with Germany and take back Alsace-Lorraine as well as adding the Dutch-British Caribbean and South American possessions to its colonial empire, Brazil would gain the British and German Atlantic islands.
I haven't touch Canada or India for the simple reason I have no goddamn what would happen with them, India I can see the Kingdom of Afghanistan nabbing Kashmir, West Punjab (maybe even East Punjab?), Sind and Balochistan (or at least a land corridor that will connect them to the sea).
Canada for me would be awesome turning into a republic and not be annexed Harry Turtledove style (maybe only loosing access to the Pacific Coast?).
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Didn't read all that, but why the fuck would we Bulgarians want to embroil ourselves in another mess, in particular a mess cooked up by Prodigious Albion which fucked us over after the Russo-Turkish war of 1878, right after BW1 and 2 which cost us dearly to the point where the post war situation was referred to a "national catastrophe"?
The only reason we were fighting in those wars was to get territories inhabited by Bulgarians and return ourselves to the state of the Bulgaria as per the San Stefano treaty territories where the Bulgsrian Exarchate already had primacy and that were ethnically Bulgsrian already.
Why the hell do we need to play more stupid games and win more stupid prizes?
Especially in a situation where we will be massively stretched and exhausted by the rprvious wars and in need to hold on to and consolidate whate we already have?
Neutral Bulgaria!
TheRejectionist
TheRejectionist
Yeah that's a point where I didn't think about it much. Probably would make more sense if Bulgaria had gotten everything it wanted in the first Balkan War and then still allied with Germany.
Your country did ally with Ottomans despite the First Balkan War, Portugal did the same even after the disgrace of the Pink Map 30 years prior.
By the way this was an American Wank and Anglo-Germanic screw idea, not a screw Bulgaria/Balkan.
Buba
A total creep
FIFY
Portugal had been a British protectorate practically since the Restoration in 1640 ...
London: Jump!
Lisbon: How high?
TheRejectionist
TheRejectionist
There is people who have done giga-Bulgaria already... Most notably was the Footprint of Mussolini but that was an enormous Italu-wank and USSR screw for no reason...not to mention how convenient some characters became madly inept or villainous or how one too many were LITERALLY nuke trigger happy there.FIFY
Yeah but they could have said no or joined the other side... Because of Africa...I distinctively remember how in theory WW1 in Africa wouldn't have fronts...until the Germans fucked around and found out invading Portugal and South Africa or other regions.
Buba
A total creep
"No" or "neutral". Joining the Central Powers is a no-no.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
FIFY
No wonder it is known as the most western of the eastern European shitholes.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
The Central Powers were far from the evil monsters the entente described them as.
Austria-Hungary, as bad as it was, was a much more advanced place vs. Serbia.
Now, I want a few ideas regarding how San-Stefano Bulgaria comes into existence.
Maybe there is some huge scandal in the UK which takes down the Disraeli government, Gladstone was actually very much pro-our side.
And since a lot of people on the forum are anti-Russia simps I propose you write some scenarios where Bulgaria gets liberated from Turkey by someone other than Russia.
TheRejectionist
TheRejectionist
Have you checked my list? Portugal is clearly on the Entente side...just an English-less Entente
TheRomanSlayer
Putang Ina Mo, Katolikong Hayop!
PLC and HRE launches Long Turkish War with a random Polish Lord as King of Bulgaria or a random Ruthenian Lord as King of Serbia? Since the PLC did have at one point held some control over Moldavia, they could also have vassalized Wallachian as well.
There’s also the option of a Uniate Bulgaria that is more or less an Austrophile (pro-Austrian), plus a Uniate Serbia that keeps its pro-Western stance.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Unlikely.
And the POD should be around the time of the April Uprising.
Nope, we are keeping the Orthodoxy.
However, one of the main pro-Ottoman forces at the time was Disraeli and the Magyars.
So, let us say that some huge scandal in the UK causes the Disraeli government to fall, while some problems in the colonies sap some of Britain's energy.
Snap elections are called and William Gladstone who was a vocal critic of the Ottoman massacres, is elected prime minister.
Meanwhile, we can have some group of Magyar radicals stir up some trouble in AH and thus make the Austrians reconsider the way they have treated the Slavs and maybe decide to bolster them to serve as a counter-weight to the Magyars.
That of course might get us San Stefano Bulgaria, but who will come in and kick the ass of the Ottomans?
Italy is a brand new entrant, having been only recently reunified but Giuseppe Garibaldi had very bad opinion of the Turks, saying, quote:
And let us not forget that this was the age of Empire, so it might be possible for some less romantic and humanitarian interests to come into play, like for example some nascent Italian desire for colonial expansion into Africa and the eastern med.
As to Austria, well, it can use this to please its Slavic subjects and use them to fuck with the Magyars and also it might see a large, strong Bulgaria as a counterweight to Serbia I also suspect that the Poles and other latinized Slavs in AH might like the chance to basically steal Orthodox Russia's lunch and show that it is in fact not a proper defender of Slavdom.
And now since there are potential alternate interests at play, let us add even more kindling to the fire and throw a big old match on top of it.
Let us say that the Turks perpetrate something as bad as the Batak massacre after the big scandal about it explodes in Europe.
However, this massacre happens in what is modern day Rakovski which has a sizable Catholic population.
This will IMHO entice France to join in.
So basically you get a sort of Itallo-Austrian-British coalition of the willing.
And the Bosphorous and the Dardanelles can be under some joint administration/get demilitarized in a way similar to what the Montreaux convention did in the OTL post WWI.
And of course, Britain will see this as a chance to stop propping up the Sick Man of Europe, and start devouring its corpse directly.