Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
Banned
A challenge - make the Dutch Republic stronger and more concentrated on European affairs and not on colonial matters and then make it unite Germany instead of Prussia.
Stronger Netherlands
- Thread starter Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
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ASB, unless you somehow get a Dutch/Flemish emperor pre-independence, which would mean butterflying away the Habsburgs and, probably, Spain. Dutch Republic as it was OTL separated from the HRE, cutting off any chance of a closer union with Germany, politically, culturally or economically, beyond trade of course.
Best chance to fulfill your latter conditions is to have a Frisian/Dutch/Flemish-led kingdom, or some Lotharingian successor-state under Lowlander rule, establish regional supremacy over the Billungs in northern Germany c. mid-1000s, usurp the infant HRE, spread the kingdom across the northern coast, etc.
But yeah, as you put it, ASB.
Best chance to fulfill your latter conditions is to have a Frisian/Dutch/Flemish-led kingdom, or some Lotharingian successor-state under Lowlander rule, establish regional supremacy over the Billungs in northern Germany c. mid-1000s, usurp the infant HRE, spread the kingdom across the northern coast, etc.
But yeah, as you put it, ASB.
This, basically. Although if you want Dutch control of the Rhine or northern coast of Germany, that leads into the second part....
This, also. ASB. You have go way back to have the people occupying OTL Netherlands/etc. be closer to Germans linguistically and culturally in order to have this even be remotely possible, which entails going back at least to c. 1000ish.
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
Banned
Until 17th century all continental West Germanic peoples called their language Duits/Deutsch until the Dutch started calling their language Nederlands. In 17-18th century most of notthern Germany still spoke Low German which is pretty much a different language from written German - much closer to Dutch.
And then concept of national identity as we know today was absent.
And then concept of national identity as we know today was absent.
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Wrong. The Dutch people did not consider themselves German. This was certainly the case in the late stages of the Dutch revolt, but I would say it happened a lot earlier. The Dutch were one of the least German parts of the HRE. They were already quite independent in the late middle ages. With a POD of 1648 or later it is simply impossible for the Netherlands to unite or even expand extensively into Germany. They simply did not care about it. There was nothing (or at least not much) to gain for the Dutch in Germany.
Besides that, if the Netherlands wouldn't have focussed on its colonies and overseas trade, than it would never have become strong enough to do anything within Germany and with it they would have focused on overseas expansion, not Germany. It is kind of a catch 22.
I'll give you the linguistics, but the Dutch were a 'people apart' by then.
The Dutch rebellion was one of the first instances of an assertion of national identity in history, so not sure this is correct.
I disagree it's impossible.
Germany will be a lot smaller in the southern and eastern direction, with lots more 'Austria'-like nations (kinda German, but never quite that - we might even see Austria as 'obviously never quite German after 1066 AD' as we now see the Netherlands). But I could see a Dutch Republic get more expansionary over time (after all, from 1648 it was really more contracting from the east - stopping and even slightly reversing it seems doable), and then getting somewhere.
Such a country would have a Rhine-Weser-North Sea core, for sure, so that kinda limits what gets in. And it would require an almost consistent focus on it (you could probably stretch things to more-or-less keep the Netherlands where it was economically by 1670 or so; the decline could be a bit steeper).
Still, it'd be tough. One of these days I intend to work out a timeline how to do it - but yeah, I only have a sketchy outline
Germany will be a lot smaller in the southern and eastern direction, with lots more 'Austria'-like nations (kinda German, but never quite that - we might even see Austria as 'obviously never quite German after 1066 AD' as we now see the Netherlands). But I could see a Dutch Republic get more expansionary over time (after all, from 1648 it was really more contracting from the east - stopping and even slightly reversing it seems doable), and then getting somewhere.
Such a country would have a Rhine-Weser-North Sea core, for sure, so that kinda limits what gets in. And it would require an almost consistent focus on it (you could probably stretch things to more-or-less keep the Netherlands where it was economically by 1670 or so; the decline could be a bit steeper).
Still, it'd be tough. One of these days I intend to work out a timeline how to do it - but yeah, I only have a sketchy outline
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
Banned
When it comes to language and culture - North Germany was much closer to the Netherlands than either of them was to Bavaria, Austria or whatever part of the south. It was also heavily Protestant and had more city-centric traditions (the Hanseatic League and so on). I think if the Dutch somehow managed to build a strong Prussian-like army, it could with some luck gain substantial territorial holdings in North Germany.
Right after starting it's conquest Prussia was among the poorest German states - it was even poorer than Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Right after starting it's conquest Prussia was among the poorest German states - it was even poorer than Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
What if the Dutch had a leader like Hitler who told them that the German states were in need of help from the Nederlands and was thus able to get a military expedition to take say Hanover ,Oldenburg .With possibly Westphalia .
When I say Hitler I don`t necessarily mean a genocidal lunatic who tries to destroy everything he does not like .I mean someone who could get the people to follow him in any of his schemes .
When I say Hitler I don`t necessarily mean a genocidal lunatic who tries to destroy everything he does not like .I mean someone who could get the people to follow him in any of his schemes .
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
Banned
The first thing that has to be done is to have more centralized Netherlands - in OTL Dutch Republic wasn't a centralized bureaucratic state like France but a loose federation of several smaller entities that differed greatly - there was county of Amsterdam that was extraordinarily rich and had the best agriculture in the world and there were places like Frisia that had barely anything. It would take massive investments to bring the hypothetical conquered areas to a decent level of productivity.
Impossible during the Dutch republic, because of the way the Dutch republic worked. Even more impossible in the 19th century since the Dutch were too poor to be relevent (and Germany too strong). Impossible in the 20th century because of the democratic and neutral tradition and because of the political division in the Netherlands. That is besides the fact that nobody cared about Germany.
