AHC: Create an earlier Franco-Prussian War

Your challenge if you choose to accept it:D is to create a war between France and Prussia earlier than OTLs within the time frame between 1860 to 1869 preferably. You may choose any POD to create the events which lead to war that you like. As well if you desire you may write about how you think that war would conclude.

Personaly though I'd like to look at situations in which France is still the instigatorof an earlier FPW so feel especially free to discuss that.;)
 
France chooses to go ahead and buy Luxembourg from William III of Holland during the Luxembourg crisis. This causes France and Prussia to go to war because Luxembourg was manned with Prussian troops and Bismarck would be damned before surrendering the "Gibraltar of the north" to the french.
 
France chooses to go ahead and buy Luxembourg from William III of Holland during the Luxembourg crisis. This causes France and Prussia to go to war because Luxembourg was manned with Prussian troops and Bismarck would be damned before surrendering the "Gibraltar of the north" to the french.
I've read other discussions about this situation and I've read that Bismarck did not want a war with France at this time. Why would a war occure in TTL?
 
I've read other discussions about this situation and I've read that Bismarck did not want a war with France at this time. Why would a war occure in TTL?

Well if France says "screw it" and gos ahead with the Luxembourg deal, Bismarck would either have to go to war or lose massive face in Germany.
 
France chooses to go ahead and buy Luxembourg from William III of Holland during the Luxembourg crisis. This causes France and Prussia to go to war because Luxembourg was manned with Prussian troops and Bismarck would be damned before surrendering the "Gibraltar of the north" to the french.

This.
Bismarck did not want war, but wanted Lux in French hands less.
 
So what could be the POD to make France buy it?

The point is that, IIRC, Prussia had made abundantly clear she was prepared to go to war over it, and Napoleon III backed down.
So you'd need a bolder Napoleon (maybe averting failure in Mexico could help, but that would have some quite large consequences by itself) or something in French internal politics that made Napoleon actually needing a war.
Napoleon thought he could defeat Prussia in 1870, but the French Army had been partly reformed between the Lux crisis and the Spanish Throne crisis, so maybe he wasn't that confident before. Sadova had been quite of a shock for many people I gather.
 
When Prussia and Austria are open rivals, Prussia will do almost anything to avoid a conflict with France. So I see three possibilities:

1. Pr and Au are allied against France. Earliest PoD could be an Italian war that goes actually worse for France, so Napoleon III decides to march from Strassbourg to Stuttgart, Munich and Vienna. Prussia fulfills her duties as Member of the Geman Confederation.

2. Austria is already beaten, so earliest PoD after 1866. The Luxembourg crisis has already been discussed.

3. Special case: France enters a Austrian-Prussian War in order to force a settlement and extract a few benefits along the Rhine. Often discussed hereabouts as well.
 
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