AHC: More German states leave the Holy Roman Empire and get non-German identities

In our timeline, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium all left the HRE and forged non-German identities by the 20th century. Your challenge is for other parts of the historic German kingdom to do this.
 
The Dutch were already different, the belgiums were artificially created by the British and before then they were part of the hre until its dissolution and the Swiss are the predecessors of the Austrians since they are German but not German.
 
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The Dutch were already different, the belgiums were artificially created by the British and before then they were part of the hre until its dissolution and the Swiss are the predecessors of the Austrians since they are German but not German.

I would not call the Swiss the predecessors of Austrians. Switzerland is a mixed land where several languages are and were spoken, the local germanic dialect being only one of them, although the most important.

And there were no automatic link between being inside the HRE and having a germanic identity. The HRE was a multinational entity. And the duchy of Prussia was outside the HRE.
 
There are a number of opportunities for this. Assuming a weaker Prussia (one confined mostly to what actually is Prussia, either because of no Union with Brandenberg or losing most of their Saxon territories), they could easily form their own independent nation as distinct (or even more distinct) from the rest of Germany as Austria is today. The only problem is you have to avoid them getting annexed by Poland (not impossible, especially if they're somehow allied with the Russians continuously. They may even take some of Poland similar to OTL.)

But a middling Prussia isn't the only option. Bavaria also has a pretty distinct identity, and a state along the Rhine that's big enough is possible as well. Really any German area could slowly stop considering themselves German, with a PoD far enough back. Keep in mind, though, they aren't really going to be able to all exist in the same universe, or else you won't have a united Germany in the first place. If Bavaria goes independent, you're mostly just looking at a North German Federation. If Prussia (and perhaps some state like Hannover) is seperate, it's probably because Austria united Germany. Or you can completely butterfly or screw the Hapsburgs altogether, and have a small but centralized HRE that slowly loses its outlying territories until only Central and parts of Northern Germany consider themselves German.

There's no determinism here, but we have to keep in mind that forging a separate identity takes time and a reason. The Dutch were already pretty different linguistically and culturally, and they were fighting against foreigners who were allied to Germans anyways. A better example is Austria, which anyone of the 16th or 17th century (Hell, even the 20th century) would tell you is German, and yet managed to go their own way. Other regions can do the same.
 
Belgium didn't have to forge a non-German identity - it didn't have one in the first place.

And to a large extent, I would say the same about the Dutch.

Anachronism is a very usual mistake in History. National identities and national consciousness are not so old. The fact that people spoke a certain germanic dialect did not make them german nor feel being german. English is a germanic dialect too. So are scandivian languages. And many people were non germanic dialect speaking people before being slowly germanized by germanic colonization.
 
Wasn't there often this talk in this forum of Gustavus Adolphus being more successful than OTL and creating a power bloc in northern Germany that's completely independent of the HRE and based more on Protestant identity?
 
The Dutch were already different, the belgiums were artificially created by the British and before then they were part of the hre until its dissolution and the Swiss are the predecessors of the Austrians since they are German but not German.

No the Belgians are the Flemish and Wallonians, who were already established national identities, they were "artificially created".

Anyways Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemmburg are easy to make a different identity as they were already pretty different.

The Westphalians could be one.

The Rhenish for sure.
 
There is this very strong and somewhat bizarre tendency on AH.com to hate the Belgians and want to divide their nation just because they aren't conforming to the Napoleon III-esque idea of nations defined by language (though oddly enough, by the same reasoning the USA ought not to have rebelled against the equally Anglophone United Kingdom and the Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians shouldn't be united either, yet those views don't seem so popular…). Goodness knows why. Perhaps just a general function of AH.com's Germanophilia.

The Belgians were not an artificial nation created by the evil nefarious British to hurt the glorious French/Dutch/Germans/whoever. The Belgians rose up of their own accord in the French revolutionary era and created their own state. Then they did so again—yes, in Flanders as well as Wallonia—in which the British contribution was limited to supplying a monarch out of fear and hatred of republicanism, i.e. the same thing the reactionary European powers did all over the place in the 19th century (and even the early 20th, judging by CP plans for what to do with the states created from Brest-Litovsk) when a new state was created in Europe.