Well, not beyond East Frisia, anyway, and that was only because the cities there were Calvinist.
The problem with the Dutch Republic is that it was born out of the Habsburg Empire, and the Duchy of Burgundy before it.
If you want stronger, more expansionist-minded Dutch and Flemish, with stronger ties to Germany, you need the duchies of the Lowlands to either NOT fall under Burgundian rule (i.e: be inherited by someone else, or coalesce under a Dutch/Flemish duke rather than the Burgundians).
Alternately, have the House of Bourgogne-Valois not die in the male line with Charles the Bold. Have him sire a proper heir and -not- die at Nancy, and his burgeoning duchy can remain mostly autonomous, mostly independent, and free to give exactly zero f*cks about its neighbors. Under a 'Grand Duchy'/Kingdom of Burgundy (or some other similarly elevated title), the Dutch and Flemish merchant class can really prosper. The Burgundian dukes/kings/whatever will continue their expansionism and bring more of northern Germany and the Rhine under their control, beating back the French and Austrians. If by some miracle this all works out, and Bourgogne-Valois DOESN'T die out prematurely, you could see a 'Dutch Republic' break away, eventually, that comprises of most of northern Germany, the Rhine, and all the Lowlands.
If you want stronger, more expansionist-minded Dutch and Flemish, with stronger ties to Germany, you need the duchies of the Lowlands to either NOT fall under Burgundian rule (i.e: be inherited by someone else, or coalesce under a Dutch/Flemish duke rather than the Burgundians).
Alternately, have the House of Bourgogne-Valois not die in the male line with Charles the Bold. Have him sire a proper heir and -not- die at Nancy, and his burgeoning duchy can remain mostly autonomous, mostly independent, and free to give exactly zero f*cks about its neighbors. Under a 'Grand Duchy'/Kingdom of Burgundy (or some other similarly elevated title), the Dutch and Flemish merchant class can really prosper. The Burgundian dukes/kings/whatever will continue their expansionism and bring more of northern Germany and the Rhine under their control, beating back the French and Austrians. If by some miracle this all works out, and Bourgogne-Valois DOESN'T die out prematurely, you could see a 'Dutch Republic' break away, eventually, that comprises of most of northern Germany, the Rhine, and all the Lowlands.
That is complete nonsense. There is no such thing as "German", "Dutch", "French", "Spanish" and so on. These are just artificial inventions. What exist are dialect continuums and ethnic/national emotions based on an understanding of ethnicity/nationality that could just as well have had different borders. There are large variations when it comes to the dialects of Germany. It is not like everyone speak standard German.
Just because something is an artificial invention, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It is still true that the Dutch identity was created during (and even before) the Dutch revolt and that a division between the Netherlands and (what would later become) Germany existed in the 17th century. The Dutch weren't German and after that point there was no way the Dutch would consider themselves German, while the Netherlands still exists. The only way for the netherlands to become German is by Germany to conquer them (and in that case it would take a couple of generations and cultural oppression by the Germans to accomplish it).
Are you saying that dutch is just a dialect of German? If you are, then buddy I hate to disappoint you but dutch and even low German (and Frisian and English, not to mention standard German and high German) are still mutually unintelligible with each other (they are similar, but you cannot understand someone speaking Frisian if you are speaking dutch and vice-versa), and that is the definition for separate languages, and everyone accepts those. Same applies to the Iberian languages (each a separate language in their own right, but too many to list) to each other (galacian to Portuguese, castillian to leonese, etc), french to occitan (and Catalan, nobody really knows if occitan and Catalan are dialects or separate languages), and north Italian to central and south Italian. And Sardinian, which is in a category all of its own. These languages could have evolved differently, but dutch is a descendant from Frankish, while German (and low German) is a descendant from aleminaic, making them destined to ALWAYS be separate languages unless one replaced the other.
Thanks for ninjaing me
Indeed. Even at the start of the Dutch Revolt, when any sense of a Dutch nation was an upper-class fantasy more informed by Batavian proto-nationalism than any established shared identity, that Dutch-ness was separate from the ill-defined but still extant conceptions of what 'German' meant.
Standard German and the low German dialects are also mutually unintelligible with each other. Your definition of a language is, by the way, not universally used. For instance Norwegian and Swedish are clearly mutually intelligible, but are still considered different languages. The reason is partly that they have different written standards, but probably more important, the rather unscientific reason that they are used in different countries. Nationalist definitions unfortunately tend to overrule linguistic ones. By the way, Franconian dialects are spoken in both Germany and the Netherlands.
maybe a good start would be that Willem II does not perish 1256, and continues to be King of the HRE (he was crowned as king of the HRE in 1247)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_II_of_Holland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_II_of_Holland
Standard German is Hochdeutsch while Low German is Saxon and in reality a wholly different language. And 'Franconian' is a misnomer; Low Frankish is a bit more proper (since Franconia has nothing to do with it), and the Low Frankish dialects in Germany (around Cleves etc.)are very moribund.
You're absolutely correct in that Germany's full of three widely different branches of the (western Germanic) language spectrum. However, that doesn't have that much to do with politics in the 16th century. When you say there's no innate quality to those countries and their respective cultures and languages, you're right, but you'd have to go back a lot more for there to be serious PODs involving them.
I mean, 'Flanders' itself is a made-up identity from the 19th century in response to a Francophone ruling class; the varieties of Dutch spoken in Belgium (West Flemish, East Flemish, Brabantian and Limburgish) are not terribly closely related and can all be heard in the Netherlands (although the first two are far from common). Yet, there are deep religious-political reasons for the separation that go back to at least 1579 (Treaty of Arras), which not entirely coincidentally is the exact same year the Northern Netherlands established itself as a separate political entity.