Would Russia have been receptive to a partition of A-H?

[futurist]

Had Germany renewed its Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1890 and also offered Russia a formal alliance (as well as to cancel Germany's Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary) in exchange for Russian agreement to eventually partition Austria-Hungary between Germany, Russia, Italy, Serbia, and Romania, how exactly would Russia react to such a German offer?

Basically, I'm wondering as to whether there could have eventually been an alternate World War I had Kaiser Bill somehow had a personality change. Specifically, I am thinking of a WWI where Germany, Russia, Italy, Serbia, and Romania ally together to partition Austria-Hungary while Britain, France, the Austrians and Hungarians themselves, and possibly the Ottoman Empire as well try to stop the German-Russians from doing this.

[futurist]

Also, obviously Kaiser Bill's personality change would have needed to include him becoming a Pan-German nationalist in Hitler's mold but without the rabid anti-Semitism. Basically, Kaiser Bill needs to view himself as a unifier of all ethnic Germans (whether Protestant or Catholic)--not as the representative of the Protestant Prussian elite.

[eurofed]

The Russians would almost surely leap at this kind of offer. Since the Habsburg betrayed them by being an hostile neutral during the Crimean War after the Russians saved them in 1848-49, and the Three-Emperors League collapsed because of un-manageable Austro-Russian tensions, Russia gave up any legitimist attachment whatsoever to the integrity of the Habsburg Empire, and they shifted to regard it just as a major strategic obstacle for their southward expansion plans that had to be undermined and demolished, just like the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, Germany and Russia continued to enjoy good relations since the alliance against Napoleon that lasted until the entrenchment of the Austro-German and Russo-French alliances pulled them apart, and had potentially compatible strategic interests in Eastern Europe and the Middle East as long as neither side proved unreasonably greedy and intransigent. This scenario would offer Russia a golden chance on the plate to fulfill its centuries-long dream of reaching the warm seas by the best means available short of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires spontaneously collapsing. It would almost surely take a general war, but one that would be much less troublesome for the Triple Alliance (Germany, Russia, Italy) and their Balkan minions to fight and win against the Anglo-Franco-Austro-Ottoman Entente than the OTL conflict. There was plenty of historical evidence from previous wars and revolutionary events available for the Russian and German leaders that A-H and the OE were weak and would fold to, and France could not help them (or itself) withstand, a Russo-German concerted action.

No matter how much Anglo-French assistance could realistically prop up A-H and the OE, the Habsburg Empire would inevitably fold to a multi-front attack within a few weeks to months. As soon as A-H starts to fold, Italy can and shall safely jump in the fray, help pin down the French, and deliver the coup de grace to A-H. Its downfall means the Alliance controls the continent from the Rhine-Alps line to the outskirts of the Turkish Straits; they can concentrate and deploy their pooled military power by interior lines at will and trade freely to sustain their own economies. The combination of German and Russian resources makes the Triple Alliance effectively immune to Anglo-French blockade (once A-H folds this also includes Italy). It means the Germans never feel desperate enough to make Zimmerman telegram blunders or use USW, except perhaps as an extreme means to vanquish Britain if it stays defiant once all its allies have been defeated, and at that point America would see the writing on the wall and mind its own business. The Kaiser and the Tsar are not Hitler and Stalin: the Americans can co-exist and gainfully trade with an Alliance-dominated continent just as well as with the pre-war version. So the USA stays neutral. It also means Russia suffers much less war damage than OTL and gets a big morale boost from victories, so no real risk of revolution. Even with all the assistance the BEF can provide, France simply has not the manpower to resist for long when the bulk of the German and Italian armies plus a sizable Russian expeditionary corps get thrown at them from the Atlantic to the Med, and goes down relatively quickly. Once France falls, the Alliance can redeploy the bulk of its military power to crush the OE with a two-front attack, which the Ottomans are just as hopeless to resist as their former allies even with British assistance. The main factor slowing down Alliance victory a bit in the Balkan-Middle Eastern front is the suboptimal logistics of attacking the Ottomans from the Caucasus and in the Turkish Straits, and besieging Constantinople. After all its allies bite the dust, Britain can either acknowlege the inevitable and make peace with minor losses or the Alliance can drag it kicking and screaming to the peace table by various means, including USW, a strategic threat to India through conquered Turkey and Persia, and the threat to keep Europe closed to British trade forever. And in the medium term, a Pan-European hegemony can simply outbuild the Royal Navy. The combination of German, Russian, Italian, and seized A-H and French navies would already be a most serious threat.