To suggest that Belgium is some Frankenstein's monster of a nation created by outside force or a state purely based on historical dynastic links rather than a national identity à la Austria-Hungary, rather than a nation whose people (at a time when they were not a state) rose up and created a nation-state for themselves, is simply contradictory to fact. Indeed, Belgium has a better claim to being a nation which built itself a state (rather than a state that built itself a nation) than, say, France; France wasn't created from a long history of partition and foreign rule purely by its people rising up to establish, without much precedent, a French state. (NB: I'm not saying that France isn't a nation-state. Only an idiot would interpret my words in that manner.)

Yes, there are separatists in Belgium, but there are Québécois separatists in Canada; there are Bavarian separatists in Germany (though not many); there are Scottish separatists in the United Kingdom; there are Confederate separatists in the United States; et cetera. The existence of separatists does not mean that a nation is not a nation.

In addition, Matteo's comments about the folly of transposing the modern concept of nationhood onto the much older concept of statehood (if you asked a peasant farmer somewhere in Europe from five-hundred years ago what or who he was, he'd probably say 'Christian', 'man' or mention the name of his village) are very true.

Prussia could easily have ended up independent in an environment where the revolutionaries of 1848 were more successful in the rest of Germany but resisted (as in OTL) in Austria and Prussia, but Austria and Prussia failed to subjugate the revolutionaries in the rest of Germany. It certainly has at least as much potential for a separate identity as Austria does, given the Teutonic and Baltic links and history of Prussia (prior to the unification of Brandenburg-Prussia). The same scenario could see Bavaria separated too; it too could have separate identity. Germany could even have not been unified at all; foolish determinism about "the nation will always find a way" aside, it isn't difficult to make it so that there is no state powerful enough to destroy the old German Confederation and a reactionary consensus continues to be maintained into the modern day.
 
No the Belgians are the Flemish and Wallonians, who were already established national identities, they were "artificially created".

Anyways Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemmburg are easy to make a different identity as they were already pretty different.

The Westphalians could be one.

The Rhenish for sure.

How different are Baden and Wurtemburg from each other? They seem like they share the same Swabian culture.

Westphalia was just a Napoleonic invention, wasn't it?
 
You don´t really need to create new states, you could simply expand existent ones. Austria could include Old Bavaria and the Netherlands could include Cleves and Emsland. A Alemmanic-Swabian state could work but you have to find a viable politcal entity for it, same for many other potential state.

There is this very strong and somewhat bizarre tendency on AH.com to hate the Belgians and want to divide their nation just because they aren't conforming to the Napoleon III-esque idea of nations defined by language (though oddly enough, by the same reasoning the USA ought not to have rebelled against the equally Anglophone United Kingdom and the Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians shouldn't be united either, yet those views don't seem so popular…). Goodness knows why. Perhaps just a general function of AH.com's Germanophilia.

The Belgians were not an artificial nation created by the evil nefarious British to hurt the glorious French/Dutch/Germans/whoever. The Belgians rose up of their own accord in the French revolutionary era and created their own state. Then they did so again—yes, in Flanders as well as Wallonia—in which the British contribution was limited to supplying a monarch out of fear and hatred of republicanism, i.e. the same thing the reactionary European powers did all over the place in the 19th century (and even the early 20th, judging by CP plans for what to do with the states created from Brest-Litovsk) when a new state was created in Europe.

To suggest that Belgium is some Frankenstein's monster of a nation created by outside force or a state purely based on historical dynastic links rather than a national identity à la Austria-Hungary, rather than a nation whose people (at a time when they were not a state) rose up and created a nation-state for themselves, is simply contradictory to fact. Indeed, Belgium has a better claim to being a nation which built itself a state (rather than a state that built itself a nation) than, say, France; France wasn't created from a long history of partition and foreign rule purely by its people rising up to establish, without much precedent, a French state. (NB: I'm not saying that France isn't a nation-state. Only an idiot would interpret my words in that manner.)

