AHC: Germany Sans Prussia?

robbiej

Your challenge: come up with a plausible timeline and POD for there to be a united Germany which doesn't include the Kingdom of Prussia, but does include Austria.

Basically, what happened with Germany and Austria OTL, except switch Austria with Prussia and vice versa. Rhineland, Hungary, Bohemia and Schleswig-Holstein are optional. Austria and the remainder of OTL Germany are not. Brandenburg cannot be part of this Germany, just to stop people having a Prussia that loses Prussia proper and then joins Germany or something.

Is this completely ASB? I got inspired by the 'favourite Germany' poll.
 
iori

iori

Well firstly, how much of Prussia do you mean, I mean from your initial disclaimer I get that core Prussia, IE Brandenburg and Prussia are'nt, but what about the other territories controlled by Prussia?

And to clarify what I mean, here's a map showing Prussias expansion in the 19th century.

Prussian Expansion.png
 

Iserlohn

I'd say it is possible to exclude post-Tilsit Prussia and also include Austria, but it is damn difficult. You'd really need to get rid of Prussian exclaves (for which the Treaty of Tilsit is perfect) as well as territories which are geographically within the Prussian orbit (the Mecklenburgs are something that probably wouldn't end up as part of Germany, the Confederation of the Rhine excluded).

The main problem behind an Austrian-dominated Germany is the federalism. Austria for one thing has the problem of it's non-German territories, which could lead to Germany and Austria still being considered seperate even if the Habsburgs hold the title of both Archduke of Austria and German Emperor. Secondly you'd need to consider on what to do with the territories that ended up with Prussia IOTL, as well as territories which were lost by Prussia and given to other states (East Frisia comes to mind). You need to find a way to distribute these territories logically and maybe set up new states as well.

However in the end the main problem is too keep Prussia at Tilsit level, possibly weaker (lacking Silesia, ideally).
 

Iserlohn

Svetonius21 said:
You mean something like this?
Click to expand...

More like: Add #9 to that as well and get rid of Silesia and territories which during the Napoleonic Wars were part of Warsaw. Also I'd envision Schleswig-Holstein to be part of Denmark, including Lauenburg and Lübeck, with Hamburg as a Free City (similiar to Danzig during the Napoleonic Wars and during the Interwar era). Also the whole "missing Austria"-issue, but that is probably part of the basemap ;)
 

robbiej

I'm thinking, that the smallest non-included Prussia is the one in Iori's map in 1807, though Silesia can be part of Germany and not Prussia. Mainly, I'm trying to exclude Ostpreussen, Westpreussen, and Brandenburg.

@Svetonius: Your map, plus Austria proper at the minimum. Where is that map from, btw?
 

Iserlohn

robbiej said:
I'm thinking, that the smallest non-included Prussia is the one in Iori's map in 1807, though Silesia can be part of Germany and not Prussia. Mainly, I'm trying to exclude Ostpreussen, Westpreussen, and Brandenburg.

@Svetonius: Your map, plus Austria proper at the minimum. Where is that map from, btw?
Click to expand...

It's from an old history archive, WHKMLA, set up by a German historian working in Korea IIRC.
 

Stormy Sky

What about a later POD? Say if 1848 is far more successful. The Austrian Empire splinters, leaving Austria separate from most of its non-German population, then the Habsburgs or an Austrian-led Germany is suggested at Frankfurt. Of course a large chunk of Germany is still owned by Prussia, so then you have a war between an alliance of German states (and maybe Napoleon III for good measure thrown in to ensure a liberal victory). Prussia loses, and loses all the territory gained after 1800. Meanwhile Russia sits it out for reasons I haven't worked out yet. You might need to change a few more things but I think its possible.

The end result would be you have a liberal France and Germany alliance (with Austria included as in your specs), Prussia as a separate conservative power probably allied with Russia, and the entirity of the 19th and 20th century go radically differently. No Franco-Prussian War, no WW1 (in a recogniseable form anyway) and Italy probably gets united much earlier too.
 

MSZ

Banned
Wouldn't simply preventing the Brandenburg-Prussia union do the trick? The HRE, or a HRE-esque Germany unifies in some way, Prussia remaining a Germanophonich duchy outside of it (kind of like Switzerland). Seems most simple, as Prussia technically wasn't part of Germany in the first place.

Other than that, a Greater German solution "victory" in Frankfurt during the spring of nations could have a similar effect. Seeing that the Austrians managed to score a complete and utter victory against Prussia at the time, doing that in an ATL leads to the punctuation of olmutz becoming the moment of proclamation of the German Reich under Austrian rule, excluding the Prussians, as well as having them surrender some territories to the new empire.
 

duncansa

Maybe when Duke Albert Frederick dies in 1618 Sigismund Vasa awards the Dukedom of Ducal Prussia to someone other than John Sigismund of Brandenburg so that Brandenburg-Prussia doesn't come into being. Maybe John Sigismund's second son Joachim.
Alternatively one of Albert Frederick's sons survive into adulthood and succeed to the Ducal throne.
 

robbiej

These are some pretty good ideas, I gotta say.

Also, just thinking about it and from Iori's map, a Germany that included Austria but not Prussia would be one hell of a awkward looking Germany. Maybe thats coming from my Victoria based desire for pretty borders, but its not great looking, you gotta admit.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
In my planned rewrite, I am thinking of having Prussia form a dynastic union with Sweden while the HRE could be unified by a German state other than Austria or even Brandenburg. Could either the Netherlands or even Denmark become the protector of the German states?
 
kasumigenx

kasumigenx

Why not have Poland ruled by the Hohenzollerns have Silesia and Prussia(and perhaps later have Bohemia and Moravia as well) and the Hohenzollerns were still the rightful heirs of Casimir III and the Luxembourgs.
 

Iserlohn

MarshalBraginsky said:
In my planned rewrite, I am thinking of having Prussia form a dynastic union with Sweden while the HRE could be unified by a German state other than Austria or even Brandenburg. Could either the Netherlands or even Denmark become the protector of the German states?
Click to expand...

Well, a major problem would be the religious divide... The Netherlands and their Calvinist thinking might not be accepted by the whole of Germany, especially Bavaria. If the Netherlands were REALLY tolerant and controled the Southern Netherlands (which get counter-reformed as in OTL) then it could work, though I still can only envision a Netherlands-led North Germany.

Same goes for Denmark, though at least being Lutheran-dominated it would have an easier time to be accepted as a leading state, since, excluding parts of the Rhineland, the majority of German protestants were Lutherans (before the rise of Free Churches). However Denmark probably lacks the ability to project power south of the Main because of it's "extreme" location, so again a North Germany would be no problem.
 

Colonel Troutstrangler

However Denmark probably lacks the ability to project power south of the Main because of it's "extreme" location, so again a North Germany would be no problem.[/QUOTE]

Denmark had "connections" with the Kassel royal house, perhaps in Napoleonic times (If they ever came about!) dynastic ties place Danish persuasions in central Germany, therefore, "Danish" power would be sat just north of the Main?
 
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