WI General Conrad von Hotzendorf gets run over by a horse in 1892?

[varyar]

I'm almost done with a book about the WWI siege of Przemyśl and it often mentions the sheer incompetence of General Conrad, as well it should. That got me to thinking what if he dies long before the war, say in 1892 before he returns to a command position after a stint at the war college in Vienna?

Obviously, the United States of Greater Austria, which endures to this day as a land of peace and harmony united under the beloved dynasty.

kidding, kidding. One officer's death isn't going to magically solve all of Austria-Hungary's many, many problems. But what would the effects be of someone less criminally inept at the helm in the years leading up to WWI? Who are some likely candidates? What is the realistic best that could be expected from AH under this scenario?

 

[Death's Companion]

I'm almost done with a book about the WWI siege of Przemyśl and it often mentions the sheer incompetence of General Conrad, as well it should. That got me to thinking what if he dies long before the war, say in 1892 before he returns to a command position after a stint at the war college in Vienna?

Obviously, the United States of Greater Austria, which endures to this day as a land of peace and harmony united under the beloved dynasty.

kidding, kidding. One officer's death isn't going to magically solve all of Austria-Hungary's many, many problems. But what would the effects be of someone less criminally inept at the helm in the years leading up to WWI? Who are some likely candidates? What is the realistic best that could be expected from AH under this scenario?

Honestly someone just average would probably make a serious difference. Austria doesn't have to be a world beater to make a radical difference on the Eastern Front, just things like bothering to fortify positions, not just assuming the enemy will role over and not betting on overly grandoise offensives probably lowers casualties to the sum of hundreds of thousands, could well knock an allied nation or two out of the war and puts Russia in an even worse position than OTL whilst perhaps keeping Italy neutral.

Not sure if it would change the outcome of the war but its fairly easy to see an Austria that is not jumping from disaster to disaster with some German support rolling up Eastern Europe a couple of months early and sparing a lot of German troops. What these German troops go on to do I'm unsure.

Probably just get spent in the West, though then again that probably comes with more allied casualties in turn or more objectives taken or held. Not sure which individual battles could go the other way but the net gain for the Central Powers is probably significant.

 

[TheIO]

I remember @wiking on the Other Place doing a thought experiment where AH doesn't completely balls up autumn 1914. Can't remember the PoD for that but not having Hotzendorf in charge probably helps with that.

A brief scan of his wiki suggests that, as he was a favoured choice of Franz Ferdinand for Chief of Staff in 1906 and then again in 1912 after Aehrenthal died, you'd need to reduce Franz's influence somehow or have him find an alternative, less shit candidate. Who else was actually considered both times?

One possibility is that Aehrenthal lives longer and doesn't resign in 1911 and thus is able to block Hotzendorf for longer, but that would have ramifications on AH's foreign policy 1911-14.