Yes, there are separatists in Belgium, but there are Québécois separatists in Canada; there are Bavarian separatists in Germany (though not many); there are Scottish separatists in the United Kingdom; there are Confederate separatists in the United States; et cetera. The existence of separatists does not mean that a nation is not a nation.

In addition, Matteo's comments about the folly of transposing the modern concept of nationhood onto the much older concept of statehood (if you asked a peasant farmer somewhere in Europe from five-hundred years ago what or who he was, he'd probably say 'Christian', 'man' or mention the name of his village) are very true.

Prussia could easily have ended up independent in an environment where the revolutionaries of 1848 were more successful in the rest of Germany but resisted (as in OTL) in Austria and Prussia, but Austria and Prussia failed to subjugate the revolutionaries in the rest of Germany. It certainly has at least as much potential for a separate identity as Austria does, given the Teutonic and Baltic links and history of Prussia (prior to the unification of Brandenburg-Prussia). The same scenario could see Bavaria separated too; it too could have separate identity. Germany could even have not been unified at all; foolish determinism about "the nation will always find a way" aside, it isn't difficult to make it so that there is no state powerful enough to destroy the old German Confederation and a reactionary consensus continues to be maintained into the modern day.
Well is not like Belgium is the most nationally united country. American post-independence was really aware of their cultural independence from the homeland and Russian speaking Ukrainians are the most in favour of a East leaning Ukraine.

Republicanism? The Belgian state was formed out by French speaking aristocracy and pissed of Catholics not by Belgian nationalist.

Why do you think that Belgium was formed by nationalist from every part of the society? It wasn´t. It was supported by Walloons and other French speaking people without opposition but neither with the support of the Flemish peasants.

Separatist in Quebec have a different language, separatist in Scotland don´t but they do have both a widespread dialect and their own but less widespread language, the CSA was created by rich landowners and the Bavarians tend to use more their language-dialect than other regions of Germany.

True, maybe also with the region.

1848 was too late, Viennese nationalist were the most prominent during 1848. Plus is not likely to have a half victory as everything was connected and is hard to have the Parliament declare the republic earlier and not win. Eastern part of Prussia wasn´t inhabited with only Junkers. The Teutonic part of Prussia is so wrong, the center of Prussia is Brandenburg the name Prussia has been taken because the land was outside the HRE but Brandenburg itself isn´t. Yeah you could maintain the division but the confederation would still unite militarly and economically the nations, plus the whole German unification was enacted by Conservatives at the end.

A earlier pod would work but you need to find many strong local power that arises at the same time and this looks hard and unlikely during medieval times.
 
Well is not like Belgium is the most nationally united country. American post-independence was really aware of their cultural independence from the homeland and Russian speaking Ukrainians are the most in favour of a East leaning Ukraine.

I don't think you realise what I was saying.

I even went to the trouble of explicitly stating that the existence of separatists doesn't make a nation not a nation. There was a contention that Belgium is "artificially created" by the British rather than a real nation, which is total nonsense—the Belgians created the Belgian state; the British just insisted that it have a monarchy, which, as I did say, was standard practice for the reactionary European powers, as seen most easily in the Balkans.

I'm not arguing that Belgium is the most stable and homogeneous of nations; I'm arguing simply that it is a nation, not some British construct as the Belgophobes here have been saying.

Republicanism? The Belgian state was formed out by French speaking aristocracy and pissed of Catholics not by Belgian nationalist.

If the people who made the Belgian state (not just an aristocracy) were purely republicans, without any nationalistic element, it's rather odd that they cooperated with the creation of a Belgian monarchy; if so, surely they would have opposed the Belgian monarchy just as they opposed the Dutch one. To suggest that Belgium isn't a nation-state is contradicted by the historical record of what the Belgian people did, twice.

