During the next 10 years it felt like Europe had returned to the time from after the Napoleonic wars, there was not a single conflict between European nations. Of course, this did not stop colonial ambitions or, indeed, internal conflicts. Russians were active in Arabian peninsula, annexing Nejd around 1875 and then seeking to acquire Hedjaz into their empire as well in 1881. France was busy seeking some new land as well, annexing kingdom of Kalat to double the size of 'French India'. In Africa around 1880, Ethiopians were under attack from both Egypt, seeking to reclaim Asmara region, and Spain who was just seeking to test some new weaponry. Now these conflicts were mostly insignificant, at least when compared to the event in the ever continuing conflict in northern America. The previous conflict had ended in Status Quo around 1874. After this, the United Kingdom sought to claim New England back from USA, but lacked proper effort and failed. Soon the Confederates, emboldened by their past successes and appraised weakening of Northern Army from their war against Red Coats, sought to 'liberate' Missouri. However, this turned out to be just a bit overambitious, and the Northeners soon asserted their intention to, once again, unify the north and south by force of arms. (World as of november 1881)
Austria spent the decade mostly swatting rebels, domestic and foreign, especially the occasional Pan-German nationalists were thoroughly weeded out from any nation we could gain access into. Clearly, monarchy was losing it's support, and citizens wished for futher rights to meddle in rulers affairs, this, of course, could not be allowed, after all, under half the citizens could even read, and those that could read weren't much better informed. In technological front, advances were mostly in ship building and weaponry for the 1870'ies, with focus turning towards chemistry in early 1880'ies. However, despite the improved understanding of modern ships, the expansion of fleet was canceled and no capitalist was willing to invest into streamer building without goverment purchases.
Matter of Congo had come up during the 1870'ies and while Leopold of Belgium had been busy securing 'private deals' in the area, it wasn't until 1880 when the United Kingdom called conference on the Congo issue that the issue was finally settled, indeed, in favor of Belgium, mostly to prevent expansion of French interestes, which the Brits saw as a growing threath. We civilized Austrians of course would have nothing to do with some uncivilized wildmen and let the people interested in colonial affairs settle their own affairs, as if the independence movements in Americas weren't lesson enough not to stray outside Europe.
In 1875 Austria hosted a Regional Trade Fair, allowing for return to normal relations with north German states. This would futher allow us to improve relations with a few of them, and indeed, turn some from Prussia to support Austria.
By late 1881, we had managed to convince Holstein, Hesse-Kassel and Nassau to switch sides, Prussia maintained some support among the minors, but their sphere was now scattered and largely inside Austrias. Also worth noting that there are, once again, Pan-Germans in control of Saxe's. When both Saxon states declined to allow Austria military access despite this, certain Jingoist circles in court used this opportunity to convince Francis Joseph that the rebels were actually paid and equipped by Prussia. Quite used to the regular 'real politik' of Prussia, this was an easy sale to the Emperor, and thus a war was declared once again on Prussia in November of 1881. (View of the split of german states before the war)
As Austria could now field 12 standing Armee's, and had added some Guard regiments into it's force mix, raised from the most loyal among the minorities, indeed, they could almost be considered proper Austrians by now. True Austrians, of course, still only served in cavalry and artillery. And indeed, Prussia could hardly be any stronger after all we had done to weaken them already, and thus a decisive battle was sought by Theodor Steeb from the beginning, when he took 3 Armee's into Berlin against the strongest Prussian concentration.
Another battle took place in Kustrin, this one very expensive in lives, but still nominally Austrian victory as after reinforcements, we managed to drive the Prussians away. The Prussians from Berlin were chased into Pritzwalk, and defeated second time.
By March, the war in east was still unresolved, but since there hadn't really been any Prussian troops in the west, Austrian and South German troops were occupying Prussia, and indeed, recovering those states where rebels had taken control.
There was a cluttering of minor battles after this, mostly with Prussians hastly withdrawing, to conserve their strenght, indeed, Austrian armies had to return back to Austrian side of border to recover from all the losses incurred by fighting on Prussian soil, but the grand battle of the war was fought in september. A year later, in september of 1883 Prussians finally agreed to the harsh terms Francis Joseph demanded, indeed, to make them appear bit less harsh, instead of outright conquest of Posen, independence of Poland was restored, to a minor one state nation surely, but still a relatively independent entity. Oh, and the United States of America were once again united in fact as well.
P.S. yes, that was unusually hasty war even for me, not to mention the peace time, but this was awfully dull period where I spent all my time with diplomacy and forgot to take lot of screenies of the war too, so well, it was a boring war anyways...
