1879: Agreement

In the 19th century, the major European powers had gone to great lengths to maintain a balance of power throughout Europe, resulting by 1900 in a complex network of political and military alliances throughout the continent. These had started in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Then, in October 1873, German Chancellor Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors (German: Dreikaiserbund) between the monarchs of Austria–Hungary, Russia and Germany. This agreement failed because Austria–Hungary and Russia could not agree over Balkan policy, leaving Germany and Austria–Hungary in an alliance formed in 1879, called the Dual Alliance.This is what happened in the OTL.This Timeline will tell what could happen if Austria-Hungary and Russia had agreed.

Notes;
 * 1) This is not my image of a perfect world. Neither would I agree that the current nations' borders should be redrawn to represent my Austria and others vision of it. Although all althistories show biases and mine is no exception, often things exist in my world that I would not wish to exist in a perfect world. However, I do admit that in general, I do prefer this ATL world to the OTL world.
 * 2) This isn't meant to be a true representation of "what if" things had turned out differently. Even if my points of divergence had occurred in the real world, I know that my althist would not be the result. Things are guided by a not-quite omniscient being (me, that is), and are not left up to fate. Of course, this is just fiction and is not a real alternate universe (I would make my creation even better, if I truly had the power), so I have free artistic reign.
 * 3) Some people from the real world show up in my alternate history. See the "I have free artistic reign" part above to see how people alive in our world show up hundreds of years after points of departure happen. However, I'll also attempt an explanation that sounds reasonable. With my guidance, the right sperm and the right egg managed to still meet everytime, or the DNA just came together in the right way to produce that person. As I'm also of the opinion that nature plays a part in people, in addition to nurture, if there is a major difference between specific people in my world and the real world, it's also possible that a child of a different genetic makeup was born but given the same name that would have gone to the person who was born in our timeline.
 * 4) Events that happen on the same dates or around the same time as in the real world, again, are like that simply because it's easy for me to remember and easy for readers to compare to the events as they unfurled in our timeline.