I don't doubt that the aristocracy played a role in the revolution, and that so did Catholics (those being such a large number of the Belgian people that it would be absurd if they weren't involved). None of that means that there wasn't any such thing as Belgian nationalism. To pick an example you might be more familiar with, the American Revolution prominently featured major land-owners, some of them even slave-holding ones; so did many revolutions in Latin America; so did several of the Polish rebellions against foreign rule; so have revolutionary efforts in many countries.

Why do you think that Belgium was formed by nationalist from every part of the society? It wasn´t. It was supported by Walloons and other French speaking people without opposition but neither with the support of the Flemish peasants.

I would like to ask for what allows you to make this assertion.

Separatist in Quebec have a different language, separatist in Scotland don´t but they do have both a widespread dialect and their own but less widespread language, the CSA was created by rich landowners and the Bavarians tend to use more their language-dialect than other regions of Germany.

And? Does this mean that Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany aren't nations? Of course not.

The Teutonic part of Prussia is so wrong, the center of Prussia is Brandenburg the name Prussia has been taken because the land was outside the HRE but Brandenburg itself isn´t.

All of that's true, but since when has nationalism ever been based on firm historical fact? It's all about appeals to a glorious past, claims of a glorious future, dubious distinctions between different people (nationalism being a concept that started in an era before the homogenisation of language through education and mass media, so it would be really hard to draw a line on a map and say at what point the local villages' dialect officially became, e.g., a dialect of German or a dialect of French) and praise of in-groups while hatred of out-groups… there's not much rationality in there. Think of how the English can look back fondly on kings of England who would actually have spoken Norman French and regarded English as a peasant tongue. Nationalism is all about constructing a mythology; it has little to do with the real past.

Yeah you could maintain the division but the confederation would still unite militarly and economically the nations

I don't think the German Confederation as it existed in OTL could reasonably be called a country; its parts were too independent from each other, to the point that they could even wage war against each other (Prussia declaring war on Austria wasn't a case of a state defying a federal government; there was no federal government to speak of); it was more like an alliance bloc than a federation, more like the EU than the USA (and arguably less centralised than even the EU; can one imagine the sort of conflict between EU countries that took place between German states?). The North German Confederation is a completely different kettle of fish; it has as much claim to be called a single country as the German Empire does (the constitution was almost a total copy), which is to say, a very good one.

plus the whole German unification was enacted by Conservatives at the end.

Yes, but not for ideological reasons; it was a series of opportunistic steps taken by men who thought of themselves as Prussian reactionaries first and foremost. Otto von Bismarck made his name fighting against pan-Germanists. His own self-serving memoirs suggesting that he orchestrated the whole series of events in the unification of Germany (a claim that doesn't stand up to scrutiny) aside, to claim that he was a pan-Germanist ideologue is not borne out by the evidence.

I don't doubt that conservatives did enact German unification but it's hardly inevitable that they would have done; in OTL reactionary leaders in a particular German state saw the opportunity to strengthen that state by absorbing the rest of Germany into it, but there's no guarantee that a state would have been in a position to do this in an ATL with a sufficiently early PoD.
 
There is this very strong and somewhat bizarre tendency on AH.com to hate the Belgians and want to divide their nation just because they aren't conforming to the Napoleon III-esque idea of nations defined by language (though oddly enough, by the same reasoning the USA ought not to have rebelled against the equally Anglophone United Kingdom and the Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians shouldn't be united either, yet those views don't seem so popular…). Goodness knows why. Perhaps just a general function of AH.com's Germanophilia.

The Belgians were not an artificial nation created by the evil nefarious British to hurt the glorious French/Dutch/Germans/whoever. The Belgians rose up of their own accord in the French revolutionary era and created their own state. Then they did so again—yes, in Flanders as well as Wallonia—in which the British contribution was limited to supplying a monarch out of fear and hatred of republicanism, i.e. the same thing the reactionary European powers did all over the place in the 19th century (and even the early 20th, judging by CP plans for what to do with the states created from Brest-Litovsk) when a new state was created in Europe.

