Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-13740085-20140322054844/@comment-1310192-20140420162125

Lombardy-Venetia had 5 million inhabitants as of 1861. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Lombardy%E2%80%93Venetia Veneto had 3 million in 1910 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneto#Demographics and Lombardy had 5 million http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombardy#Demographics. Adding in Friuli and Istria, this means that by 1911, there were between 8 and 10 million Italians in the annexed territories.

Cislethiania was around 35% Austrian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisleithania#Population, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungarian_Empire#Ethnic_relations. The population of the AH Empire was 50 million; The Republic of German-Austria had 11 million. That seems to be consistent with the 35% mark of Cislethania.

The result of annexation would lead to 8-10 million Italians, and 11 million Austrians. Add in the Czechs and Croats and the Austrians can't possibly manage that result.

The main problem with the wank is that Austria can't possibly have that ethnic makeup and survive. And if you can't find anything to back me up, you haven't been looking. At all.

As for the war, the Austrian army might have been slightly more competent but it couldn't beat Italy by such a large margin. For example, almost every battle in the Isonzo was either inconclusive or resulted in Italian victory; the Austrians (with German help) did win in Caporetto, but they also lost horribly at both the Piave and Vittorio Veneto, which led to the downfall of the Austrian Empire. All in all, the Austrians do not have the capacity to crush the Italians in war by any means; they can extract a marginal victory, but definitely not something as large.