A Franco-Austrian alliance against Prussia ?

So the POD would be a high militarization of Prussia in those years that would increase tense between Prussia and Austria ? Or a diplomatic crisis ?

The high militarization was as a result of Olmutz and the events of 1848. So no, it's not possible, as Prussia was not seen as a threat until after Sadowa in 1866.
 
The high militarization was as a result of Olmutz and the events of 1848. So no, it's not possible, as Prussia was not seen as a threat until after Sadowa in 1866.

Prussia is militarized by tradition. Just look at Voltaire's depiction of Prussia "An army with it's own nation" ... there might be colonial disputes, a border accident between Austria and Prussia, ... I'm wondering ... was Austria in Germany acting like Cold War US, very interventionnist ?

A post Sadowa effort to create an "Entente Cordiale" between France and Austria seems late to save France from a big fail in Sedan ...
 
Prussia is militarized by tradition. Just look at Voltaire's depiction of Prussia "An army with it's own nation" ... there might be colonial disputes, a border accident between Austria and Prussia, ... I'm wondering ... was Austria in Germany acting like Cold War US, very interventionnist ?

A post Sadowa effort to create an "Entente Cordiale" between France and Austria seems late to save France from a big fail in Sedan ...

So why didn't people see it as a threat before 1866 then if it was so highly militarized?

Answer? The spell of Prussian militarism on the thinking of Europe was broken at Jena by Napoleon. After that, who was going to regard Prussia as a threat just because of military tradition when it was so humiliated?

It would only be seen as a threat after it beat a significant great power on its own.

And that was only after Sadowa that the threat becomes perceptible by France and Austria. Before Sadowa, Prussia is seen as Austria's little brother, it's junior partner in the German Confederatrion.
 
So they were not seen as a threat at all ... okay, so it would be a post Sadowa alliance, letting not much time for both France and Austria to prepare. Was France at least aware of Germans intentions to take Elsass ?
 
So they were not seen as a threat at all ... okay, so it would be a post Sadowa alliance, letting not much time for both France and Austria to prepare. Was France at least aware of Germans intentions to take Elsass ?
I don't think Prussia had any concrete plans to take Alsace Lorraine prior to the Franco Prussian War, only after events on the battlefield played themselves out. The posters are correct that nobody viewed Prussia as a threat until 1866, this was part of the genius (or luck) of Bismarck. It would have taken a statesman of equal or greater calibre to perceive the Prussian threat as early as the 1840s. A Franco-Austrian alliance at that time would undoubtedly have had two main goals to neutralize Prussia, France taking the Rhine and German unification under Austria (sans Prussia). Britain and Russia would probably not have allowed either.
 
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