To suggest that Belgium is some Frankenstein's monster of a nation created by outside force or a state purely based on historical dynastic links rather than a national identity à la Austria-Hungary, rather than a nation whose people (at a time when they were not a state) rose up and created a nation-state for themselves, is simply contradictory to fact. Indeed, Belgium has a better claim to being a nation which built itself a state (rather than a state that built itself a nation) than, say, France; France wasn't created from a long history of partition and foreign rule purely by its people rising up to establish, without much precedent, a French state. (NB: I'm not saying that France isn't a nation-state. Only an idiot would interpret my words in that manner.)

Yes, there are separatists in Belgium, but there are Québécois separatists in Canada; there are Bavarian separatists in Germany (though not many); there are Scottish separatists in the United Kingdom; there are Confederate separatists in the United States; et cetera. The existence of separatists does not mean that a nation is not a nation.

I agree with you in principle, but I would dispute that the Belgian revolutionaries in 1830 wanted to create a Belgian nation. Had there been a chance to become a part of Louis-Philippe's Kingdom of the French, I am reasonably sure most would have accepted, perhaps even preferred that - certainly they would have preferred it to continuing Dutch (or Prussian :eek:) rule.

In other words - I believe that the UK was instrumental in keeping the Belgians separate, and so they developed into a nation. But the idea that they were forced to give up an ealier Dutch or even German identity is ... absurd.
 
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Speaking of "German states" during the middle ages is misleading. In most parts, there was loyalty to the local duke or count and a more distant, but undeniable loyalty to the emperor/king. Regarding the Netherlands and Germany, the border area was a linguistic and political continuum. A state like the Duchy of Geldern straddled the current border and was as active in Lower Rhenish/Westphalian politics as in Utrecht/Hollander affairs. Before the Valois/Hapsburg concentration of territories in the Western part, there was no sharp dividing line and given other dynastic marriages and inheritances any border could have run practically anywhere between Holland/Zealand/Flanders on one side and Cologne on the other. There is no part the German/Dutch border of today does not cut through identical or closely similar dialects on both sides.
489px-Lower_Rhenish-Westphalian_Circle-2005-10-15-de.png


Pre 1800, you can have an area separate from the HRE, like the United Netherlands and the Swiss Confederation did. Holstein and Mecklenburg might be possible, if you have the battle of Bornhöved go the other way.

Franconia and Swabia during the Peasants' War, perhaps? But that would split the HRE nearly in two.
 
Republicanism? The Belgian state was formed out by French speaking aristocracy and pissed of Catholics not by Belgian nationalist.

Republicanism? The United States was formed out by the planter Aristocracy and pissed off farmers, not by American nationalists.
 
I don't think you realise what I was saying.

I even went to the trouble of explicitly stating that the existence of separatists doesn't make a nation not a nation. There was a contention that Belgium is "artificially created" by the British rather than a real nation, which is total nonsense—the Belgians created the Belgian state; the British just insisted that it have a monarchy, which, as I did say, was standard practice for the reactionary European powers, as seen most easily in the Balkans.

I'm not arguing that Belgium is the most stable and homogeneous of nations; I'm arguing simply that it is a nation, not some British construct as the Belgophobes here have been saying.

I don't doubt that the aristocracy played a role in the revolution, and that so did Catholics (those being such a large number of the Belgian people that it would be absurd if they weren't involved). None of that means that there wasn't any such thing as Belgian nationalism. To pick an example you might be more familiar with, the American Revolution prominently featured major land-owners, some of them even slave-holding ones; so did many revolutions in Latin America; so did several of the Polish rebellions against foreign rule; so have revolutionary efforts in many countries.



I would like to ask for what allows you to make this assertion.



And? Does this mean that Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany aren't nations? Of course not.



