Low Lands stay German?? Possibility-check/ TL

Hey!
Is there any plausible possibility, that the lower countries - at least the Germanic parts - remain inside the German sphere/ the HRE, after 30 years war? Plus that the offical language will be German in this areas? Maybe pushing that chance by "creating" an Offical German, that has also lower Frankish influences within (and a bit more Lower Saxon ones as well)?
Let's say, the HRE falls anyways as in OTL and after the Viennan Congress, the Netherlands become part of the German Confederation. (But area of OTL Netherland's provine of Limburg goes to Prussia as part of the Rhine Province)

How possible do you think will it be, that the Netherlands will allying with Prussia in the inter-German war and become part of North Germany in 1867? OR latest allying with Prussia in 1870 against France and becoming part of the German Empire in 1871?

Second question: If you think, above is possible, do you 1. think, that (larger) Germany will lose WWI anyways, and 2. if, would Netherlands stay part of Germany/ Weimar Republic then??

I am working on TL with an friend and I wanted to ask the possibility of these thoughts. Thank you.
If we were gonna make Belgium and Luxemburg independent or let them fail, we don't know yet.


PS. here are German names of Dutch and Flamish cities and towns:
Amsterdam = Amsteldamm
Rotterdam = Rottendamm
Groningen = Gröningen
Leeuwarden = Löwenwarft / Leewarft
Utrecht = Austrecht
Enschede = Enscheid
Arnhem = Arnheim
Nijmegen = Nimwegen/ Nymwegen
Hertogenbosch = Herzogenbusch
Eindhoven = Einighofen
Venlo = Fennloh
Maastricht = Maasfurt
Antwerpen = Antorf
Hasselt = Haselwald
Gent = Genth

Empress_Janina_I. said:

Hey!
Is there any plausible possibility, that the lower countries - at least the Germanic parts - remain inside the German sphere/ the HRE, after 30 years war?

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After the 30 year war? No.It already had a distinct identity and a distinct language, including their own literature (and bible). Germany had nothing to offer the Netherlands anymore. You need a pre 1600 POD (probably even earlier) for that to happen.

Oh and all the other things you propose would most certainly be butterflied away.

Having the HRE become a more cohesive entity with a united government would help surely.

Other option is the Habsburgs never inheriting Spain AND moving their powerbase from Austria to the Burgundian Lands.

Monter said:

Having the HRE become a more cohesive entity with a united government would help surely.

Other option is the Habsburgs never inheriting Spain AND moving their powerbase from Austria to the Burgundian Lands.

Click to expand...

I agree. Having either
+ the Burgundian house never die out, or
+ their domains becoming inherited by a lower Rhenish hose (Geldern; Cleve-Mark; or Jülich-Berg) in the late15th or early 16th century, or
+ the Habsburgs taking over Burguindy, but never inheriting Spain

seem like the latest possible PoDs.

You would have to butterfly away Wilhelmus (William) of Orange first. Reminder: for the Dutch the 30-year war was actually called the 80-year war because it started with 50 years of insurgence against the Spanish Habsburgers. During that time Williams main weapon was a modern propaganda machine that convinced the protestand leaning cities of Holland and the neighboring provinces that they were not part of the Habsburg empire, neither of the HRE, but a distinct entity with their own language, culture and religion. By the time the 80-years war became the 30-years war, the Netherlands were already fully established.

Also a great deal of the borders came from the fact that the Netherlands were -though highly independent- still in name subject of the Habsburg empire. So any idea of them becoming independent entities of the German states of the HRE was pretty much a non-starter... Even without the 80/30 years war, they would be just as 'German' as the Austrian Netherlands which is today's Flanders/North Belgium. Germanic to some degree, but not German.

An earlier PoD might be a stronger participation of Hollander and Zeelander cities in the Hanseatic League, like many cities of the Sticht Utrecht, Gelderland and Friesland did.

Since Brugge and Gent were technically French subjects, it might be possible that the Hollandish-Flemish rivalry leads to a situation where the Dutch places need and want the backup of the Rhenish and Saxon Hanseatic cities.

While Low Frankish, the ancestor of Dutch, and Low Saxon, the language of North Germany (and the Eastern provinces of .nl) are not the same language, the two are certainly closer to each other than to High German. Having a common trade language emerge once someone translates the bible into a North Sea vernacular is certainly possible.

PS: One remark about the alternate names of the cities you give. I don't think any of the cities listed will change their name. First because even with High German or any other German becoming the official language, the local tongues will still exist as a dialect so there will always enough people around to call the city by its old name. And even if the local dialect would largely die out the city would just retain its old name out of tradition. I know of several villages in Northern Germany of which the name instead of ending in '-dorf' end in the local '-dorp'. Further south other villages end on '-drop' and '-drup'. The same with the prefix "Neu" (new) often replaced by the ancient or local form 'Nie". Second the main reason a town is listed under another name is that the mapmakers or scribes doing the listing speak another language then the locals and have trouble pronouncing it the correct way. With medieval German versus medieval Dutch there would be no such need as the local names are was to pronounce for everybody.

And as for Amsterdam, it once was called Amstel-dam for real, (because it was built along the river Amstel) However the name ends up being pronounced AmsteR-dam real quickly because it just rolled off the tongue more easily.