To achieve this deal, Russia just has to find a Prussian/German King/Emperor and/or Prime Minister sufficiently foresighted to acknowledge their best interests as ruling elites and true historical mission lie in leading the ride to complete German unification and not being the guardians of North German Protestant superiority, and there are plenty of political means they can remain in charge even in a half-Catholic Greater Germany, especially if they are the ones building it up. Moreover, and more importantly, to acknowledge that the Habsburg and Ottoman empires are decaying relics of a past age that failed their chances and are going down anyway, to try and prop them would mean for Germany to shackle itself to corpses and doom itself to a terribly risky and costly trial in the general war that is coming. Instead, the proper course for Germany is to pick the best alliance available with the other up-and-coming great power and make a sensible partition deal. This option also has the lesser but far from negligible benefit for Germany of providing Italy as a junior partner that is much less fragile and troublesome than A-H, and would have zero loyalty issues in this situation.

Bismarck came close to make this leap of insight, even if he failed to make the final step, since he deemed paramount for Germany to keep Russia's friendship, in his last years he was nagging and begging the Kaiser not to let Russia go in France's arms, and he never saw the alliance with A-H as vital or especially important for Germany, to him it was just one more pawn in his ever more complex chess game to keep France isolated. One of his biggest historical failures was not to acknowledge he could not keep the balancing act between Vienna and St. Petersburg forever, he had to choose an option and stick to it, and had he realized this, it is almost sure he would have chosen Russia. As a matter of fact, one of the best PoD to realize this scenario is for Bismarck to make this insight as soon as the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War. During the Congress of Berlin negotiations he takes the side of Russia and supports their claims instead of neglecting them to appease the British and the Austrians. The grateful Russians realize they have a reliable partner in the Germans and increasingly align to a close alliance with Berlin in the following years. The frustrated Habsburg gradually drift away to form the Entente with France and Turkey. This alignment drives the rest of the Prussian elites to acknowledge A-H as an enemy, its destruction and a Pan-German policy as inevitable and gainful, and plan for a general war and partition of the old empires with the Russians accordingly. Italy leaps at the chance to accomplish all its foreign-policy objectives in one stroke with the strongest partners available and sticks to the Triple Alliance like dear life. At most, they negotiate an agreement with their allies to delay their intervention when it would be strategically safe for them, i.e. when one of France or A-H (almost surely the latter) starts to fold. The Balkan actors with an interest to grab a piece of A-H or OE (Serbs, Romanians, Bulgarians, Greeks) naturally drift to the Alliance' side and cling to it as well. The threat to the balance of power the German-Russian alliance represents, and the way it magnifies the German naval buildup and Great Game issues, inevitably drives Britain to join the Entente sooner rather than later.  

Bismarck getting a leap of insight in 1878 seems to me a better PoD than Willy getting a Pan-German change of heart since 1890 for various reasons, not the least being the former was much more clever than the latter, but both are reasonably feasible. By the way, no need to invoke Hitler as a model for a Pan-German Willy, also because the toxic Volkish mindset that bred Adolf was far from being that popular and influential in Germany before WWI. There were plenty of much nicer and more sensible Pan-German patriots that had advocated Grossdeutchsland unification under Prussia's leadership once the Habsburg had proven useless in 1848-49. Let TTL Willy come to channel their mindset a couple generations later and understand his life's job is to complete Bismarck's masterpiece and by so doing in concert with the Russians he can crush the French threat and raise Germany to superpower greatness much better and more safely than by OTL clumsy Weltpolitick. He can come to embrace this viewpoint on his own, as a result of the strategic circumstances TTL Bismarck has laid down, or a mix of both.