All of that's true, but since when has nationalism ever been based on firm historical fact? It's all about appeals to a glorious past, claims of a glorious future, dubious distinctions between different people (nationalism being a concept that started in an era before the homogenisation of language through education and mass media, so it would be really hard to draw a line on a map and say at what point the local villages' dialect officially became, e.g., a dialect of German or a dialect of French) and praise of in-groups while hatred of out-groups… there's not much rationality in there. Think of how the English can look back fondly on kings of England who would actually have spoken Norman French and regarded English as a peasant tongue. Nationalism is all about constructing a mythology; it has little to do with the real past.



I don't think the German Confederation as it existed in OTL could reasonably be called a country; its parts were too independent from each other, to the point that they could even wage war against each other (Prussia declaring war on Austria wasn't a case of a state defying a federal government; there was no federal government to speak of); it was more like an alliance bloc than a federation, more like the EU than the USA (and arguably less centralised than even the EU; can one imagine the sort of conflict between EU countries that took place between German states?). The North German Confederation is a completely different kettle of fish; it has as much claim to be called a single country as the German Empire does (the constitution was almost a total copy), which is to say, a very good one.



Yes, but not for ideological reasons; it was a series of opportunistic steps taken by men who thought of themselves as Prussian reactionaries first and foremost. Otto von Bismarck made his name fighting against pan-Germanists. His own self-serving memoirs suggesting that he orchestrated the whole series of events in the unification of Germany (a claim that doesn't stand up to scrutiny) aside, to claim that he was a pan-Germanist ideologue is not borne out by the evidence.

I don't doubt that conservatives did enact German unification but it's hardly inevitable that they would have done; in OTL reactionary leaders in a particular German state saw the opportunity to strengthen that state by absorbing the rest of Germany into it, but there's no guarantee that a state would have been in a position to do this in an ATL with a sufficiently early PoD.
Oh well then I agree. Personally for me it doesn´t matter if Belgium was or was not an English artificial state because then you could expand it and say things like this to many other countries.

For me Belgium is 2 nation-state united in one country. Belgian nationalism could be simple considered Walloon nationalism/separatism that ended with the country being bigger than the Walloon speaking area was. It doesn´t change the present.

For example, the Dutch tried to expand education of the Dutch language in the Flandres, guess who opposed it? The Walloons/Picards/French speaking people of the middle and high class of course. The Flemish weren´t really part of the revolution in neither of the 2 sides.

Canada is in a strange situation, you could divide it in French speaking and English speaking but then the borders would be bad so it is more a demographic division rather than a real national one. Of course the others are nations. About languages, I really don´t think it is too hard to divide French dialects and German dialects. :p

Ehy these are things a keyboard modern Prussiophile would say or think. I´m not saying it would not be possible but it is just too late by 1848 but I don´t disagree that a Eastern-Northern German state from Mecklenburg to Prussia would not be possible.

If the Confederation stays you will see more and more collaboration between states(still less than the Empire of 1871 of course) or you would simply have a war and have one side enforcing some centralization program with Austria being less interested in a Germany. Everything inside would still be a German internal politics section.

Right but the people really wanted more centralization and less nobility power, it will not change in some years. To construct a new nation you really need to start earlier, you can´t simply pretend that the hated high class will do it in some decades.
 
Republicanism? The United States was formed out by the planter Aristocracy and pissed off farmers, not by American nationalists.
Is this a joke? Every part of the American society was part of the revolution, for or against. It didn´t start with the intention of independence but at the end of it it was a Democracy even if not universal.
There was some support for a Republic but the Aristocracy wasn´t in favour of course, could you say the same for the USA?
 
Is this a joke? Every part of the American society was part of the revolution, for or against. It didn´t start with the intention of independence but at the end of it it was a Democracy even if not universal.
There was some support for a Republic but the Aristocracy wasn´t in favour of course, could you say the same for the USA?

It didn't start off as some revolutionary movement. I'd say the similarities to Belgium are pretty clear, and that the American aristocracy certainly started and grew the movement, with the rest following along in their wake. It's not an exact parallel, but nothing is.
 
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